The family of Muriel McKay, kidnapped and murdered 55 years ago, say they have found a bone in an east London garden.
A nine-inch bone, which appeared to have been ‘sliced with a weapon or machine,’ was discovered at about 1.45pm today, Mrs McKay’s grandson, Mark Dyer said.
Mrs McKay was snatched from her home in 1969 by Indo-Trinidadian brothers Arthur and Nizam Hosein, who mistakenly believed she was the wife of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and demanded a £1million ransom.
The duo were convicted and jailed for Mrs McKay’s murder in 1970, but her body has never been discovered despite several police searches.
Her family received new hope last year, however, via the daughter of a former tailor who had a shop on Bethnal Green.
Percy Chaplin’s shop in Bethnal Green was used by notorious gangsters the Kray twins, and he employed one of Mrs McKay’s murderers, Arthur Hosein.
In 2022, when he was nearing the end of his life, Mr Chaplin told his daughter, Hayley Frais, that he believed her body could be buried on the premises.
She informed the McKay family, who scanned the property last week and began digging this morning.
Muriel McKay was the wife of newspaper executive Alick McKay. She was kidnapped for a £1 million ransom in 1969 after being mistaken for Anna Murdoch, the then-wife of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
Her family began digging in the garden of a property in Bethnal Green after receiving a tip from the daughter of a tailor who once had a shop on the site that Mrs McKay may be buried on the premises
Percy Chaplin’s shop in Bethnal Green was used by notorious gangsters the Kray twins, and he employed one of Mrs McKay’s murderers, Arthur Hosein. It is now a bookmaker’s
Mr Dyer said: ‘Police have arrived, there’s now a murder scene – we have forensics in there too.
‘The bone is about nine inches long, it’s been chopped at one end. ‘We don’t know what sort of bone it is, but it is in the exact area Hayley said my grandmother would be.
‘We stopped digging as soon as we found it and phoned the police. I wasn’t allowed in there myself, it was a surveyor and two diggers who made the discovery.
‘Obviously we are praying this is it, that we have finally found my grandmother after so many years. But we will have to see what the police say.’
