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TheGord Yeti Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 67 Age: 42 Gender: Male |
 Posted: 09-09-2003 16:01 Post subject: Lucan? |
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Although the author and pubisher of this theory are standing by their story, it seems that Barry Halpin was just that. Ironically to connect the conniving murderer Lucan with Jungle Barry seems to be a slur on Mr Halpin, who was a good man by all accounts.
"He could
get" they said "a tune
From a potato." - Mike Harding |
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| Anonymous |
| Posted: 09-09-2003 17:28 Post subject: |
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| Conners_76 wrote: |
Annasdotir,
I agree that Lucan's lifestyle wasn't particularly commendable or varied, but I don't see any reason to dismiss him as some inbred dullard. He had an adventurous, risk-taking streak that showed itself in his gambling (he chucked in the well-paid city job he walked into after the army to becme a professional gambler, and this before his old man died, bequeathing him the title and presumably plenty of cash). |
Presumably the 'city job' was in stockbroking? In which case, gambling wasn't that big a switch. In any case, the switch didn't require a change of lifestyle. | Quote: | [B]
What's more, someone without any imagination wouldn't have planned the murder in the first place, let alone tried to make good his escape and establish an alternative scenario ). |
Disguising a murder as a random killing is a venerable old crime-fiction mainstay - Lucan could have pinched the idea from anywhere. As for imagination, why didn't he forsee that he might need a backup Plan B if case Plan A failed? I don't see anything well-planned about it at all. If he'd thought it through, he would have realised that he needed a hitman to do the dirty work in a porfessional manner, so as to give him a cast-iron alibi.
Also, he appeared to think that once his wife was dead, he'd automatically get custody of the kids. A bit of intelligence and enquiry beforehand would have told him that he was quite wrong about that. The custody hearing would have gone ahead, and the childrens' Guardian ad Litem (their statutory representative in the hearing) would have argued strongly that his lifestyle as a professional gambler (not to mention the police suspicion of his involvement in his wife's death) made him an unsuitable custodial parent.
And above all, why did he flee? That marked him out as guilty for sure. No, the crime and its aftermath bears all the hallmarks of an impulsive, rather dimwitted gambler - which is what Lord Lucan was. |
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| theyithian Keeping the British end up
Joined: 29 Oct 2002 Total posts: 11704 Location: Vermilion Sands Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 16-10-2004 10:58 Post subject: Hot off the presses |
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| Quote: | 10:34am (UK)
Lord Lucan Case Re-Opened
By Tony Jones, PA News
The Lord Lucan murder inquiry has been re-opened almost 30 years after the aristocrat disappeared soon after his children’s nanny was killed, it emerged today.
Detectives have begun examining evidence from police records and will use new techniques like DNA profiling to help solve the high-profile case.
The 7th Earl of Lucan vanished in November 1974, the day after the murdered body of Sandra Rivett, nanny to his three children, was found at the family home in London.
The Earl’s car was found abandoned in the East Sussex port town of Newhaven giving rise to the belief, shared by his wife Lady Veronica Lucan, that he drowned himself in the Channel.
But his body has never been found and over the years numerous people have claimed sightings of the Peer.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “The investigation into the murder of Sandra Rivett and the disappearance of Lord Lucan remains open.
“As with any unsolved murder the investigation is subject to review to examine any possible new lines of inquiry.
“There’s still information coming into the police every year and each call is assessed and lines pursued where appropriate.”
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3633105 |
New leads? |
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| theyithian Keeping the British end up
Joined: 29 Oct 2002 Total posts: 11704 Location: Vermilion Sands Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 16-10-2004 11:11 Post subject: |
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Incidently, at the risk of sounding hopelessly naive, why do google searches for Lord Lucan turn up more than a couple of pages for foot-fetishists??
Is my lexicon outmoded again? |
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| KeyserXSoze King of Otters
Great Old One Joined: 02 Jun 2002 Total posts: 1040 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 16-10-2004 11:30 Post subject: |
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| Perhaps they have found him? |
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| FraterLibre Great Old One Joined: 27 Feb 2002 Total posts: 2236 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 16-10-2004 17:44 Post subject: Are We? |
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Are we entirely sure he didn't move to Mozambique, get a sex change operation, attend a girls' school in Switzerland, then eventually marry would-be U.S. President John Kerry?
