Muriel Mckay: What's lead to a new search being launched?
Stocking Farm, near Bishop's Stortford, will be scoured by police for a third time in the hopes of finding the remains of Muriel McKay, 55, kidnapped in 1969.
A fresh search of a Hertfordshire farm is to be carried out in an attempt to find the remains of a woman who was kidnapped for ransom and killed in 1969.
Stocking Farm, near Bishop's Stortford, will be scoured by police for a third time in the hopes of finding the remains of Muriel McKay, 55, who was mistaken for Anna Murdoch, the then-wife of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and kidnapped for a £1 million ransom in 1969.
Ms McKay was the wife of Mr Murdoch's deputy Alick McKay, who like Mr Murdoch was Australian.
It was reported that Mr Murdoch had loaned the McKays his Rolls Royce, which led to the case of mistaken identity by the kidnappers, brothers Arthur and Nizamodeen Hosein.
Here is a timeline of events detailing her disappearance and the events that followed:
- 1969
Ms McKay is taken from her home in Wimbledon, south London, on December 29 by brothers Arthur and Nizamodeen Hosein, who thought she was Anna Murdoch, wife of Rupert Murdoch.
- 1970
January
Repeated phone calls are made and letters sent to Ms McKay's family, threatening to kill her and demanding money.
February 6
Newspaper reports at the time say that in response to their ransom demands, police officers, disguised as members of the McKay family, left two suitcases of money in a quiet road and a hidden detective watched as a Volvo, allegedly driven by Nizamodeen Hosein with another person in the vehicle, "cruised slowly to and fro" past them.
February 7
Arthur Hosein, who owned Rooks Farm, now known as Stocking Farm, and his younger brother Nizamodeen are arrested. Despite extensive searches of the farm, Ms McKay's body is not found.
October
Arthur Hosein, 34, and Nizamodeen Hosein, 22, are found guilty and sentenced to 25 years and 15 years respectively following a trial at the Old Bailey. It is one of the first times a murder conviction had been brought without a body.
- 1990
Nizamodeen Hosein is deported to Trinidad after serving his life sentence in prison.
- 2009
Arthur Hosein dies in prison.
- 2022
January
Following contact from Ms McKay's family, the Met's Specialist Casework Team takes over the investigation into her death. Information from the family, as well as information the force held about the initial investigation and search at the time, is reviewed, and it is decided to search an area of the farm.
March 29-April 5
With the permission of the farm's owner, the land is searched again using 30 police officers, ground-penetrating radar and specialist forensic archaeologists.
December
Ms McKay's family write to the Met with concerns about the extent of the search and the case is reviewed by the Specialist Crime Review Group (SCRG). It suggests using the skills of a specialist interview adviser to re-examine the accounts of Nizamodeen Hosein and help consider next steps.
- 2023
New information is provided by the family from Nizamodeen Hosein in December about the possible whereabouts of Ms McKay's remains, which the Met says was "carefully considered" by the specialist interview adviser.
- 2024
January
Ms McKay's family visit Nizamodeen Hosein in Trinidad and share information, including footage from the meeting, with the Met investigation team.
March
The investigation team visits Nizamodeen Hosein in Trinidad to speak to him in person. He volunteers to help and is interviewed over the course of three days. On its return the team analyses all the information gathered over time to come to the conclusion that a further search will be carried out.