The Disappearance of Lord Lucan

**Discussion begins at 6:30**

Lord Lucan, the 7th Earl of Lucan, vanished in 1974 under circumstances so strange they have fueled decades of conspiracy theories. On November 7, his family’s nanny, Sandra Rivett, was brutally murdered, and his estranged wife, Veronica, survived a violent attack. While police named Lucan as the prime suspect, he disappeared without a trace that night, leaving behind a cryptic note to his mother and hints that he might have planned his escape. Some theorists suggest that Lucan didn’t just flee—he orchestrated a perfect vanishing act, using his wealth, aristocratic connections, and meticulous planning to vanish from the public eye and start a new life abroad.  The mythos of Lord Lucan continues to grow because there is no closure. No body, no confirmed sightings, no final confession—just endless speculation. Lucan was declared legally dead in 1999, 25 years after his disappearance, though conspiracy theories about his survival persist.

Transcript

Hey, guys.

Welcome.

We're in our new studio.

Coming to you live from the She Shed.

I don't know if we can really call it a She Shack because it's like in the house.

This is the cutest room in Megan's house.

We got men in kilts.

This is-

We have pretty floral wallpaper.

This is the office slash reading nook slash guest room slash recording studio.

It's literally the cutest thing in the world.

Megan did such a good job on the wallpaper.

The crown molding.

Or, I mean, it is.

Then Jeff made her this beautiful desk.

What a brother.

She has this cute body pillow that we're leaning against.

It's just a whole lot.

My friends have really been hyping me up this week.

I love this.

Megan's favorite time.

Well, first of all, we're here.

Yeah.

3Scheme Queens.

We are the three again.

Colleen took a hiatus from all of her babysitting and dog sitting inside hustles to join us.

Yeah.

The busiest person in the world.

Yeah.

Big news.

Yes.

What's the big news?

Well, since we last recorded, we have a new Taylor Swift album.

Oh, that's right.

I was like, what is the big news?

I do not understand.

Yes, Taylor Swift.

Should we tell the people what we think?

Yeah.

Well, we have a whiteboard at my apartment that I put my schedule on, and I put TS13 in all caps with sparkles and different colors, because I was so excited.

Awkward.

This is not TS13.

No, definitely not.

Mermaid Girl and I had a little midnight listening party.

Yeah, it was cute.

I fell asleep.

But we're all going to definitely have to have a listening party for TS13.

Yeah.

Oh, for sure.

Very divisive.

People have strong opinions.

I say, first of all, you can't say you hate it if you haven't listened three times.

You have to listen to it more than once.

Taylor Swift grows on you.

Number two, I would say, it might not be her deepest album, but it's got a lot of bops, she's happy.

You know what?

There's a song for every mood from Taylor Swift.

If you're not feeling life of a showgirl, go put Torture of the Spartan on.

Although I don't understand how you can say that this isn't as deep because she's still singing about the fate of Ophelia, which then people are like, who's Ophelia?

People don't even know.

You go down the rabbit hole of who Ophelia is.

People didn't even know half her references until like-

That's why she grows on you, right?

Because you listen and you re-listen, you're like, that was so deep.

He's smarter than all of us.

This morning, I just texted them in the car and I was like, I just had like three epiphanies about like references she made in her songs that I haven't heard up until now.

Anyway, we don't want to spend too much time talking about this because not all of our listeners are Swifties.

We could do an episode on her.

But I'm sure you all have been dying to know what the 3Scheme Queens thing were.

We're all pro and we are all pro.

Definitely pro.

Yeah.

This might be my new favorite.

I mean, I love 1989.

This is similar.

1989 vibes.

It's very similar vibes, which is probably why I like it so much.

I mean, you guys know, I have been saying since before midnight.

Before midnight that I just was ready.

I love all the love album, but I was ready for an album that Kait and I can go dance to with Mermaid Girl and get pertussis at the club.

Yeah.

And I feel like, because that happened guys.

Yeah.

And I feel like this was it.

Yeah.

I got my dance.

And there's not a single skip on this.

No.

There's skips on 1989 for me.

Like Shake It Off, Skip.

Oh, I like Shake It Off.

Oh no.

No, this album has zero skips.

Yeah.

I don't think it's going to be my favorite album.

No.

But it's definitely, but I don't think anything tops around.

I love Ruin the Friendship.

Don't know what it's doing on this album.

It's definitely giving Fearless or, yeah.

But yeah, but I love the song and I'm with you guys.

No skips.

No skips.

So is it time for our drink check?

Drink check.

We have, I'm going to get into it.

We have a listener recommendation here.

Oh, we do?

Yes.

We'll get into it.

But our story is taking place in England.

And actually, our next two episodes, this week and next week.

Can we hear in a British accent?

Yeah, we can.

It's my Cockney accent.

You know, it's not...

You're a wizard, are you?

He's Scottish, isn't he?

Isn't Hagrid Scottish?

It's Leviosa, not Leviosa.

Right.

But first, because this week and next week, we have some British stories to round out our true crime bur.

Yeah.

We're having a snake bite.

Yeah.

An authentic drink I've had in many a British pub.

I've never heard of it before.

The way I've always had it, though, has been with a lager and a cider.

So that's what it is.

Half hard cider, half lager.

But then when I went online, they were talking about doing it with a dark beer-like...

Guinness.

Guinness.

So we made each of them.

Colleen's feeling the Guinness one.

I like it.

It's good.

I am having the lager and Kait had a sip and did not make a face and is drinking a seltzer.

Yeah.

She didn't like it.

I said, mm-hmm.

I said, Megan, don't make three.

I said, do you want it?

We said, wait, wait, wait, put that other cup away.

I said, I'm sure you don't want a beer.

Do you want some cider?

And she said, I don't like cider.

I said, of course you don't.

So here we are.

I love cider.

She knows what she likes.

So that was our drink check.

Yeah.

Two thirds of the Scheme Queens approve.

Yeah.

Why do they call it a snake?

Honestly, it's a great drink for the vibes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It feels like a fall drink.

Yeah.