Inquiring minds want to hide. |
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| WhistlingJack Joined: 29 Oct 2003 Total posts: 4298 Location: The Sewers of The Strand Age: 9 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 13-11-2004 13:24 Post subject: |
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Did anyone see the Channel 4 programme during the week?
| Quote: | http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/S/science/life/biog_lordlucan.html
The Hunt for Lord Lucan
Dr Martin Brookes
November 2004
The disappearance of Lord Lucan on the night of 7 November 1974 ignited one of the most compelling mysteries in modern criminal history. This was a peculiarly British affair, in which the dying traditions of aristocracy and honour captured the imagination of an entire nation. The mystery and the glamour of the Lucan world have kept the story alive for these 30 years past, and probably will do for decades to come.
Suspected of murder, Lord Lucan was on the run. That night he drove to the Sussex house of his friends Ian and Susan Maxwell-Scott. According to official statements, Susan Maxwell-Scott was the last person to see Lucan. When she woke the next morning he had vanished. Days later, Lucan's car, a Ford Corsair he had borrowed from a friend, was found abandoned in the Channel port of Newhaven. But a massive police search failed to uncover the man himself. So what happened to Lucan? Did he commit suicide? Or did he use his network of influential friends to help him establish a new identity abroad? It's a puzzle that remains unsolved to this day.
It all began as a straightforward murder investigation. On that November night police were called to 46 Lower Belgrave Street, in one of London's more fashionable neighbourhoods. There, in the basement, they discovered the battered and lifeless body of Sandra Rivett, nanny to Lucan's three children. Veronica Duncan, Lucan's estranged wife, had also been attacked, but she had managed to escape from the house and raise the alarm. Later, in her statement to the police, she identified the attacker as none other than her own husband.
Lucan lineage
Scandal was nothing new to the Lucan family. Lord Lucan's great great grandfather, the Third Earl of Lucan, was the man widely blamed for one of the biggest blunders in British military history – the calamitous Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854 at Balaclava during the Crimean War. The Seventh Earl of Lucan's bungled attempt to murder his wife, if that's what it was, seemed entirely in keeping with this reputation.
Lucan was born Richard John Bingham on 18 December 1934. His development took a path well-trodden by the English upper class – nannies and maids, parents rarely seen, Eton education, national service as an officer in the Coldstream Guards, and a stint at a merchant bank. Outside work, his interests included bobsleigh and powerboat racing, but his one true passion was gambling. Lucan's social scene centred on exclusive Mayfair casinos, where he rubbed shoulders with fellow earls, dukes, and business tycoons like Tiny Rowland and James Goldsmith. The Hamilton Club, off Park Lane, and John Aspinall's Clermont Club, in Berkeley Square, were two of his favourite haunts. When a two-day winning spree in the card game chemin de fer earned him £26,000 (about £380,000 in today's money) Lucan quit his job, convinced that he could make a living as a professional gambler.
Lucan met his wife, Veronica Duncan, at a golfing tournament in March 1963. Married the following November, the couple moved to Lower Belgrave Street, where they had three children – Frances, George and Camilla. But Veronica's post-natal depression put a strain on the marriage, and Lucan's gambling addiction and heavy drinking only made matters worse. By 1973 they were separated, and an expensive courtroom battle saw Veronica Duncan take custody of the children. Lucan, facing financial ruin, was devastated and, perhaps, bent on revenge.
So what really happened on the night of 7 November 1974? The inquest concluded that Lucan had broken into the house and murdered Sandra Rivett, thinking she was his wife. Realising his mistake, he then set upon his wife.
On the run
Lucan, however, read things differently. In the hours immediately after the murder, he proclaimed his innocence in frantic letters to his brother-in-law, Bill Shand Kydd, and in phone calls to his mother. He was passing the house, he said, when he was alerted to a burglary gone wrong. Whatever the truth, he knew the evidence was against him. Fearing the shame of being branded a murderer and having the family name dragged through the courts, he decided to do the decent thing and disappear.
The fact that Lucan's body has never been recovered has fuelled perennial speculation over his fate. Many of his close friends insist that he probably drowned in the English Channel, either by jumping off a ferry or by scuttling a speedboat.
But Roy Ranson, the Scotland Yard detective who headed the initial hunt for Lucan, always doubted this theory. Why, for example, was Lucan's body never washed up on the beach? Given the prevailing tides, he insisted, a body should have been recovered. Ranson argued that the Ford Corsair was a decoy used to distract the police while Lucan was smuggled out of Britain in a plane piloted by his friend, the Formula One racing driver Graham Hill, who was killed in a plane crash in 1975. According to Ranson, Lucan went first to Portugal, and then to South Africa. In the 30 years since the murder there have been multiple alleged sightings of Lucan in several southern African countries.
