The Lost Lord Trivia Quiz

Answer: His children's nanny

Lord Lucan, 7th Earl of Lucan, and his wife, separated in early 1973.
On 7th November 1974 the police were called to the house occupied by Lady Lucan, her children, and their nanny, Sandra Rivett. They found the body of Sandra Rivett in the basement inside a mail sack. She had several head wounds. They also found a length of bloodstained lead pipe wrapped in surgical tape, and in a bedroom a bloodstained towel. The bulb had been removed from the basement light fitting leaving it in darkness.

Answer: Lady Lucan

The alarm was raised by Lady Lucan who ran into a local pub appealing for help. She had several head wounds and was screaming that someone was in her house murdering her nanny. She later gave a statement from her hospital bed, claiming that when she had gone to the basement to see why the nanny was so long making a cup of tea she had disturbed a man who attacked her.

She recognised his voice as that of her husband. She then claimed she calmed him down and they went upstairs. When he went into the bathroom to get a cloth to clean her wounds she took the opportunity to flee the house.

Answer: His mother

Around 10pm that night, about fifteen minutes after Lady Lucan had raised the alarm, Lord Lucan phoned his mother. He told her he had passed his wife's house and seen a fight going on, that his wife was injured, and that there appeared to be a lot of blood. He asked her to go to the house to look after the children, and then hung up.

Answer: Uckfield, Sussex

Lord Lucan was next heard from 42 miles away in Uckfield. He went to old friends Ian and Susan Maxwell-Scott. Susan Maxwell-Scott was home alone, and to her Lucan expanded on the story he told his mother. He claimed to have seen a fight, entered the house and gone down to the basement.

Here he slipped in a pool of blood. He said that the attacker had already gone, but Lady Lucan accused him of hiring the man to kill her. Whilst with Susan Maxwell-Scott he phoned his mother again to check on his children, and also tried to phone his brother-in-law.

He could not get hold of him so wrote him two letters, which he left with Mrs Maxwell-Scott to post. He left her at around 1.15am the next morning and has not been seen since.

Answer: Newhaven

Despite having promised his mother that he would contact the Police there was no sign of Lord Lucan for some days. He had been driving a car borrowed from a friend because his was being serviced, and this was found abandoned at Newhaven on Monday 11th November, four days after the murder.

Answer: Five

The story that was reported in the newspapers originally focused on the disappearance of Lord Lucan and the Police's wish to find him. There was no suggestion in the papers that he was implicated in the murder. Once his car was found abandoned speculation as to his whereabouts intensified, and the day after the car was discovered a warrant was issued for his arrest as a murder suspect.

Answer: John Aspinell

Lord Lucan was a member of the exclusive Clermont Club, a gambling club owned by John Aspinall. He, and most of Lucan's friends and relatives, were certain that he was innocent, and organised a lunch to discuss how best to help him. The media named this group the "Clermont Set", and the Police were later to accuse them of obstructing their investigation.

In the years following Lord Lucan's disappearance it was often rumoured that one or more of them had helped him to flee abroad, and were in regular contact with him, sending him money and news.

Answer: Bloodstains and a length of lead pipe

When the car Lord Lucan had been driving was found at Newhaven the upholstery was blood stained, and there was a length of lead pipe wrapped in surgical tape in the boot that matched the one found in Lady Lucan's house. This evidence, coupled with his disappearance, was enough for the Police to issue the arrest warrant.

Answer: Murder committed by Lord Lucan

The inquest into Sandra Rivett's death was held in June 1975. At it Lucan's brother-in-law read out the two letters written to him on the night of the murder. In one of them Lord Lucan repeated his story of seeing a fight and entering the house. He also said his wife would blame him because she hated him so much.

The second letter dealt with selling some family silver to clear his overdraft. The jury took a very short time to name Lucan as the murderer of Sandra Rivett. He was the last person to be named a murderer by an inquest as this practice was stopped by the Criminal Law Act of 1977.

Answer: 1992

Lord Lucan was declared "presumed dead" in 1992 and declared legally dead in 1998. Probate on his estate was granted in 1999, and his son took over the title, becoming 8th Earl of Lucan. The case was reinvestigated in 2004 using modern DNA techniques, but the results as to a mystery assailant were inconclusive. In the intervening years there have been various alleged sightings of him in various parts of the world, all false.

In an article published in 2009 journalist Keith Dovkants claimed that if Lucan had ever come to trial the evidence against him was so inconsistent that he would have been almost certain of a "not guilty" verdict.