September 12, 2023 • 38 mins
[CONTENT WARNING: this episode contains depictions of violence and spousal abuse.]
On November 7, 1974, John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan committed a horrible crime: attacking his wife, Veronica, Lady Lucan, and murdering their nanny, Sandra Rivett, in the family's quiet Belgravia home. But it's what happened after that turned the story into a true-crime legend: the morning after the murder, Lord Lucan disappeared.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky Listener Discretion advised Thursday, November seventh,
(00:23):
nineteen seventy four. The residential London neighborhood of Belgravia was
known back in the Tudor period as a hotspot for
highwaymen and robberies, but by the nineteen seventies it was
considered a quiet space in the heart of the city. Today,
(00:45):
the neighborhood's Lower Belgrave Street has its own wiki page
with four notable residents listed, two writers, the wife of
a Nicaraguan dictator, and John Bingham, the seventh Earl of Lucan.
The night of November seventh, Lucan's estranged wife, Veronica, was
(01:10):
home with the couple's children and their nanny, a woman
named Sandra Rivet. Thursday was normally Rivet's night off, the
evening she would go out with her boyfriend, but Sandra
switched her schedule that week and had seen her boyfriend
the night before. A little before nine, Sandra Rivet put
(01:33):
the youngest children to bed and asked Lady Lucan if
she wanted a cup of tea. After a while, Veronica
began to wonder what was taking the nanny so long,
and so she headed downstairs to the home's basement kitchen.
She made it to the top of the basement stairs,
(01:56):
where she was struck by a metal pipe. Aving to
later testimony, Veronica screamed for her life and then recognized
her attacker's voice as her husband's when he told her
to shut up. A struggle ensued. Lucan only released the
(02:18):
grip on his wife's throat when Veronica managed to grab
his testicles, and he gave up the fight. With tensions
slightly calmer for the moment, Veronica asked her husband where
Rivet was. At first he was evasive, Finally he admitted
(02:39):
she was dead. In an attempt to placate her husband
and by herself some time, Veronica suggested she would help
him dispose of the body, but that she had to
stay in the house until her wounds from their earlier
fight were healed. Her gambit was successful. Lucan agreed, and
(03:02):
when he went into the bathroom to get a wet towel,
Veronica realized he wouldn't be able to hear her over
the running water. She fled the house and successfully ran
to a nearby pub, the Plumber's Arms. The story of
the Lucans captivated the nation and continues to perplex true
(03:25):
crime fans to this day, not only because it was
a murder case involving nobility, but because of the incredibly
mysterious circumstances of the crime's aftermath. In nineteen seventy five,
Lord Lucan was found guilty of the murder of Sandra Rivet,
(03:48):
but he wasn't there to hear his sentence, nor did
he serve his time. In fact, the last time Lord
Lucan was seen was the day after the murder, November eighth,
nineteen seventy four. Lord Lucan simply disappeared, despite being legally
(04:12):
declared dead twice. The whereabouts and status of Lord Lucan
remain a mystery to this day. Lady Lucan's opinion has
oscillated over the years, from her being convinced her husband
was still alive at times in the decades following his disappearance,
(04:33):
to the staunch belief that he must be dead. Described
in her twenty seventeen obituary by The New York Times
as imperious and wickedly witty, Lady Lucan's life was documented
from nineteen seventy four up until her death through a
(04:55):
series of interviews and reflections about the fateful day in
question and the abusive marriage that preceded it. Her marriage
has largely defined not only her public image but her life.
Lord Lucan may Or may not have been able to
(05:16):
escape with what he had done, but Lady Lucan was
the one who had to live with it. I'm Danish
Schwartz and this is noble blood. Lady Lucan was born
(05:42):
Veronica Mary Duncan on May third, nineteen thirty seven, in
the coastal English town of Bournemouth. Her father, a major
during the First World War, died in a car accident
when Veronica was only two years old, which meant Veronica
and her younger sister, Christina were raised entirely by their mother.
(06:07):
The sister's childhoods were spent between England and South Africa,
where their mother remarried, and then Veronica would settle in London.
As a young adult, she spent her first years out
of school doing what many do, throwing interests and possible
careers at the wall and seeing what stuck. She went
(06:31):
from art school to helping out in her stepfather's bar,
to modeling school, to learning shorthand, which eventually led to
becoming the director of a small printing company. She recalls
she didn't date much during this period of her life,
but that would change in nineteen sixty three. That year,
(06:54):
Veronica's younger sister, Christina, married William shand Kid, the son
of a wallpaper magnet, and the sisters were both introduced
to London society. If that name, or the phrase British
wallpaper magnet is ringing some kind of bell for you, you
(07:16):
probably know a lot about Lady Dye. William shand Kidd's brother,
Peter shand Kid, was Princess Diana's stepfather. It was at
a London Society function, a golf club actually, where Veronica
first saw Lord John Bingham, eldest son of George Bingham,
(07:40):
sixth Earl of Luken. Although their exchange was brief, he
stood out to Veronica among the other men present. Quote
he looked like a gentleman, almost in caricature, Veronica recalled
in her memoir, it's a good description. John was apparently
briefly considered for the role of James Bond before Sean
(08:05):
Connery beat him out for it, probably on the grounds
of acting experience. That was March. Veronica wouldn't see John
again until August, when John visited Christina and her husband
at their country house in the south of France, and,
remembering Christina's sister, Veronica asked for her to join. Christina
(08:30):
was weary of the potential match, warning Veronica that he's
got socialist parents, he's a professional gambler, and he's said
to be queer. Quite untrue, Veronica would reflect on the
last bit, but no one could deny John's gambling addiction.
(08:51):
He had first picked up the taste for it as
a student at shocker Eton College before becoming a regular
at the Clermont Club as an adult. He would sometimes win,
but his losses were often bigger, once he found himself
out ten thousand pounds in one night. She recalled that
(09:15):
the two spent time together during this trip, but Veronica
didn't feel a spark, and she was surprised to learn
he was interested in her. When he asked her out
following their return to London. He was apparently impatient to
sleep with her, and they did so after a few dates.