So Michelle, a listener, she recommended some kind of local conspiracy she wanted to hear about.

Okay.

What did she want to hear?

And this is the first one.

This is about Lord Lucan.

So Lord Lucan, the seventh Earl of Lucan, vanished in 1974 under circumstances so strange, they have fueled decades of conspiracy.

1974?

Yep.

Okay.

Well, we're 30 years ahead of last week.

So there was definitely electricity.

In my head, I'm thinking of it back in the 1800s because of the lords.

People are still lords.

No, think like Doughton Abbey.

It's think like Doughton Abbey.

They still are lords and lady.

The British aristocracy is still alive and well.

Yeah, that's true.

So on November 7th, his family's nanny, Sandra Rivett, was brutally murdered and his estranged wife, Veronica, survived a violent attack.

While police named Lucan as the prime suspect, he disappeared without a trace that night, leaving behind a cryptic note to his mother and hints that he might have planned his escape.

Some theorists suggest that Lucan didn't just flee.

He orchestrated a perfect vanishing act using his wealth, aristocratic connections, and meticulous planning to vanish from the public eye and start a new life abroad.

The mystique of Lord Lucan continues to grow because there is no closure, no body, no confirmed sightings, no final confession, just endless speculation.

Lucan was declared legally dead in 1999, 25 years after his disappearance.

The conspiracy theories about his survival persist.

So he disappears after the murder?

Yeah.

But not during the murder?

How could he disappear during the murder?

Okay, well, hold on.

He was not present immediately after the murder.

The murder happened...

Why don't you just wait for the story?

Okay, okay, okay.

I'm trying to put the timeline in my head.

He looks like he would be, like, such an a-hole and degrading, but he's just kind of nice to look at.

Like...

He's not unattractive, but he looks a little douchey.

He looks like a period piece man, and I'm really into that.

He looks like Schmidt.

Yes.

He does look like Schmidt.

Like, if a frat boy was British, was a British lord.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Also, that kind of looks like Brad Pitt trying to play him.

So, let me start by telling you about the murder victim, because the murder victim always gets lost.

This is the nanny.

The nanny.

Oh, he was definitely boning her.

That's what I think.

Actually...

There is no evidence of that, and she pretty much hated him, but...

She really hates sex.

But yeah, you would assume, when you hear the story that the nanny was murdered and the wife was assaulted by, allegedly, the kid's dad, you assume they were property.

Oh, most definitely.

So, Sandra Rivett was born September 16, 1945.

She was a popular, intelligent teenager, but she did not excel academically.

She did suffer from mental health issues, specifically depression, and had been a voluntary patient in a mental hospital.

She had a son, Stephen, in 1964, but after the dissolution of her engagement, her parents, Albert and Eunice, ended up adopting the baby the following year.

Then she had another son, Neil, who was also put up for adoption at birth.

Well, there's a whole documentary about the son, Neil, and I think he's got some issues.

So, this is the nanny had two children that were adopted, but was she like a teenage?

She was engaged, she had a baby with her fiance.

Okay.

That engagement ends, her parents adopt the baby.

Okay.

Parents, I heard...

That was the first one.

Okay.

Then she had another baby.

I cannot tell you the details of that, but that baby gets put up for stranger adoption.

He finds out, like, on his mother's death, his adoptive mother's deathbed about his birth mother.

Yes, and he's now on this quest, but I think he's got some mentally ill issues.

Well, she was mentally ill, so...

It is genetic.

In 1967, she was married to Roger Rivett, a Royal Navy Able seaman, and eventually Robert became distrustful of what Sandra was doing while he was at work, so they separated.

She took a job as a nanny for Lord and Lady Lucan and her three children just 10 weeks before the murder.

So she was only working for this family for two and a half months.

So she was only the nanny for two months?

Two and a half months.

Right.

And she got brutally murdered.

So she wasn't like a young nanny.

She was kind of like-

He was born in 1945 and this is 1974, so 29.

I guess this is kind of young.

She's kind of young, yeah.

Yeah, she's kind of a maid by then.

So Lord Lucan, he is like the British DB Cooper meets OJ Sosa.

He was born December 18th, 1934 to an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family.

The family spent much of his childhood living in New York, but moved back to England in 1945.

He attended Eaton College where he got into gambling and was a bookie.

From 1953 to 1954, he served in the British Army and was stationed in West Germany where he mastered poker.

He briefly worked at Brant's Merchant Bank in London, and he failed to progress there because he was making 500 pounds a year and then he won 26,000 pounds in a game.

And he was like, why am I working so hard at the bank?

I can just be a professional gambler.

So he earned the nickname Lucky.

And people say initially it was because he won this 26,000 pounds.

They're like, man, you're lucky.

And then it became sort of facetious because he was so bad.

He was always losing, like an ironic nickname.

He's so lucky.

He's a star.

Yeah.

In 1963, he met Veronica Duncan.

I did see in one of these documentaries that people were like, actually, we all thought maybe he was like, gay?

Oh, always pro.

Well, actually, I like the way the British person said it in the one documentary.

She was like, he was known to be safe in a taxi or something like that.

Like you didn't have to worry about him touching your tits.

Yeah.

So it sounds like probably it was sort of like, you're a lord, you need to settle down, you need to have some children.

Yeah.

So he settles down with Veronica Duncan.

They married later that year, two months after the wedding on January 21st, 1964.

His dad died of a stroke.

That's when he became the Earl and his wife became Countess.

They had three children, Lady Frances Bingham in 1964, George Bingham, the 8th Earl of Lucan in 1967, and Lady Camilla Bingham in 1970.

Lucan continued to lose money gambling, and so he had a lot of financial stress.

There was a strain of erronicous postpartum depression, and so they separated in 1973.

Doesn't, isn't he like part of the generational wealth?

Correct.

Okay, so he's making none of his own money.

He's losing all of his inheritance gambling.

My God.

The couple engaged in a bitter dramatic custody divorce.

She made allegations of violence and odd sexual proclivities.

He reported that she was mentally ill.

Yeah, he looks like the kind of guy that would be like, mm, put you in a sex trap.

And then like, you know what I mean?

