Police have called off the search for remains of Muriel McKay 55 years after her murder.
In a letter to the Ms McKay’s family, obtained by Sky News, the Met Police tell her a fresh search that has been going on at the farm in Hertfordshire where she was held for ransom has not been successful.
Katherine Godwin, Detective Superintendent in the Met Police, said: “We have now completed the search of the area set out in the agreed parameters, along with an additional strip which we identified was not covered by the 2022 search or the 2024 parameters.
“I am so sorry to say that the search has not been successful in finding Muriel’s remains or any evidence relating to her kidnap and murder.”
Ms McKay, the wealthy wife of newspaper executive Alick McKay, was kidnapped and held ransom for £1 million more than 54 years ago.
The people who kidnapped her had mistaken her for Anna Murdoch, the then-wife of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
She disappeared in December 1969 and was traced to Stocking Farm near Bishop’s Stortford in Hertfordshire.
Her body has never been found.
Brothers Arthur and Nizamodeen Hosein were convicted of her kidnap and murder.
Arthur died in prison in 2009, and Nizamodeen was deported to Trinidad and Tobago after serving his sentence.
The farm was searched at the time of the murder and again in 2022, with 30 police officers, ground penetrating radar and specialist forensic archaeologists used, but nothing new was found.
A fresh search started at the farm in Stocking Pelham on Monday.
Images released by the Met Police last week showed officers sifting through the dirt in a trench dug inside a barn at the farm.
Her family has been calling for Ms McKay’s convicted killer Hosein to be brought to the excavation site from his Caribbean home to show detectives where he buried her body.
They believe the search cannot be completed without his presence at the farm.
According to the family, police have admitted they forgot to dig part of an agreed excavation site at the farm in 2022, when they found nothing.
That was the area that has now been searched.
The Metropolitan Police has been contacted for comment.