(09:35):
John's passion it appears was even more intent though, when
it came to powerboats. He had spent all of his
money buying one, which he called White Migrant, and had
his sights set on winning the Daily Express powerboat race. Quote.
He was obsessive about gambling and everything else he was
(09:56):
interested in. Veronica reflected if he also later observed that
spending all your money on a boat was a silly
thing for someone without a job to do. Quote, why
would I work in a bank when I can earn
a year's money in a single night at the tables,
John once told a colleague after he lost out on
(10:17):
a promotion and quit. Apparently his boating aspirations weren't totally
far out. White Migrant was leading the race for some
time before it sank then and there during the race,
leaving John's only asset at the bottom of the English Channel.
(10:41):
Despite what was perhaps a perfect symbol, Veronica did not
see the fate of the White Migrant as representative of
their budding relationship. It seemed they were headed toward marriage,
both feeling like it was time to take the step. Quote,
you haven't got a line on your face, John said,
(11:02):
praising the youthful appearance of his Then wait, for it.
Twenty six year old girlfriend Veronica reflected with a sort
of tragic honesty in a twenty seventeen documentary I Was
Getting On, She said, I was twenty six, and in
those days you were approaching being on the shelf. John
(11:25):
was twenty nine, and while men generally had a longer
shelf life when it came to marriage, then he also
felt it was time. Both of them seemed to have
the idea that marriage was what they were supposed to do,
not necessarily what they wanted. In all her descriptions, Veronica
(11:46):
conveys the sense that the couple were attracted to each other,
but that the relationship lacked a depth or intimacy beyond that.
Whether this is something she realized in retrospect or her
feelings at the time, however, we can't know. One morning,
after the two spent the night at John's place, John
(12:08):
woke Veronica up with the words will you marry me?
In the documentary, Veronica recalled not being able to say
anything at first, while in her memoir she even claims
she fell back asleep. Will you marry me? He asked again,
this time earning a reply yes, I will marry Despite
(12:33):
John's having no money. Veronica still believed quote to marry
a peer of the realm was a coup on your part.
Their engagement was announced in The Times in October nineteen
sixty three with the headline Lord Bingham to wed business girl,
and the couple were married in December. It was sparsely
(12:54):
attended on both sides, Veronica reflected, because neither of us
were very pospoula. Their most famous guest was poor Princess Alice,
as the bride called her sympathetically, who had attended because
Veronica's mother in law had been a lady in waiting.
Veronica recalled one woman at the wedding exclaiming there's nobody here,
(13:18):
and added that she was quite right. There was nobody,
at least nobody of social interest there at all. One
of the couple's wedding presents was two hundred pounds to
spend at John's beloved Claremont Club from the club's owner,
John Aspinall. Veronica later argued that her husband was useful
(13:42):
to Aspinall, as looking like the poster child for British aristocracy,
conveyed a sense of legitimacy to foreign players in the club.
Sitting beside her husband quietly as he gambled. Veronica noticed
he was growing anxious and she could tell it wasn't
(14:03):
going well. John eventually got up and asked one of
the club's directors to join the big game, but he
was sternly told no. John go home in the car.
That night, John apologized to his wife, and when she
asked him how much he had lost, he told her
(14:25):
the truth eight thousand pounds. At the time, his capital
was nine thousand pounds, all of the insurance money he
had received after his boat sank. Veronica performed what she
considered quote her duty as a gambler's wife, assuring her
(14:46):
husband he could win it all back. But he and
I'm sure she was in no place to be comforted.
They spent a quote very unhappy Christmas, but in a
dark twist of irony, it wouldn't be long for John
to come in to plenty of money. In January, when
(15:08):
his father died. John was now the seventh Earl of
Luken and Veronica a countess, money land and a title.
Things were looking up for the couple after a messy
start to their marriage. They soon sought to purchase a
home after learning Veronica was pregnant, and they finally found
(15:30):
one they liked at forty six Lower Belgrave Street, which
is where you'll recall. The beginning of this episode began.
In October, Veronica gave birth to the couple's first daughter, Francis.
The chapter of Veronica's memoir titled Francis doesn't actually tell
(15:54):
us anything about Francis. Instead, it consists of Veronica telling
the reader about how she hired a nanny for Francis
so that she and John could spend more time together
at the Claremont Club. John and by extension, his wife,
had an obsession with being seen, with being socially regarded,
(16:17):
even if they weren't that popular or liked all that much.
The chapter then concludes, quote at about that time, meaning
nineteen sixty six, I considered that it was time to
start another child, as I wanted to have a three
year gap between my first and second child. In the
(16:39):
December of nineteen sixty six, I became pregnant in a
somewhat less clinical manner. Veronica described in the twenty seventeen
documentary the expectations on women to produce children and the
special pressure that was on her to have a son.
(17:00):
If you couldn't, She explained, your reputation was in tatters.
Veronica's reputation was spared, however, as her next child was
her son, George. As expressed earlier, children felt like a
duty to Veronica, not a calling, so they were left
(17:21):
to nanny's. When she explained that to the documentarian, the
documentarian expressed that to an outsider, it appears that the
relationship between Veronica and her children were cold. A cold relationship,
she repeated. She paused, all my relationships are cold. In
(17:43):
that same vein, her relationship with John lacked not only
warmth but familiarity. The couple used to travel extensively, but
only to the places John considered most socially fashionable at
the moment. Veronica recalls that she couldn't appreciate the places
(18:04):
she was seeing, partly because she had no one really
to share them with. You wasn't communicative, so you couldn't
really enjoy it as a couple, she said. You were
both on your own in a strange sort of way.
John once told Veronica that's the point of being married.
