Muriel McKay: Second day of searching takes place at Hertfordshire farm
Detectives are looking in a different location to ones already searched so far
Last updated 16th Jul 2024
There's been a second day of searching in Hertfordshire for the body of a woman kidnapped and murdered in 1969.
Met Police detectives looking for Muriel McKay are focusing on a different location to two previous digs.
Ms McKay, the wealthy wife of newspaper executive Alick McKay, was kidnapped from her home in Wimbledon and held for ransom for ÂŁ1 million more than 54 years ago.
The people who kidnapped her had mistaken her for Anna Murdoch, the then-wife of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
Alick McKay, who was Mr Murdoch's deputy, was also Australian.
His 55-year-old wife Muriel disappeared in December 1969 and was traced to Stocking Farm near Bishop's Stortford in Hertfordshire.
Her body has never been found.
Brothers Arthur and Nizamodeen Hosein were convicted of her kidnap and murder.
Arthur died in prison in 2009, and Nizamodeen was deported to Trinidad and Tobago after serving his sentence.
The farm was searched at the time of the murder and again in 2022, with 30 police officers, ground penetrating radar and specialist forensic archaeologists used, but nothing new was found.
Officers from the Met's Specialist Crime Command and forensic officers are working with forensic archaeologists and other specialists, as well as Hertfordshire Police, at a farm in Stocking Pelham.
Fresh photos released by police
These photographs show police teams working across the site. They've been joined together by Mark Dyer, Muriel's grandson - and her son Ian McKay.
Ian McKay has flown over from Australia to be at the search site in person.
An air exclusion zone is in place during the dig, with no access to the farm or to a section of public footpath that runs through it.
Mark Dyer and Ian McKay speak to us as they visit the search site
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