Just recently, the Daily Mail ran a story in which former Tory MP and old Etonian Piers Dixon claimed that Lucan possibly fled to Mexico or Africa, under the protection of business financier James Goldsmith.
Lucan's high society
John Aspinall: Notoriously successful gambler who founded many casinos, including the Clermont Club. Reckless, eccentric and elitist, he was also an animal lover who established his own zoos. Controversially, five of his keepers have been killed by tigers and elephants. Aspinall asked to be fed to his animals after his death, but his wish was denied. Died in 2000.
Charles Benson: Horse racing tipster, gambler and friend of the rich and famous, including horse owners Robert Sangster and the Aga Khan. Died in 2002.
Clermont Club: Ultra-exclusive, yet understated casino in London's Mayfair. During the 1960s this converted Georgian townhouse become Lucan's second home, where all-night gambling, fuelled by vodka and lamb cutlets, was the norm. Lucan had arranged to meet friends at the Clermont on the night of the murder.
James Goldsmith: 'A man of my means should not remain a schoolboy' observed Goldsmith on dropping out of Eton. So instead he made billions through shrewd and sometimes audacious business deals, most notably in the takeover of Bovril in 1971. He owned five homes and a Boeing 757. In the 1990s he founded the Euro-sceptic Referendum Party. Died in 1997.
Tiny Rowland: Multi-millionaire businessman who made his fortune in the gold mines of Africa and later became chief executive of the Lonrho conglomerate. An attempted takeover of Harrods led to a famously acrimonious dispute with its owner, Mohammed Al-Fayed. Died in 1998.
Bill Shand Kydd: Lord Lucan's brother-in-law, married to Veronica Duncan's (Lucan's wife) sister. An amateur jockey and wallpaper magnate, he was also the half-brother of Peter Shand Kydd, the step-father of Diana, Princess of Wales. Shand Kydd broke his back in a horse riding accident in 1995. A tetraplegic, he is now a fund-raiser for spinal research.
Taki Theodoracopulos: Cash-heavy playboy and The Spectator columnist famed for his political incorrectness. Once arrested after walking through British customs with 23 grammes of cocaine in a bag dangling from his back pocket.
Find out more
Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of third party sites
The Countess of Lucan – Setting the record straight
www.ladylucan.co.uk/index1.htm
Official website of the Countess of Lucan with information about her former husband and photographs of times spent with Lord Lucan and her children.
Last Person To See Lord Lucan Alive Dies
http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/13457425?source=Evening%20Standard
Susan Maxwell-Scott died in September 2004. She was the last person to see Lucan alive and spent several hours with him at her home before he fled.
Lord Lucan.com
www.lordlucan.com
Message board and information on the murder of the Lucan family's nanny in 1974.
The Lucan Review
www.lord-lucan.co.uk
This site has everything for the Lucan enthusiast including a basement plan of the house where the murder took place, a comprehensive bibliography, photos, articles and much more.
Police Relaunch Inquiry Into Lord Lucan Case
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/...
Scotland Yard have recently announced they are to re-open the murder inquiry using new DNA techniques.
Thou Shalt Not Kill
http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/family/lord_lucan/1.html
The Crime Library offers in-depth coverage of Lucan's life and the murder of Sandra Rivett in 1974. There is information about the inquest, a photo library and a section on the sightings of Lucan over the years since his disappearance. |
Last edited by WhistlingJack on 09-08-2007 18:28; edited 1 time in total |
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| FraterLibre Great Old One Joined: 27 Feb 2002 Total posts: 2236 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 13-11-2004 18:32 Post subject: Nize |
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| Nize collection of links. Wonder if we'll get to see this show stateside any time soon. it's doubtful. |
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| LividBullseye moomin hunter ! Joined: 09 Mar 2002 Total posts: 1554 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 13-11-2004 21:14 Post subject: |
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| There was a rumour,and it's only a rumour, that not too long after he disapeared local fishermen (off the Sussex coast) found a body that did have a resemblence to him in their nets. They did what any fisherman would do who did'nt want the bother of "the authorities",ie dumped the body back over the side. |
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| Mal_Adjusted Hardware Fault Joined: 06 Aug 2003 Total posts: 1759 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 13-01-2005 15:57 Post subject: Desperate Lucan dreamt of fascist coup |
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Greets
news update:
| Quote: | Desperate Lucan dreamt of fascist coup
Murder mystery earl bought Mein Kampf and listened to Hitler's speeches
Martin Bright, home affairs editor
Sunday January 9, 2005
The Observer
When Lord Lucan walked into the second-hand department of Hatchards bookshop on 15 February 1972, he was already at the end of his tether. His marriage had collapsed, gambling debts were crushing him and he had become convinced Britain was going to the dogs.