Like, he looks like he's into weird stuff.

Okay.

I could see it.

Um, you know what I mean?

Yeah, I guess.

You guys haven't lived on the internet long enough.

She alleges that while she was depressed, he had been trying to commit her to establish her as an unstable mom so he could earn custody.

So while she was under psychiatric care because she was bipolar, she had a letter from a doctor saying that as long as she took her lithium, she was a safe mother.

So again, early 70s, he's heavy into gambling and drinking.

He had just spent about 20,000 pounds on this custody battle, which he ultimately lost.

And so he had been stalking her and he even had audio recordings of phone conversations in which he accused her of being a mentally unfit parent.

He's crazy.

This sounds like a very toxic.

He would like call the house, he would taunt her, he would hang up.

We've got all this recorded.

Wow.

Apparently one time the nanny like to go, was like, leave us the F alone.

And like, whatever.

Wow.

That's our background.

Okay.

Here's her story.

On the evening of November 7th, 1974, Lady Lucan was attacked and she burst into the plumber's arms.

This was a pub where Sandra's boyfriend actually worked as a bartender and claimed that her husband had attacked her and had killed the 29 year old nanny, Sandra Rivett.

Oh, God.

According to Veronica, Sandra had put the children to bed just before 9 PM and asked Veronica or Lady Lucan, they're one of the same, if she would like a cup of tea.

She went down to the basement kitchen to make one.

What we know from the detectives who are first on the scene is that the light bulb had been removed from the fixture and was sitting on a nearby chair.

We theorize that she was attacked in the basement and somebody was waiting for her.

Lady Lucan claims that after Rivett didn't return with the tea, she went down to the first floor and stood at the top of the basement stairs and called to Rivett before she was attacked by an unknown man.

From behind.

Whoa, this is like a classic horror story.

Yeah.

You see the camera panning from the dark stairs down below up to the bright light.

And she's focused at the bottom of the stairs.

Got it.

What's coming from behind her.

Classic horror story.

And then music gets slowly louder.

Exactly.

So she claims that she was attacked by this unknown man.

But when he told her to shut up, she recognized his voice as her husband, Lord Lucans.

Okay.

The two fought.

She ended up grabbing his testicles.

Good for her.

Until he released her.

Good for her.

So it feels like there's probably this whole adrenaline rush.

She just grabbed him.

She grabs him and then they just kind of crash.

Now they're both just like sitting there like worn out from this tussle, scuffle.

Yeah.

I don't think my instinct would be grab the balls, but that's such a good instance.

So after this little scuffle, he admits to having killed Rivett.

Again, this is her version of events.

Lady Lucan offered to help him escape, but she had to manipulate a little bit.

So she was like, I have to recover from this fight we just had.

So if you stay here for a couple of days and help me recover, I will help you flee London.

Right.

Oh, so he's stupid.

Right.

Like, killed her.

So he put his oldest daughter to bed.

Plot hole.

Somebody woke up, probably.

Oh, so the daughter for sure saw the dad in the house.

She saw both her parents in the house after this fight.

Okay.

You're jumping ahead.

This is real.

I guess, like, the oldest daughter comes out.

He's like, let's go back to bed.

He puts her to bed, and then he tells Veronica, she's bloody, she can't be laying down on the bed, getting blood stains anywhere, so he tells her to lay on a towel.

He went into the bathroom to get a towel, and then also maybe some sedatives for her.

Oh.

And she takes that opportunity to run.

Good for her.

And that's when she fled to Plummer's Arms.

Which is a bar.

And it is important to note that blood typing, this, like, pre-DNA, did confirm this version of events.

Like, there was, like, blood on a towel in the bedroom, and blood at the top of the stairs, and all of that.

And it was all the same blood.

Blood in the basement that matched Sandra's, and there's blood at the top of the stairs that matches Lady Lucan's, and there's blood in a towel in the bedroom.

And so based on that information, it matched.

Okay, I'm with you.

9:45 p.m.

now.

So at 9.45, she ran into the plumber's arms yelling, Help me, help me, help me.

I have just escaped being murdered.

He is in the house, and he has murdered the nanny.

The police arrived.

They noted that the front door was kicked in.

They found a bloody towel in the first floor bedroom, and the top of the basement staircase was blood-stained.

There was a blood-stained pipe on the floor, so that's what they think was this murder weapon, and the walls and banisters were damaged, indicating an altercation.

There was a large canvas sack in the basement.

It was like a US mailbag, with an arm hanging out of it, and a pool of blood surrounding it.

Just an arm?

Yeah, just an arm.

She was in the bag.

Oh, okay.

I definitely thought that her arm had been stabbed.

They see an arm hanging out of the bag.

A dangle and her arms were cut off.

Her legs were cut off.

In the meantime, the police went to investigate Lord Lucan's home, because again, they're separated, right?

Right.

On a bed was a suit and a shirt, alongside a book on Greek shipping millionaires and Lucan's wallet, card keys, money, driver's license, handkerchief and spectacles were on a bedside table.

His passport was in a drawer, and his blue Mercedes-Benz parked outside.

It's engine cold and battery flat, because he had been driving his friends for Corsair for the last two to three weeks.

Okay.

We know the next step that Lord Lucan took.

So we know he then fled to his aristocratic friends for help.

He first went to the home of Madeleine Florman between 10 and 1030.

So this, it sounds like, was like his daughter, his kid's friend's parent.

Okay.

And they were friends, but I guess, allegedly, he fled to her to be like, can you go take care of the kids?

But she said she didn't answer the door because she was alone.

Her husband was out of town.

And then, so he's found on the door 10 to 1030.

Then she gets an incoherent phone call a little bit later, but she hung up.

His blood type was found on the front stoop.

So we know he was there and this matches her story.

And again, the theory is that he was going to send her to check on the children.

Yeah.

Between 1030 and 11 PM, he called his mother and he told her to go get the children.

He told her there had been a terrible catastrophe that he had been driving by and saw Veronica in an altercation with a man in the basement of the house, like saw this through the window.

So he had to...

He just happened to have been there.