You don't have to talk to the person. Problems in
(18:27):
their marriage took a darker turn after John's general disinterest
led to Veronica becoming closer with a man named Greville Howard,
another frequent patron of the Clermont. What it seems to
come down to is that Howard treated Veronica like the
thing she needed most in the world, like a friend,
(18:51):
and she fell in love. It doesn't explicitly seem like
the relationship ever got physical, but even if it did,
the relationship was cut off before it could deepen when
John told Howard to get lost and he did. This
led to Veronica falling into a depression, likely compounded by
(19:13):
untreated postpartum depression, and John took her to a psychiatrist
for the first time. John brought Veronica to the Priory,
a mental hospital in South London, under the pretense of
simply going for a drive. When Veronica realized where they were,
(19:34):
she took off running, and both the doctor and her
husband gave chase. They convinced her to come back, and
she was prescribed her first antipsychotic, Moditan. This was the
beginning of a long battle with John over accusations of
Veronica's mental state. It's an incredibly delicate matter to discuss
(19:59):
the mental health of someone you don't know, let alone
someone who's recalling the events of decades past in a memoir.
But based on John's future behavior, it's fairly arguable to
say he almost certainly did not have his wife's best
interest at heart. You may have heard the term mother's
(20:22):
Little helpers used in the nineteen fifties and sixties to
refer to drugs like valium, which were marketed toward housewives,
effectively used as tranquilizers to help them cope with their
unhappiness by turning them into Stepford wives. These were usually
(20:43):
sedatives and antidepressants, but moditon was typically used to treat
more extreme cases like schizophrenia. Despite no record of an
official diagnosis for Veronica, she claimed the drugs worked, however,
only under the condition that the side effects were so
(21:05):
terrible that they would make her forget about anything else
that might be causing her problems. It's a terrible thing
to be drugged, she would reflect, because you really are
not in control. John had recently begun seeing new doctors,
all men, and Veronica began to see those same doctors,
(21:27):
despite having had a female GP up until that point.
Looking back, she says things might have been different if
her doctor was a woman, as the male doctors believed
everything her husband said about her mental health at complete
face value. I can describe this period of Veronica's life
(21:50):
best by letting you know that in these pages of
her memoir, you stumble across a new drug name every
couple of paragraphs. On top of the monotan, there were
drugs for anxiety, drugs for sleeping, and drugs for mitigating
the side effects of the other drugs. Much of her
(22:10):
life outside of her medication stayed the same. The Claremont Club,
expensive holidays to keep up appearances, and even the birth
of a third child, Camilla. But the way John treated
Veronica changed. He didn't think he had to be nice
to me anymore, Veronica recalled. She says he told her
(22:34):
he would beat the mad ideas out of her before
giving her ten strokes with the cane. He did that
three times total, Veronica claimed, and he would follow the
beatings with affection and sex. The quote mad ideas he
referred to were likely Veronica's vocal concerns about the couple's
(22:57):
financial troubles, at least based on letters that were found
in their home after Veronica passed away in twenty seventeen,
John obsessed with keeping up the appearance of wealth, seemingly
resented his wife's descent. Veronica also notes that the cane
(23:18):
he used to beat her had had the end cut
off and wrapped in plaster so that it wouldn't cut
as much, which was how she knew the beatings were premeditated.
The pipe that would be used in the murder of
Sandra Rivet was similarly covered in plaster. The abuse would
(23:40):
continue in other less physically drastic ways until January nineteen
seventy three, when John knocked Veronica over after she goosed him,
which she claimed had always been a playful move between
the two. He called a mental hospital for a doctor
(24:00):
to come over, and when the doctor arrived, John asked
if Veronica was fit to look after the children. When
the doctor said yes, it seemed that she was, John
packed his bags and left. After John was gone, the
doctor stayed behind to inform Veronica that on Boxing Day,
(24:23):
John had actually called the hospital to attempt to have
Veronica involuntarily committed under the Mental Health Act of nineteen
fifty nine. While Veronica was not committed, John did use
accusations of mental instability to obtain a court order allowing
(24:46):
him to take the children. A few months later, this
began a massive custody battle in which John argued that
his wife was quote seriously mentally disturbed and that he
feared for the safety of their children. He submitted to
the court audio recordings of the fights the couple had,
(25:07):
which Veronica claimed were edited to make them seem one sided.
That day, the court heard Veronica insult her husband's quote miserable, weak,
drooping little penis end quote and call him quote a
ventriloquist's dummy with a mustache stuck on your face. But
(25:30):
apparently John's deception didn't work, and coupled with John's claims
that he quote needed to be out of the country
and away from his children when he was really on holiday,
the court did not see him favorably. On top of this,
Veronica's doctors didn't support John's claims in court, and John
(25:53):
was advised by his legal team to concede the case.
Veronica believes John genuinely did not believe how much legal
fees and losing would cost him, and John's finances fell
into a worse state than they had ever been in.
He turned to high risk, low reward gambling, and his
(26:16):
debts began to pile. The official ruling was custody to
the mother Veronica with a nanny, which meant Veronica needed
to hire someone full time. This was when she hired
twenty nine year old Sandra Rivet, whom she'd described as
(26:37):
a good, kind, decent girl. Woman. Really. Veronica noted that
even Francis liked her, and she was the most difficult
to please. As they got to know each other, Veronica
learned a bit about Sandra's background. She spent part of
her childhood in Australia. She was one of three daughters.
(26:58):
When she was nineteen, she got in gauged and became pregnant,
but by the time her son was born, the relationship
had fallen apart, and her parents ended up adopting her child.
Three years later, Sandra had had another son, who was
also put up for adoption. She was divorce, having been
in a lonely marriage, but she now had a steady boyfriend.
(27:21):
She had long red hair and a cat, Tara, who
slept in her bed with her. I think this biographical
information is important. The fact of the matter, unfortunately, is
Veronica only knew Sandra for nine weeks before she was killed.
I've already told you what happened that night through Veronica's retelling,
(27:45):
but before John's disappearance, John actually told a different story.
That same night, he drove home in his Ford Corsair
and called his mother, telling her there had been quote
a terrible catastrophe at fourty, referring to their address. Before that,
John apparently tried to go to a neighbour's house, the
(28:07):
mother of one of Francis's friends, likely to tell the
same story. Following the call to his mother, John drove
to his friends Ian and Susan Maxwell Scott's house, but
only Susan was home. John told Susan he arrived to
an intruder attacking his wife and in a state of shock.
