John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan with his future wife, Veronica Duncan, October 1963 byTerry Fincher/Business Insider/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty The mystery that shrouds the murder of Sandra Rivett, a nanny, and the subsequent disappearance of Richard John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan would make an excellent holiday read if only it were not for real. It happened in 1974 and has been grabbing the headlines ever since... by Linda Stratmann via Lord Lucan Mystery site At 9.45 pm on the night of 7th November 1974, a distressed and bloodstained woman burst into the bar of The Plumber’s Arms, Lower Belgrave Street, crying out "Help me, help me, help me. I’ve just escaped from being murdered. He’s in the house. He’s murdered the Nanny!" She was the Countess of Lucan, who had fled from her home at number 46, leaving behind her three children. She was obviously the victim of a serious assault, and the police and an ambulance were called to the scene. The police officers who arrived to investigate found a substantial house with a ground floor, a basement and four upper floors. Forcing open the front door, they searched the premises, and found the children in their bedrooms, unharmed. The door to the basement was open. There was no light in the hall, so they fetched a flashlight. They descended the stairs to the breakfast room, and found the walls splashed with blood, a pool of blood on the floor, with some male footprints in it, and, near the door connecting the breakfast room to the kitchen, a bloodstained sack. The top of the sack was folded over but not fastened. Inside was the corpse of Sandra Rivett, the children’s nanny. She had been battered to death with a blunt instrument. In the hallway was a length of lead piping, covered in surgical tape, very bent out of shape and heavily bloodstained. The back door was unlocked. When Lady Lucan was able to make a statement to the police she named her husband as her attacker and the murderer of Sandra Rivett. Of Lord Lucan, there was no sign. A police officer outside 46 Lower Belgrave Street, the day after the murder. Business Insider/Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix / Getty Shortly after 10 pm, Mrs. Madeleine Floorman, a friend of the Lucans, who lived a short distance away, was dozing in front of the TV after a tiring day when she was awoken by someone pressing the doorbell insistently. Assuming it was a local youth, who had done this kind of thing before, she ignored it and went back to sleep. Some time later, the phone rang. She was sure that the caller was Lord Lucan, but he sounded distressed and became incoherent. She put the phone down and went back to sleep. (Later, some spots of what appeared to be blood were found on her doorstep).
At approximately 10.30 that evening, Lord Lucan telephoned his mother who lived in St John’s Wood, telling her there had been a catastrophe at the house, and he wanted her to collect the children. She went straight there, found the place occupied by police, and informed them that the Lucans were separated, the children were wards of court, and that Lord Lucan currently resided at a nearby flat. She then took the children to her home. The police searched Lord Lucan’s flat. He was not there, but they found his car keys, passport, chequebook, driving licence, wallet and glasses. His blue Mercedes car was parked outside. The battery was flat. (It had been suffering from battery trouble for some time). Lord Lucan was driving another car that night, a Ford Corsair he had borrowed from a friend some 2-3 weeks previously. (He had, in fact, insisted that he wanted the car for that particular evening.) It was about 11.30 pm when he arrived in Uckfield, Sussex, at the home of his friends Ian and Susan Maxwell-Scott. The house was 42 miles from Lower Belgrave Street, a journey of about an hour at average speed, though he was a fast driver and might have taken less time. Ian Maxwell-Scott was away, but his wife admitted Lord Lucan and was surprised to see him in dishevelled daytime clothing. His flannels looked as though they had been stained and something sponged off. This was Lord Lucan’s story, as told to Susan Maxwell-Scott. He had been walking past the Lower Belgrave St house, and had peeped in through the basement window. He had seen someone struggling with Lady Lucan in the basement kitchen. He let himself in through the front door and ran down the stairs. He slipped and fell in a pool of blood, and the man had run off. He had calmed Lady Lucan down and taken her upstairs to try and