John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, was a well-connected aristocrat who got away with murder, literally. Accused of killing his children’s nanny, he vanished, aided by his powerful friends. His disappearance sparked searches and bizarre rumors, and the strangest of all involved a Hollywood A-lister. Richard John Bingham, known to family and friends as John and later as Lord Lucan, was born on December 18th, 1934, in London to Kaitlin Dawson and George Bingham, the 6th Earl of Lucan.
Shortly after his birth, a blood clot in his mother’s lung forced her to remain under nursing care while Lucan spent his earliest days with a nanny. Lucan attended college and developed a knack for gambling. He regularly snuck off school grounds to place bets at the horse track. It was lucrative enough that he was able to supplement his allowance with a small income from bookmaking.
He even opened a secret bank account to keep his winnings and losses private. But there would be plenty of losses. Still, Lord Lucan had just one thing on his mind. He was popular enough to become captain of his school boarding house.
After graduating in 1953, his national service placement was with the elite Coldstream Guards, just like his father before him. Lucan found work with a London-based bank, earning five hundred pounds a year. This was on top of the roughly twelve thousand pounds he received annually from various family trusts. He was flush with cash when he befriended rich stockbroker Stephen Raphael in 1960, and could easily afford to join him for water skiing weekends in the Bahamas, rounds of golf, and late nights at the Clermont Club Casino, which became his home away from home.
Lord Lucan and Veronica Duncan married in a low-key ceremony on November 20th, 1963, just months after they met. For their honeymoon, they traveled Europe first class on the Orient Express thanks to a generous cash gift from Lucan’s father. Two months later, George Bingham suffered a fatal stroke. Lucan inherited his father’s title of Earl, making Veronica Countess of Lucan.
He also inherited 250,000 pounds. If only he had somewhere to spend it. Lucan loved a routine, and every day was the same. Breakfast with a newspaper and a walk in the park, then lunch at the Clermont Club followed by an afternoon of backgammon.
In the evenings, he’d come home and change into black tie attire, ready to gamble into the wee hours at the Clermont again. Lord Lucan invested in thoroughbred racing horses, but in 1968, he paid more in race entry fees than he received in winnings. Somehow, he kept living the high life, flying friends around to racetracks, driving an Aston Martin, speeding around in powerboats, and drinking. Clermont Club member and James Bond author Ian Fleming suggested that producer Albert Broccoli screen test Lord Lucan for the role of James Bond after Sean Connery left the franchise.
Lucan had auditioned unsuccessfully for a role in the film Woman Times Seven in 1966, so he passed on Broccoli’s offer when it arrived. On the surface, Lord Lucan and his wife were the glamorous picture of an upper-crust couple, but they were hiding the dark side of their relationship. Veronica said that Lucan spoke more to her before the wedding than he ever did after it. Veronica was depressed and desperately isolated.
Her husband barely had time for her. So, unsurprisingly, she formed an attachment with Lucan’s Clermont buddy, Greville Howard. Suspicious of the affair, Lucan warned Howard before anyone had actually crossed the line. What Veronica saw as Howard’s rejection sent her spiraling further into her depression.
Lord Lucan tried to admit Veronica to a psychiatric clinic, but she refused, agreeing to a course of antidepressants instead. The meds were one thing, but dealing with Lucan was another. In a documentary, Veronica claimed Lucan would hit her with a cane, vowing to beat “these mad ideas” out of her. Between Veronica’s struggles with her depression and Lucan’s gambling addiction wreaking havoc on their finances, the couple had a hard time keeping up appearances.
In July of 1972, Veronica bailed on a family holiday early, and after the same year’s strained Christmas break, Lucan called a doctor to ask if his wife was mentally well enough to be left alone with the children. Lucan settled into a nearby apartment, but his Mercedes-Benz was often seen parked just outside the family home. He visited his kids often, but this devotion had a twisted side. He became obsessed with winning custody of his children and started spying on Veronica to help his cause.
Having a doctor declare her an unfit mother seemed his best bet, but no luck. None would support his accusations that she was mad. He tried goading her into arguments over the phone while secretly recording them as proof. Lucan told everyone that Veronica couldn’t keep a nanny because of her erratic behavior.
It’s more likely his behavior was the problem. One nanny claimed Veronica was afraid of him and told her not to be surprised if he kills her one day. When Lucan managed to get a court order granting him temporary custody, he and two private detectives accosted the nanny while she was out with the children and simply drove off with them. No crooked lawyers and rotten psychiatrists were going to stop Lucan, and his plans to get away were brutally cruel.
He canceled Veronica’s regular grocery orders and delayed paying the milkman and the child care agency. Anything to sabotage her. He continued to have private eyes spy on her, or did it himself, as a series of family nannies would attest to. Lucan befriended nanny Elizabeth Murphy and plied her with drinks to get her to dish the dirt on his wife, only to fire her afterward.
Another nanny, Cristabel Martin, reported numerous wrong-number calls from the same man to the house. By late 1974, Lord Lucan was on the verge of bankruptcy. The custody case cost him 20,000 pounds. Strapped for cash, he asked friends and family for loans.
The debts were one problem, but friends were far more worried about Lucan’s disturbing statements. He started openly discussing how murdering his wife would solve all his problems. He told Aspinall and his mother that it would save him from bankruptcy. And he told Greville Howard that if he dumped Veronica in some body of water, he would never get caught.
In the days leading up to the horrible night in question, many described Lucan as unusually chipper. Though he generally slept until noon, he awoke early on the morning of November 7th and made several plans to meet with friends. He was a no-show to all but his appointment with literary agent Michael Hicksbeach. On the night of November 7th, Veronica and Frances were in a second-floor bedroom of the family home watching television.