(28:29):
Veronica thought he was the attacker, so he panicked and fled.
Susan told reporters she believed his story entirely, even after
John's disappearance, speaking of which, John left the Maxwell Scott
house at one a m and that was the last
time he was ever seen. While he was at the house,
(28:52):
he wrote several letters, one to his brother in law
Bill shand Kid detailing the same story he had told
to Susan, with the addition, when I interrupted the fight
at Lower Belgravee Street and the man left. Veronica accused
me of having hired him. The circumstantial evidence against me
(29:13):
is strong in that v will say it was all
my doing. There was a sense of finality in the
letter asking Bill to take care of the children in
his absence, with no indication that he would return. The
next day, the murder of Rivet, the beating of Lady Lucan,
(29:35):
and the missing Lord were already in the papers, quickly
becoming national news. Veronica was admitted to the hospital for
her injuries, and Sandra Rivet's death was declared a murder.
On November tenth, John's Ford Corsair was found with a
piece of lead pipe covered in plaster and a full
(29:59):
bottle of vodka in its trunk. A warrant was officially
put out for his arrest and details were issued to Interpol.
After Veronica was discharged from the hospital, Veronica resumed custody
of her children. She didn't speak much about the period
following the murder and the disappearance beyond the nitty gritty
(30:23):
of the investigation. Her children, she claimed, were largely unaffected
because they were so young. Whether that's true or not,
Veronica remembered her youngest daughter, Camilla, remarking one day, I
don't think daddy's coming back. No, I don't think he's
coming back, Veronica responded. Veronica believed her husband's fate was suicide, that,
(30:48):
based on how much he knew about powerboating mechanics, he
managed to get on a ferry and jump off into
its propellers. At least that was her opinion in the
two twenty seventeen documentary, but in a nineteen eighty one
news program, she told the presenter that she was convinced
(31:08):
he was alive. I was very heavily drugged at the time,
Veronica reflected, confirming her earlier belief that once they start
you on this step, it's very hard to get off.
The mental health regime. She believed her husband tried to
kill her to solve his financial problems and to gain
(31:29):
custody of the children he lost in court. He went
mad with pressure, She pausits. While her insights about her
life before the murder oscillate between lacking and acute self awareness,
any reflection about life after the tragedy is closed off
(31:50):
and clinical. The chapters of her memoir become procedural, simply
detailing the investigation, and any details about her relationships with
family and others are limited to brief mentions in the
final inconclusion chapter. That might also be because there weren't
(32:11):
many relationships to talk about. Veronica never remarried, noting that
it felt impossible to her, and her relationship with her
children soured. She became heavily addicted to antidepressants, and in
nineteen eighty two, her sister Christina and her husband Bill
(32:32):
shand kid became the court ordered foster parents of their
nieces and nephew, who remained estranged from their mother from
then up until her death. She reflected in twenty seventeen
that she knew all was lost, but she had to
accept that her children would have a better life without
(32:53):
her than they could living with her. I once bumped
into George in a park, but we didn't say very much.
Over the years, the children have also taken various stances
on the guilt and status of their father, despite being
so young at the time of the incident. In twenty twenty,
(33:16):
John Lucan was officially declared dead so that George could
inherit his title and become the eighth Earl of Lucan.
In twenty seventeen, Lady Lucan died at eighty years old
from respiratory failure caused by barbituates and alcohol poisoning, and
(33:37):
the coroner concluded the death was a suicide. Veronica believed
she was developing Parkinson's disease, even though she had not
spoken to a doctor yet and had been researching assisted suicide.
Despite having not spoken to her children in over fifty years,
all three of them attended her funeral. She finished her
(33:58):
memoir A Moment in Time the very year she died,
making the final edits and choosing the photos to include
just weeks before she passed. The memoir concludes with the line,
I will eternally regret that an innocent woman died because
of my relationship with my husband. That's the tragic story
(34:30):
of Lady Lucan and Sandra Rivett. But keep listening after
a brief sponsor break, to hear more about the speculations
of the fate of Lord Lucan. The disappearance of Lord Lucan,
(34:54):
a seemingly powerful and well connected man who seemed to
get a way with murder, gave birth to no small
number of conspiracy theories. In early apparent sighting actually turned
out to be brace yourself the politician John Stonehouse, who
was attempting to fake his own death. When he was arrested,
(35:19):
he was ordered to pull down his pants because Lucan
had a six inch scar on the inside of his
right thigh. John Lord Lucan has been reported in France, Columbia, India, Switzerland, Australia.
You name the place, they've probably seen a guy that
(35:39):
looks a little bit like the Missing Lord. One of
the most interesting theories, however, popped up in twenty twenty.
Spearheaded by Sandra Rivet's son. Neil Barriman, a builder from Hampshire,
was Rivet's second son who had been put up for adoption,
and he only found out who his birth mother was
(36:01):
in two thousand and eight. His shock eventually turned to
anger as he tried to learn more about his long
lost mother. Everything is about Lord Lucan. Where did he go?
He said? And Sandra is just a forgotten victim in
the whole equation. Bharman contacted Professor Hassan Ugale, a facial
(36:24):
recognition expert, who concluded that an eighty seven year old
man living in a Buddhist community in Australia was in
fact the missing Lord Lucan. It's him, he told the
Daily Mail. This isn't opinion, that's a fact. However, when
contacted by the Guardian, Professor Ugale explained, I can't one
(36:49):
hundred percent confirm it's Lord Lucan. It looks remarkably like him.
It's worth investigating further. Okay. Then the eighty seven year
old man or his part, denies being Lord Lucan, and
the Metropolitan Police have eliminated him from the investigation. However,
Bharman still continues his search. Quote my mission is to
(37:13):
keep my mother's memory very much alive and to seek justice,
he states on his website. She is not quote just
the nanny. She is a victim of a violent crime
who became secondary because her killer was a lord, a
lord who was protected and who vanished abroad with the
aid of his rich and powerful friends, rather than face justice.
