Police are to begin a new search for the body of murdered Muriel McKay next month, 55 years after she was kidnapped.
A date was agreed between her family, the landowner and detectives during a site meeting at the Hertfordshire farm where her kidnapper Nizamodeen Hosein claims he buried her.
Muriel’s grandson, businessman Mark Dyer, said: “This is a momentous moment in our campaign to get a new search.
“Together we have mapped out a search area and know exactly where we need to dig.
“It’s taken us longer than it should have done, but we finally persuaded the police we had compelling evidence of where she is and the farm owner agreed to the excavation. Let’s bring my grandmother home.”
Several Metropolitan police detectives, search advisers and building experts were at the meeting at the farm in the village of Stocking Pelham near Bishop’s Stortford.
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Hosein, now 75, served 20 years in jail for Muriel’s murder – the first conviction without a body – and continued to deny his guilt until recently.
At an emotional meeting in his native Trinidad he finally confessed and told the McKays that Muriel, who was 55, had collapsed and died while they held her prisoner at the farm and tried to negotiate a £1m ransom.
He said he carried her out of the house and buried her close by. “I came out of the farmhouse, through the gate and turned left. Three feet from the fence, that’s where the body is.”
Muriel’s daughter Dianne, 85, said: “We believe what Nizam has told us. Why would he lie? He is the only person alive who knows what happened to my mother. This is our last chance to find her.”
Muriel’s kidnappers Nizam and his older brother Arthur Hosein mistook her for Anna Murdoch, the then wife of newspaper owner Rupert Murdoch.
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Two years ago police excavated another area of the farm but found nothing. The family said they dug in the wrong place before they had been properly consulted.
The family say that if police do not find Muriel’s remains this time they will not press for a third search at the farm.
The new dig is likely to last up to a week.
