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

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Early life - 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.

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Return to England - He returned to the UK in 1945 and attended Eton college.

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Work - 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.

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

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

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

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

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Murder of Sandra Rivett - 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.

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Suspect - 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.

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

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

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Abandoned car - 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.

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

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No body - Despite an extensive search for his body, police found nothing.

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

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

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

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Eaten by tigers - 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.

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

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Hiding out in Goa? - 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.

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Sighting in New Zealand - 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.

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Life in Africa - 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.

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Arrested in Australia - 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.

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TV - 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.

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

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

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Fate -

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

See also: Celebrities who have been reported missing

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