(37:52):
Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and
Mild from Aaron Mankie. Noble Blood is created and hosted
by me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and researching by
Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender and Lori Goodman.
The show is edited and produced by Noemi Griffin and
(38:16):
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Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky Listener Discretion advised Thursday, November seventh,
(00:23):
nineteen seventy four. The residential London neighborhood of Belgravia was
known back in the Tudor period as a hotspot for
highwaymen and robberies, but by the nineteen seventies it was
considered a quiet space in the heart of the city. Today,
(00:45):
the neighborhood's Lower Belgrave Street has its own wiki page
with four notable residents listed, two writers, the wife of
a Nicaraguan dictator, and John Bingham, the seventh Earl of Lucan.
The night of November seventh, Lucan's estranged wife, Veronica, was
(01:10):
home with the couple's children and their nanny, a woman
named Sandra Rivet. Thursday was normally Rivet's night off, the
evening she would go out with her boyfriend, but Sandra
switched her schedule that week and had seen her boyfriend
the night before. A little before nine, Sandra Rivet put
(01:33):
the youngest children to bed and asked Lady Lucan if
she wanted a cup of tea. After a while, Veronica
began to wonder what was taking the nanny so long,
and so she headed downstairs to the home's basement kitchen.
She made it to the top of the basement stairs,
(01:56):
where she was struck by a metal pipe. Aving to
later testimony, Veronica screamed for her life and then recognized
her attacker's voice as her husband's when he told her
to shut up. A struggle ensued. Lucan only released the
(02:18):
grip on his wife's throat when Veronica managed to grab
his testicles, and he gave up the fight. With tensions
slightly calmer for the moment, Veronica asked her husband where
Rivet was. At first he was evasive, Finally he admitted
(02:39):
she was dead. In an attempt to placate her husband
and by herself some time, Veronica suggested she would help
him dispose of the body, but that she had to
stay in the house until her wounds from their earlier
fight were healed. Her gambit was successful. Lucan agreed, and
(03:02):
when he went into the bathroom to get a wet towel,
Veronica realized he wouldn't be able to hear her over
the running water. She fled the house and successfully ran
to a nearby pub, the Plumber's Arms. The story of
the Lucans captivated the nation and continues to perplex true
(03:25):
crime fans to this day, not only because it was
a murder case involving nobility, but because of the incredibly
mysterious circumstances of the crime's aftermath. In nineteen seventy five,
Lord Lucan was found guilty of the murder of Sandra Rivet,
(03:48):
but he wasn't there to hear his sentence, nor did
he serve his time. In fact, the last time Lord
Lucan was seen was the day after the murder, November eighth,
nineteen seventy four. Lord Lucan simply disappeared, despite being legally
(04:12):
declared dead twice. The whereabouts and status of Lord Lucan
remain a mystery to this day. Lady Lucan's opinion has
oscillated over the years, from her being convinced her husband
was still alive at times in the decades following his disappearance,
(04:33):
to the staunch belief that he must be dead. Described
in her twenty seventeen obituary by The New York Times
as imperious and wickedly witty, Lady Lucan's life was documented
from nineteen seventy four up until her death through a
(04:55):
series of interviews and reflections about the fateful day in
question and the abusive marriage that preceded it. Her marriage
has largely defined not only her public image but her life.
Lord Lucan may Or may not have been able to
(05:16):
escape with what he had done, but Lady Lucan was
the one who had to live with it. I'm Danish
Schwartz and this is noble blood. Lady Lucan was born
(05:42):
Veronica Mary Duncan on May third, nineteen thirty seven, in
the coastal English town of Bournemouth. Her father, a major
during the First World War, died in a car accident
when Veronica was only two years old, which meant Veronica
and her younger sister, Christina were raised entirely by their mother.
(06:07):
The sister's childhoods were spent between England and South Africa,
where their mother remarried, and then Veronica would settle in London.
As a young adult, she spent her first years out
of school doing what many do, throwing interests and possible
careers at the wall and seeing what stuck. She went
(06:31):
from art school to helping out in her stepfather's bar,
to modeling school, to learning shorthand, which eventually led to
becoming the director of a small printing company. She recalls
she didn't date much during this period of her life,
but that would change in nineteen sixty three. That year,
(06:54):
Veronica's younger sister, Christina, married William shand Kid, the son
of a wallpaper magnet, and the sisters were both introduced
to London society. If that name, or the phrase British
wallpaper magnet is ringing some kind of bell for you, you
(07:16):
probably know a lot about Lady Dye. William shand Kidd's brother,
Peter shand Kid, was Princess Diana's stepfather. It was at
a London Society function, a golf club actually, where Veronica
first saw Lord John Bingham, eldest son of George Bingham,
(07:40):
sixth Earl of Luken. Although their exchange was brief, he
stood out to Veronica among the other men present. Quote
he looked like a gentleman, almost in caricature, Veronica recalled
in her memoir, it's a good description. John was apparently
briefly considered for the role of James Bond before Sean
(08:05):
Connery beat him out for it, probably on the grounds
of acting experience. That was March. Veronica wouldn't see John
again until August, when John visited Christina and her husband
at their country house in the south of France, and,
remembering Christina's sister, Veronica asked for her to join. Christina
(08:30):
was weary of the potential match, warning Veronica that he's
got socialist parents, he's a professional gambler, and he's said
to be queer. Quite untrue, Veronica would reflect on the
last bit, but no one could deny John's gambling addiction.
(08:51):
He had first picked up the taste for it as
a student at shocker Eton College before becoming a regular
at the Clermont Club as an adult. He would sometimes win,
but his losses were often bigger, once he found himself
out ten thousand pounds in one night. She recalled that
(09:15):
the two spent time together during this trip, but Veronica
didn't feel a spark, and she was surprised to learn
he was interested in her. When he asked her out
following their return to London. He was apparently impatient to
sleep with her, and they did so after a few dates.
(09:35):
John's passion it appears was even more intent though, when
it came to powerboats. He had spent all of his
money buying one, which he called White Migrant, and had
his sights set on winning the Daily Express powerboat race. Quote.
