Taken by Mistake: The Muriel McKay Story

We start this one with a bit of chaos, as usual, a catch-up about gigs, half term, the price of fireworks and the ongoing trauma of David Walliams audiobooks (because honestly, why is he everywhere?). But once we’ve had our rant, we’re heading back to South London for a story that’s as shocking as it is tragic.

In December 1969, Wimbledon was the picture of quiet suburbia, Christmas lights, family dinners, and that post-holiday haze where no one quite knows what day it is. But on Arthur Road, behind the warm glow of St Mary’s House, something unthinkable happened. When Alick McKay came home, he found chaos, an open door, a torn-off telephone, his wife’s glasses on the carpet, and their dachshund Carly pacing by the fire. Muriel was gone.

What followed became Britain’s first modern kidnap-for-ransom, a crime born from desperation, greed and mistaken identity. Two brothers from Hertfordshire thought they were targeting Rupert Murdoch’s glamorous wife. Instead, they took an ordinary woman from Wimbledon and set off a manhunt that gripped the nation.

We trace the story from Muriel’s quiet life in South London to the police investigation that changed British criminal history, a case without a body, a family’s fifty-five-year fight for answers, and a tragedy that still echoes today.

Sources include:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-67981800
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Muriel_McKay
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-68514150
https://www.personsunknown.net/p/55-years-later-will-muriel-mckay
https://www.itv.com/news/london/2025-09-18/muriel-mckay-im-going-to-kidnap-someone-wealthy-recalls-former-shop-owner
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jul/15/police-start-new-search-for-remains-of-murdered-muriel-mckay
https://thehistorypress.co.uk/article/the-calm-before-the-storm-the-murder-of-muriel-mckay
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-11/search-for-answers-muriel-mckay/104257842
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/muriel-mckay-mistaken-identity-kidnap-ransom-and-murder/id1776843975?i=1000676681448
https://www.murielmckay.com
https://news.sky.com/story/farm-where-muriel-mckay-is-buried-isnt-worth-market-value-family-says-as-body-remains-unfound
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0021cx6

Transcript

EP 08 - Murial McKay
Hello. Hello. I'm Rachel.

And I'm Hannah. And this is the Sinister South podcast. Your weekly tour of South London's underbelly, where murder meets mystery and even the pigeons have seen too much.

Oh, my God, you've actually written an intro. I've been writing them. Oh, my God.

Oh, OK. Now I've got to up my bloody game, haven't I? So you've written an intro. I thought about the pigeons the other day.

I was talking, why was I talking about pigeons to someone? But I was like, oh, that would be hilarious. Like, the pigeons have seen too much. Yeah.

Or something. And so I jotted it down. And then I was like, this is.

Oh, and I could also say this one. Well, you've got entire intros written and I, I don't know if you noticed then, completely forgot that I have to say something after I say hello. Hello.

Hello. I'm Rachel. Oh, dear.

There you go. Dear, dear. How are you? I'm all good.

Good. Yeah. Nice.

We've been and done things, haven't we? We have. We went to a gig on Friday. We did.

We can talk about that now. Yes. Because it's actually the week after.

But you know that, don't you? So we are, we are recording this ahead of time. And I was just trying to see if I could push Hannah to do some. No, because what if we die? I mean, they are a good band, but I don't think that.

You don't think my head's going to explode? No, I'm not certain that it will. I've seen them live before and I think you're safe. I mean, yeah, it's not, it's not really my bag, is it? It's not your scene.

It's a birthday present. Yeah. And next time someone sees you in your t-shirt, you can say I've seen them.

It's Kill Switch Engage, by the way, but I realised no one had said anything and it is ahead of time and she's trying to make me say things, but I've said this before. I know. Well, the day that this actually comes out, I will be on my way home from Poland.

There you go. That's a fun thing. Not if I've got anything to do with it.

Are you going to keep me there? It's like, no, stay over there. They're going to keep you. No one likes it.

Yeah. Yeah. That'll be, that'll be interesting.

We can talk about that next time. We can talk about that next time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh dear. But you're good, yes? Yeah. Good.

Yeah. Sorry. I've been working hard.

Hardly working. And just living my life. Living my normal, everyday life.

Living my everyday life. I think that's fair, mate. I think that's fair.

How are you? I mean, I'm all right. I'm all right. Look, we can't all be very exciting people all the time.

Sometimes we have to be boring people who do nothing because that's kind of, yeah, that's where I'm at. No, I've got some stuff planned. So I'm going to Poland for a couple of days, which will be nice.

Never been to Poland. No, neither have I. Never been to that part of the world. Although, do you know what? Sorry, this is so random.

But I mentioned to my sister I was going to Poland with a mutual friend of ours. And her response straight away without any other, like, pause for breath or anything was just, do not go to Auschwitz without me. Wasn't really what we had in mind for the three days that we're, you know, not for this three days.

No, no, I don't feel like I've not seen the girl like properly. I saw her once at summer and the last time I saw her was before Christmas because she's been busy being a new teacher. And like, I think she's depressed enough about her life choices.

I don't think we need to make it any more, any more stressful. I would not. How do you phrase this? I would love to go, no, I would.

I'm fascinated by it. And I would very much. There's a part of me that thinks it's very important that I would like to be confronted with.

Yes, exactly. The tangible horror of it. The most respectable way, respectful way you can be.

Yeah, exactly. Like, it's definitely somewhere that I want to see at some point. But I feel like potentially, one, need to be slightly more mentally robust.

And two, maybe bookend it with lots and lots of drinking, which I don't feel you can do in three days. Fair. So, so no, maybe next time.

But it was just, I love that that was the first thing my sister said without missing a beat. It's like, oh, OK, no, fine. She's been like, she's been to Krakow.

She's not been to Auschwitz. But her thing was, no, I went to Krakow and because we'd said that we'd always go together, that she didn't go. So I had to, you know, promise that I wouldn't.

I was like, you know, you could have started with the, oh, the pierogi are really nice. Like, you know, could have been something like that. But no, no, no.

We've gone straight in for the death and destruction. So it's all fine. Yeah.

So that's it. So I'll be doing, I'll be doing Poland for a couple of days, which would be nice. Then I've got a half term, which is looming.

We're going to a fireworks thing together. We are going to a fireworks thing together. I am loving the amount of people on Facebook and other social media platforms who keep being like, 16 pounds, it's always been free.

Yes. And then it stopped being free. And also it's not just fireworks anymore, is it? And it's ticketed because of like the mass overcrowding and the stress on the transport systems in South London.

