Farmer refuses offer of £40,000 from the family of Muriel McKay, who was killed in a bungled kidnapping after being mistaken for Rupert Murdoch’s wife, to dig up his land to …
Published: 02:04, 12 January 2024 | Updated: 02:27, 12 January 2024
A farmer has refused an offer of GBP40,000 from the family of killed Muriel McKay to dig up his land to search for her body.
Mrs McKay, 55, was killed in a bungled kidnapping after being mistaken for Rupert Murdoch[2]‘s wife in December 1969.
The final resting place of Mrs McKay has remained a mystery that has haunted her family for more than 50 years since she was kidnapped after being mistaken for the wife of the media tycoon Murdoch.
This week her heartbroken relatives offered Ian De Burgh Marsh, the owner of the farm in Stocking Pelham, Hertfordshire, £50,000 (the equivalent of about GBP40,000) to enable them to dig up his land after her killer claimed she was buried there.
According to The Times[3], Scotland Yard told the McKay family: ‘We have had contact with the De Burgh family and the indication is that they will not accept your offer and would prefer contact to be via us.’
Muriel McKay, 55, was killed in a bungled kidnapping after being mistaken for Rupert Murdoch’s wife in December 1969
Nizamodeen Hosein, 75, was jailed in 1970 and served 20 years for the murder of Mrs McKay. He last month gave a sworn affidavit in which he disclosed the location of the victim’s body.
Mrs McKay was kidnapped by Hosein and his brother, Arthur, after being mistaken for the wife of Murdoch.
An earlier statement on behalf of Mr De Burgh Marsh said that he ‘very much sympathises with the family and hopes they can find closure over this tragedy’, adding: ‘Mr Marsh is in regular conversation with the Metropolitan Police over this matter. He has at all times been fully co-operative with their investigation and every time the police have asked for access to his land, he has granted it to them.’
But Detective Superintendent Katherine Goodwin said Mr De Burgh Marsh would not accept the offer, adding: ‘I still believe we are not yet in a position to apply for such a warrant.’
She added that Hosein’s affidavit ‘could not be relied upon in isolation’ because he previously suggested another part of the farm was the location of the burial.
The family said they made the offer as they were desperate following what they said was inaction by the Metropolitan Police.
The family of Muriel McKay offered a farm owner GBP40,000 to dig up land where their relative is thought to be buried
Now Nizamodeen Hosein – known as Nizam – one of two men convicted in 1970 of her kidnap and death (pictured), has put his name to an astonishing legal document fully admitting his involvement for the first time
Ian and Caroline De Burgh Marsh bought the farm in 2007 for GBP2.2million and previously said they would only permit a search if the police forced them to do so.
After years of refusing to explain Mrs McKay’s fate, Hosein has claimed she collapsed and died of a heart attack at the remote Hertfordshire farm where the brothers were holding her.
Hosein says he panicked and buried her body under a dung heap behind the farmhouse near the village of Stocking Pelham.
Scotland Yard detectives were unsuccessful after searching a small section of a field near the house in 2022 – but the family insists they dug in the wrong place.
Hosein says he is certain he will remember the spot where he buried Mrs McKay’s body, even though the buildings, the farmyard and the fields have drastically changed since the kidnap in 1969.
Last year, Nizamodeen Hosein – known as Nizam – one of two men convicted in 1970 of her kidnap and death, put his name to an astonishing legal document fully admitting his involvement for the first time.
The nine-page affidavit – a legally binding document witnessed by solicitors – set out in painstaking detail the events of the night of December 29, 1969, when Mrs McKay, wife of News International executive Alick McKay, was ambushed on the doorstep of her home in Wimbledon, South-West London.
Scotland Yard detectives were unsuccessful after searching a small section of a field near the house in 2022
It identifies what Nizam insists is the exact location of her body at Rooks Farm, near the Hertfordshire village of Stocking Pelham, where she was taken after the bungled kidnapping.
Mrs McKay’s grandson, property investor and inventor Mark Dyer, 59, said: ‘This document has been 54 years in the making.
It has taken Nizam more than half a century to admit his part in what happened, and now he has given this full admission it is an enormous step forward.’
Nizam, along with his brother Arthur, were imprisoned in 1970 for Mrs McKay’s kidnap and murder. It was one of the first times a murder conviction was brought without a body, and both refused to admit their part in a crime which made headlines around the world.
But in recent months Nizam, deported to his native Trinidad in 1990 after 20 years in prison, has become more co-operative.
McKay’s daughter Dianne, 83, told The Times ‘time is running out for me to give my mother the burial she deserves’.
In a letter the family told the De Burgh Marshes yesterday: ‘We have new information as to the exact location which has been provided by the perpetrator.
‘We now wish to search a small, targeted and specific area with minimal police attendance. That way there will be no unnecessary searching.
‘In October 2021, we decided to offer the perpetrator the sum of £50,000 under the terms of a settlement agreement in order that he provide us with information as to the whereabouts and the exact location of burial.
He will not accept any of this money.
‘As a family we now offer you this sum for any inconvenience caused and any legal fees incurred by a second search.’
References
- ^ Katherine Lawton (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ Rupert Murdoch (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ The Times (www.thetimes.co.uk)