The riveting true story of Lord Lucan's disappearance - where a British aristocrat killed his maid and disappeared forever
At 9 p.m., on November 7, 1974, a 29-year-old nanny named Sandra Rivettt descended into the dark basement of an apartment in Belgravia, London. She never walked out.
At about 10 p.m. a different bleeding woman burst into a nearby pub, called The Plumbers Arms, screaming for help.
"Help, help me," she said. "I have just escaped from a murderer. He's in my house. He's murdered the nanny."
Sources: The Atlantic, History Extra
The bleeding woman was Veronica Lucan. She had gone down into the basement, looking for Rivett, wondering why her cup of tea was taking so long.
Sources: The Atlantic, Telegraph, Independent
The man she called a murderer was her estranged husband, born Richard John Bingham, but known as Lord Lucan, or the seventh earl of Lucan.
He was a skilled backgammon player and known to enjoy a vodka martini.
Sources: The New York Times, GQ
While the identity of the murdered women was certain, a lot still wasn't clear.
Rivett was found in a US mail bag in the home's dark basement. Still contested was who did it, and why.
Sources: The Guardian, The New York Times, London Review of Books
Veronica and Lucan's relationship started out happily. In 1963, 11 years before the murder, Veronica and Lucan met at a golfing event. By the end of the year, they were married.
Veronica had said, "she was looking for a god, and he was a dream figure."
Sources: BBC, Irish Times
But things didn't work out in the intervening years.
Lucan first worked as a banker, but after he won 10 times his salary in an evening of baccarat, he became a professional gambler.
"He was famous for never showing emotion when playing other games, whether he won or lost," Stuart Wheeler told British GQ.
Sources: The Guardian, GQ, Independent, Irish Times
Every night, Lucan gambled at the Clermont Club, while Veronica was expected to sit in a women's area called the "widow's bench."
His big win had earned him the nickname "Lucky," but money was a problem.
His luck didn't last, and by the time of the murder, he owed about $60,000.
Source: Irish Times
Veronica also resented the evening routine and suffered from depression.
According to The Guardian, she told ITV that he beat her with a cane to get the "mad ideas out of your head." But they were measured blows, she said, and spiced up their love life.
Sources: The Guardian, Irish Times
By 1972, Lucan had moved out. But he was worried he would lose access to his children.
Things escalated in the weeks before the murder when Veronica won a court battle for custody. The battle had been bitter, and according to The Times, his efforts to prove she was insane had pushed him further into debt.
Sources: Irish Times, The Times
On the night Rivett was murdered, Lucan never showed up to a date he'd arranged with a woman named Andrina Colquhoun. Instead, he went to the family home, at 46 Lower Belgrave Street.
Veronica maintained Lucan had meant to kill her, and accidentally killed Rivett in the dark.
Down in the basement, she, too, had been bludgeoned over the head with a lead pipe. But she escaped by grabbing his testicles and squeezing.
Source: Independent
In the few hours before he disappeared, Lucan maintained someone else had tried to kill his wife.
That's what he told his friend Susan Maxwell-Scott, after driving 42 miles to her house in Sussex in a borrowed Ford Corsair.
He said his wife had accused him of hiring the killer, and he was going to "lie doggo." At the house, he called his mother and wrote several letters.
Sources: Telegraph, The Guardian, Independent, The Daily Beast
In the early hours of the following morning, Lucan disappeared. He was 39 years old.
The last person to ever see him alive was Maxwell-Scott. She said she didn't call the police because she didn't know he was a wanted man.
Sources: Independent, Stuff.co.nz
Three days later, on November 10, the car he borrowed was found in Newhaven, East Sussex, on the southern English coast. Inside the car, there were bloodstains and a piece of lead pipe in the trunk.
Sources: The Atlantic, BBC, The Guardian, Independent
A nation-wide manhunt began.
Police used contemporary contraptions like this autogyro, which was fitted with infra-red cameras. It could take X-ray pictures up to 2,000 feet above the Sussex Downs, which scientists hoped would lead to clues.
But the investigation was impeded, according to the Independent, by Lucan's aristocratic pals doing their best not to help. They were described as "patronizing" and "condescending."
Source: Independent
Even though Lucan wasn't found, an official inquest in 1975 confirmed he had killed Rivett.
Lucan was the last person in Britain to be convicted of murder by inquest jury. The jury took 30 minutes to reach their decision.
The New York Times headline read: "A Stylish British Lord Is Named as a Killer."
Sources: Independent, The New York Times
In 1977, four years after his disappearance, Veronica wrote a letter telling him to give himself up. But later in life, she said she thought he'd killed himself.
Source: Harpers Bazaar
What kept this true-crime mystery in the international psyche for decades were the theories of what happened to Lucan. Many suspected he was still alive, but no one could be sure.
Source: The Telegraph
One theory was that he had committed suicide by stuffing rocks in his pants after he realized his mistake. Veronica said she believed he threw himself off a ferry, purposefully aiming to go under the propellers so that no one would find his body.
Source: Independent
Another was that he disappeared into Africa. Reports of him have also popped up in Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand.
In 2012, his brother Hugh Bingham told media outlets that he was sure Lucan had made it to South Africa. Having said that, they hadn't spoken for years even before his disappearance.
By 2017, Lucan had been "seen" more than 70 times.
Sources: BBC, Independent, The Daily Beast
A third was that he shot himself and was then fed to a tiger.
When Lady Osborne met police, she reportedly told them, "The last I heard of him, he was being fed to the tigers at my son's zoo."
Source: Independent
When her son-in-law John Aspinall, who owned a private zoo, was questioned, he said he served his tigers better quality meat.
Source: Independent
In 2004, police reviewing the case said they thought he had managed to escape, helped by his close-lipped friends.
Again in 2017, a detective who had run the case at one point told The Sun he had no doubt Lucan got away, helped by his friends, who he called, "The Sloane Square Mafia."
Stephen Raphael, one of Lucan's friends, reportedly said he met with Lucan at Aspinall's zoo to discuss what they should do next.
Source: The Daily Beast, The Daily Mail
In 1999, Lucan was declared legally dead. And in 2016, an official death certificate was released so his son could take the title.
Source: Harpers Bazaar
A year later, in 2017, Veronica was found dead in the same house her estranged husband had been living in when he disappeared.
She reportedly died of a drug overdose. After her death, letters were found beneath the floorboards. In them, she lamented how she was portrayed in the media and claimed Lucan was unstable.
Sources: Harpers Bazaar, Stuff.co.nz
In January 2020, Rivett's son Neil claimed he discovered Lucan living in an unnamed city in Australia, living as a Buddhist. Scotland Yard says it's looking into the claim.
Sources: The Times, The Daily Mail,
Rivett had previously told the Irish Times, "There is no getting away from the fact that, whatever happened that night, Lord Lucan is guilty of something in my eyes."
Source: Irish Times
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