We all know they're shit. Yeah. We don't have a tube, aren't allowed one.

No, we can have a lovely new bus that's painted poo brown alongside. There you go. We promised you the Bakerloo line.

You've actually just got a bus. There you go. Have fun with that.

I think your husband's going to kill you for being rude about the super loop. I know, he probably will be. Yeah.

But it's not his super loop. It's not his one. No, no, no.

No. It's the other side. I mean, I'm not allowed to say anything bad about his super loop.

That's fine. I don't want to talk about his super loop. I think it's probably best no one does, if I'm honest.

Yeah. And half term is looming on me very, very quickly, which is lovely and upsetting at the same time. One, because the slow march of time just doesn't stop.

It's like, how? How is it the October half term? They literally went back to school. I don't know where this year's gone. They went back to school three days ago.

That's such a like boring old person thing to say, but it really like, how is it? I know. I honestly. How is this happening? Yeah.

Absolutely no idea. Yeah. They went back to school three days ago and now they're going to have to have another week off and it's like, oh, OK, this is good.

But I do have very exciting brother nuptials. Yeah. Which will be good.

That is so exciting. So I'm looking forward to that. And that's all happening.

This is why, Trevor, we are recording this episode a couple of weeks ahead of time, because there's lots going on in the future. Yeah. That's what I'm trying to say.

Yeah. We'll be able to tell you all about it after it's happened. So for now, you're just going to have to make do with this.

Yeah. Fine. Yeah.

Nothing. Nothing to report. Yeah.

That's fine though. That's fine. Is it fine? We're just going to keep saying it's fine.

I think I should say it's fine at least three more times. I have a story if you would like. If you would like me to tell it.

Have you got something? No. Well, only that. Have you got something to say? Have you? No.

You've left me floundering. I've said it's fine 87 times. Now you will chime in.

Shut up. I've got something to say. I mean, you know what it is I was about to say.

I don't even think we can keep saying it. Oh God. We can.

I don't know. Just about Ian Watkins. Oh.

I mean, I think we hadn't. We haven't. As friends, we hadn't spoken about it off air at all.

We haven't. And I was like, oh my God. Have we not even mentioned it? We can mention it.

The dickhead that is, is no more. Good riddance. Absolutely couldn't have happened to you on our show.

And I am one of those people that's like, we shouldn't like take joy in other people's losses. That's what I said. I was like, it's really, it's a very horrible moral position to celebrate the death of anybody apart from him.

Yeah. Exactly. It's fine.

I always think about whenever, not that I think about Ian Watkins very often, but whenever his name comes up in conversation and when your husband is like, used to be a very big Lost Prophets fan back in the day, what was the name of that girl who used to, when we were at Greenwich, she had bright ginger hair, like proper orange ginger. And she was obsessed with them. And every time his name is mentioned, her face, I can see it clear as day, swims into my mind as I just feel like she was probably one of those people who got a tattoo of some sort that then had to be immediately covered up.

Yeah. I can't remember her name. Do you remember? I do know exactly who you're talking about.

Yeah. The anecdote is going to be entirely lost on all the travellers. Yeah.

Pointless thing to say. Have you got something to say? No, I think I've said all my things now. But yeah, no, she does pop into my head every time he's mentioned because I'm just like, oh, mate.

Oh, I mean, we were all blindsided by it, weren't we? It's horrible. But yes, good riddance. Yeah.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke. Hope whoever did it got a nice meal afterwards. There we go.

That's my stance on it. That's it. Although I did find it really interesting.

I was reading some comments in a Facebook group about that someone had posted about it and it was like, let's keep it to one thread kind of thing. Someone had put like quite strange, like glorifying the people that did it by being like these heroes. Oh, God.

And someone had to point out to them, like, he is probably on a specialist wing of a prison. Yes. Like, they're probably not great people.

No. You wouldn't necessarily call them heroes. No.

Just because they've done something that many wish they could have done. Like, please, let's just remember, they are also convicted of something. Yeah.

And they've also murdered somebody. And they murdered somebody. Which, you know, it's not, it's not great.

And yeah, as much as I say, couldn't have happened to a nice bloke, don't think the word hero is the term I would use. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, for those of you who don't know, I mean, I'm sure all the Trevors know who Ian Watkins from Most Prophets are. Nasty, nasty man who did nasty, nasty things. And is the reason why I can never say mega anything anymore.

Really? Mega lols. Oh, yeah. I hadn't even thought about that.

Yeah. So when people, like, say that word, I'm always just like, eh, eh. I mean, not that I usually then follow on with why.

Actually, I don't think you should use the word mega. This is why. Rachel, this is a business meeting.

It's Megabus. It's actually, honestly, the amount of times I hear this in my day to day life, we need to make sure that the mega menu is working correctly. Fuck off.

Don't say mega in front of me. Also, no one needs a mega menu. Just putting it out there.

Oh, and I have something else to say. Go on. Oh, we've started now.

She's started me off now. This is exactly how it happens in normal life as well. No, a little while back, I think two or three episodes ago.

God, it's your week. A few episodes ago, I mentioned a podcast called Wisecrack. Yes.

And I did not, at the time, realize some of the or the some of the implications or some of the potential lies. I didn't realize the depth at which the lies run or kind of how questioning the whole thing is. So I kind of went in like, well, yeah, he did.

He's very transparent about where the lies are and the embellishments and blah, blah, blah, blah. Without trying to ruin it. I still haven't listened to it.

It is a very good listen. I did. I'll give it that.

I thought it was a good listen. I enjoyed it. Yeah.

But Sophie Hagen, who's a fabulous stand up comedian, but also a true crime fan and a fan of all killer and is in the all filler legends group. Oh, I think received some flack from some publicity around her being involved in it or being involved with him and like or not. Anyway.

Right. I didn't really know that. Right.

When I recommended it. So I don't I don't necessarily think from what I could find out, I don't think it's bad enough to say boycott it or don't listen to it. But definitely listen to it with vast pinches of salt around yourself just in case.

Yeah. So I just thought I'd say that I do recognize that I might have said something that actually diminished an experience that Sophie's going through in which she seems to have been taken out of context and stuff. I mean, fair.

But I think to be honest, mate, like with all of these things like you when you were talking about it, you didn't know any of that stuff. So that's why I just wanted to point it out now. And it will mean nothing to mostly everybody, apart from people that are like, hang on a minute.

Yeah. Fair. Fair enough.