clean her up, but while he was in the bathroom she had run out of the house shouting "Murder!". He had panicked, realizing things looked very bad for him, and decided to get out. Between that time and arriving at the Maxwell-Scotts he said he had made three phone calls, one to Mrs. Floorman, one to his mother, and he had also tried to telephone Bill Shand Kydd, who was married to Lady Lucan’s sister but there was no reply. Mrs. Maxell-Scott said that he did not tell her where he made these calls from, but she got the impression they had been made after he left the house. At 12.15 he rang his mother from the Maxwell-Scotts house to check that she had the children, and rang Bill Shand Kydd again, but there was no reply. Lord Lucan then wrote two letters, both addressed to Bill Shand Kydd at his home in Bayswater. (They were posted the following day. The envelopes were found to have smears of blood on them.) Mrs. Maxwell-Scott tried to persuade him to remain so they could go to the local police the next morning, but he said he had to "get back". He drove away. There has been no validated sighting of him since. Three days after the murder, the Ford Corsair was found abandoned at Newhaven. Bloodstains were found inside of both type A and type B, also, a piece of bandaged lead piping, unstained, but very similar to the one found in the murder house. Further reading: https://www.businessinsider.com/lord-lucan-bingham-murder-mystery-sightings-sandra-rivett https://www.lordlucan.com/lucan_story.htm |
MORGAN MOTORS GLOSSARY the world over = all over the world craftsmanship = the skill someone uses to make beautiful things with their hands, zanatsko umeće to establish = to found, to create a three-wheeler = a bike or a car that has three wheels, trotočkaš a 4-4 = a " four-by-four", a system in which a car's engine powers all 4 wheels evenly, vozilo sa pogonom na sva četiri točka iconic = important or impressive because it seems to be a symbol of sth core = central, key, essential ash = a kind of a widespread deciduous tree, jasen bespoke = specially made for the customer who orders it, pravljen po narudžbi tailored = fitted, made or produced to fit closely to one's measures, skrojen heritage = qualities, traditions and features that have continued over many years and have been passed on from one generation to another, legacy cutting-edge (adj.) = the latest, most modern, innovative a roadster = a sports car with no roof and only two seats a two-seater = dvosed in excess of = more than to assemble = to put parts together to make the whole approximately = not precisely, not exactly, roughly multiple = more than one significant stake = major part venture capitalist = an investor who provides capital to companies with a high growth potential eponymous = in the title role to facilitate = to make sth easier or more likely to happen Lord Lucan Crime Mystery Glossaryto shroud = surround a situation or an object making it mysterious and secret
subsequent = that comes after or later Earl = grof to grab (the) headlines = get a lot of publicity from media bloodstained = covered with stains of blood a stain = a mark on sth that is difficult to remove, mrlja to burst (into a place) = to enter suddenly with a lot of energy or force Countess = grofica an assault = an attack substantial = big, considerable ground floor = the floor of a building that is level or almost level with the ground outside basement = the floor of a building which is partly or completely below ground level premises = all the buildings and land that something occupies in one place unharmed = not injured or hurt to fetch = go and get to splash = (of a liquid) to hit something and scatter in a lot of small drops to be battered = to be heavily beaten blunt = not sharp lead = soft, grey, heavy metal, olovo, olovni piping = same as pipe, cev to bend/bent, bent = saviti to doze (off) = to sleep lightly usu during the day, to nap, dremati insistently = to keep insisting incoherent = to be talking in a confusing and unclear way a ward of court = pod sudskim starateljstvom to reside = to live or stay somewhere the battery is/was flat = akumulator je (bio) ispražnjen to admit = to allow someone to come in dishevelled = very untidy, unkempt flannels = men's trousers (made of flannel) to sponge (off) = to wipe with a sponge to peep = to have a quick look at something, often secretly ad quietly a smear = a dirty or oily mark to persuade = to talk sbd into doing sth, nagovarati to validate = to confirm or prove that sth is true or correct to abandon = to desert, leave a place bandaged = wrapped, uvijen, umotan CROSSWORD |