Lord Lucan disappeared on this date in 1974. The 7th Earl is famous for vanishing in 1974, after his children's nanny, Sandra Rivett, was bludgeoned to death in London, and his wife Veronica was also attacked. 10 things you might not know about him:
His given name was Richard John Bingham and he was 7th Earl of Lucan. He was an Anglo-Irish aristocrat, the eldest son of George Bingham, 6th Earl of Lucan, and Kaitlin Dawson. The title, in the Peerage of Ireland, dates back to 1691. Some of his ancestors were quite notorious as well. George, 3rd Earl of Lucan, was one of the officers involved in the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade. The 4th Earl was known as “The Exterminator” because of the number of evictions he made to his estate during the Potato famine in Ireland. It was said that he regarded his tenants as vermin to be cleared off his land.
He went to Eton, and it was there he developed a taste for gambling. He’d sneak out of school to place bets on Horses and did well enough to supplement his allowance. He opened a secret bank account in which to keep his winnings.
Later on he would earn the nickname “Lucky Lucan” thanks to his early success at gambling tables, although the nickname didn’t confer any guarantees. He once lost today’s equivalent of £90,000 in one evening. His best results came from games involving skill such as bridge or backgammon. He became not only the backgammon champion of the west coast of North America, but was listed as one of the best players in the world.
An average student, upon leaving school he served as an officer in the Coldstream Guards. After that, he worked for a bank in London.
James Bond creator Ian Fleming was a fellow member of the Clermont Club, and when Sean Connery left the franchise, Fleming suggested that the suave, handsome Lord Lucan would make an excellent Bond. Producer Albert Broccoli offered Lucan a screen test, but he declined. By coincidence, the man contracted to fly an autogyro with infrared cameras during the search for Lucan after he disappeared had previously worked on a James Bond film.
He met and married his wife, Veronica, in 1963. For their honeymoon, they travelled first class on the Orient Express, paid for by Lucan’s father. The couple had three children, Frances, George, and Camilla.
It wasn’t a happy marriage. Veronica suffered from post natal depression and was isolated and lonely as her husband spent all his time at Gentleman’s clubs and casinos. Veronica claimed he was violent, too: she said Lucan would hit her with a cane, vowing to “beat these mad ideas out” of her. The cane was wrapped in bandages to soften the blow. He suspected her of having an affair with one of his friends, tried to get her committed to a mental hospital, but doctors could find no evidence of mental illness. So he asked the doctors if she was sane enough to be left alone with the children, and when they said she was, he moved out. However, he was obsessed with getting custody of the kids and would spy on Veronica and try to get the succession of nannies to provide him with evidence to help his case.
On the night of the murder, Sandra Rivett (who was supposed to be on her night off but had switched in order to spend time with her boyfriend the previous evening) offered to make Veronica a cup of Coffee, but never returned. Veronica went to investigate and was attacked, according to her account, by her husband, who hit her over the head with a pipe. He said, “I’ve killed her. She came down first. If it had been you, you would have got it”. Veronica pretended to be willing to help him escape and tended his wounds, but managed to get out of the house and run to a nearby pub, screaming “Help me! My children...he’s murdered my nanny”! Police found Sandra’s body. She’d been killed by a fatal blow to the head and her body placed in a mailbag. Meanwhile, Lucan had legged it. He phoned his mother, but the police were with her, so he said he’d call back, but never did. He wrote a letter to a friend in which he described his version of events, which was that he’d past by the house and seen, through a window, an intruder attacking his wife. He’d gone in to intervene and the intruder had run away. He said the evidence against him was strong, and Veronica was paranoid and would say he “did it”, so he was going to lie low for a bit. He was never seen again. On February 3, 2016, a high court judge granted a death certificate to the family and his son inherited the title.
During the investigation investigators searched Lucan’s apartment and found a suit laid out on his bed beside a book about Greek shipping millionaires. His wallet, car keys, driver’s license and glasses were on the bedside table and his passport was in the drawer. His car was found abandoned in Newhaven. In the boot was a bandaged Lead pipe and a full bottle of vodka. It was claimed much later, by the Daily Mail in 2022, that the detective on the case had revealed that there were also three Cluedo cards: Colonel Mustard, Lead Pipe, and The Hall. Nice twist – but it was the Daily Mail so probably not true.
The mystery of what actually happened to Lord Lucan has remained in the public imagination ever since. Veronica’s theory was that he topped himself by jumping off the Newhaven ferry, although his body was never found. Many people have claimed to have spotted him in various places: driving a New York taxi, eating in Paris cafes, drinking in Irish pubs, in an ex-Nazi colony in Paraguay, working in a vineyard in the Rioja region of Spain, running a Sheep station in the Australian outback, backpacking on Mount Etna and working as a waiter in San Francisco. Some more bizarre claims include that he lived in India as a hippy called 'Jungle Barry'; that he was fed to the Tigers at a zoo in Kent; that he was held to ransom by the IRA, who shot him; that he’d been killed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who he’d hired as a hit man, and who wanted to cover it up. There is no evidence to support any of the sightings. That said, Sandra Rivett’s son has dedicated his life to tracking down his mother’s killer, and claimed he’d found him, living in a Buddhist commune in Brisbane. The old man in question denied being Lord Lucan, but when facial software recognition expert Professor Hassan Ugail compared photos of this man with Lucan, he said they were a perfect match.
Character birthday
When the call came for all Innovians to leave Bird Island, Gemma and Kyle were too drunk and stoned to respond. They were sucked through the wormhole caused by the nuclear test to Earth, where they teamed up with Earthguard.
Gemma obtained the power of regeneration from the wormhole, but Kyle was not so lucky. His body turned to organic sand. Although he survived, Gemma ended their relationship as she could not cope with his new appearance.
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