I have yet to listen. I'm still because as is my want with my anxiety brain, I am just relistening to episodes of podcasts. I've already listened to eighty seven thousand times.

So, yeah. Redoing Bailey Sarian's Dark History. Fair enough.

Yeah. Yeah. And although, as Will mentioned earlier, it is very annoying because she started putting in very loud, very loud, very American adverts.

There's one that's like some, I think they must be like a car insurance or something. Anyway, they've got this obnoxious song that this bloke just sings really loudly. It's trying to be like, I think their mascot is called Limo.

And so they're trying to say it's Limo the emo and they're doing an emo song. Oh, I'm like, one emo was so long ago. You are very behind trends.

And two, oh, my God, shut up. Fair. So that's slightly off putting, especially when I listen to them to go to sleep.

I have been listening to Danny, the champion of the world. Oh, nice. After hearing John Robbins talk about him listening to it to fall asleep.

And I was like, I have not listened to that or read that or interacted with it for a very long time. I loved it. Again, questionable person.

Some very, very outrageously awful views. Very good storyteller. But incredible books.

So, yeah, listen to that. But I listened to it on Audible and then for some reason, I can't work out how to turn it off. And it's one of those things that when I remember, I'm nearly asleep and I'm putting it on to go to sleep.

I haven't had previews off. So like I'll put a timer on, but it's quite a short book. Anyway, at the end of it, it will be like a preview for something else.

It was a lot louder. And it invariably seems to be David Walliams. It's the last man's voice I fucking want to hear.

Thank you very much. And his books are shit. Shut the fuck up.

Yeah. So I tend to be rudely awoken in the middle of the night and then angry. And I find that incredibly relaxing.

I mean, to be fair, I think that's how a lot of women feel about David Walliams. Woken in the night. Incredibly angry.

Yeah. There you go. That's all my stuff and things.

Oh, I love it. I love it. I'll shut up.

I don't need you to shut up ever. I want you to carry on talking forever and ever and ever. I'm still angry.

Oh, damn it. Trying, trying to make up for, make the amends. I'm so sorry.

You do realise that my cousin is going to listen to this at some point because she does. But she'll listen to them completely out of sync. So it'll be months in the future where she'll suddenly just randomly message me and just go, I'm so sorry that you and Hannah fell out.

I'll be like, what? What are you talking about? So she did it the other week where she was listening. She had to go to the hospital or something and she was listening to a past episode and she just messaged me being like, oh, what was it? I'm going to look because it was so random and out of context. It just made me absolutely die when I finally figured out what the fuck it was she was talking about.

Where is she? There she is. Now munch, get your hands off my penis was all she messaged me. She's like.

That was like when I was walking along with mum and she was, I'd said something on one of the episodes. I don't even think it was like that far out of date, though. But I said something like, oh, it's a thing that's on TikTok from Trixie Mattel and Katya from Drag Race.

And it's like, yes, we've had weather. And she kept, we were walking the dog and I had, she had to tell me afterwards. She was like, I kept saying it to you.

Like, yes, we've had weather to see if you'd laugh or like recognize. And I was just like. Mum's lost it.

Oh, yeah, I do. But it is one of those things that I think is becoming a bit of a true crime trope, a bit like her smile lit up a room. But it is the moment that you don't do a case, you push it out of your brain and it's on to the next one.

But like, genuinely, I don't remember half the crap I've said on this. I will have people repeat it at me. And I'm just like, I was looking in the Facebook group and I was like.

Portuguese pool ghost. Oh, yeah. What the fuck are you talking about? I don't remember that place.

Portugal feels like a stretch. South, South Portugal. South.

Right. If you are ready, I have a case for you. And we're going back in time again this week.

Not as far back as you went last week, but yeah, mainly because. So this is a case I had never heard of. I can't even explain how I found out about it.

I stumbled across it looking for something entirely different. I can't. Don't ask me what that was, because I cannot remember.

But I found it. Don't understand why I have never heard of this before, because it is fucking mental. Interest piqued.

Yes. Now, there have been other podcasts covering this case, some quite big name ones. But I, again, hadn't heard them until I started researching this.

So there's one from BBC Sounds that's called Intrigue Worse Than Murder. And then there's another one from True Crime Enthusiast, Season 2, Episode 1. And then Case File, Case 110, plus a documentary that I found on the Dutch version of Disney Plus. Bloody hell.

But as I say, before I did any of this research, I was completely oblivious to this case. I must admit, you put the name on the list and I was like, I have no idea who that is. It's madness, but it's... Well, we'll just get into it.

I think that's the best thing. So let me... Good. So, settle in.

And let me tell you a completely bonkers story about something that happened on the streets of South London once again. So it is a bitter December evening in 1969. The 29th, one of the dates that falls between the lull of Christmas and New Year's, where no one knows what day it is or why they're really doing anything other than eat, drink and be merry.

In Wimbledon, on Arthur Road, the lights of St Mary's House glow against the cold. Inside, the fire is burning, but the house is uncharacteristically silent. When Alec McKay steps out of the blue Rolls Royce he's been loaned from his employer and rings the bell with the family's private code, he expects to see his wife Muriel appear with their dachshund Carly at her side.

But the door isn't opened. Alec turns the handle and walks into chaos. The phone ripped from the wall, a handbag spilled across the stairs, Muriel's glasses on the carpet and a rusted bill hook lying on the bureau in the hall.

Carly is pacing in front of the open fire, but Muriel is gone. Alec later said that he knew in an instant that his wife had been taken against her will. Quote, she would never have left like that, he told detectives, not without the dog, not without a word.

So what happened to Muriel McKay? Who was she and why was she seemingly taken from her own home? We're going to look at the whole case from start to finish and the two brothers who planned the crime, how the police tried and failed to outwit them and delve into the McKays 55 year fight for answers. Bloody hell. Yes, so we're going to talk about Muriel who was for all intents and purposes a very ordinary woman before any of this happened when she suddenly became the victim of this absolutely mental infamous crime that has managed to go on for 55 years.

So who was Muriel McKay? She was born Muriel Frieda on the 4th of February in 1914 in Adelaide, South Australia. And I also liked the fact that it was South Australia. Yes.

She grew up there in a comfortable middle class family and in her early 20s she married Alec Benson McKay who was a fellow South Australian from Adelaide as well. Muriel and Alec were said to be childhood sweethearts. They had known each other since their school days and by the time of her disappearance they'd been together for more than three decades.