He was obsessive about gambling and everything else he was
(09:56):
interested in. Veronica reflected if he also later observed that
spending all your money on a boat was a silly
thing for someone without a job to do. Quote, why
would I work in a bank when I can earn
a year's money in a single night at the tables,
John once told a colleague after he lost out on
(10:17):
a promotion and quit. Apparently his boating aspirations weren't totally
far out. White Migrant was leading the race for some
time before it sank then and there during the race,
leaving John's only asset at the bottom of the English Channel.
(10:41):
Despite what was perhaps a perfect symbol, Veronica did not
see the fate of the White Migrant as representative of
their budding relationship. It seemed they were headed toward marriage,
both feeling like it was time to take the step. Quote,
you haven't got a line on your face, John said,
(11:02):
praising the youthful appearance of his Then wait, for it.
Twenty six year old girlfriend Veronica reflected with a sort
of tragic honesty in a twenty seventeen documentary I Was
Getting On, She said, I was twenty six, and in
those days you were approaching being on the shelf. John
(11:25):
was twenty nine, and while men generally had a longer
shelf life when it came to marriage, then he also
felt it was time. Both of them seemed to have
the idea that marriage was what they were supposed to do,
not necessarily what they wanted. In all her descriptions, Veronica
(11:46):
conveys the sense that the couple were attracted to each other,
but that the relationship lacked a depth or intimacy beyond that.
Whether this is something she realized in retrospect or her
feelings at the time, however, we can't know. One morning,
after the two spent the night at John's place, John
(12:08):
woke Veronica up with the words will you marry me?
In the documentary, Veronica recalled not being able to say
anything at first, while in her memoir she even claims
she fell back asleep. Will you marry me? He asked again,
this time earning a reply yes, I will marry Despite
(12:33):
John's having no money. Veronica still believed quote to marry
a peer of the realm was a coup on your part.
Their engagement was announced in The Times in October nineteen
sixty three with the headline Lord Bingham to wed business girl,
and the couple were married in December. It was sparsely
(12:54):
attended on both sides, Veronica reflected, because neither of us
were very pospoula. Their most famous guest was poor Princess Alice,
as the bride called her sympathetically, who had attended because
Veronica's mother in law had been a lady in waiting.
Veronica recalled one woman at the wedding exclaiming there's nobody here,
(13:18):
and added that she was quite right. There was nobody,
at least nobody of social interest there at all. One
of the couple's wedding presents was two hundred pounds to
spend at John's beloved Claremont Club from the club's owner,
John Aspinall. Veronica later argued that her husband was useful
(13:42):
to Aspinall, as looking like the poster child for British aristocracy,
conveyed a sense of legitimacy to foreign players in the club.
Sitting beside her husband quietly as he gambled. Veronica noticed
he was growing anxious and she could tell it wasn't
(14:03):
going well. John eventually got up and asked one of
the club's directors to join the big game, but he
was sternly told no. John go home in the car.
That night, John apologized to his wife, and when she
asked him how much he had lost, he told her
(14:25):
the truth eight thousand pounds. At the time, his capital
was nine thousand pounds, all of the insurance money he
had received after his boat sank. Veronica performed what she
considered quote her duty as a gambler's wife, assuring her
(14:46):
husband he could win it all back. But he and
I'm sure she was in no place to be comforted.
They spent a quote very unhappy Christmas, but in a
dark twist of irony, it wouldn't be long for John
to come in to plenty of money. In January, when
(15:08):
his father died. John was now the seventh Earl of
Luken and Veronica a countess, money land and a title.
Things were looking up for the couple after a messy
start to their marriage. They soon sought to purchase a
home after learning Veronica was pregnant, and they finally found
(15:30):
one they liked at forty six Lower Belgrave Street, which
is where you'll recall. The beginning of this episode began.
In October, Veronica gave birth to the couple's first daughter, Francis.
The chapter of Veronica's memoir titled Francis doesn't actually tell
(15:54):
us anything about Francis. Instead, it consists of Veronica telling
the reader about how she hired a nanny for Francis
so that she and John could spend more time together
at the Claremont Club. John and by extension, his wife,
had an obsession with being seen, with being socially regarded,
(16:17):
even if they weren't that popular or liked all that much.
The chapter then concludes, quote at about that time, meaning
nineteen sixty six, I considered that it was time to
start another child, as I wanted to have a three
year gap between my first and second child. In the
(16:39):
December of nineteen sixty six, I became pregnant in a
somewhat less clinical manner. Veronica described in the twenty seventeen
documentary the expectations on women to produce children and the
special pressure that was on her to have a son.
(17:00):
If you couldn't, She explained, your reputation was in tatters.
Veronica's reputation was spared, however, as her next child was
her son, George. As expressed earlier, children felt like a
duty to Veronica, not a calling, so they were left
(17:21):
to nanny's. When she explained that to the documentarian, the
documentarian expressed that to an outsider, it appears that the
relationship between Veronica and her children were cold. A cold relationship,
she repeated. She paused, all my relationships are cold. In
(17:43):
that same vein, her relationship with John lacked not only
warmth but familiarity. The couple used to travel extensively, but
only to the places John considered most socially fashionable at
the moment. Veronica recalls that she couldn't appreciate the places
(18:04):
she was seeing, partly because she had no one really
to share them with. You wasn't communicative, so you couldn't
really enjoy it as a couple, she said. You were
both on your own in a strange sort of way.
John once told Veronica that's the point of being married.
You don't have to talk to the person. Problems in
(18:27):
their marriage took a darker turn after John's general disinterest
led to Veronica becoming closer with a man named Greville Howard,
another frequent patron of the Clermont. What it seems to
come down to is that Howard treated Veronica like the
thing she needed most in the world, like a friend,
(18:51):
and she fell in love. It doesn't explicitly seem like
the relationship ever got physical, but even if it did,
the relationship was cut off before it could deepen when
John told Howard to get lost and he did. This
led to Veronica falling into a depression, likely compounded by
(19:13):
untreated postpartum depression, and John took her to a psychiatrist
for the first time. John brought Veronica to the Priory,
a mental hospital in South London, under the pretense of
simply going for a drive. When Veronica realized where they were,
(19:34):
she took off running, and both the doctor and her
husband gave chase. They convinced her to come back, and
she was prescribed her first antipsychotic, Moditan. This was the
beginning of a long battle with John over accusations of
Veronica's mental state. It's an incredibly delicate matter to discuss
(19:59):
the mental health of someone you don't know, let alone
someone who's recalling the events of decades past in a memoir.
