{"id":3925,"date":"2024-07-15T18:06:16","date_gmt":"2024-07-15T18:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/new-dig-to-find-muriel-mckays-body-begins-at-stocking-farm\/"},"modified":"2024-07-15T18:06:16","modified_gmt":"2024-07-15T18:06:16","slug":"new-dig-to-find-muriel-mckays-body-begins-at-stocking-farm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/new-dig-to-find-muriel-mckays-body-begins-at-stocking-farm\/","title":{"rendered":"New dig to find Muriel McKay’s body begins at Stocking Farm"},"content":{"rendered":"


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By\u00a0Louise Parry,\u00a0<\/span>BBC News, Hertfordshire<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"MetMet Police\/PA<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Specialist police officers excavate a barn at Stocking Farm in the search for the body of Muriel McKay<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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A new search has begun for the remains of Muriel McKay, who was abducted and murdered more than 54 years ago in the UK’s first kidnap for ransom case.<\/p>\n

Mrs McKay, 55, was held to ransom<\/a> for \u00a31m at a farm in Hertfordshire by a pair who had mistaken her for Anna Murdoch, the then-wife of newspaper tycoon Rupert Murdoch. Her body has never been found.<\/p>\n

Mrs McKay’s daughter Dianne, 84, and grandson, Mark Dyer, persuaded police to carry out a third dig at the farm after making contact with Nizamodeen Hosein, one of two brothers convicted for the crime. <\/p>\n

Dianne and her brother Ian McKay said: “This really is our last chance.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"MarkMark Dyer<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Muriel McKay’s family are trying to recover her remains after she was kidnapped and killed in 1969<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Mrs McKay was married to Rupert Murdoch’s deputy Alick McKay. She was abducted from their home in Wimbledon in December 1969. <\/p>\n

Nizamodeen Hosein and his brother, Arthur, were jailed for life in 1970 for her kidnap and murder.<\/p>\n

While Arthur died in prison, Nizamodeen was deported to Trinidad and Tobago after serving his sentence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"SteveSteve Hubbard\/BBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Police agreed to carry out a final search with the cooperation of the landowner<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Mr Dyer and his mother visited him in the Caribbean in January 2024, when he pinpointed a location on the farm where he said the body was buried.<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr McKay said although he did not trust everything Hosein had told his family, “I believe what he’s saying about where my mother’s body is”.<\/p>\n

“He knows exactly the spot he buried her in.<\/p>\n

“I’m prepared for anything, but this is really our last chance,” he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"MirrorpixMirrorpix<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Police carried out a vast search of Rooks Farm in 1970, now Stocking Farm, in Stocking Pelham but could not find Muriel’s body<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Officers searched Stocking Farm in Stocking Pelham at the time of the murder and again in 2022, with the help of ground-penetrating radar and specialist forensic archaeologists. Nothing new was found.<\/p>\n

A Met Police investigation team flew out to interview Hosein<\/a> in March. <\/p>\n

Despite “concerns about inconsistencies” in his account, they said detectives would carry out a final dig starting on 15 July “for completeness”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"MarkMark Dyer<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Muriel McKay’s grandson, Mark Dyer, showed maps to Nizamodeen Hosein, who pointed out where he recalled burying her body<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Cdr Steve Clayman said their inquiries “highlighted other areas of potential interest”, including where a manure heap once stood.<\/p>\n

“We know now this was probably larger than we previously thought and therefore that area was not entirely searched in 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all share a hope and desire to find Muriel\u2019s remains and bring some closure to her family after all these years,” he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"JustinJustin Dealey\/BBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Mark Dyer standing at the spot where he believes his grandmother is buried<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Mr Dyer said he would even consider flying Hosein to the farm “if we get nowhere by midweek”.<\/p>\n

“I know he’s particularly keen to see this resolved,” he said. <\/p>\n

However Mr Dyer added: “To be honest I don’t want him here – if he’s told us the truth – we shouldn’t take that long finding her. It’s a couple of feet either way.” <\/p>\n

He said his mother, Dianne, and her siblings would only be invited to Stocking Farm if police found something, at which point the dig would “stop immediately”.<\/p>\n

“Nothing would be better for our family than finding the body and taking her away, giving her a proper burial \u2013 then the mystery is over, it\u2019s done,” he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Muriel McKay’s killer says he will show officers where her body is buried<\/figcaption><\/p>\n
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The farm’s owners previously said: \u201cWe agreed to support the decision of the police. <\/p>\n

“They have now made their decision, which we respect, although we understand that this was a finely judged call considering the unreliability of the evidence provided by the murderer.”<\/p>\n

The police have told Mrs McKay’s family that if the latest search is unsuccessful “it would not be proportionate to carry out any further searches or investigations”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Radio<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Radio 4 made a podcast which examines the McKay case in detail<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

46 minutes ago By\u00a0Louise Parry,\u00a0BBC News, Hertfordshire Met Police\/PA Specialist police officers excavate a barn at Stocking Farm in the search for the body of Muriel McKay A new search has begun for the remains of Muriel McKay, who was abducted and murdered more than 54 years ago in the UK’s first kidnap for ransom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[2886,942,2006,1079,1630,2885,2884,2887],"class_list":["post-3925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk","tag-begins","tag-body","tag-dig","tag-farm","tag-find","tag-mckays","tag-muriel","tag-stocking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3927,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3925\/revisions\/3927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}