Their wedding took place in Glenelg in June of 1935 and together they went on to have three children, Jennifer, Diane and Ian. Now those who knew Muriel remembered her as warm, sociable and stylish. Friends said she had a gift for making people feel at ease and her daughter Diane later described her mother as a vivacious, fun-loving woman who adored her family and her home.

Muriel also had a softer side. She doted on the family dog as we've heard. Carly was apparently her shadow and Alec would later say that that was the main reason he knew that she hadn't just stepped out for an innocuous reason because there was no way that Carly would have been left on her own.

For much of their marriage Muriel's focus was on the home and the children which I suppose wasn't uncommon in those days. Whereas Alec had carved out a career in newspapers. In the early years of their marriage Alec worked in advertising before he turned to the newspaper world where he found his true footing and by the mid-1950s the Mackays had moved to Britain and Alec had already been working with the Mirror Group who are the owners of the Daily Mirror and The People for over a decade by the time this all happens.

He had built a very strong reputation as a steady hand in the cutthroat world of Fleet Street and was said to be he was very well known within the Fleet Street circles even if his name wasn't well known outside of that. And he was apparently very respected. People thought he was very, very good at his job.

By 1958 the family had settled in South London in Wimbledon where they lived at St Mary's House on Arthur Road. It was a large comfortable house filled with family life. Muriel ran the home, supported Alec's career and created a stable base for their children and then by the late 1960s Alec was poached by none other than Rupert Murdoch who made him the deputy chairman of his new UK operations, News Limited.

So News Limited became, well I think it's still there but there's certain papers, News of the World was the main one that obviously got disbanded in more recent years but back when Murdoch bought the paper it was quite a respectable paper and this was kind of where Murdoch built his name he was already very well known and successful in Australia he is a fellow Australian but when he kind of bought News International that's when it kind of all kicked off for him. And Alec became Murdoch's right hand man in London steering both the Sun and the News of the World through their relaunches and colleagues described Alec as being the man Murdoch trusted above anyone else to keep his empire steady. So who is he in succession then? Yeah, well exactly.

It was high pressure but Alec was at ease with it and when Murdoch travelled abroad he very often handed the reins to Alec he didn't shy away from the responsibility at all. So at home though the Mackays weren't living like celebrities or tycoons they were a normal family albeit a fairly well-off one but they lived in leafy South London with a mother who enjoyed entertaining a father who spent long hours in the newsroom and children who by this point were building their own lives in Britain. Muriel wasn't a public figure she wasn't a wealthy socialite or someone with business interests of her own she was simply a wife, a mother and a woman who had built a loving family which is what makes the events of December 1969 so bizarre.

