Half a century after Muriel McKay was kidnapped by a criminal duo who mistook her for Rupert Murdoch’s wife… Will her family finally find the 55-year-old’s body after killer’s nine-page confession? 

• The 55-year-old was snatched from her home in London in December 1969
• Nizam Hosein has put his name to a legal document admitting his involvement

The final resting place of Muriel McKay is a mystery that has haunted her family for more than 50 years since she was kidnapped after being mistaken for the wife of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.

The 55-year-old mother-of-three was snatched from her home in London in December 1969 and presumed to have been murdered, but her body has never been found.

Now Nizamodeen Hosein – known as Nizam – one of two men convicted in 1970 of her kidnap and death, has put his name to an astonishing legal document fully admitting his involvement for the first time.

The nine-page affidavit – a legally binding document witnessed by solicitors which has been seen by The Mail on Sunday – sets out in painstaking detail the events of the night of December 29, 1969, when Mrs McKay, wife of News International executive Alick McKay, was ambushed on the doorstep of her home in Wimbledon, South-West London. 

It identifies what Nizam insists is the exact location of her body at Rooks Farm, near the Hertfordshire village of Stocking Pelham, where she was taken after the bungled kidnapping.

The final resting place of Muriel McKay (pictured) is a mystery that has haunted her family for more than 50 years since she was kidnapped after being mistaken for the wife of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch

Now Nizamodeen Hosein – known as Nizam – one of two men convicted in 1970 of her kidnap and death (pictured), has put his name to an astonishing legal document fully admitting his involvement for the first time

Mrs McKay’s grandson, property investor and inventor Mark Dyer, 59, said: ‘This document has been 54 years in the making. It has taken Nizam more than half a century to admit his part in what happened, and now he has given this full admission it is an enormous step forward.’

Nizam, along with his brother Arthur, were imprisoned in 1970 for Mrs McKay’s kidnap and murder. It was one of the first times a murder conviction was brought without a body, and both refused to admit their part in a crime which made headlines around the world.

But in recent months Nizam, deported to his native Trinidad in 1990 after 20 years in prison, has become more co-operative.

In March last year his information led the Metropolitan Police to undertake a limited search of Rooks Farm – now renamed Stocking Farm – but they found nothing. Both the family and Nizam have since confirmed that officers searched in the wrong place.

Earlier this month Mr Dyer and his mother Dianne spoke to the Mail of their wish to overturn red tape preventing Nizam from returning to the UK so he could identify Mrs McKay’s burial site. They also revealed the family’s search for peace had been hampered by the refusal of the farm’s owner, Ian de Burgh Marsh, to allow further access. They hope the affidavit will now help change that.

Australian newspaper publisher and businessman Rupert Murdoch pictured with his wife Anna Murdoch and daughter Elisabeth Murdoch at home in Sussex Gardens, London on October, 4, 1969

Drawn up last Monday, and witnessed by both the McKays’ solicitor and an independent Trinidadian solicitor, the legal document sets out what happened on the night Mrs McKay was kidnapped in a bid for a £1 million ransom.

Nizam reveals how he and Arthur parked nearby and waited for the woman they believed to be Rupert Murdoch’s wife Anna to return.

But it was, in fact Mrs McKay, and she was taken to Rooks Farm, then owned by Arthur. Mrs McKay collapsed after seeing a news report in which her family were appealing for her safe return.

‘I have speculated since this time that she died of a heart attack,’ Nizam writes.

He then details what he did with her body ‘in a state of panic’, writing: ‘I carried Muriel’s body outside and through a wooden gate at the side between the barns. I recall walking towards the fence and burying her body approximately 3 ft from the fence to hide her.’

Along with the affidavit is a photograph marked with an X on the spot where he believes Mrs McKay’s body is. Vitally, it has not been searched by the police.

Nizam adds: ‘It is my only wish to help the McKay family by helping them find Muriel’s burial place, so they can finally be at peace.’

You can sign the petition here: https://www.change.org/p/allow-nizamodeen-hosein-s-re-entry-into-the-uk-to-reveal-muriel-mckay-s-burial-place.

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