So he couldn't go in there, though, to help the kids.

I think he's alleging he saw this, then he did go in.

That would be my question.

But then why can't he stay with the kids?

That would be my question for him if I was his mother.

Why does he need to urgently leave?

So then he drove the Ford Corsair 42 miles to East Sussex to meet the Maxwell Scots.

While there, the Earl had written two letters to his brother-in-law, Bill Schanckid, who was the step-uncle of Princess Diana, and posted them to his London address.

At about 12:30 a.m., he spoke with his mother again and told her that he would be in touch later that day, but declined to speak with the police.

She was like, Police, you're here.

You want to talk to me?

He's like, No, no, no.

I'll reach out to them later.

They know he drove off.

And this was the last time he was ever seen.

Whoa.

His car was found abandoned in New Haven, 16 miles away, presumed to have been left there sometime between 5 and 8 a.m.

It was soaked in blood, belonging to both Lady Lucan and Sandra.

Whoa.

So those letters that he mailed to his friend, his brother-in-law?

Here's what it says.

The first one says, Dear Bill, the most ghastly circumstances arose tonight, which I briefly described to my mother.

When I interrupted the fight at Lower Belgrave Street and the man left, Lady Lucan accused me of having hired him.

I took her upstairs and sent Frances up to bed and tried to clean her up.

She laid doggo for a bit, which I guess is what the Brits mean for...

Laid down.

Yeah.

For a bit.

And when I was in the bathroom, left the house.

The circumstantial evidence against me is strong in that V will say it was all my doing.

I will also lie doggo for a bit, but I am only concerned for the children.

If you can manage it, I want them to live with you.

He says somebody will handle the school fees.

V has demonstrated her hatred of me in the past and would do anything to see me accused.

For George and Francis to go through life knowing their father had stood in the dock for attempted murder would be too much.

When they're old enough to understand, explain to them the dream of paranoia and look after them.

Yours ever, John.

Oh.

The dream of paranoia?

You know, it's old fashioned and I can't really speak to the language.

Yeah, I think, I think lay doggo means like lay low.

You know what else this movie, kind of fun, fun story, that story he told in the note, that is the plot of the movie, The Fugitive.

Whoa.

But that about him?

Well, that came out in 1993.

So we have to say that that probably, he probably inspired the movie, not marrying around, but interesting.

So pretty much she's claiming again that he intervened with this intruder attacking his wife.

And she's like, and my wife accused me of hiring a hit man to kill her.

So there was an inquest into the murder in June of 1975.

During the inquest, the jury was out for only 31 minutes and their verdict was murder by Lord Lucan.

It was the last time that an inquest jury exercised its right to name a murderer.

So the inquest jury declared, like, Lord Lucan did this, he's the murderer in 1975.

In October 2004, Scotland Yard reopened the case and it's been open ever since.

So it's considered unsolved now.

OK, so that's the background.

And so you guys are just dying to get into what could have happened in the theories.

Wait, so, like, we saw his abandoned car and then never saw or heard from him again.

He's never been seen again.

I have some ideas.

And I have a question.

Why was the case opened up again?

They were looking for DNA.

I mean, I think probably there's a lot of circumstantial evidence, but like he, I think it's probably different from just having a bunch of people sit around in the 70s and be like, yeah, we think this guy did it, that sounds good.

And like actually having evidence and proof proof and a real trial by jury and all.

Yeah, I think that he probably made some gambling mistakes.

It might have been taken out by somebody.

Ooh, yes.

Is Veronica still alive?

She died in 2017.

So she ran to this pub to call the cops and then like she lived to tell the tale.

She did.

Her kids don't talk to her anymore.

She was estranged from her children.

Hmm, that is giving me vibes.

Also, interestingly, he keeps making, he told this story that I had to leave because Veronica was going to accuse me of hiring a hitman.

But Veronica never actually ever said, she never made that accusation.

Right.

So that's also weird.

Kait, your first question was maybe he didn't really mean to kill the nanny.

Yeah.

Do we think he meant to just kill his wife?

So that's sort of the general recognized theory before we get into like the deeper conspiracies.

Yeah.

The general thought is, accepted theory is that this was a case of mistaken identity.

Okay.

Hold on.

I'm falling.

He knew that the nanny was off on Thursdays, because that's when she would go be with her boyfriend who worked at the pub.

And that his wife liked to make tea at 9 PM.

He had positioned himself in the basement.

Again, this is the theory.

He goes down to the basement.

He unscrewed that light bulb to make it nice and dark.

And he just didn't wait to attack his wife thinking, she was making her own tea at 9 PM on Thursday.

Greville Howard, a friend to a police, Lucan had told him that killing his wife would save him from bankruptcy because he could reclaim the house and he could dump her body in the solent and she would never be found.

The initial theory was that he was trying to attack his wife.

And again, it was supposed to be the nanny's night off, but she had actually swapped nights off.

So while she wasn't supposed to be there, she happened to be there.

I'm benounced to him.

Lady Frances said that she had been in the second floor bedroom watching TV.

Lady Frances is the older daughter that you were like, what was she doing?

She had to be asleep.

So she had been in the second floor bedroom watching TV and she heard her mother scream, but had assumed that the cat had scratched her.

Later, her parents had walked in together and she had noticed that her mother had blood on her face and her father was wearing a full length overcoat, which doesn't really actually match Lady Lucan's description of how he looked.

But Frances was set up to bed and later heard her father calling for her mother and saw him searching then going downstairs.

And she confirmed that during that last weekend she'd been with her dad.

She told him, yes, Sandra goes out with her boyfriend on Thursdays and she's not home.

So we know the daughter told her, told him this.

She shouldn't have been home, but she was home.

So most people, that is the theory, the except for our story.

That makes sense.

I think it's not, so it does not make so much sense, because they look nothing alike if you pull up their appearances.

She had defensive wounds and bruising to the front of her face, so they would have had to have been face to face having an altercation.

So we would have had time to be like, wait, this isn't my wife, right?

Sandra was a 29-year-old redhead.

She was five foot two inches, which was the same as Lady Lucan, but she was a little bit fuller in figure.

