the times | Wednesday January 19 2022 19
News
The family of the victim in a notorious
murder case believe they have found
her remains after radar technology de-
tected an object at the site where her
killer claims she is buried.
A team representing the family of
Muriel McKay, who was mistaken for
Rupert Murdoch’s wife and died in a
bungled kidnap, used ground penetrat-
ing radar at the farm in Hertfordshire
where her killer, Nizamodeen Hosein,
confessed he buried her.
Her daughter Dianne McKay, 81, is
now urging the police to speed up its in-
vestigation and excavate the spot after
they reported Hosein’s confession to
the Metropolitan Police last month.
Hosein and his brother, Arthur, were
convicted of the kidnap and murder of
Mrs McKay in 1970. The brothers
claimed they were innocent and it was
one of the first convictions for murder
without a body.
Last month the family traced Hosein
to his home in Trinidad and he pin-
pointed the location of the body at the
farm where they had held her.
He had served 20 years in prison
before being deported to Trinidad. His
brother died in prison in 2009.
The family have approached the
farm owner, Ian De Burgh Marsh, a
banking chief executive, but he is refus-
ing them access to excavate the site
pending an assessment by the police of
Hosein’s claims. He has said if the policeRadar discovery at
McKay murder farm
direct a search he will co-operate. At
the weekend the McKay family acces-
sed land next to the site and aimed
radar at the spot, where it detected a
disturbance in the soil at a depth of 6ft.
Hosein, 75, had tuned in to the opera-
tion by video call and was directing the
radar.
Dianne McKay said: “Now we’ve
shown there appears to be something
buried there we’d like the land owner to
change his mind so we can start dig-
ging. It’s a small area, it’s not near his
home at all. It would take half an hour.”
The operation was led by John Trust,
a specialist surveyor. He said: “What we
have found is consistent with the re-
mains of a body and certainly warrants
further exploration. The ground has
been disturbed and backfilled.”
Officers on the case met the family
yesterday to discuss the next steps.
Mrs McKay was taken from her
home in Wimbledon, southwest
London, 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 owner of
The Times.
During the trial the brothers main-
tained that they were not involved.
However, Hosein has now told the
family that Mrs McKay collapsed and
died while watching a television news
report with him about her kidnapping.
De Burgh Marsh did not respond to a
request for comment.Ben Ellerybeer-drinking straws,”
Trifonov said.
Fermenting barley
into beer in the Near
East is thought to date
back about 13,
years, with large-scale
brewing developing in
the 4th to
5th
millennium BC.
The common
ancient Sumerian
implement for
drinking beer
appears to havebeen a 1 metre tube
made of a reed. Some
surviving Sumerian
straws contain
strainers “intended to
filter any chaff or
sediment as the
drinker consumed the
beer” with copper and
bone often used.
The Maikop kurgan
discoveries are made
of gold and silver and
decorated with
detachable bull
figurines. They also
contain metal filters.
Trifonov said
that if the
interpretation
was correct then
“these fancy
devices would be
the earliest
surviving drinking
straws to date”.
The paper Part y
like a Sumerian:
reinterpreting the
‘sceptres’ from the
Maikop kurgan
concludes that
“the Maikop burial
context indicates
that high-status
objects used for
feasting were
skilfully made”.
It added: “The
drinking tubes
speak of a mutual
language of elite
consumption
within a shared
cultural milieu.”The guests at ancient
Caucasus parties drank
their beer through long
silver straws decorated
with bull figurinesKELVIN WILSON