As her daughter Diane later said mum was just an ordinary woman living an ordinary life she was never meant to be in the spotlight and the word ordinary came up so often in the research that I was doing for Muriel that I'm surprised her photo isn't in the dictionary under the word ordinary because they could not have stressed it enough she was just, without sounding horrible It's not derogatory No, she was nobody she was somebody's wife, that was it and it's madness and yet through nothing more than bad luck and mistaken identity Muriel found herself at the centre of one of Britain's most extraordinary and tragic crimes so what actually happened on the evening of the 29th of December 1969 a lot of this is conjecture and it's kind of police piecing together what they think happened rather than definite facts but what we do know is this so Alec was dropped at St Mary's house in Rupert Murdoch's blue Rolls Royce Murdoch and his wife had gone back to Australia for the festive period and while he was away he'd provided his car and his chauffeur to Mackay so Alec had been using the car since Murdoch had gone away Alec, when he gets home, heads to the front door he's dropped off by the chauffeur, the car goes he walks up to the door and uses the family's bell code now, to explain what this is so they had had a previous burglary at the home in the September before this happened, so not that long prior Muriel had basically said that she was not going to open the door from what I could gather, there's not a lot about this burglary but from what I could gather, she was at home so there's been some sort of altercation and she then refused to open the door to anyone unless she heard their specific bell ring which was three short and one long I see so I thought it was like a key code kind of thing no, it's just with a doorbell but there was a certain pattern that the family ran and then she knew that it was safe to open it so he does this, as they've agreed and that meant that Muriel knew who was on the other side and she felt safe opening the door but despite this, there was no answer from Muriel Alec turned the doorknob more out of frustration than anything else, he didn't expect it to open just let me in but to his surprise, the door opens it was unlocked and the chain was left dangling which was completely out of character for Muriel inside, the hall light was on and the scene was wrong in a dozen little ways at once there was a heavy chair that had been dragged into the corridor yesterday's issue of the People newspaper was scattered around the floor Muriel's handbag had been emptied a twist of elastoplast was on a table and a bundle of baling twine say that quickly was dumped on a chair that didn't make any sense why is there twine, why is there elastoplast, whatever is it elastoplast? elastoplast? how do you say it? it's spelt elastoplast elastoplast? elastoplast as in the plaster stuff but I think it's spelt the same way but the way that they describe it isn't like a plaster no, it's like a roll of plaster yeah, possibly, possibly that so yeah, elastoplast elastoplast? elastoplast, anyway however you pronounce it, there was that the telephone had been ripped clean off the wall and then there was a bureau or like a big wooden cabinet in the hallway that had an object that had simply no business being in a Wimbledon hallway which was a billhook a billhook is a curved agricultural blade that is used in farming and usually you'd see one in a barn for when people are doing hay bales right, okay Jesus so it's not something that you would realistically see in someone's hallway bureau but there it was Carly the dog was pacing before an open fire and the reason this was weird was one, because the dog was there and Muriel wasn't but two, and this was heartbreaking to read about Muriel always put a fire guard up whenever the dog was in the room with the fire because she had lost two dogs to fire in previous years oh my god I don't know what this situation is but she would always keep the fire guard up in case the dog jumped into the fire because it's happened not once but twice before Jesus, I just probably wouldn't have fires maybe or dogs that aren't stupid hey don't you blame the dogs oh come on, who's going to look at a fire and go like that that's what I need to jump in you don't know, they have an animal instinct to protect if they thought something dangerous was happening in the fire they probably would jump in to save their humans maybe dogs are beautiful, I'll hear nothing else about it I'm not disagreeing with you oh god, you're on thin ice I'm really sorry, I didn't mean, I love dogs I just find it weird that two carry on with your bloody story two would jump in a fire, anyway but yes, so when Alec sees that Carly is there and the fire guard is not there that's incredibly out of character as well Alec said that he called out he checked every room he went upstairs he went into the kitchen and all the other rooms off the sides of the hallway and then he says that he grabbed the bill hook because it suddenly dawned on him that the intruder might still be there so he grabs it he goes back upstairs and down this time feeling a little bit braver because he's at least got something to protect himself with should he need it he goes into the garden and into the garage but there is absolutely no trace of Muriel her car is still there in the garage the shoes that she usually wore to go outside were on the stairs the television was on and so at this point Alec decides right, something's happened I've got to go ring for help so he goes to a neighbour because his phone's off the hook and he goes to raise the alarm now police officers arrive within minutes and they straight away kind of notice like Alec does that something's gone on here they notice the door and the hall they realise that somebody has forced the chain on the door so it's been broken someone has forced their way in and then they again a bit like Alec does notice that there's a few things that don't make sense the bill hook this sticky adhesive plaster this twine no one knows what this is or what is there so the first working theory quite obviously is burglary some jewellery was missing Muriel's very very specific but it comes up so many times that I can't not say it her fawn and black reversible coat delightful that was gone too apparently that was worth some money but robbery ended up being secondary to whatever else had happened so the police knew that yes there had been a burglary but they're starting to think that that wasn't the initial motive for what's happened the arrangement of the hall where Muriel had been threatened with the bill hook gagged and bound and taken from her house as they start to canvas the street with dogs and call the family that becomes the main line of inquiry soon after midnight engineers had managed to reconnect the Mackay's phone line and at 1.15am it rang and Alec picked it up the voice on the other end was harsh clipped with what police later described as a West Indian accent the caller identified himself as M3 the Mafia he got straight to the point saying quote we have your wife one million pounds by Wednesday night or she dies the demand was staggering in 1969 one million pounds was the equivalent of well over 15 million today and the caller told Alec to get money from his friends but they basically knew that this figure was well above what he could get his hands on the call was traced to a public phone box in Epping in Essex but that didn't help very much the detectives listening in weren't even sure how to interpret it kidnap for ransom was unheard of in Britain reporters later asked whether the demand was real and one senior officer admitted almost sheepishly quote how do we know we've never had one before a domestic dispute a publicity stunt linked to the newspaper world that Alec inhabited inhabited sorry police couldn't yet be certain but for Alec there was no doubt his wife was gone and the voice on the line was not playing games he immediately reached out to colleagues at the News of the World and The Sun he knew that he personally could never raise that kind of money and Murdoch's empire was the only circle with the resources to even begin trying to get that sort of sum messages were sent to his offices in London and across to Australia where Rupert and Anna were spending Christmas now Murdoch was said to be horrified when he was updated directly but he said that he quote put his trust in Alec and the police to manage the crisis the fear was clear he had knocked at his deputy so now unfortunately I have to do a brief side quest into Rupert Murdoch now you could do an entire episode on this man but one I can't because not a lot related to him happens in South London and two because I don't want to but without the context none of what follows really makes any sense so you're gonna have to put up with it so by the late 1960s Murdoch was still building his empire he'd already transformed the Australian press in 1969 he brought the Sun and News of the World and he even appeared on TV talking about these new acquisitions which made him one of the most visible men in Fleet Street he wasn't the billionaire mogul that we know him today just yet but he was already a figure of wealth ambition and influence his wife Anna Murdoch just because I found out was young, glamorous and very much a public face at Murdoch's side Murdoch got married in 1967 Rupert was 36 at the time and Anna was 25 two outsiders she was kind of the embodiment of privilege and she had access to Murdoch's growing empire and all that came with that so if you were looking for a high-value hostage in Britain Anna Murdoch was the perfect candidate she was elegant, visible her husband had both the money and the motivation to pay for her return he had the trappings of wealth he had Rolls Royces he had the newspapers these were an incredibly