Muriel Freda McKay (4 February 1914 – c. 1 January 1970) was an Australian woman who was kidnapped on 29 December 1969 in the United Kingdom and presumed murdered in the first few days of 1970.[1][2][3] She was married to Alick McKay,[4] an executive at News Limited and deputy to media proprietor Rupert Murdoch. McKay was kidnapped after being mistaken for Murdoch's then-wife, Anna Maria Murdoch.[5] Two Indo-Trinidadian brothers, Arthur and Nizamodeen Hosein, were convicted of her murder and kidnapping in September 1970.
Muriel McKay | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 4 February 1914 Adelaide, South Australia, Australia |
| Died | c. 1 January 1970 (aged 55) Rooks Farm, Stocking Pelham, Hertfordshire, England |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Spouse | Alick McKay |
| Children | 3 |
The case was one of the earliest examples in the United Kingdom of a trial and conviction secured for a murder without a body.[6]
Disappearance
Muriel McKay and her husband Alick were both born and raised in Adelaide, South Australia.[7] After moving to London in 1958 for her husband's job as a newspaper executive for Rupert Murdoch's News Limited, they lived in St Mary's House on Arthur Road in Wimbledon. Their three adult children, Jennifer, Diane and Ian, also lived in the United Kingdom.
On 29 December 1969, assailants broke into the McKay home and abducted Muriel while her husband was at work. Returning home at 7:45 pm and finding the front door unlocked, the telephone ripped from the wall, the contents of his wife's handbag scattered on the stairs and the house empty, Alick reported her missing at 8 pm. The attack was especially troubling given that jewellery had been stolen in a burglary incident three months earlier, and Muriel had become increasingly careful of her personal safety.[7]
Investigation
When police arrived, the burglary case was quickly upgraded to a kidnapping after investigators found items that were foreign to the house: Elastoplast, twine, a newspaper and a billhook. After the phone was repaired at 1 am, a caller identifying himself as 'M3' (short for Mafia 3) contacted the house and demanded a £1 million ransom. Over the next forty days, M3 made eighteen more calls, demanding to speak to either Alick or their children Ian and Diane, and sent three letters (postmarked in Tottenham or Wood Green) demanding the money while repeatedly threatening to kill Muriel. Five letters written by Muriel and pleading for compliance were enclosed as 'proof' that she was alive, as were three pieces cut from her clothing.[7]
Two successive attempts to deliver half of the ransom money were unsuccessful. The first, on the A10 road on 1 February 1970, was abandoned due to a large police presence in the area.[8]
For the second attempt on 6 February 1970, the kidnappers specifically asked for Diane to make the drop off, as she was always at the forefront of communication with the McKay family. However, following M3's detailed instructions, two disguised police officers (instead of Diane) placed the ransom consisting of two lots of £500,000 (primarily composed of fake banknotes) in two suitcases and left them at a telephone box in Church Street in Tottenham, where they would receive further instructions.[7] At 4:00 pm, M3 rang and instructed to take the ransom money to a second phone box in Bethnal Green. There, M3 rang again and instructed the officers to take the London Underground to Epping, where they were to take the money to yet another phone box.[7] Upon the arrival at the phone box in Epping, M3 rang and instructed the officers to take a taxi to a used car yard with a garage in Bishop's Stortford where they were instructed to leave the cases next to a minivan that would be parked there on the garage forecourt.[7]
The police conducted surveillance in the area and noticed that a blue Volvo sedan with a broken taillight, bearing registration XGO 994G and carrying a single occupant, slowly passed the garage four times between 8 pm and 10.30 pm. At 10.47 pm it passed again, this time carrying two men. However, a local couple noticed the suitcases and became concerned. The woman kept watching while her husband reported the cases to the police, who were unaware of the drop-off and took them to Epping police station.
The investigation soon shifted to the Volvo, registered in the name of a man from Rooks Farm (now Stocking Farm) near Stocking Pelham, Hertfordshire.[7] Reviewing previous reports, police noted that some witnesses had also described seeing a dark-coloured Volvo sedan driving near Arthur Road in the hours before Muriel's disappearance, and another reporting it as parked in the McKay driveway around 6 pm. Police also noted the Volvo acting suspiciously at the first drop-off attempt but had assumed it was either undercover police or a local.
