▲It’s a mystery that has intrigued the public for over 40 years. Who was Lord Lucan? And what were the mysterious circumstances surrounding his disappearance? Learn more about the shocking case of the British aristocrat in the following gallery.

▲Richard John Bingham, the seventh Earl of Lucan, was born 18 December, 1934.

▲She had allegedly been estranged from her family for some time, and upon her death her estate was left to the homeless charity Shelter.

▲The tall, charismatic Lucan met his wife, Veronica Duncan, in 1963. They were married the same year.

▲Meanwhile, Lucan drove to the house of his friends, the Maxwell-Scotts, in Sussex. This was the last time he was seen.

▲The car he borrowed from the friend was found abandoned in the town of Newhaven. A piece of lead piping was found in the boot.

▲Despite an extensive search for his body, police found nothing.

▲There was speculation that he may have killed himself. Divers searched Newhaven harbour for his body.

▲She fought back and managed to escape him. She ran to the nearby pub, The Plumbers Arms.

▲Rivett had been making a cup of tea for Lady Lucan, who then went downstairs to investigate what was taking the nanny so long. Lady Lucan was then attacked by her husband, who beat her over the head with a piece of lead piping.

▲After completing national service, Lucan worked as a merchant banker in London. He later left to become a full-time gambler, a habit that he apparently picked up in his school days.

▲Lucan developed an increasingly serious gambling problem, spending a lot of time in the Clermont Club.

▲Born into an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family, Lucan moved around a lot in his youth. He was born in London but moved to Wales at the beginning of World War II, and then to New York.

▲There are a number of conspiracy theories related to his disappearance.

▲The estranged couple became engaged in a fierce dispute over who would secure custody of their three children.

▲With Lucan’s mounting gambling losses, the marriage became strained. By 1974, the couple were living separately.

▲He returned to the UK in 1945 and attended Eton college.

▲It is widely assumed that Lucan killed himself, though his body has never been found. He was officially declared dead in 2016.

▲While his friends defended him in his absence, the media was unanimous in accusing Lucan of murdering Rivett.

▲Lady Lucan died in 2017 after reportedly taking a lethal cocktail of drugs and alcohol at the age of 80.

▲On the night of 7 November, 1974, Sandra Rivett, the family's nanny, was bludgeoned to death in the basement of their Belgravia house. It has been alleged that Lucan killed Rivett under the mistaken impression that she was his wife.

▲Lady Osborne, mother of a friend of Lucan's, Lord Aspinall, reportedly said that the aristocrat shot himself, and his body was fed to tigers in his friend's private zoo.

▲The prevailing theory, supported by most of his friends and also his late wife, is that he drowned himself in the English Channel.

▲The earl was also apparently spotted in New Zealand, living in a car with a pet possum, a cat, and a goat named Camilla. This man was identified as Roger Woodgate and he refuted the claims.

▲But this hasn't stopped the absurd theories. There have been sightings of the missing earl all over the world, and it was even claimed that he was hiding out in Goa. This was later proven to be false, and the man in question was identified as a banjo player from St Helen's.

▲

Despite speculation, definitive proof of Lucan's fate remains inconclusive to this day.

▲Lucan's mysterious disappearance has been the subject of multiple documentaries and TV shows. In 2013, Rory Kinnear played the aristocrat in a two-part programme aired on ITV.

▲Another prevailing theory is that Lucan escaped to Africa with the help of friends. Anonymous statements were made by a woman claiming to be a former assistant to Lucan's friend Lord Aspinall. She asserted that the earl had relocated to Gabon.

▲A man believed to be Lord Lucan was reportedly arrested in Australia in 1974. This man turned out to be British Labour MP John Stonehouse, who had faked his own death the month before by leaving a pile of clothes on a beach in Miami.

The mysterious disappearance of Lord Lucan

The British aristocrat went missing in the 1970s and the mystery has never been solved

13/04/18 por StarsInsider

CELEBRITY Mystery

It’s a mystery that has intrigued the public for over 40 years. Who was Lord Lucan? And what were the mysterious circumstances surrounding his disappearance? Learn more about the shocking case of the British aristocrat in the following gallery.