Maybe he killed her, like maybe he did go to kill Veronica, but he killed the nanny because he didn't want other witnesses.

Yeah, he was already ready to go.

And then when he saw Veronica, maybe he changed his mind.

Or maybe he just took it all out of him.

He was like, I can't, yeah, I don't know.

Also, I guess it was dark, but it is interesting to note that, like, it's not like he snuck up behind and killed her and was like, oops, I got there.

They were definitely unlikely.

They had a chance to look at each other and know.

Well, my guess is that he just pulled a notable and was like, I can't have any witnesses here, so.

Yeah, that's kind of what I was saying.

So, like, sorry you weren't the intended target, but you're my collateral damage.

Or alternate theory that I kind of leaned toward.

Oh.

He wanted to kill the nanny.

Maybe he isn't the actual murderer.

Maybe he did hire a hitman to murder his wife, and the plan was that the hitman was going to kill the wife, and then he was going to show up to dispose of the body.

Because why did he kill her and then put her in this bag where the arm was?

That just seems like a lot of work.

Right.

Unless someone else had done it, and his job was supposed to be to come get the bag and clear it out.

I'm sorry, if you're spending money on a hitman, they better clean up the seat.

He better do the whole thing.

Yeah.

Like, no, I don't think so.

Also, it would make sense why maybe the hitman didn't know he got the wrong person.

Right.

So, like, Lord Lucan walks in and is like, you have one job.

Maybe he was telling a partial truth and that he was doing a drive-by, because maybe he knew that the hitman was coming that night, was doing a drive-by, but then chickened out and tried to come in and stop the end.

Yeah, that actually makes sense too, because maybe both stories are technically right.

Technically true, yeah.

He's like, the circumstantial evidence is awful, to be clear, but I have a reason why.

Yeah.

Okay.

Lady Lucan, who again, just died in 2017, she has never been of the opinion that her husband hired a hitman to kill her, contrary to what he wrote in this letters again, where he said, my wife's going to accuse me of hiring a hitman.

She's never accused him.

But again, I think that the way that body was packed in the canvas bag gives, like, I'll take care of your wife and you just dispose of this.

But also, like, if there was a hitman, wouldn't she have remembered there being another man?

But she was upstairs.

She just came down when he came in to get the body.

Okay.

Wait, wait, wait.

Did the basement have an exit?

Or was it one of these things where you had to go back up the stairs?

I'm also assuming it's a big house because they're rich.

Yeah, but it's like London.

I do believe, Kait, that when you see pictures, there's like an English basement situation.

So I think there was probably a basement exit.

Okay.

So then the Hitman, because that was my question is like, if he runs in, where does the Hitman go?

Yeah.

Also, if he was down in the basement and then got, she looked down in the basement and got attacked from behind.

Did he know to come upstairs and grab her?

Or do you think that they would have just waited down in the basement?

I think the Hitman killed her in the basement, puts her in a bag, leaves.

Maybe while this is happening, Lord Lucan drives by and is like, this is my story, this is whatever, I'm going to go in and say I intercepted this thing.

Right.

He walks in, he just happens to walk in behind his wife who's like, hey, where's the tea?

Right.

So now he comes up behind her on the first floor and is like, she's still alive, he didn't do his job.

Yeah, and takes her.

Oh.

Well, I guess what I'm saying is if you think it's one killer, if you think he is the one that was in the basement.

If you think Lord Lucan did it in the basement.

Right.

Then why?

How did he end up behind her upstairs?

Exactly.

That's a great thought.

Well, I don't think that Lord Lucan necessarily killed her, so you've just given me more ammo for my onion.

Then a couple more theories.

Again, we got a couple more theories, and then we're going to talk about the conspiracies.

I think that when people are doing an investigative, like they're doing investigations, they should always bring us on board, because I think that's a great question.

I think you're really smart.

Yeah.

Then there's this other kind of crazy theory that maybe Lady Lucan killed her to frame her husband.

There's a couple different things about this.

On the one hand, they're saying Lady Lucan was beat pretty good.

Yeah.

She probably had a TBI, so even her version of events, if she was being honest with her version of events, can we really believe it with 100 percent accuracy what she had gotten part of the story wrong?

But also, there's some circumstantial evidence such as the presence of both Lady Lucan and Rivett's blood at the crime scene, the possibility that Lady Lucan's head injuries were self-inflicted, because I think people just think she was crazy enough that she could have done that.

I don't know that we have any proof that she caused her own injuries.

She was in the middle of this very bitter, very gusty battle.

And so I think people are just like, no one actually saw him.

We all assume Lord Lucan killed her.

No one actually saw it.

How do we know it wasn't the wife?

She had motive.

Maybe she was trying to set him up, make him look bad, frame him.

And then there's also theories that as we get into the gambling underworld, that maybe he had some enemies who were trying to frame him.

Not so much that he hired someone to...

But somebody was trying to set him up.

I think I'm more pro that.

To frame him.

Yeah, I think I'm more pro that.

Her son, who was estranged from his mother at the end of life, says, I've always thought it extraordinarily unlikely my father went into our family home, wandered down and killed anybody with a piece of lead piping for the love of his children, while those very children might as well come downstairs and witness this appalling carnage.

I think definitely gambling was involved.

And like a...

What do you call it?

A mob boss.

Yeah.

So mob's a theory.

Was the mob involved in the murder and was the mob involved in getting...

And his disappearance.

Yes.

I think 100%.

That's all my eggs.

That's what I...

In that basket.

Aries.

But a couple of other thoughts, guys.

Like, just some side notes before, again, we get into the conspiracy stuff.

Like, interesting that he borrowed his friend's car two weeks prior.

Yeah, why?

He said he was having car shoes, but was he...

Did he need a alternative vehicle because he was planning this?

Yeah, right.

He had an extra murder weapon in the car.

They found, like, another piece of pipe in the car, so that was weird.

Another theory is that this was just a random burglary gone wrong, which is kind of the way Lord Lucan tells it, right?

So that Sandra was killed not by Lord Lucan, but by an intruder who broke into the house that night.