powerful couple in London at the time so to strangers who were watching from the outside Anna Murdoch looked like the sort of person for whom a king's ransom might be paid and that context matters because without Rupert and Anna Murdoch in the frame the idea of targeting a family in Wimbledon makes no sense whatsoever from the very first ransom call Anna Murdoch had not been taken for who she was she'd been taken for who the kidnappers thought she was the caller had spelled it out quote, we tried to get Rupert Murdoch's wife we couldn't get her so we took yours instead okay, they actually said that they actually say it for weeks two men had been following Murdoch's distinctive blue Rolls Royce they were convinced it would lead them to Anna Murdoch what they didn't know or that Murdoch had lent his car to his deputy Alec so when the Rolls pulled up outside St Mary's house night after night they assumed that that was where Murdoch lived yeah the tragic irony is that if not for the borrowed car Muriel might never have been on their radar instead she became the victim of a scheme that had absolutely nothing to do with her for the police this mistake catapulted the case into uncharted territory they weren't just dealing with a random attempt at a murder Muriel was the first modern kidnap for ransom aimed at the most visible media mogul in the country and diverted by sheer bad luck onto his deputy's family the press naturally seized onto the Murdoch connection headlines didn't just describe Muriel as a Wimbledon housewife they splashed the Rolls Royce the mafia-style ransom notes and Murdoch linkage across the front pages and overnight the story spread from a quiet suburban street in South London to a house where it was unbearable the men tormenting his family had never even wanted his wife she was simply in the wrong house on the wrong night in the wrong car's shadow now at first the police weren't sure how to handle what they were facing a senior officer would later admit quote we were learning as we went the initial response at Arthur Road had been clumsy detectives had treated it like a burglary as we said they moved items and disturbed evidence a fawn and black reversible coat had pointed to robbery but as we know now everything else was pointing to something more sinister and by the time the ransom calls began Scotland Yard knew that they were in this uncharted territory so they set up an incident room inside the Mackay home and from that night on the quiet home became a hive of activity so there were uniformed officers patrolling outside there were detectives tapping phones and family members were forced to answer every ring of the phone without realising without knowing if it was hope or harm Muriel's family doctor had to reassure police and press alike by saying that Muriel was not unwell she wasn't depressed there was no reason she would have vanished on her own and that was mainly because we'd just not seen anything like this so it was kind of lots of people were questioning these crime novels and all the rest of it or it was seen as a very American crime so they all assumed that maybe she'd just disappeared of her own volition and they had to have proof to say that no no this is not what's happening it is definitely something more sinister Alec himself ended up being sedated for a period but he did do television appeals where he said things like quote I'm frantic to get my wife back now if anyone is interested there are a lot of clips of Alec and the family talking and they are really sad this is a man who desperately loves his wife and he doesn't know what to do but he's still of that still a bit stiff up a little yeah well I mean if you think they were born in 1914 there's still some of that sensibility about them and he's trying to be very stoic so if anyone wants to go and watch some of those reports it just kind of humanizes him a little bit because yeah I think bless him he did everything he could within days letters began to arrive at Arthur Road they were postmarked from Tottenham and Woodgreen but they carried Muriel's handwriting shaky and desperate the words pleaded with her family to meet the kidnappers demands quote dear Alec I am blindfolded and cold in another she wrote quote please do something please I can't go on enclosed with the notes were scraps of her clothing green wool a piece from her coat cream leather from her shoes it was proof that she was alive or at least had been when the letters had been written meanwhile police worked with the general post office to try and trace the ransom calls but the technology was primitive engineers had to be physically which meant long nights false alarms and mounting frustration the pressure was growing significantly the kidnappers were starting to be blunt I mean to be fair they had been from the beginning but they were getting more blunt so they would say things like quote you know you have a million pound you need to have a million pound by Wednesday or we're going to kill her but they kept giving deadlines that would change and as each deadline passed the family was starting to get more and more concerned that Muriel may actually have already been killed so by the end of January weeks had passed since Muriel's abduction the phone calls continued they were short menacing and to the point and the police were under enormous pressure to make progress for Alec and his family every ring of the telephone was agony on the 1st of February 1970 the kidnappers finally agreed the plan was for Alec to drive the Rolls Royce North out of London along the A10 carrying half of the ransom money the instructions would then come through phone boxes along the route each call would lead him to the next location it was an enormous risk Scotland Yard detectives decided to load the Rolls with plain clothes detectives while surveillance teams were stationed all the way along the A10 Alec was told to play his part he drove and at one of the designated phone boxes a call came through with instructions which were basically to send him further up the road and then out of almost nowhere officers began noticing a muddy blue Volvo car circling the area of the phone box the car was then seen loitering near one of the other phone boxes where Alec would stop and witnesses in Wimbledon had already reported suspicious activity from a blue Volvo that had been driving near St Mary's House and it had been seen on the night of her disappearance and this was the first solid lead that police had unfortunately though the operation completely disintegrates so Scotland Yard had deployed so many officers to the area that it became impossible to hide their presence hanging around lay-bys and phone kiosks which meant that the kidnappers spotted them as well they're not stupid which meant that the calls stopped and the instructions dried up and the men in the Volvo drove off without collecting a penny the failure was a devastating blow to the Mackays who had endured weeks of fear only for the first chance at resolution to collapse in full view of the police it was now obvious that whoever was behind this was watching closely cautious and prepared to walk away if anything felt wrong but one detail from that night would prove invaluable the sighting of that blue Volvo for now it was only a lead one car among thousands but in time it would become the key to unlocking the whole case so after the fiasco of the 1st of February the kidnappers went silent days dragged by with no contact and the tension in the Mackay house was unbearable every ring of the phone was still answered but there was nothing that would help find Muriel and then on the 6th of February 1970 the silence broke this time the instructions were different the kidnappers demanded that Alex's daughter Diane deliver the ransom the choice of Diane was cruel because the kidnappers knew that it would terrify the family they're going to be putting Muriel's daughter in direct risk of harm Scotland Yard refused to allow it and instead they substituted two undercover officers one dressed to resemble Alec and the other styled as Diane the money or what appeared to be money was packed into two suitcases with banknotes the plan was the same as it had been before follow a trail of instructions left in phone boxes across London until the drop site was revealed so they began in Tottenham which is where some of the letters had been postmarked they had a call that directed them east to Bethnal Green then another telling them to take the underground just to flush out any police tailing them so finally the Diane decoy left the suitcases in the back of a parked van and withdrew as instructed the surveillance teams also pulled back and they waited and they waited for hours the night grew cold and they were still sitting there watching this blooming van and then at close to 11 o'clock this same muddy blue Volvo appeared it circled the area three times and detectives watching from undercover saw that there were two men inside it was the same make same colour as the car seen in Wimbledon on the night Muriel disappeared and it was also said to be the same one that they saw on the A10 and that was here at this drop site but as the police prepared to move in the operation unravelled again this time a local couple spotted the unattended suitcases in the back of an open van and worried that they might contain explosives alerted the police oh for fucks sake uniformed officers who had not been part of the sting hadn't been briefed didn't know it was happening arrived on the scene and removed the cases of course they did so then the kidnappers return see that the money's gone see the suitcases are gone and there's police everywhere and so they scarper yep because of course they do so even as the police were trying and failing to pull off the ransom handovers the letters kept coming and again they were postmarked from Tottenham and Wood Green