THE FINAL CHAPTER IN BRITAIN’S BAFFLING TALE OF LORD LUCAN
▶ Wife dies, 43 years after she said he killed family nanny – then disappeared without a trace
She was at the heart of one of the greatest scandals to rock British high society and an enduring mystery that has fascinated the public for decades.
And with the death of Veronica Bingham, wife of the aristocrat Lord Lucan, the mystery is unlikely to be solved.
Police yesterday said they had found her body after forcing entry into a house in the upmarket London district of Belgravia.
She was 80 and had not been seen for three days. Her death is being treated as “unexplained but not suspicious”, a police spokesman said.
She was married to Richard Bingham, the dapper, mustachioed 7th Earl of Lucan and banker-turned-professional gambler whose nickname was “Lucky”. He disappeared 43 years ago after his children’s nanny was murdered.
Despite speculation and dozens of claimed sightings around the world over the years, what happened to Lucan has remained a mystery.
He had three children with Veronica but the marriage broke down in 1972 because of the gambling debts he had accrued. Lucan moved out of the family home to another house near by and a bitter custody battle for the children ensued.
He tried to have his wife declared an unfit mother and employed private detectives to spy on her, but ultimately he gave in when he was forced to defend his own behaviour.
On November 7, 1974, his children’s nanny Sandra Rivett, 29, was found bludgeoned to death in his house in central London. Veronica was also attacked but managed to escape, covered in blood, to a nearby pub to raise the alarm.
She later identified Lucan as her assailant, saying she recognised his voice when the attacker told her to “shut up”.
She also said he admitted to her that he had killed Rivett. Veronica promised to help him escape but instead, managed to flee the house while Lucan was in the bathroom.
It was claimed that he had mistaken the nanny for his estranged wife. A borrowed car Lucan was using was later found on the south English coast with bloodstains inside and lead piping in it. But the earl, who was 39 at the time, was never seen again.
Over the years, there were reported sightings of him in Australia, India, the Netherlands, Colombia and South Africa.
One of many theories about what became of Lucan, who would now be 82, was that he shot himself and was then fed to tigers at the zoo owned by his friend John Aspinall.
In 2000, shortly before he died, Aspinall said Lucan weighed himself down with a stone before throwing himself off a ferry crossing the English Channel and drowning.
In 1999, the high court in London declared him dead, and last year a judge issued a death certificate allowing his son, George Bingham, to inherit his title.
His relatives believe him to be dead. His son said last year: “My own personal view, and it was one I took I think as an eight-year-old boy, is he’s unfortunately been dead since that time.”
Veronica, the only witness to the events leading to the murder of Rivett, suffered from depression and became estranged from her three children.
But she, too, believed her husband had killed himself in the Channel “like the nobleman he was”.
My personal view, and it was one I took as an eight-year-old boy, is he’s unfortunately been dead since that time GEORGE BINGHAM 8th Earl of Lucan