20 Saturday December 18 2021 | the times
News
The man convicted of one of Britain’s
most notorious murders has confessed
where the victim is buried 51 years after
her death.
Police are facing pressure from the
family of Muriel McKay to excavate the
site and recover her remains after the
Killer kidnapper reveals
burial place after 51 years
Ben Ellery confession by Nizamodeen Hosein, 75,
to her family. Mrs McKay, 55, was the
victim of a bungled kidnapping by
Nizamodeen and his older brother
Arthur in 1969 after they mistook her
for the wife of Rupert Murdoch.
This month Nizamodeen Hosein
told a barrister representing Mrs
McKay’s family the location of her buri-
al and claimed that she died from a
heart attack two days into the 40-day
ransom attempt.
In 1970 the brothers, who had
demanded £1 million for her return,
denied killing her but were convicted
and sentenced to life imprisonment in
the country’s first conviction for a
murder without a body. NizamodeenHosein has now given directions to the
body which, he said, is buried on the 11-
acre Hertfordshire farm where Mrs
McKay was held. The family have
informed Hertfordshire Police and the
Met of his claims.
Last night her daughter, Dianne, 81,
said: “I’ve been haunted by this. It is a
relief to think we may get her back soon
and that she died relatively quickly.”
Nizamodeen Hosein maintained
throughout the trial that he was not in-
volved. However, he told the family that
Mrs McKay collapsed and died while
watching a television news report with
him about her kidnapping.
The killer, 21 at the time, said: “I pan-
icked and I dug [the grave]... Five and
a half, six feet... I lifted her on my
shoulder... I jumped down the hole ...
[It took] a couple of hours.”
Mrs McKay was pounced on at her
home in Wimbledon on December 29,
1969 by the brothers, who mistook her
for Anna, then Murdoch’s wife. That
year he had purchased The Sun. He is
now executive chairman of News Corp,
the ultimate owner of newspapers
including The Times.
The brothers followed his chauf-
feured Rolls Royce, unaware he had
lent it to his deputy at News Limited,
Alick McKay, Mrs McKay’s husband,
while he was away in Australia.
After Mrs McKay was dropped at
home the brothers, armed with a bill-
hook blade and twine, forced their way
into the house and abducted her in
their Volvo.
Her husband came home to discover
the front door open, the contents of her
handbag strewn in the hall and the bill-
hook on the floor.
The brothers took Mrs McKay to
Rooks Farm, where they lived with
Arthur’s wife and children, who were
on holiday at the time.
That evening they called the McKay
home and spoke to Dianne McKay, de-
manding the equivalent of £20 million
today. It was thought to be the first
kidnap for ransom in Britain.
They claimed they were a mafia
group called M3 and over the next 40
days they made 18 more calls and sent
three letters demanding the money and
threatening to kill Mrs McKay. Five let-
ters written by her were enclosed as
proof as well as three pieces cut from
her clothing.
In one letter in shaky handwriting
she wrote that she was cold and blind-
folded.
Two attempts orchestrated by the
police to deliver fake banknotes to the
men in early February were unsuccess-
ful. During the second attempt police
noticed the brothers’ blue Volvo cir-
cling the area and traced it to the farm.
The Hoseins protested their inno-
cence but a notebook was found with
torn pages that matched Mrs McKay’s
letters. The billhook was revealed to
belong to a neighbour and Arthur
Hosein’s fingerprints matched those
found in the ransom letters.
Nizamodeen Hosein’s voice matched
recordings of the ransom calls. Police
searched the farm for several weeks but
did not find the body.
Arthur Hosein died in prison in 2009.
In August this year a film crew record-
ing a documentary about the case
tracked down the surviving killer in
Trinidad. He continued to maintain his
innocence but his appearance led the
family to hire Matthew Gayle, a British
barrister in Trinidad, to ask Hosein to
disclose the body’s location.
He told Gayle he wanted to give thefamily “closure” before he died and
revealed fragments of what happened,
including that he had fed Mrs McKay
“fried rice”. He said that she had not
been injured.
Hosein said where he remembered
burying the body after Mrs McKay’s
grandson joined the interview over the
phone.
Hosein told him: “At the farmhouse
there’s a wooden gate, there’s a few
wooden gates, it has barn beside, barn
beside, and ten foot forward, ten foot
this side [left], the body’s somewhere
around there. Next to the barbed wireNews Muriel McKay murder
‘When he
said where
mother was,
I felt relief ’
Behind the story
F
or Dianne McKay, the past
week has felt like a veil over
her life has been lifted for
the first time in 51 years
(Ben Ellery writes). At her
home this month, she received a
call telling her that the man
convicted of murdering her mother,
Muriel McKay, in 1969, had
revealed where he had buried the
body. To add to her relief, he said
that she had not suffered when she
died, but had passed away quickly
from a heart attack.
“It gave me a sense of comfort,
just to think she was buried
somewhere. There was so much
horrible speculation, about being
fed to the pigs,” she said.
“I’m desperately keen to find her
body.” Almost 52 years ago, on
December 29, 1969, Dianne McKay,
then 29, received a frantic call from
her father, Alick, after he returned
to the family home and found Mrs
McKay missing, her handbag
scattered in the hallway and a
billhook machete on the floor.
Forty days later the culprits, two
brothers from Trinidad, were
arrested at the rundown
Hertfordshire farmhouse where
they had been keeping her. They
were convicted of kidnap and her
murder, although a body was never
found. Dianne McKay’s life has
never been the same.
“It froze me emotionally and my
marriage broke up within about two
years of it happening. I had three
children and they were also
affected. My eldest daughter was
very fond of my mother — she was
ten years old. It does affect them,
really badly. What do you tell a