Murder by Mistake

The mysteries surrounding Britain’s 7th earl of Lucan have endured for almost four decades. In 1974, after his carefully crafted plan to murder his wife went awry, he killed his nanny by mistake, and then attacked his wife--all while his three children were in the house. If it happened today, everyone with access to the Internet and TV would be inundated for months with the contradictory details of this bizarre story and how the dashing aristocrat became the subject of a worldwide manhunt.

In 1974, England was still very focused on the perks afforded the titled rich. To add insult to murder, the focus of the case moved from the dead nanny and injured wife to the whereabouts of the earl, who disappeared shortly after the attacks. While the police analyzed the evidence, friends and relatives of the missing earl closed ranks and obstructed the investigation. Those same aristocratic friends may have helped get him out of the country and may know where he--or his body--is today.

Trow analyzes what likely happened the night of the murder and the fate of the missing earl. Combining his talents as a storyteller and the objectivity of a historian, Trow leads us into the opulent sanctuaries of England’s aristocracy, suddenly violated by a despicable crime.

This case will never die. There is great excitement now in the British press. A BBC documentary recently claimed that two of Lucan’s three children were taken on holiday to Africa, the trip paid for by Lucan’s friends, so that their father could see them. According to one investigator, hotel and bar receipts from Namibia prove that Lucan was certainly there in 2000. In February 2012, Hugh Bingham, Lucan’s younger brother, said he was convinced that Lucan had escaped to Africa but was not sure whether he was still alive.