But based on John's future behavior, it's fairly arguable to
say he almost certainly did not have his wife's best
interest at heart. You may have heard the term mother's
(20:22):
Little helpers used in the nineteen fifties and sixties to
refer to drugs like valium, which were marketed toward housewives,
effectively used as tranquilizers to help them cope with their
unhappiness by turning them into Stepford wives. These were usually
(20:43):
sedatives and antidepressants, but moditon was typically used to treat
more extreme cases like schizophrenia. Despite no record of an
official diagnosis for Veronica, she claimed the drugs worked, however,
only under the condition that the side effects were so
(21:05):
terrible that they would make her forget about anything else
that might be causing her problems. It's a terrible thing
to be drugged, she would reflect, because you really are
not in control. John had recently begun seeing new doctors,
all men, and Veronica began to see those same doctors,
(21:27):
despite having had a female GP up until that point.
Looking back, she says things might have been different if
her doctor was a woman, as the male doctors believed
everything her husband said about her mental health at complete
face value. I can describe this period of Veronica's life
(21:50):
best by letting you know that in these pages of
her memoir, you stumble across a new drug name every
couple of paragraphs. On top of the monotan, there were
drugs for anxiety, drugs for sleeping, and drugs for mitigating
the side effects of the other drugs. Much of her
(22:10):
life outside of her medication stayed the same. The Claremont Club,
expensive holidays to keep up appearances, and even the birth
of a third child, Camilla. But the way John treated
Veronica changed. He didn't think he had to be nice
to me anymore, Veronica recalled. She says he told her
(22:34):
he would beat the mad ideas out of her before
giving her ten strokes with the cane. He did that
three times total, Veronica claimed, and he would follow the
beatings with affection and sex. The quote mad ideas he
referred to were likely Veronica's vocal concerns about the couple's
(22:57):
financial troubles, at least based on letters that were found
in their home after Veronica passed away in twenty seventeen,
John obsessed with keeping up the appearance of wealth, seemingly
resented his wife's descent. Veronica also notes that the cane
(23:18):
he used to beat her had had the end cut
off and wrapped in plaster so that it wouldn't cut
as much, which was how she knew the beatings were premeditated.
The pipe that would be used in the murder of
Sandra Rivet was similarly covered in plaster. The abuse would
(23:40):
continue in other less physically drastic ways until January nineteen
seventy three, when John knocked Veronica over after she goosed him,
which she claimed had always been a playful move between
the two. He called a mental hospital for a doctor
(24:00):
to come over, and when the doctor arrived, John asked
if Veronica was fit to look after the children. When
the doctor said yes, it seemed that she was, John
packed his bags and left. After John was gone, the
doctor stayed behind to inform Veronica that on Boxing Day,
(24:23):
John had actually called the hospital to attempt to have
Veronica involuntarily committed under the Mental Health Act of nineteen
fifty nine. While Veronica was not committed, John did use
accusations of mental instability to obtain a court order allowing
(24:46):
him to take the children. A few months later, this
began a massive custody battle in which John argued that
his wife was quote seriously mentally disturbed and that he
feared for the safety of their children. He submitted to
the court audio recordings of the fights the couple had,
(25:07):
which Veronica claimed were edited to make them seem one sided.
That day, the court heard Veronica insult her husband's quote miserable, weak,
drooping little penis end quote and call him quote a
ventriloquist's dummy with a mustache stuck on your face. But
(25:30):
apparently John's deception didn't work, and coupled with John's claims
that he quote needed to be out of the country
and away from his children when he was really on holiday,
the court did not see him favorably. On top of this,
Veronica's doctors didn't support John's claims in court, and John
(25:53):
was advised by his legal team to concede the case.
Veronica believes John genuinely did not believe how much legal
fees and losing would cost him, and John's finances fell
into a worse state than they had ever been in.
He turned to high risk, low reward gambling, and his
(26:16):
debts began to pile. The official ruling was custody to
the mother Veronica with a nanny, which meant Veronica needed
to hire someone full time. This was when she hired
twenty nine year old Sandra Rivet, whom she'd described as
(26:37):
a good, kind, decent girl. Woman. Really. Veronica noted that
even Francis liked her, and she was the most difficult
to please. As they got to know each other, Veronica
learned a bit about Sandra's background. She spent part of
her childhood in Australia. She was one of three daughters.
(26:58):
When she was nineteen, she got in gauged and became pregnant,
but by the time her son was born, the relationship
had fallen apart, and her parents ended up adopting her child.
Three years later, Sandra had had another son, who was
also put up for adoption. She was divorce, having been
in a lonely marriage, but she now had a steady boyfriend.
(27:21):
She had long red hair and a cat, Tara, who
slept in her bed with her. I think this biographical
information is important. The fact of the matter, unfortunately, is
Veronica only knew Sandra for nine weeks before she was killed.
I've already told you what happened that night through Veronica's retelling,
(27:45):
but before John's disappearance, John actually told a different story.
That same night, he drove home in his Ford Corsair
and called his mother, telling her there had been quote
a terrible catastrophe at fourty, referring to their address. Before that,
John apparently tried to go to a neighbour's house, the
(28:07):
mother of one of Francis's friends, likely to tell the
same story. Following the call to his mother, John drove
to his friends Ian and Susan Maxwell Scott's house, but
only Susan was home. John told Susan he arrived to
an intruder attacking his wife and in a state of shock.
(28:29):
Veronica thought he was the attacker, so he panicked and fled.