They were in a very kind of posh neighborhood, but there were a string of burglaries in the 1970s.

And again, Lady Lucan's account was very fragmented, and people are like, fragmented, but can we even believe her?

Because she had TBI, maybe.

And a mental health issue.

Yes.

And so then people are like, and maybe Lord Lucan, as he said, just like panicked because he was like, people are going to blame me, and he just...

Vanished, yeah.

So let's talk about the mob, the gambling underworld.

Okay.

Lucan was drowning in gambling debts, and some theories claim that Sandra's murder was a warning hit gone wrong, ordered by criminal creditors to intimidate him.

If you believe this, then the killers bungled the job, right?

They murdered the nanny on X instead of Veronica.

Right.

Right.

And again, his disappearance might have been orchestrated by the same people to just silence them and cover their tracks.

Aspinall is a character we haven't really talked about.

He was a wealthy society figure, a professional gambler, he had his own gambling house.

That's where Lord Lucan went to gamble all the time.

And he was also a celebrated zoo owner.

Whoa, that's...

That's weird.

Yeah.

And it goes into this theory that maybe he was sped to tigers.

Oh.

So he ran exclusive gambling clubs in London, such as the Claremont Club, where Lord Lucan was a regular.

And so, again, when we know that Lord Lucan fled and he was going to all of his rich friends and he was looking for help, again, people are like, I think that his kind of wealthy friends from his, from this world helped him make his escape.

Aspinel himself claimed that Lucan confided in him after the killing, telling him it was a mistake and that he had meant to kill his estranged wife, Veronica.

Oh.

And actually in one of these documentaries, the allegation is that Aspinel had just gone through like a divorce.

His wife had cheated on him and he managed to, like, get the kids and the money.

And so they're talking about how when he's trying to get divorced, maybe Aspinel's in his ear, like, you've got to do something to make sure you get the kids and you get the money.

Yeah.

And he was maybe encouraging him in this whole, like, let's paint a picture of she's crazy and needs to be, you know, put in a psychiatric ward.

So sounds like he was maybe not a good influence on him, but also Lord Lucan owed him a lot of money.

And so people go back and forth.

I'm like, this guy was owed a lot of money by his rich friends.

And that's like, this is who gives him money, right?

So he can't really be mad at them and cut them off.

Right.

Yeah.

It's not the first person that's been in debt to him.

So people have all these thoughts about Aspinel.

So Aspinel said, I did talk to him, he told me that he did it, but it was a mistake.

And then Aspinel thinks that Lord Lucan then killed himself afterwards.

I could believe that.

But also if he was helping him get away and escape, that's a great story to say.

Right.

Oh yeah, he killed himself.

And I could see them funding him to go live in the Bahamas.

Yeah, exactly.

You know what I mean?

Or South America or something.

In the decades following Lord Lucan's disappearance, Aspinel often defended his friend publicly.

He maintained that Lucan was not a murderer in the sense of a cold-blooded killer, but a man driven by desperation during a bitter custody battle.

Again, because he was a powerful, well-connected figure, suspicions linger that he and others in this gambling group may have financed or facilitated his flight, or at the very least covered for him.

Those are the murder theories, and they will get into where he went.

So you guys still think maybe the mobsters did it as a warning, like you owe us money.

Yeah, and here's a warning, we're going to kill your wife.

So if he disappeared?

I sort of feel like, I feel like he hired a hitman, maybe funded by his friends.

No, well, hear me out.

He hires a hitman with money he doesn't have, promising them he's going to get him the money because he's going to get the house.

No, but he's going to kill without the money in their pocket.

And then, well, a gambler would make this deal.

Right.

And then what happens is he doesn't get the money because the hitman gets the wrong person.

Oh.

He believes because he knows the mob's going to be after him and he doesn't have the money.

The mob finds him and then kills him and feeds him.

To the tigers.

To the fishes or to the tigers?

Well, he could be sleeping with the fishes.

You mean before he knew he was even drowning?

Yeah.

Question 2.

Did he live?

Did he get away?

So this is how, if he got away, where is he now?

Not even that.

Just like, what do we think happened to him?

Question number 2.

So Lady Lucan thinks that he took a ferry from New Haven, that's where his car was found, and jumped off the boat to his death in the Channel.

Wait.

So she thinks he committed suicide because he couldn't live with himself after what he did?

I guess.

I think she's wrong.

He was declared legally dead in 1999, but there's a lot of drama here.

The son George was to inherit his titles, so he pushed for his dad to be declared legally dead because then he became Lord.

Oh, and then he gets the money.

Well, there's not any money, it's just titles.

Right.

The police said, okay, because they want a tidy ending, right?

The police is like, yeah, you want him declared dead, we'll do that, because I'm going to have to look for him anymore, right?

But again, people believe he's still alive.

I mean, here are the questions.

Did he have the money to start over?

Did he?

We think not, but you know, new people, right?

Right.

Maybe he got it from his mom or his brother-in-law?

My thing is, if he's getting it from his friends, who's willing to fund his disappearance for that long, like to today?

Well, they probably didn't fund it.

They probably just had to get him away, and then he could figure it out on his own, right?

He had to get, so he had to get a new identity and maybe just some startup cash.

So he could just go and get his life together.

And go be a professional gambler somewhere else, right?

I don't know.

Well, this kind of goes back to when we talked about, did Hitler escape?

Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking.

Argentina.

So Lord Lucan has that very mustache.

That's his signature look, right?

Yeah.

It's kind of like Hitler.

When we looked at memories with all these pictures of Hitler, if Hitler were to shave, how he would have been unrecognized.

So like if this guy had a mustache, if he had actually shaved his mustache, he might have been unrecognized.

Yeah, I could see it.

But also, could he have stayed out of trouble?

Like, again, like Hitler.

I'm like, I don't think Hitler didn't have the ego to like get himself caught.

I feel like, could this guy have escaped somewhere?

I'm like, I'm done with the gambling.

No, he had a different personality, clearly.

Lady Lucan thinks that he was not the sort of Englishman to cope abroad.

He likes England.

