Lucan: The 10 unanswered questions...
AS WIDOW OF MURDER FUGITIVE EARL DIES...
The death of Lord Lucan’s widow might seem to bring the curtain down on a murder-mystery story spanning four decades. But experts who have followed the case for more than 40 years say there are 10 key questions that still need answers, including where did he vanish to and what led to the rift with his wife?
Lady Lucan – officially Veronica, the Dowager Countess of Lucan – was found dead on Tuesday, aged 80.
It was in November 1974 that she was attacked in her Belgravia house and the family’s 29-year-old nanny, Sandra Rivett, was bludgeoned to death.
She always maintained her estranged Eton-educated husband John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, was the killer and had mistaken Sandra for her.
His subsequent disappearance caused a global sensation and a formal death certificate was not issued until 2016.
Lady Lucan’s estranged family yesterday said they will remember her “lovingly and with admiration”, adding: “She was, in her day, beautiful and throughout her life fragile and vulnerable, struggling as she did with mental infirmity. She was and is unforgettable.”
And it is clear many people will never forget the puzzle surrounding her.
Investigative author Ian Crosby, involved with the case for 40 years, and crime historian Lindsay Siviter, who spent time with Lady Lucan, believe the riddle may never be solved. Here, they consider the 10 burning questions…
1 What caused the rift that led to the murder?
After their marriage collapsed in 1972, Lucan became obsessed with getting his children away from his estranged wife and spied on her in an attempt to find evidence to use against her.
Crosby believes the pressures of his gambling addiction, which was destroying the family’s finances, and her deteriorating mental health must have taken their toll on the marriage.
And then there was a final straw for Lucan. Crosby says: “The children had been residing with him but at a court case over custody, the judge sided with Veronica. Lucan set the wheels in motion to silence or get rid of her.”
2 How did Lucan confuse his nanny with his wife of 11 years?
The general consensus is that Lucan murdered Sandra in the unlit basement, thinking she was his wife. The women had the same slight build and used to share and swap clothes.
But Crosby believes there was no confusion – because Lucan was not there and someone else killed Sandra.
He says: “You wouldn’t mistake your wife for the nanny, even in a dark room.”
3 Did Lucan hire a hitman to kill his wife?
Sandra’s son, Neil Berriman, said last year that he was convinced Lucan hired a hitman. “Lady Lucan said it was him but you have to remember she had been hit over the head repeatedly,” he said.
Siviter believes it is plausible. “Lucan hated the sight of blood,” she says. “He was far more likely to have hired someone. He was also an expert marksman. He would have used a gun – not lead piping.”
4 Didn’t Lucan have an alibi?
Lucan was given an alibi by Billy Edgson, a doorman at the Claremont Club, where the peer gambled. In his police statement, he said he saw Lucan pull up at the same time as Sandra was killed.
Nobody was really questioned on the alibi, however. Siviter believes Billy must have been mistaken and the sighting was another night, or he could even have been asked to lie.
5 Where did Lucan go after the murder?
Lucan drove 42 miles to his friend Susan Maxwell-Scott’s home in Sussex. He told her his wife had been “attacked by a stranger in the house”. His blood-splattered Ford Corsair was found three days later at the Channel port of Newhaven, with a piece of lead pipe covered in surgical tape in the boot.
Crosby believes he fled to Namibia,
South West Africa, where he had various relatives and connections. Siviter says: “DCS Roy Ranson, who headed the case, was convinced Lucan fled to Africa. The file is still open officially, so nothing has been proven.”
6 Could he have killed himself at sea?
This is one of the most popular theories, supported by Lady Lucan herself. Earlier this year, she said she believed her husband had made the “brave” decision to take his own life on the Newhaven to Dieppe ferry.
In ITV documentary My Husband, the Truth, she said: “I would say he got on the ferry and jumped off in the middle of the Channel in the way of the propellers so his remains wouldn’t be found – I think quite brave.”
But Siviter is unconvinced. “I don’t think he committed suicide,” she says. “Lady Lucan wanted to convince herself that he had killed himself for the good of the family.”
Crosby agrees, as it’s been established that nobody of Lucan’s description was on the evening ferry from Newhaven to Dieppe that night.
7 Could Lucan really have been eaten by a tiger?
Earlier this year Philippe Marcq – part of the peer’s gambling set – claimed one of Lucan’s best friends confirmed this story to him 40 years ago.
He says Lucan was given a shotgun to shoot himself before his body was fed to a tiger owned by friend John Aspinall at his private zoo in Kent.
But Crosby says: “People want to invent these mad stories because the case has that enduring appeal and fires up people’s imaginations.”
8 Did Lucan himself end up being murdered?
Susan Maxwell-Scott told Crosby before she died in 2004 that he could have been murdered. She believed Lucan might have been helped out of the country by wealthy underworld contacts who later judged him too great a risk, killing him and burying him in Switzerland.
Advertising executive Jeremy Scott, familiar with Lord Lucan’s gambling Clermont Set, also proposed the same theory. But Crosby says: “There isn’t a shred of evidence.”
9 Was there a cover-up by the Establishment?
Lord Lucan was one of the bestconnected men in 1970s London.
While he had money problems brought on by gambling, his circle of close friends had the wealth and influence to pull off such a stunt. “He had enough friends and contacts in high places to successfully flee,” says Siviter.
10 Could any of the sightings of Lucan have been real?
There have been sightings in Africa, India and New Zealand but none has ever been verified. The first was in Melbourne, Australia, in January 1975.
Five months later he was apparently seen in Cherbourg and St Malo, in France. Fingerprints from a beer glass in Cape Town have also been probed.
Former Scotland Yard detective Duncan MacLaughlin claimed in 2003 that Lord Lucan had lived as a hippy in India until his death in 1996.
And residents in the New Zealand outback claimed in 2007 that a British expat with a posh accent called Roger Woodgate could be Lord Lucan.
Other sightings include him backpacking on Mount Etna and working as a waiter in San Francisco. One couple said they saw him in a private hospital in Johannesburg in 1995.
Crosby believes some of the sightings in South Africa are genuine.