each one was still coming with pieces of her clothing and there was lots of kind of it seemed like the kidnappers were trying to use these letters as proof of life because every time the McKays would speak to them on the phone they would ask to speak to Muriel they would ask for proof of life and the kidnappers would always say she's alive she's here blah blah blah and then a letter would arrive with some of her clothing and it was very much agreed that this was definitely Muriel's handwriting so we know that she had written these letters but when but when was the big question then there was a letter that came through that made detectives kind of take a step back and this was it arrived sort of in the February and in it Muriel writes quote please do something please I can't go on now this wording echoed almost exactly what her daughter Diane had said during a televised appeal on the 30th of December which was just a day after Muriel disappeared now this the reason this kind of tweaks detectives' suspicions is because Diane had only ever done one television appeal and in the letter as well along with this phrase Muriel says something like I saw you on TV or it's something akin to that and basically what the police were saying was that why would she wait until the 6th of February when they've had other letters to mention that she's seen her on television so what they now think is that the kidnappers had made her write the letter under duress very early on write loads of them yeah and then deliberately held it back to post at a later date and if this was true it suggested that Muriel might not have survived long after she was initially taken and that the kidnappers were stringing the family along for Alec and his children the arrival of each envelope was both a lifeline and a dagger proof she was still being held but also a cruel reminder of her terror for the detectives at Scotland Yard it confirmed what they already feared the men behind this crime weren't just reckless they were manipulative cold and playing for time but the kidnappers had slipped away empty handed once again from the ransom drop this time though the police had struck gold because detectives had managed to take down the Volvo's registration plate number so they then traced it to a Mrs Hussain of Rooks Farm Stocking Pelham Hertfordshire and they checked up on the car and it matched perfectly with all the earlier sightings and after 40 days of torment dead ends and botched stings Scotland Yard finally had names and an address and at dawn on the 7th of February 1970 detectives surrounded Rooks Farm where they found two brothers Arthur and Nizamuddin Hussain who were arrested on the spot right for investigators this was the moment that they had waited more than a month for but the question hung heavy in the cold morning air where was Muriel the search began immediately detectives combed through the ramshackle farmstead the farmhouse the barns the pigsty the yard littered with old cars and broken machinery and what they found confirmed their worst fears inside the house and the outbuildings they discovered twine and adhesive tape identical to the pieces found at St Mary's House in Wimbledon a notebook with torn pages whose ragged edges matched perfectly with the ransom notes sent to Alec and the family Arthur Hussain's fingerprints were found on several of the ransom letters and Muriel's personal items including scraps of clothing and belongings detectives also noticed that the house itself had the atmosphere of a place where someone had been held captive it was poorly lit there were bare floors but there were lots of doors with heavy locks it was yeah it was not a nice place to have been one senior officer later described it as quote it was the last place you'd want to be held captive cold dreadful beyond miserable search teams scoured every inch of the farm they dug up the yard they even lowered men into the well which I know you will not be happy about but there was no trace of Muriel's body and this absence presented a huge problem this was not a case where a victim could be produced alive or dead which meant that the police were only left with circumstantial evidence so the ransom notes the forensic matches and witness accounts of the blue Volvo there was no body yeah so you know and it's they did it but what did they do exactly and where is she and what happened to her on February the 10th 1970 just three days after the raid both Arthur and Nizam Nizam Adeem goes by Nizam were charged with kidnap blackmail and murder the Crown would attempt something that had rarely been done in Britain before prosecute for a murder without a body for the Mackay family it was a bitter mix of relief and torment the men who had taken Muriel were finally in custody but without her body there was no closure no funeral no grave no final act of dignity for a woman who had simply vanished from her own home so I'm going to do a very quick tour into who the Hussein brothers were there's not a huge amount about them no funnily enough so the men arrested at Rooks Farm were not mafia not gangland figures not even professional criminals they were two brothers from Trinidad right Arthur and Nizam Adeem who as I say goes by Nizam their lives could not have looked any more different on the surface yet together they spiralled into one of Britain's most shocking crimes Arthur Hussein the elder was born in 1935 and in Trinidad he had worked as a tailor and was known locally as quote sharp but domineering neighbours record him as unfriendly suspicious and a man with an edge to him ambitious and controlling Arthur emigrated to Britain in the 1950s and he married a local woman named Margaret and the two of them started a family and in 1968 Arthur bought Rooks Farm in Stocking Pelham Hertfordshire on paper it looked like a dream it was a farm house land the chance of a new life but in reality it was an absolute disaster the property was damp and derelict the family often huddled around a single fire in winter it's very reminiscent of Victorian times rather than the 1970s Arthur had no farming experience and no income and soon he was drowning in debt mortgage arrears creditors at the door bailiffs all the rest of it and locals were said to say that the farm had an unsettling air about it one villager later said quote he never saw them smile they kept to themselves the farm felt like it was hiding something another recalled the yard littered with broken cars and machinery saying that it looked quote more like a scrap yard than a farm Nizamuddin Hussein was Arthur's younger brother by 12 years he was born in 1947 and he had also grown up in Trinidad but unlike Arthur he had no trade and no career to his name in 1969 Arthur arranged for him to come to Britain ostensibly to help with the farm but that was kind of the only reason people could find about why Nizam ended up over here other than the fact that his brother's here by all accounts Nizam was quiet deferential and dependent on Arthur for both money and direction later in court he admitted that he was afraid of Arthur but still followed his lead together they lived a strange insular existence at Brook's Farm locals found them unsettling and journalists later dubbed it a house of menace when detectives searched it after the arrests they described it as grim cold and filthy Arthur's debt and desperation seemed to be the fuel behind Muriel's kidnapping so watching Rupert Murdoch on television in late 1969 boasting of his takeover of the Sun Arthur became fixated with the man and convinced himself that if he was able to kidnap Murdoch's glamorous young wife that Rupert would pay any price to get her back and Nizam later recalls quote Arthur told me to follow the Rolls Royce he said the man would pay anything for his wife and so I did he ended up tailing the distinctive blue car across London oblivious to the fact that it wasn't actually Rupert Arthur then set the astronomical ransom because to him it was simple quote the man is a millionaire he can pay it to police and press it showed both arrogance and incompetence and as journalist Simon Farquhar later summed up quote spectacularly later summed them up as quote spectacularly incompetent criminals but also malevolent men cruel cold and with no compassion so by September 1970 the case against the Hussein brothers came before the old Bailey it was one of Britain's first major nobody trials a daunting prospect for the prosecution and they would have to convince a jury that Muriel McKay had been abducted held and murdered even though no trace of her body has ever been found the courtroom was packed this had been all over the newspapers it was sensational journalists filled the gallery and the McKay family sat grim-faced searching for any hint of what had happened to Muriel the crown laid out a meticulous case they argued that Muriel had been taken from her Wimbledon home and held captive at Brooks Farm they detailed the ransom cause the postmarks from Tottenham and Woodgreen the notes written in her hand forensics experts demonstrated how the torn pages of Arthur's notebook matched exactly with the ransom letters and fingerprint examiners pointed out Arthur's prints on several of the notes as we already mentioned and then most compelling of all was the blue Volvo and the number of witnesses who had seen it outside St. Mary's house and then again on the A10 and all the rest of it and for the jury this car was kind of the smoking gun yeah because this was what they could say linked to the Husseins to every step of the crime yeah as it had gone on now both brothers denied murder but their defense is quickly unraveled Arthur tried to push all of the blame onto his younger brother insisting that he had absolutely nothing to do with it Nizam in term portrayed Arthur as the mastermind and himself as an unwilling follower dragged along by fear neither convinced the jury