If anyone has cause to believe in the power of investigative journalism, it’s surely Jane MacSorley. The broadcaster, podcaster and producer has spent three decades probing unsolved crimes and miscarriages of justice. Her investigations into the deaths of army recruits at Deepcut barracks resulted in a conviction, as well as the unearthing of a fifth victim. Meanwhile more recently she brought to light the story of fraudster Nicholas Rossi in Audible Original, I Am Not Nicholas. 

But it was while working in Australia for the BBC that she received a call about a truly extraordinary case. ‘I’m ashamed to admit this,’ MacSorley says over Zoom, ‘but I'd never heard of it before. I can't believe I'm actually saying that.’ That case was the kidnapping of Muriel McKay in 1969 (when MacSorley was only a year old). It made headlines at the time for a number of reasons: the public ransom demand and the real-time unfolding of a cat-and-mouse chase between police and kidnappers. But perhaps most chillingly, the case was notable because it wasn’t McKay whom the kidnappers had in their sights. They had been aiming to take Rupert Murdoch’s wife, but had instead stumbled upon the wife of Alick McKay, an executive of Murdoch’s News Limited. 

‘The podcast is a complete A to Z of the case,’ MacSorley says. ‘We go right back to when it happened, we feature a lot of the calls [from the kidnappers] which are just spine-chilling, there is no other word for them.’ Over weekly episodes, Intrigue: Worse Than Murder walks the listener through the trauma and horror, from the point of view of those affected. Recently, old wounds have been re-opened, as this year police renewed their efforts to locate McKay’s body, which has never been found.

For MacSorley, it was important to have the blessing and collaboration of McKay’s three surviving children, and she formed a particular bond with her son Ian, who lives in Australia. ‘I just thought there is no way on earth you can do this properly on Zoom,’ MacSorley says. ‘He was on his own where he lives, with nobody there. You just needed to be there, not quite holding his hand, but to be there for him.’

Empathy for the survivors, says MacSorley, is the driving force behind the work she does. ‘I feel so privileged meeting with unbelievable people that I have so much respect and admiration for, that have just lived torture,’ she says. ‘In the McKay case, their lives have been a living hell a lot of the time.’ 

New episodes of Intrigue: Worse Than Murder are available weekly on BBC Sounds.