Rooks Farm, which covered eleven acres (4.5 ha) and was considerably run down, was raided by police on 7 February at 8 am. The owners of the farm were Trinidad-born Arthur Hosein and his German wife, who also lived with Arthur's youngest sibling, Nizamodeen, a labourer at the farm since August. A notebook was found with torn pages that matched the tear patterns in Muriel's letters. Further, twine and a matching roll of tape were found, and the billhook was revealed as belonging to a neighbour. The brothers' physical descriptions matched those of the men seen in the Volvo, and Arthur's fingerprints matched those found on the ransom letters and a newspaper found in the McKay house. Similarly, Nizamodeen's voice matched that of recordings of M3 when he was tested on a telephone. However, no trace of Muriel was found at the farm, even after it was searched for several weeks.[2]
Trial
Based on the evidence, the Hosein brothers were arrested and sent to trial on 14 September 1970, with the prosecution led by Peter Rawlinson. At trial it was learned that Arthur, a tailor in Hackney, was experiencing financial difficulty after buying Rooks Farm in May 1968.[8] The Hoseins decided to kidnap Anna Maria Murdoch after watching her husband being interviewed on television about his recent purchase of the News of the World and The Sun newspapers on 3 October 1969.[9][10] However, confusion arose when the Hoseins followed Murdoch's chauffeured Rolls-Royce to the house in Arthur Road, which they assumed to be the Murdoch family residence, but it was actually the residence of the McKays. Unbeknownst to the brothers, Murdoch had loaned the car to Alick for a few weeks while he and his wife were in Australia.[11]
Throughout the case, each brother tried to put the blame on the other, although it was soon determined that Arthur was the dominant sibling.[7][8] The Hoseins were charged with murder, kidnap and blackmail, and convicted at the Old Bailey on 6 October 1970.[2] When imposing life sentences on the pair, plus twenty-five years in Arthur's case and fifteen in Nizamodeen's, the trial judge, Justice Shaw, said their "conduct was cold-blooded and abominable".[12] Despite investigation, it was never established what happened to Muriel's remains, though there was speculation that the brothers had fed them to their guard dogs or pigs.[7][13]
Aftermath
The Hosein brothers were sent to prison where they attempted to appeal their sentence in March 1971. In November 1987 and September 1994, Arthur unsuccessfully applied for parole.[14] Arthur died in prison in 2009, whereas Nizamodeen served twenty years and was deported to Trinidad after his release.[5]
The nature of the case led to widespread media coverage, along with numerous hoaxes, prank letters and phone calls to the McKay home.[7] Psychic Gerard Croiset, who had participated in a number of famous missing person investigations, also became involved, though the accuracy of his information has been grossly exaggerated. Because of the notoriety of the case, likenesses of the Hosein brothers were displayed in the Chamber of Horrors in Madame Tussauds, alongside that of then-living murderers Donald Neilson and Graham Young.[15]
In 2017, Kelvin MacKenzie's review of Ink, a play about the history of The Sun,[16] described the portion of the play about McKay's kidnapping as its "most dramatic moment".[11] Jane Martinson, in her review for The Guardian, described that portion of the play as its "most uncomfortable moment".[17]
Searches for McKay's body
An initial search for McKay was made at Rooks Farm after the arrest of the Hosein brothers in February 1970, but was hampered by the ground being hardened in the cold weather and ultimately found no trace of her.[18][2]
In 2021, it was reported that Nizamodeen had told a QC that Muriel died of a heart attack shortly after the kidnapping and provided details of the location of her body at Rooks Farm.[19] This information ultimately led to a search in 2022; upon that search being unsuccessful, Nizamodeen began claiming that the police had dug in the wrong area.[18] In November 2023, Nizamodeen asked to be allowed back to the UK to show the McKay family where he buried Muriel.[20] Muriel's daughter Diane urged the Metropolitan Police to co-operate to help the recovery of her mother's body.[21] In January 2024, Muriel's daughter and grandson met with Nizamodeen in Trinidad to ask him for the truth about the location of Muriel's body.[22][23]
Nizamodeen signed a £40,000 settlement agreement with the McKay family to reveal where Muriel is buried. He then turned down the money and pointed out on a map where she was buried.[24] He revealed to Mark Dyer, Muriel's grandson, his involvement in the kidnap and her burial location in an affidavit dated 11 December 2023.[25]
In January 2024, the Home Office refused to allow Nizamodeen to return to Britain and identify the spot where he buried Muriel. Diane McKay and Mark Dyer then flew to Trinidad on 27 January 2024 with The Times and Sky News to interview Nizamodeen over the course of two days. They claim that Nizamodeen disclosed exactly where Muriel was buried and asked to come to Britain to show where.[26] On 9 March, Detective Superintendent Katherine Goodwin of Scotland Yard told The Times that investigators decided to visit Nizamodeen in Trinidad with a view to bringing him back to England.[26] Hosein said he would show police the location of Muriel's body.[27] Mark Dyer was contacted by Scotland Yard on Thursday 16 May, confirming that they would search Rooks Farm within six weeks.[28] On 20 June 2024, Mark Dyer met with Detective Superintendent Goodwin at Stocking Farm with a view to agree the search area. The search started on 15 July 2024 with the Metropolitan Police allowing themselves a search period of between a week and ten days. The search area was three times the original search area.[18] On 22 July 2024, it was announced that the search had been unsuccessful and no remains had been recovered. Muriel's family was not satisfied that the search had been conducted properly and insisted that Nizamodeen should have been brought to the farm to pinpoint her location; the police said that Nizamodeen had been inconsistent in his evidence and had incorrectly recalled certain events of the case.[29][30]
See also
References
External links
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