the prosecution emphasized the cruelty and cold calculation of the crime the bogus ransom letters the way Muriel was treated as a bargaining chip and the total lack of mercy shown to a 55 year old housewife who posed no threat in the end the jury was unanimous and in October of 1970 both Arthur and Nizam Hussein were found guilty of kidnap and murder they were sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 25 years before parole could be considered and this verdict made history it showed for the first time that a murder conviction could be secured in Britain even without a body provided the circumstantial evidence was overwhelming as one prosecutor put it at the time quote a body is not proof of death the absence of a body is not proof of life for the McKay family though it was a hollow victory Muriel's killers were behind bars but her body had not been found they left the old Bailey with justice but not closure the conviction of Arthur and Nizam Hussein in 1970 marked the end of the trial but not the end of the story for the McKay family it was only the beginning of a lifelong struggle with uncertainty and grief both brothers were sentenced to life imprisonment Arthur never admitted guilt and he remained in prison until his death in 2009 he never revealed what happened to Muriel and he maintained his silence until he died Nizam the younger brother served just over 20 years when he was released in 1990 and deported back to Trinidad for years he too kept quiet but in later life began to give shifting accounts of what happened sometimes he blamed Arthur sometimes he said that Muriel had died accidentally and that they hadn't meant to kill her sometimes he gave hints at where the body might be but his stories never quite aligned and crucially they never found Muriel at any of the sites that he said and they never gave the McKays the one thing that they needed which was just like the truth of what happened for Muriel's family the lack of a body meant that there was no funeral no grave no place to visit her daughter Diane later said quote we've lived with this for 50 years all we want is to find mum and lay her to rest over the decades the case refused to fade each anniversary brought new headlines each development reignited hope and in 2022 Nizam gave a new account from Trinidad suggesting that Muriel had been buried at Rooks Farm the claim prompted fresh police searches of the property in 2024 with officers digging up sections of the ground once again but still nothing has been found earlier this year in 2025 the family themselves funded private efforts to locate her remains even offering a 1 million pound reward for information which is so ironic another lead suggested that she might have been buried beneath an East End tailor's shop which had once been connected to Arthur okay but again no conclusive evidence has emerged meanwhile the farm Rooks Farm itself has become notorious the family who now own the land have spoken openly of its legacy noting that its value is overshadowed by its grim history as the likely site of Muriel's final hours for Wimbledon too the case left a scar a quiet suburban street had been transformed overnight into the epicentre of a national and international story and it remains one of South London's most infamous crime scenes and so the story of Muriel McKay is still unfinished her killers were caught tried and convicted but her body has never been found for her children grandchildren and now great-grandchildren the fight continues as Diane says quote mum was just an ordinary woman living an ordinary life she was never meant to be in the spotlight and yet more than 50 years later we're still here still searching for her so that's the story of Muriel McKay a 55 year old woman living a quiet life in Wimbledon who became the victim of a crime that had absolutely nothing to do with her she wasn't wealthy she wasn't famous she wasn't even a part of the world her husband worked in beyond the occasional dinner or party she was simply at home in her own house on a cold December evening and yet though nothing more than bad luck a mistaken identity she was taken and never came back her killers Arthur and Nazeem were brought to justice but justice without truth is only half the story the McKay family have never had a body to bury they've never had a chance to say goodbye and they're still waiting for closure more than 50 years later Muriel McKay's case became a legal milestone the first time Britain secured murder convictions without a body but strip away the headlines the courtroom drama the history-making verdicts and all you're left with is a family robbed of a wife a mother and a grandmother a family still living with questions half a century later and that's the tragedy of Muriel's story not just that she died but that she vanished and that she has never been brought home the end oh I just keep thinking how scared she already was after the September burglary mm-hmm how terrified she must have been yeah yeah and it's it's how terrified she must have been because she genuinely had no idea what was going on what was happening I think it's not that you'd understand if someone kidnapped you if you were famous but do you know I mean that there's almost like well I can see why I might be a target when you are as I said ordinary should have a photo of her like you are just a normal woman living your normal life and then that happens to you it's just yeah it's horrible and the fact that they cannot find her anywhere is just it makes me wonder a little bit if maybe Arthur had done something similar before right I don't know that you can kidnap someone and bury a hide a body for 55 years if you've never done anything yeah experience yeah I mean I hate to say it but you did mention pig stars yeah yeah yeah I don't know if there were any pigs there were definitely the stars but we don't know if there are any animals but yes that could have been horrible that poor woman and yeah what I found so baffling about it was that it's like it's such a famous case and yet literally no I had absolutely no idea about any of it and never heard anything about it no so that's quite interesting especially with it being a body a no body crime and conviction yeah it's fascinating it's outstanding astounding I think I meant they got the conviction yeah it's just it's heartbreaking I feel so sorry for for the generations of that family that are going to live with this yeah yeah yeah and there is I'll put it in the show notes but there is still an active website that's run by the McKay family and they post whatever they can anytime they get any publicity for the case they post about it they the the reward money is still there I think the only people that will ever be able to tell them anything is going to be Nizam and you think about he's getting on yeah how long they've got left with him but he has spoken out quite a lot in recent years there's some people who wonder if it's because Arthur's dead now yeah I was just about to say like if he was as controlling and as sharp as described that his brother might just be like okay yeah now I can start to talk about this yeah and also 55 years is a long time to kind of have you know all the memory that you might need in order to to be able to direct somebody to where she is not trying to find excuses for him but no no but yeah and I just think that it must be you know as I said earlier like if you want to go and see the videos of Alec doing the press appeals like the man is broken and he is very stoic and he is very he's of that generation but you can tell this is this has destroyed him and it's destroyed that family all because he happened to have a job with someone famous a job with someone famous and borrow the car so yeah so if anyone does want to go and have a look at those sites and stuff I would encourage you to yeah I will as I say there is a very good I did listen to the case file episode and it is very good it finishes it was obviously it was a while ago that it came out so there is a lot of the follow-up stuff but yeah it is I mean all case file episodes are good so go have a listen to that if you are so inclined and if you happen to speak Dutch then there is a very good documentary there you go I watched it with subtitles but there we go so yeah that's it so I suppose well done mate thank you very much as always oh bless you but yeah that poor family yeah it is awful nice bits nice bits I was just about to say we do a podcast we do I am hoping you know that by now listeners can you imagine she assures me these mics are plugged in we have a website we do that is sinister south pod dot co dot uk we have an email address which is sinister south podcast at gmail dot com there is the tiktok and instagram which are both sinister south pod there is the very lovely sometimes hilarious facebook group run by who knows what she is like there is the patreon you should have all sorts on there by now who knows if Rachel has pulled her finger out is that it I think that might be it if I have remembered it all yeah I think you have look at me go you are just on fire today mate absolute fire yeah so I suppose that all we have got left to say now is we will see you next week see you next week team have a good one oh no I have got one thing we have to say next week is our Halloween special where Rachel gets very very excited we are doing things slightly differently from last year so you will still have a bit of a you are going to hear from both of us next week but whereas last year we did kind of like slightly unnerving spooky stories and all of that this year we are sticking with murder because why not and you are going to have some Halloween based murder cases indeed you will so yeah hold on to your hats for that one ok champs cool have a good week look after yourselves and each other look at you Mrs Springer we love you bye bye we love you goodbye bye