He couldn't speak foreign language, and he preferred English food.

Also, who prefers English food?

He probably killed himself.

He left bangers in mash.

There's another witness, Philippe Marck.

What the heck is this guy, the guy I met?

Yeah, this witness is coming out of the woodwork now.

He was in the gambling circle.

He was a stockbroker.

He knew Lucan from gambling.

He claims that Lucan traveled to a private zoo in Kent, owned by Aspenel, after the murder.

He sent himself to the Tigers.

He said they had a conversation.

Aspenel was like, what?

They talked about, like, what's best for your family, Lord Lucan.

And after that conversation, a pistol was offered to Lord Lucan, who took it, went into a room on his own, and shot himself dead.

Whoa.

Okay.

He was told that the body was then fed to one of John Aspenel's Tiger.

I believe that.

Will tigers eat humans?

They'll eat whatever you want if they're hungry enough.

Didn't you watch, what's that show that was trending during?

Oh, Tiger King?

Yeah.

They'll eat whatever you want if they're hungry enough, you know what I mean?

Yes, tigers can and do eat humans, though it is rare for them to prey on people.

They and do.

So I guess if they're presented it, do you think his body was chopped into pieces and then fed to him?

It says that they were usually, usually when tigers eat humans, it's like a threat situation.

Not like a hunger, it's like a defensive thing.

So if you just threw this body, would they eat it?

Right.

Like, we smell advertising.

Maybe you withhold food from them.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, like that they...

And then after a day, they're like, this...

Also, how many rich people are taking actually good care of large cats?

So these cats are probably underfed, you know, malnourished, not in the correct environment, not willing to eat whatever.

So I bet they did eat the body.

Did they test the poop?

Can you test the poop?

I don't know.

Can they digest bones?

Probably now.

I'm sure you could now.

But they eat the bones.

I don't think they would eat the bones.

They would spit the bones out.

And then you can't even really just burn the bones.

You know, you got it with the bones.

Right.

We talked about that last week.

Right.

You got to grind them.

And wouldn't they have found the bones?

Like, did they do any investigation at the zoo?

No, I don't think it's a random guy who's like, oh yeah, years ago this thing happened.

It doesn't know.

No.

Again, as far as why Aspenel just seems like such a weird character, they had had dinner together on this night.

Wait, wait, were they?

I mean, maybe.

Were they hooking up?

He was kind of a weird dude in like the dramatic reenactment that I.

Oh my God, I bet they were hooking up.

There's always a gay subcut for Colleen.

Colleen's like, now I'm interested.

Now, Lucan's like the gay in the basement hiding away from public eye and they have cats together.

Suddenly, it's romantic.

I'm into it.

Aspenel and Lucan, as I said, were friends.

In fact, Lucan was a regular at Claremont Club.

They had had dinner the night that this all went down.

Then he left it on the way home as apparently when he witnessed this thing and went to his house, right?

The circle of friends who we think, if anyone was involved in helping get away, could have been them.

They all claim that they think he died that night by his own hand.

They say he was very skilled at motorboat racing.

I think he had a boat there at New Haven where his car was frowned.

I think he jumped into one of his little motorboats, went out to sea, put a big weight around his body and jumped overboard and settled the boat.

He said, well, I always think that if someone who has been a great friend is then in a terrible position, you rather feel more warmly towards him because that's when you're needed.

A friend is needed when things are going badly.

Anyone can be a friend of a successful man who's done nothing wrong and is in the New Year honors.

But somebody who's in trouble, who snapped and done something silly, that's when you need your friends.

I'm more of a friend of his after than I was, so I haven't seen him because if he wanted me to do something, I'd do it for him.

But he could be writing to him.

Because he needs one and like everyone else in life, I like to be needed.

What's the use of a friend to because you make one mistake?

Suddenly, I don't believe in that.

So this Aspenel character sounds...

Well, first of all, that was a very weird thing to say.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's like very like lots of ideas with like interjections, but not a lot of like places to take the sentence.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

He's not like, he's not really committing to anything with that sentence.

He's just being very vague.

I just feel like I don't know why this guy got involved, but I feel like he's definitely involved.

He definitely knows something.

And again, I kind of think he, I can believe the dramatization that I'm going to link as our recommended content where the theory is that he was like, you got to do what it takes to get your kids.

And that maybe he was like involved in this.

And then when it went wrong, maybe he helped him get away or gave him the gun and fed him to his tigers.

I don't know, but definitely I feel like he knows something.

Yeah.

His assistant claims that she actually helped book flights for Lord Lucan's children to go to Africa to see their father in the late 70s.

And so her version is that the kids never saw the dad, but they would send the kids where the dad was so the dad could like...

See them.

See them.

Do you guys want to hear the sightings before you commit to whether or not you did?

So the most plausible of the sightings is South Africa in the 1980s in Johannesburg in Cape Town, which by the way, we were like on two separate ends of South Africa.

But several casino employees claimed a man matching Lucan's description had been gambling in Johannesburg in Cape Town, which again, I would believe if he got away, you know, he didn't just like...

He's gambling...

.

lean up his act.

He was reportedly seen carrying himself with distinct upper-class British air and frequently avoiding cameras and attention.

He was seen using British money and occasionally slipping into upper-class circles suggesting he might have been attempting to recreate a familiar lifestyle abroad.

Multiple independent witnesses, which all casino staff claimed to have seen this man match the description.

So this seems like a pretty plausible situation.

Again, he was hanging with like British ex-patriots.

So that is the one theory.

And again, it kind of goes along with the theory that Jill Finley, the former assistant said that she actually bought tickets for his kids, for him to see his kids.

Yeah.

Okay.

Then we have Australia in the 90s, Sydney and Melbourne.

A retired nurse in Sydney claimed that she recognized him reading in a park at a Melbourne bar owner.

I mean, how close are Melbourne and Sydney to each other?

Australia?

Yeah.

42 Wallaby, Sydney.

It's like 900 kilometers apart.

Oh, of course.

So that's pretty far.

Yeah.

Of course.

A Melbourne bar owner said a man claimed to be a minor aristocrat fit Lucan's description perfectly.