In his growing desperation, he had convinced himself that his wife was unfit to bring up his three children and had spent the previous year trying to get her committed to mental institutions. In fact, the 7th Earl of Lucan, who disappeared in November 1974 after the murder of the family nanny, was himself growing increasingly unstable.
New evidence unearthed by The Observer shows just how extreme his politics had become as his mental state deteriorated: when he left Hatchards, the book under his arm was a Thirties translation of Hitler's political testament, Mein Kampf .
The receipt of Lucan's purchase - on account, naturally - shows that his mind was turning to increasingly authoritarian politics. The other book he bought was Grey Wolf, a biography of the Turkish leader Kemal Ataturk, its subtitle An Intimate Study of a Dictator .
The address on the receipt is 46, Lower Belgrave Street, where, two years later, the body of Sandra Rivett, the family's nanny, was found, sparking one of the most celebrated murder mysteries of the 20th century. Police later identified Lucan, who disappeared after the death and has never been found, as the prime suspect.
The book's present owner, writer and collector Phil Baker, says Lucan's reading matter reveals as much about the times he was living through as it does about the state of his mind. 'It's a symptom of Britain's domes tic crisis in the early Seventies; people forget that private armies were being raised and there was even talk of a military coup in Britain,' he said.
The book will be sold at an auction later this year.
The Countess of Lucan confirmed this weekend that Lucan was an extremist in his politics: 'He did have very right-wing views, some might describe them as fascist. I didn't know he was indulging in extremist reading matter in 1972, although I knew he listened to recordings of Hitler's speeches at Nuremburg Rallies.'
She confirmed that she had put the copy of Mein Kampf up for sale by auction a few years ago, which is how it came into the hands of Baker.
Lucan believed Britain had been brought to its knees by the unions and was in need of a strong leader. By the early Seventies he and his friends in the gentlemen's clubs and gambling dens of Mayfair brayed about overthrowing Harold Wilson's Labour government.
There is no suggestion Lucan was in any way anti-Semitic or supported the Final Solution. But he and his associates, who included casino owner and party host John Aspinall, and the tycoon Sir James Goldsmith, were increasingly convinced Britain had fallen victim to a socialist conspir acy. Daily Express journalist Charles Benson, one of Lucan's friends, said: 'He was very right wing and never watered it down in front of liberals. He would talk about hanging and flogging and niggers to get a reaction.'
One biographer, Patrick Marnham, said: 'Seen from the Clermont Club [Lucan's favourite gambling haunt], the country was starting to resemble the less stable years of the Weimar Republic. Sir James Goldsmith began to develop his theory of "the Communist infiltration of the Western media". Over the smoked salmon and lamb cutlets, the talk turned to the pros and cons of a British military coup.'
It may seem difficult to believe now, nearly eight years into the most secure Labour government in British history, but across the country pockets of the traditional ruling class were preparing for military action. General Sir Walter Walker, former commander of allied forces in northern Europe, formed the Concerned Citizens' Vigilante Association to stamp out Communism in Wiltshire, and Colonel David Stirling, founder of the SAS, invited volunteers to join his 'strike-breaking army' to crush the unions.
According to former MI5 officer Peter Wright, a group of his colleagues, including Margaret Thatcher's mentor Airey Neave, began discussing a political coup. According to Wright, they believed that the Labour government had been infiltrated by the KGB and should be overthrown. He also claimed they were backed by a right-wing financier. Goldsmith always denied he put the money behind the group or discussed MI5 matters with former intelligence officers.
To some people at the time, the politics of fascism seemed romantic. David Bowie advocated an 'extreme right-wing government' and said Britain needed a dictator. Andrew Lloyd Webber explained the idea behind his musical, Evita, which celebrated the life of Eva Peron, wife of the Argentinian dictator, by saying: 'We had a government basically overthrown by trade unions. There was serious talk of private armies, and people were really thinking the country was going to nothing. We kept seeing parallels in the story of an attractive extremist.'
