Lord Lucan finally declared dead

A British judge declared the infamous Lord Lucan officially dead on Wednesday, four decades after he disappeared following the murder of the family’s nanny in a lurid tale that has gripped Britain.

Lord Lucan, who is also believed to have escaped to India and lived as “Jungle Barry” in Goa — among many conspiracy theories linked with his disappearance in 1974 — was finally granted a death certificate under the UK’s Presumption of Death Act which came into effect in 2014.

“The court must make the declaration that is sought on this case,” Judge Sarah Asplin told a court in London following an application by Lucan’s son George Bingham, who officially becomes the 8th Earl of Lucan.

Bingham, 48, launched a high court bid to obtain a death certificate for his father last year, bringing to an end one chapter in a story full of unanswered questions that revolves around London high society of the 1970s and its gambling underworld.

“I am very happy with the judgment of the court in this matter. It has been a very long time coming,” Bingham told reporters after the hearing, flanked by his new wife Anne-Sofie Foghsgaard, the daughter of a wealthy Danish industrialist.

“I got married this year. I’ve started a new branch in my career. It was a nice moment to say farewell to a very distant past and to move on at a very personal level,” he said.

“Our family has no idea how our own father met his own end. Whether he did so at his own hand or at the hand of others.

“It’s a mystery and it may well remain that way forever.”

Intrigue has shrouded the whereabouts of Richard John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, since he vanished at the age of 39 after his children’s nanny, Sandra Rivett, was bludgeoned to death in 1974 at the London home of Lucan’s estranged wife.

An inquest into the murder raised the theory that Lucan may have mistaken the nanny for Lady Lucan, who said she fought with the attacker in the dark after she heard noises in the basement.

The case sparked worldwide interest after his blood-soaked car was found abandoned near the coast, and since then there have been dozens of supposed sightings of him from southern Africa to New Zealand.

Bizarre conspiracy theories abound, with one of Lucan’s old gambling friends claiming last week that he committed suicide and was then fed to a tiger in a zoo to avoid leaving proof of death and handing his estate over to estranged wife Veronica.

The mystery of the wealthy peer’s vanishing act has triggered years of speculation. Even though he was officially declared dead in 1999, there have been reported sightings in Australia, Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand, besides India. There is one theory that he committed suicide by drowning in the English Channel soon after his disappearance.

Lucan would be 81 if he were still alive today.