Susan told reporters she believed his story entirely, even after
John's disappearance, speaking of which, John left the Maxwell Scott
house at one a m and that was the last
time he was ever seen. While he was at the house,
(28:52):
he wrote several letters, one to his brother in law
Bill shand Kid detailing the same story he had told
to Susan, with the addition, when I interrupted the fight
at Lower Belgravee Street and the man left. Veronica accused
me of having hired him. The circumstantial evidence against me
(29:13):
is strong in that v will say it was all
my doing. There was a sense of finality in the
letter asking Bill to take care of the children in
his absence, with no indication that he would return. The
next day, the murder of Rivet, the beating of Lady Lucan,
(29:35):
and the missing Lord were already in the papers, quickly
becoming national news. Veronica was admitted to the hospital for
her injuries, and Sandra Rivet's death was declared a murder.
On November tenth, John's Ford Corsair was found with a
piece of lead pipe covered in plaster and a full
(29:59):
bottle of vodka in its trunk. A warrant was officially
put out for his arrest and details were issued to Interpol.
After Veronica was discharged from the hospital, Veronica resumed custody
of her children. She didn't speak much about the period
following the murder and the disappearance beyond the nitty gritty
(30:23):
of the investigation. Her children, she claimed, were largely unaffected
because they were so young. Whether that's true or not,
Veronica remembered her youngest daughter, Camilla, remarking one day, I
don't think daddy's coming back. No, I don't think he's
coming back, Veronica responded. Veronica believed her husband's fate was suicide, that,
(30:48):
based on how much he knew about powerboating mechanics, he
managed to get on a ferry and jump off into
its propellers. At least that was her opinion in the
two twenty seventeen documentary, but in a nineteen eighty one
news program, she told the presenter that she was convinced
(31:08):
he was alive. I was very heavily drugged at the time,
Veronica reflected, confirming her earlier belief that once they start
you on this step, it's very hard to get off.
The mental health regime. She believed her husband tried to
kill her to solve his financial problems and to gain
(31:29):
custody of the children he lost in court. He went
mad with pressure, She pausits. While her insights about her
life before the murder oscillate between lacking and acute self awareness,
any reflection about life after the tragedy is closed off
(31:50):
and clinical. The chapters of her memoir become procedural, simply
detailing the investigation, and any details about her relationships with
family and others are limited to brief mentions in the
final inconclusion chapter. That might also be because there weren't
(32:11):
many relationships to talk about. Veronica never remarried, noting that
it felt impossible to her, and her relationship with her
children soured. She became heavily addicted to antidepressants, and in
nineteen eighty two, her sister Christina and her husband Bill
(32:32):
shand kid became the court ordered foster parents of their
nieces and nephew, who remained estranged from their mother from
then up until her death. She reflected in twenty seventeen
that she knew all was lost, but she had to
accept that her children would have a better life without
(32:53):
her than they could living with her. I once bumped
into George in a park, but we didn't say very much.
Over the years, the children have also taken various stances
on the guilt and status of their father, despite being
so young at the time of the incident. In twenty twenty,
(33:16):
John Lucan was officially declared dead so that George could
inherit his title and become the eighth Earl of Lucan.
In twenty seventeen, Lady Lucan died at eighty years old
from respiratory failure caused by barbituates and alcohol poisoning, and
(33:37):
the coroner concluded the death was a suicide. Veronica believed
she was developing Parkinson's disease, even though she had not
spoken to a doctor yet and had been researching assisted suicide.
Despite having not spoken to her children in over fifty years,
all three of them attended her funeral. She finished her
(33:58):
memoir A Moment in Time the very year she died,
making the final edits and choosing the photos to include
just weeks before she passed. The memoir concludes with the line,
I will eternally regret that an innocent woman died because
of my relationship with my husband. That's the tragic story
(34:30):
of Lady Lucan and Sandra Rivett. But keep listening after
a brief sponsor break, to hear more about the speculations
of the fate of Lord Lucan. The disappearance of Lord Lucan,
(34:54):
a seemingly powerful and well connected man who seemed to
get a way with murder, gave birth to no small
number of conspiracy theories. In early apparent sighting actually turned
out to be brace yourself the politician John Stonehouse, who
was attempting to fake his own death. When he was arrested,
(35:19):
he was ordered to pull down his pants because Lucan
had a six inch scar on the inside of his
right thigh. John Lord Lucan has been reported in France, Columbia, India, Switzerland, Australia.
You name the place, they've probably seen a guy that
(35:39):
looks a little bit like the Missing Lord. One of
the most interesting theories, however, popped up in twenty twenty.
Spearheaded by Sandra Rivet's son. Neil Barriman, a builder from Hampshire,
was Rivet's second son who had been put up for adoption,
and he only found out who his birth mother was
(36:01):
in two thousand and eight. His shock eventually turned to
anger as he tried to learn more about his long
lost mother. Everything is about Lord Lucan. Where did he go?
He said? And Sandra is just a forgotten victim in
the whole equation. Bharman contacted Professor Hassan Ugale, a facial
(36:24):
recognition expert, who concluded that an eighty seven year old
man living in a Buddhist community in Australia was in
fact the missing Lord Lucan. It's him, he told the
Daily Mail. This isn't opinion, that's a fact. However, when
contacted by the Guardian, Professor Ugale explained, I can't one
(36:49):
hundred percent confirm it's Lord Lucan. It looks remarkably like him.
It's worth investigating further. Okay. Then the eighty seven year
old man or his part, denies being Lord Lucan, and
the Metropolitan Police have eliminated him from the investigation. However,
Bharman still continues his search. Quote my mission is to
(37:13):
keep my mother's memory very much alive and to seek justice,
he states on his website. She is not quote just
the nanny. She is a victim of a violent crime
who became secondary because her killer was a lord, a
lord who was protected and who vanished abroad with the
aid of his rich and powerful friends, rather than face justice.
(37:52):
Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and
Mild from Aaron Mankie. Noble Blood is created and hosted
by me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and researching by
Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender and Lori Goodman.
The show is edited and produced by Noemi Griffin and
(38:16):
rima Il Kahali, with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive
producers Aaron Manke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Dana Schwartz
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