Again, there's a lot of theories that he could be in Australia because it's English-speaking and it makes sense.

I mean, South Africa is English-speaking.

She, well, they're Afrikan, but they do also speak, a lot of them speak English.

It was a British colony.

Yeah, but they speak Afrikan.

Afrikan.

What is Afrikan?

It's a language that they speak in South Africa.

Wait a second.

That's how you made that up.

Yeah, I really thought you were just...

No, it's spelled A-F-R-I-K-A-A-N-S.

West Germanic language spoken primarily in South Africa, originating from Dutch vernacular.

I thought you were trying to do an accent.

No.

Afrikan.

I don't do accents.

Afrikan.

Now, when I told you that I think that that son who was put up for adoption, who never met the nanny, is a little bit crazy, he 100% believes there's this man living in Brisbane, Australia, who he thinks is Lord Lucan, because there was some facial recognition technology that said they could be a match, but they've since identified that man as Derek Crowther.

Poor man.

Also, it's Christopher Newman.

He was in Canada before the murder, so it's like, does the time even make sense?

And anyway, when he keeps asking guys, like, I know you are, and the guy, I think the guy is, like, some dementia.

And it's like, oh, you knew, you know who I am?

And he's like, see, look, evidence, but-

But he is dementia?

I think that it's just the-

Yeah.

The son is just looking for an answer and is locked in on this guy.

There's also some, like, some rumors that he was spotted in the French Riviera in the 70s and 80s, frequenting Monte Carlo and Nice, because that's where the wealthy people live, and that he would stay in luxury hotels that are different names, often avoiding photographs.

Where does he get on?

Again, plausible spot, but I don't think he would have had that.

I don't think, if he had-

someone gave him the money to get out and start a life.

I can't believe he was, like, raking it in and hobnobbing in, like, these rich areas, right?

And then there's some theories that he was, like, seen in, like, rural UK.

Some less plausible sightings in India, the United States, South America, Caribbean, New Zealand.

So there we go.

Do you guys think he-

I think he got fit to the tiger by the mob.

Yeah.

I think the mob's involved.

When we keep saying mob, we just mean, like, the gambler-

Yeah.

The gambling people were-

Well, I mean, who do you think owns the casinos?

The mobs.

Well, I don't know if it's like-

Well, I don't know.

That guy's name I kept saying.

He owned the casino?

I said that like three times.

Oh, I've missed that part.

He owned the Claremont, I think.

I definitely thought he just ran in the circles.

No.

I think I believe that he gave him a gun and told him to kill himself and fed him to the tiger.

Would he have killed himself?

I guess that's my question.

What was the, I guess, what's the motive?

What's the motive?

I mean, what can he do after the set?

What's the motive?

He knows he's framed.

He said he didn't want his kids to watch him go to jail, get accused of murder and everything.

Why would the friend then feed him to a tiger?

To destroy the evidence?

Why would he destroy the evidence if very clearly he went to a room and shot himself?

Why would you have to destroy evidence for that?

Well, they'd be aiding and abetting a criminal if they saw him.

He was on the run.

They knew he killed somebody.

I don't know.

I really, I do think that the...

Want him to be eaten by a tiger.

I think the tiger thing is a leap.

I think someone was just like, this man owned a zoo?

Yeah.

That makes for a really great story.

Right.

I feel like he has, if he hasn't, if he wasn't found, I feel like he's got to be dead at this point.

Even if, even if he got away.

Yeah.

He's definitely dead now.

Right.

It was definitely dead right now, especially if he was continuing his gambling lifestyle.

Oh, yeah.

And I mean, it's almost 2030.

He's dead.

Also, I have to remind myself that it's probably a lot easier to disappear in like the 70s when you don't have...

That's what I was......cameras.

Social media.

Yeah.

No facial recognition.

Yeah.

I just, I don't know.

I like my idea where he hired a hit man with the money that he didn't have promising him that he was going to get him the money.

He with the estate that he would have like inherited when his wife died.

However, the plan was botched.

He could not get the money and then he had to go on the run and the mob found him and somehow, they killed him and got rid of the body.

Sleeping with the fishes in the channel.

Colleen.

I think gambling mob men killed nanny wanting to have killed Veronica because he owed them money.

Then went after him.

Did he get away or was he murdered?

Murdered.

Yeah, I think he took out a hit because he wanted his wife out of the picture so that he could have the house because he went so much debt.

He could have his kids and then it just went badly.

Although again, I agree with Colleen that like if I'm paying a hitman.

Clean it up.

Get the body out of the house.

Also I'm like, you got a body in a bag.

That's like got to be most of the work.

What if he did hire a hitman and the hitman changed his mind and he went to go get his wife?

Then why would his wife be attacked, I guess?

Maybe the hitman was supposed to kill all the adults and leave the kids.

The better deal would be he just wouldn't go into the house because then he has an alibi.

He's not in the house and his wife just finds the dead nanny and is like someone broke into the house.

Right.

That's what I think.

I think you took out a hit and I think the hitman messed up.

But I can also see your point that maybe it was, in all these documentaries, everyone's like, no one was really mad at him for owing money, but that's what you would say now.

I bet your point about was this a warning?

I have your money or you're next.

Yeah.

Did he get away?

I just don't know why he would jump into the water.

Again, I would believe more your perspective that they got rid of him.

I feel like he fled to all these rich friends who seemed to have loyalty.

This guy was weird.

He probably didn't help him get out, but I'm sure he didn't last very long because he probably pissed off some people and died pretty soon after.

Yeah, guys, don't gamble.

Gamble responsibly.

Yeah.

Drink responsibly.

Yeah.

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Kait, what should the people do?

They should pull out their phone right now and text three people that you think want to murder their nanny.

Right.

Or have a nanny.

Or.

Or the nanny.

Yeah.

Because I think that they would like this 70s murder drama conspiracy podcast.

And after you do that, you scroll in down, leave us a five-star review, leave us a comment, share us on your social media platform, and interact with us on our social media platforms.

And yeah.

We'll see you next Tuesday.

See you next Tuesday.