Muriel McKay: ‘Mum’s murder felt like a thousand deaths’

Might the Hoseins have been caught sooner?

The McKays’ eldest child, Jennifer, thought a potentially vital piece of evidence she claimed to have found, shortly after the disappearance, was ignored.

She described arriving in London from their Sussex home the day after Muriel went missing.

Her father, she said, was “crazy” with worry and “didn’t know what to do with himself”.

The family had no idea what had happened to Muriel.

“It may be the IRA, it may be the mafia, we don’t know what it is,” she said.

“It was really extraordinary because it was seething with police officers and reporters in the house full stop, they were lined up along the curb outside for, well, weeks.”

The home had been combed for evidence by the police. But Jennifer said she wanted to look around the home for herself.

“I wanted to walk around the house quietly,” she said. “I’m walking all rooms just to sort of see if I could feel anything different.”

Beneath a table in a small room close to the kitchen she spotted a photograph on the floor, she said. The image was of a group of men with a campervan.