Nanny Sandra Rivett usually had Thursdays off, but she changed dates to spend time with her boyfriend the day before. Just before 9:00 p. m. , after putting the other children to bed, she offered Veronica a tea and went downstairs to the basement kitchen to make one, unaware of the danger waiting for her.
Twenty minutes later, with no sign of Sandra, Veronica decided to see what was taking so long. She got to the top of the stairs leading to the basement and saw no lights on. She called Sandra’s name only to hear a noise behind her. Suddenly, she felt several violent strikes to her head.
At this point, she had not seen her attacker. As Veronica fell to the ground and screamed, a gloved hand came down over her mouth, and she heard a voice say, “Shut up. ” It was Lucan. They struggled.
She bit his fingers and grabbed his groin. Lucan lost strength and fell back. That’s when she saw the bandaged lead pipe he hit her with. He said, “I’ve killed her.
She came down first. If it had been you, you would have got it. ”
Lord Lucan had ended Sandra’s life with a fatal blow from the same pipe before placing her body in a canvas mail bag. Terrified, Veronica offered to help him escape after she tended to her wounds.
They went upstairs, sent Frances to her room, then put towels on the bed for Veronica to lie on. Lucan asked if she had any sleeping pills and went to the bathroom to wet a towel for her injured head. That’s when Veronica made her move. Veronica ran out of the house and made it to the nearby pub, the Plumbers Arms.
She burst through the doors and collapsed on the floor. Officers arrived at the pub quickly and took her to the hospital. They also forced their way into the home to check on the children and made a gruesome discovery. At the scene, investigators found blood patterns clearly marking the two areas of attack.
They found Sandra’s body, the wrapped lead pipe, and also an unscrewed light bulb from the basement which ensured the brutal act would take place in the dark. Frances told officers she saw blood on her mother’s face as her parents sent her to bed. Not long after, she heard her father call for her mother and watched him leave the house. A neighbor who knew Lord Lucan well reported her doorbell ringing at 10:30 p.
m. Shortly afterward, she hung up the phone on a caller whom she believed to be Lucan. He also called his mother to say there’d been a terrible catastrophe at Veronica’s house, where he claimed he’d interrupted an assailant. At 11:00 p.
m. , a disheveled Lucan showed up at his friend Susan Maxwell-Scott’s house and told her he’d been walking past Veronica’s home when he saw a man attacking her through the basement window. He intervened, slipping on a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs. Later, when Detective Chief Superintendent Roy Ranson asked Susan why she didn’t report the incident, her answer was infuriating.
She said she didn’t think it was important. After taking Veronica’s statement, investigators searched Lucan’s apartment. A suit lay neatly at the top of his bed next to a book on Greek shipping millionaires. His wallet, car keys, driver’s license, and glasses were on the bedside table with his passport in the drawer.
With his Mercedes-Benz in the driveway, one might assume he was prepared to make a getaway. But what about the car he actually got away in? Investigators found Lucan’s borrowed Ford Corsair in New Haven on November 10th, and it contained disturbing evidence. There was another bandaged lead pipe and a full bottle of vodka in the trunk.
On November 4th, 2022, the Daily Mail published a story claiming a former detective revealed they also found three cards from the game Clue: Colonel Mustard, lead pipe, and the hall. Though lead investigator Ranson initially suspected Lucan took his own life, there was still a warrant out for his arrest. Tracking dogs and divers searched surrounding areas for him, but turned up nothing. After multiple postponements, the inquest into Sandra Rivett’s grisly demise opened on July 16th, 1975.
Led by coroner Gavin Thurston, the 33 witnesses testifying before the jury included Veronica, the landlord of the Plumbers Arms, and forensic specialists. And it was a total circus. The Queen’s Counsel for Lucan baited Veronica to admit hatred for her husband. Then Susan repeated Lucan’s claim that Veronica had accused him of hiring a hitman.
Once the hearing was over, the jury foreman announced a finding of murder by Lord Lucan, leaving it up to the Crown Court to decide Lucan’s fate. His defenders complained the inquest was a sham. Maybe if Lucan had been there to testify, he could have explained why none of the evidence supported his story. The evidence was stacked against Lord Lucan.
Sure, he’d left no fingerprints, but Veronica said he wore gloves. Why would he have the same type of wrapped lead pipe in his car as the one the intruder used as a weapon? And how did Lucan see through a dark basement window without stooping low to the pavement? Blood patterns contradicted his basement struggle story and supported Veronica’s claims entirely.
Ranson changed his mind about Lucan taking his own life and had reason to believe he moved to South Africa to live near his brother Hugh. Another former detective on the case reported a reliable witness saw Lucan in the country in the early 1980s. Courts officially declared him dead in 2016. George Bingham inherited his father’s title.
He maintains the rest of the family still do not know who Sandra’s murderer was. Neil Berryman only learned that he was Sandra Rivett’s biological son in 2008. Since then, tracking down Lucan has been his top priority. In 2020, his own investigations led him to suspect a pensioner living in a Buddhist commune in Brisbane.
When questioned, the man, who is now 87, the same age Lucan would be, denied being the Earl. Authorities ruled him out as a possibility. But Berryman wanted an expert opinion. He sure got one.
Respected facial software recognition expert Professor Hassan Ugail recently claimed the man in question is a near perfect match for Lucan. An artificial intelligence algorithm ran 4,000 cross-checks of seven photos, four of Lucan and three of the mystery pensioner. The results, Ugail says, aren’t based on opinion, but mathematical fact. For now, the identity of the man who might be Lucan is still a secret.
But surely, there is more of this story to come.