New Search Launched in Bizarre Case Linked to Murdoch

Woman was kidnapped and killed after being mistaken for his wife in 1969
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 16, 2024 3:30 AM CDT
Updated Aug 26, 2024 3:00 AM CDT
New Search Launched in Bizarre Case Linked to Murdoch
Australian press baron Rupert Murdoch, center, leaves US District Court in New York after another round in his attempt to take control of New York Magazine, the Village Voice weekly, and a California magazine, New West, in this 1977 file photo.   (AP Photo/ file)
UPDATE Aug 26, 2024 3:00 AM CDT

One of the men convicted of killing a British woman 55 years ago in a case of mistaken identity has asked to return to the UK in order to help locate her body. Nizamodeen Hosein says Muriel McKay's body is on the Hertfordshire farm he once shared with his brother, the other man convicted of kidnapping and murdering the wife of one of Rupert Murdoch's executives, the Guardian reports. But a new dig at the site turned up nothing, and McKay's family said they would request that the government have Hosein returned to the UK temporarily to aid in the search. "I have to go to the spot to be able to remember. So, I can't tell you from here," Hosein, who was deported to Trinidad and Tobago in 1990, told the BBC recently.

Jul 16, 2024 3:30 AM CDT

In 1969, the UK saw its first kidnap for ransom case when a pair of brothers followed Rupert Murdoch's Rolls-Royce, not realizing the media tycoon had allowed one of his executives to borrow the car. As such, the brothers mistook that executive's wife, Muriel McKay, for Murdoch's own wife, and kidnapped her from her home in December 1969, CBS News reports. They demanded a ransom of £1 million, or around $18 million today, and were arrested in early February 1970, the BBC reports in a look back at the case. They were convicted of McKay's kidnapping and murder, but her body was never found. Now, authorities are launching a new search.

They will dig, for the third time, at what was once called Rooks Farm (and is now called Stocking Farm) in Hertfordshire, the BBC reports. While one of the brothers died in a UK prison in 2009, the second was deported to his native Trinidad and Tobago after serving his 20-year sentence, and this year, one of McKay's daughters flew there to speak with him. He had previously said McKay collapsed and died while watching a news report about her abduction on TV, and neither brother had ever admitted to killing McKay, nor had they told anyone where she was buried. Telling McKay's daughter he wanted his "conscience to be clear," though, he has now given a sworn statement with a location, which has not been searched before. "This is really our last chance," McKay's son says, per the Guardian. (More Rupert Murdoch stories.)

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