On the night of November 7, 1974, Richard John Bingham, seventh Earl of Lucan, hid in the darkness of the basement kitchen of his own home in Belgravia, London. He was waiting for his estranged wife. The person who came down the stairs was Sandra Rivett, 29, his children’s nanny. He beat her to death. When he realized his mistake, he attacked Lady Lucan, who managed to escape, reached a nearby pub, and shouted: “He killed the nanny, help me”.
What came next is even more disturbing. Lucan was last seen at the home of some friends in Sussex, where he wrote letters claiming innocence and describing the night as a “series of incredible coincidences”. Three days later, his car was found abandoned on the south coast of England: there was the victim’s blood on the upholstery, and in the trunk, a lead pipe identical to the murder weapon. The earl was not. The coroner’s court took 31 minutes to declare him guilty of murder in absentia. Since then, there have been sightings of him on every continent except Antarctica.
What was never fully resolved is whether he acted alone or whether his circle of wealthy friends got him out of the country. His associate John Aspinall declared in 1994 that he would have done “anything” for him. A former assistant claimed to have booked flights to Africa for Lucan’s older children so that their father could watch them in secret from a distance. At the center of this whole maze of theories remains Sandra Rivett, whom many do not even call by her name.
