Farmhouse stall kidnap: Family members of a mother killed by Rupert Murdoch mistakenly believe she is Rupert Murdoch’s wife are suffering from agony.

  • Muriel McKay was believed to have passed away 50 years ago on a farm in Hertfordshire
  • The site her killer claimed he had buried her remains unexplored by police.
  • Nizamodeen Hosein was Mrs McKay’s killer and gave the police the address last month
  • Hosein’s older brother used to own the farm, but it has since changed hands 










The family now living in a farmhouse where a woman mistaken for Rupert Murdoch’s wife died in a bungled kidnap are said to be frustrated by delays in the search for her body.

Muriel McKay was believed to have died on the 11-acre Hertfordshire Farm where she passed away more than 50 years before.

Last month her killer Nizamodeen Hosein gave directions to where the mother of three’s body was buried but police are yet to start digging.

The family who now live on the farm have refused to comment publicly and are ‘waiting’ for the police to begin excavations after 75-year-old Hosein’s confession. 

The farm used to be owned by Hosein’s elder brother Arthur.

Muriel McKay was murdered 50 years ago, and her killer Nizamodeen Hosein, 75, said last month he had buried her in a farm in Hertfordshire - but police are yet to excavate the site

Muriel McKay was murdered 50 years ago, and her killer Nizamodeen Hosein, 75, said last month he had buried her in a farm in Hertfordshire – but police are yet to excavate the site

The wait will also add to the agony of Mrs McKay’s family. Two brothers took her there, mistaking her for Rupert Murdoch’s wife.

The current owners, who bought the farm for £2.2million in 2007, have refused requests from the McKay family to allow them on the property to scan the location using a ground penetrating radar. 

They are not likely to block a search by the police. 

One local said: ‘The family are waiting for the police to move their a**** and get it done.’

Metropolitan Police officers are currently reviewing evidence from this case. However, it is believed that no imminent excavations will be possible. Five decades have passed between the murder and the incident. This complicates the case.

The farm in Hertfordshire where Mrs McKay is believed to have been buried used to be owned by killer Nizamodeen Hosein's brother

Nizamodeen Hosein was the owner of the Hertfordshire farm where Mrs McKay may have been buried.

Nizamodeen Hosein murdered Mrs McKay in 1969 in the mistaken belief that she was Rupert Murdoch's then wife. Pictured: Rupert Murdoch and Anna Murdoch in 1988

Nizamodeen Hosein, mistakingly believing that Mrs McKay was Rupert Murdoch’s wife, murdered Mrs McKay. Pictured: Rupert Murdoch and Anna Murdoch in 1988

Investigators believe that they are combing through large volumes of documents in an effort to discover where original searches were made 52 years ago. Hosein and his brother Arthur demanded £1million for Australian Mrs McKay, 55, who was married to Alick McKay – deputy to Mr Murdoch in the UK.

On December 29, 1969, the brothers followed Mr Murdoch’s chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce, unaware he had lent it to Mr McKay while he was in Australia. 

The couple forced their way in to McKay’s Wimbledon house, south-west London. They then loaded the wife into a car and took her to Hertfordshire. Her body wasn’t found and Mrs McKay never saw again.

Police discovered that the men had been driving around a ransom pickup area and arrested them.

They were later sentenced to life in the UK’s first conviction for a murder without a body. In December Hosein, who was deported to Trinidad after serving 20 years, told Matthew Gayle, a British barrister hired by the McKay family, that he would reveal the location of the mother of three’s body because he wanted ‘closure’ before he died.

Also, he claimed Mrs McKay had died from a heart attack just two days following the abduction.

Arthur, his brother, died in prison on September 9, 2009.

Mrs McKay’s daughter Dianne, now 81, told the Daily Mail that she visited the farm to make a personal plea to its current owners and lay flowers last week.

‘For the first time in my life I had this really strong urge to go there, to see where my mother’s grave may be and to plead with the family to allow us access,’ she said.

‘If she is there, I would like to get her out of that place and bring her home. I don’t think that is too much to ask.’

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