At the Clermont, owned by Aspinall until he sold it to Hugh Hefner in 1972, Lucan was known as 'the good furniture' because his presence gave the place a touch of class. But he was a miserable gambler. The sale of the Clermont to the Playboy empire may even have been the final straw for the increasingly indebted peer. Aspinall received £350,000, a small fortune in those days, while Lucan is said to have received an envelope full of his bounced cheques. According to his wife, Veronica, he described himself as 'broken' by the time of his death.
'He faced a certain prison sentence, long-term unemployment and social disgrace,' she said. 'However, the gods decided to smile on him at long last and the luck that so eluded him in life came in death.'
It is not known how close Lucan was to the right-wing plotters of the Seventies. His widow has said that Aspinall and Goldsmith were not intimates, merely 'casino acquaintances'. What is certain is that Lucan's personal collapse, fuelled by a growing gambling addiction, coincided with a drift towards the extreme right of British politics.
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http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1386406,00.html
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| rynner Location: Still above sea level Gender: Male |
| Posted: 09-08-2007 17:41 Post subject: |
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UK expat denies he is Lord Lucan
A Briton living in New Zealand in an old car, with a pet possum, has denied he is missing aristocrat Lord Lucan.
Neighbours became convinced homeless Roger Woodgate was the vanished peer because of his "upper-class" English accent and "military bearing".
But he says he is a former photographer who happened to move to New Zealand in the same year Lord Lucan went missing.
The 7th Earl of Lucan disappeared in 1974 after the murder of his children's nanny in Belgravia, London.
Denial
Mr Woodgate lives in a battered Land Rover near the country town of Marton with a cat, a pet possum called Redfern and goat named Camilla.
Neighbour Margaret Harris said she became convinced he was Lord Lucan after seeing a picture of the peer in an old magazine.
She told TVNZ: "I spotted this piece and I thought 'oh my God, don't tell me that's who he is?'
"I'm sure that is who he is because he is trying to make out he's a very poor man; poor my foot."
Local journalists then found out about her belief and, believing they were on the verge of solving a 33-year-old mystery, rushed to interview Mr Woodgate.
He, however, quickly denied he was hiding a secret identity.
He was, he said, a former photographer who once worked for the Ministry of Defence and left the UK five months before Lord Lucan went missing.
'Bemused'
Mr Woodgate also pointed out he was five inches shorter than Lord Lucan and, at 62, is 10 years younger than the aristocrat would be now.
He said he was "bemused" by the affair and has spoken to local police about his identity.
"I saw a cop in the gas station and I told him 'you going to arrest me?'. I was winding him up a bit.
"And he said 'no, no, no'. He thought it was funny."
One TV production company enlisted the help of retired Scotland Yard detective Sidney Ball, who is now living in New Zealand.
He paid Mr Woodgate a visit last week.
"He told me that I was not Lord Lucan. I said 'I know that'," Mr Woodgate said.
Blood-soaked car
Since vanishing there have been more than 70 alleged sightings of Lord Lucan in countries across the world including South Africa, Australia, Ireland and the Netherlands.
The peer, born Richard Bingham in 1934, has not been seen since the day after Sandra Rivett, nanny to his three children, was found murdered at the Earl's central London home in 1974.
His blood-soaked car was found abandoned in Newhaven, East Sussex.
He was officially declared dead by the High Court in 1999.
Casino owner and conservationist John Aspinall, who was one of the last people to see Lord Lucan alive, said in a 2000 interview that he probably committed suicide by scuttling his boat in the English Channel.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6938131.stm |
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gncxx King-Size Canary
Great Old One Joined: 25 Aug 2001 Total posts: 13555 Location: Eh? Gender: Male |
| Posted: 09-08-2007 18:26 Post subject: |
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| Even without the 'tache, he doesn't look much like Lord Lucan. Funny how rumours get started, but you'd think the suspicious minds could have picked a lookalike at least. |
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| DougalLongfoot Great Old One Joined: 26 Jul 2005 Total posts: 451 Location: New England, NSW, Australia Age: 39 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 13-08-2007 10:42 Post subject: |
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| Isn't it a bit weird that he knew Lord Lucan's height, and his real name ? Or did the media just add in those details to give the story extra spice? |
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| signalnorth Grey Joined: 09 Dec 2005 Total posts: 26 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 09-09-2007 00:03 Post subject: |
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| I've not seen it mentioned in this thread yet but didn't an author seem to present pretty good evidence a few years back that Damon Hills Father flew the murdering old git out of the country? |
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| WhistlingJack Joined: 29 Oct 2003 Total posts: 4298 Location: The Sewers of The Strand Age: 9 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 09-09-2007 14:22 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | On the trail of Lucan, the lord of the jungle
Author William Hall is certain he has solved the mystery of Lord Lucan's disappearance. Sean Smith meets the sleuth who remains adamant in the face of press ridicule
Dead Lucky. Lord Lucan: The Final Truth
by Duncan MacLaughlin with William Hall John Blake, £16.99
WHEN it comes to solving one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century, anyone prepared to stand up and say "I know what happened to Lord Lucan" better be damned sure they are absolutely certain.
