LUCAN LEFT 3 CLUEDO CARDS IN CAR HE DUMPED
Colonel Mustard, in the hall, with lead piping. A sick joke – or an extraordinary confession?
CRYPTIC new clues in the Lord Lucan mystery can be unveiled by the Daily Mail today – Cluedo cards found by police at the time showing Colonel
Mustard, the lead piping and the hall.
Almost 50 years after his family’s nanny was found bludgeoned to death with a lead pipe, it can be revealed that these three cards from the aristocrat’s board game were discovered in his abandoned car.
The tantalising development has never been made public before. The
trio of Cluedo cards appears to chillingly represent the killing of Sandra Rivett – prompting the question of whether her death was planned.
Lord Lucan went on the run after Miss Rivett, 29, was murdered with a lead pipe in his Belgravia house. His wife Veronica survived a similarly brutal attack by the killer, whom she named as her Etoneducated husband.
While Miss Rivett’s body was found in the basement kitchen, forensic tests found blood at the top of the staircase in the hall.
Police probing the infamous 1974 murder found three cards were missing from the former Coldstream Guards member’s set of the game. They were located in the fugitive earl’s Ford Corsair car when it was found dumped in Newhaven, East Sussex, after he fled.
The bizarre twist has been unearthed nearly 20 years after Scotland Yard held a cold case review into the murder which still captivates the world.
The Mail has also uncovered a never before seen 1953 portions.’ trait of Lucan in his Army uniform, in which the then 19year- old bears a striking resemblance to Colonel Mustard – raising the possibility that the killer modelled himself on the Cluedo character.
Of the six playing pieces, Colonel Mustard is portrayed as a white colonialist and big game hunter. Like Lord Lucan, he is depicted as a dignified, dapper but slightly dangerous ex-military man.
Following a major Mail investigation, details of the Cluedo connection have been revealed by sources with knowledge of the Met’s 2004 review.
One former investigator said: ‘If Lucan did leave the Cluedo cards, it makes me think the whole thing (the murder) was pre-planned.
‘It is interesting. It is strange. The more you think about it, the more it has got implications.' The Mail has also learned that during the 2004 review, detectives became aware of another alleged sighting of Lucan – which has not previously been reported.
Police tracked down a woman who claimed that she met Lord Lucan at a party in Portugal after the murder.
She said she was introduced to the fugitive by one of his inner circle at a villa on the Algarve – but Yard commanders blocked launching a new inquiry into the case on cost and proportionality grounds.
A source said: ‘She was adamant she was introduced to him in the weeks or months following the murder. Was she genuine, was she credible? It was a potentially significant lead which needed more work done on it. Who invited her to the party? Who else was there? Who could corroborate what she was alleging?’
Over the years there have been hotly contested claims that the so- called ‘Clermont Set’ of rich gambling friends of the playboy father-of-three – including zoo owner John Aspinall and tycoon James Goldsmith – helped him escape for a new life abroad, possibly in southern Africa.
A number of ex-Lucan detectives are convinced he did not jump to his death in the sea, as many have speculated.
In other revelations, it has emerged that 20 years ago police considered using covert techniques to obtain the Lucan family’s DNA, to compare to the earl should he turn up alive. The idea was never pursued.
According to a confidential Met report obtained by Sandra Rivett’s son Neil Berriman, and now published on his website, Scotland Yard do not have a confirmed set of Lord Lucan’s fingerprints.
There has been no confirmed sighting of Lucan since a few hours after the Rivett murder on November 7, 1974.
Monday will mark the 48th anniversary of the killing.
Lucan was declared legally dead in 1999. In 2016, a death certificate was issued allowing his titles to be inherited by his son George. If still alive, Lord Lucan would be 87.
Scotland Yard’s 2004 inquiry – Operation Abberton – was part of a ‘cold case review’ of the killing which was expected to throw up significant new lines of inquiry. Hundreds of pieces of evidence were reassessed by detectives and forensic experts.
In 2003 Lady Lucan – who died in 2017 – said it was unlikely her husband’s fate would ever be known.
Lucan’s son, the 8th Earl of Lucan, declined to comment on the Mail’s revelations.
‘It is interesting. It is strange’