The search for Muriel McKay’s remains will continue after a bone unearthed in an east London garden was confirmed not to be human, her family has announced.
Mark Dyer, Ms McKay’s grandson, said her family had gone from "high back to low" since police confirmed the bone found Friday in a Bethnal Green Road garden was not human.
Ms McKay, the affluent wife of newspaper executive Alick McKay, was abducted in 1969 for a £1 million ransom.
She was mistakenly identified as Anna Murdoch, then-wife of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
The single bone was found during a private excavation of the garden on Friday. This search was initiated by Ms McKay’s family following new information from the daughter of a witness.
Mr Dyer told the Press Association “we’ve gone from high back to low”, but added he feels “sanguine” as he confirmed the search will go on.
He said: “We’re surprised … but I feel sanguine about all of this. We haven’t finished searching the area, and we need to. If it isn’t a human bone down at 1.2 metres, we don’t know what it is.”
Mr Dyer added: “We haven’t finished this search by far – we had an agreement to stop when we found any bones, so (now the bone has been determined as non-human) we will go to the next stage and continue checking.”
Ms McKay, 55, was taken from her home in Wimbledon, south London, on December 29 1969.
Brothers Arthur and Nizamodeen Hosein were later arrested and found guilty of her murder, and sentenced to 25 years and 15 years in prison, in one of the first murder cases to be brought without a body.
The McKay family commissioned the garden search following new information from Hayley Frais, whose father ran a tailor shop at the premises on Bethnal Green Lane at the time of the killing, where Arthur Hosein was employed.
The garden was searched for the first time in a non-invasive scan conducted more than a week ago, which found the ground had been disturbed, prompting a dig to take place on Friday.
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said: “Police are aware of reports surrounding the discovery of a single bone in the garden of a property in Bethnal Green Road, Hackney. The bone was uncovered on Friday, March 20, during an independent search.
“Officers attended the scene assisted by forensic colleagues who have determined the bone does not belong to a human.”