So it is just as well that Highgate author William Hall – a seasoned journalist and biographer – had almost 40 years' experience to fall back on when the going got tough last fortnight.
Mr Hall and co-author ex-Scotland Yard detective Duncan MacLaughlin have faced ridicule since they claimed in their second collaboration that Lord Lucan had lived out his years in a hippy commune in Goa, western India, under the monicker Jungle Barry.
First the Evening Standard and then the entire Fleet Street pack rubbished their theory – digging up numerous witnesses who insisted that Jungle Barry, rather than being Lord Lucan, was Barry Halpin, an Irish folk singer from St Helens in Lancashire.
But the pair stuck to their guns and insisted in television interviews that they had conclusive proof that Lucan had escaped the country after the battered body of his children's nanny, Sandra Rivett, was discovered at the earl's family home in Belgravia in November 1974.
Even Lady Lucan dismissed the theory as absurd. She remains adamant that her ex-husband killed himself after his abandoned blood-soaked car was found in Newhaven the day following the murder.
In 1999 Lord Lucan was officially declared dead as even the authorities, who named him as the murderer at Rivett's inquest, gave up the search.
The small army of detectives assigned to search for him have long since retired or died.
"We are not surprised by the firestorm of flack and spoilers, and people trying to rubbish us," Mr Hall, of Hampstead Lane, told the New Journal. "There is a tremendous amount of jealousy and envy around. It goes with the genre.
"For 30 years I watched colleagues chase around the world in vain searching for the missing earl. The strongest sighting was in Mozambique but there were sightings absolutely everywhere."
One journalist claimed, in a story recounted in the book, to have recovered DNA evidence after lifting a glass which he believed had just been used by the earl at a beach-side bar on a small Pacific island.
Unfortunately, on his return to England his mother unpacked his bag and washed the glass clean of any evidence.
The furore surrounding Mr Hall's book – currently at number three in WH Smith's bestsellers list – has done sales no harm at all.
A film is in the pipeline, too, with a first draft of the script already sent to the first choice to play Lord Lucan, Piers Brosnan. "He is ideal for the part. He is the same build, same height and is renowned for playing gentlemen," said Mr Hall.
As the media frenzy dies down for the time being, how accurate are the claims in the book?
Three months after the murder, so the story goes, Lucan arrived in Bombay from Mozambique on a cargo boat. He had been flown out of Britain by racing driver Graham Hill in his private plane.
There he reinvented himself as a dropout called Jungle Barry and, hiding out in a hippie colony, lived free of charge in return for teaching English to local children.
He also organised trips into the Indian jungle for a small fee and alcohol expenses – he was a heavy drinker right up to his death at the age of 62 in 1996 from sclerosis of the liver when he was cremated locally.
"We investigated the story for a year. It was not some quick-fire piece of sensationalism," said Mr Hall. "We doubled up on everything, cross-checked every piece of evidence.
"We wanted a body, DNA, fingerprints. A jury can convict of murder beyond reasonable doubt on the strength of DNA evidence. But without a body it was very difficult.
"We spoke to dozens of witnesses during a five-week visit to Goa. Many of them remembered him when he first stepped out of the jungle in 1975 and recognised photos taken of him before he disappeared and grew the beard."
He added: "Then there were the reports of well-to-do English visitors who arrived at intervals and left him money. Why would they do that for an Irish folk singer from St Helens?"
Whether the claims in the book are true, it has already grabbed the attention of a public which has been enthralled by the amazing story of the dashing earl – a descendant of the commanding officer at the Charge of the Light Brigade – who murdered a servant by mistake (he was after his wife) and then disappeared into thin air.
"It's been quiet an exciting time for me," said Mr Hall. "Probably the most exciting time of my life."
All content © New Journal Enterprises, 2003 |
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