Fugitive aristocrat’s trail leads to Namibia

COULD the key to solving a murder that happened in London 33 years ago, which has led British police on a worldwide search ever since, be hiding in Namibia? A Welsh-based private investigator and chronicler of the ‘Lord Lucan mystery’ believes so, and says he is willing to pay half a million Namibian dollars to anyone who can help him prove it for a book he plans to write on the saga.

Ian Crosby yesterday concluded his second visit to Namibia in three years, as he follows the trail he believes was left behind by Richard John Binham, the British aristocrat who disappeared on November 8 1974. Binham’s children’s nanny, Sandra Rivett (29 at the time) was found murdered that night at his estranged wife’s home in London.His wife, who burst into a nearby bar with bloodstained clothes on the same night crying for help, attributed the murder to her husband, and claimed that he had in fact intended to kill her.The case made history at the time as Binham, better known as Lord Lucan, was named as Rivett’s killer by a coroner’s jury, without his ever being tried in person.As a direct result of this case, the right by such a jury to name a murderer was abolished in that country’s Criminal Law Act of 1977.While his wife, some family members and friends have publicly concluded that Lucan committed suicide after the incident, others, including Crosby, believe that he in fact used his well-placed sources around the world to evade arrest and start a new life.One such theory is that Lucan fled to Mozambique by private plane flown by a friend.He then, according to this theory, moved to a vineyard in South Africa, where he started a new life with a Scottish family.Evidence supporting this theory, Crosby says, include an entry in the address book of a friend of Lucan’s, David Hardy, who died in a road accident in 1975.The entry, which was reported in Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper in 2004, reads “Lord Lucan: c/o Hotel Les Ambassadeurs, Beira, Mozambique”.Adding fuel to the rumours about Lucan’s whereabouts are a number of visits his children and friends have been making to this part of the world.It is these visits, Crosby says, which led him to Namibia in 2004, when he received information that Lucan’s son and daughter, George and Frances, had booked themselves into the Kalahari Sands Hotel in Windhoek in 2000.”I discovered that he had come to Namibia many times.In 2000 he stayed, on various occasions, at the Kalahari Sands hotel.Through a contact at the hotel I was able to get his bar bill, his room number, and also a list of telephone numbers he had dialled,” Crosby says.”What’s interesting is that he never stayed there”, he suggests.According to Crosby, Lucan’s children had in fact stayed at a remote guest farm on the way to the Hosea Kutako airport, and only occasionally checked in at the hotel.Crosby suspects that the two were in Namibia to visit their ailing father, who he suspects may by now have died and been buried or cremated either here or in one of the other southern African countries they had been visiting during this time, more specifically Botswana or Johannesburg in South Africa.”I understand there is only one crematorium in Namibia, but I can’t be sure of any name he may have gone under,” he says.”That’s why I’d like to offer this reward of half a million Namibian dollars to anyone who may help me put this case to rest,” Crosby says, adding that he particularly has in mind bartenders, waiters, staff at gambling houses, and others who may have served Lucan.”He could possibly have changed his features to avoid detection, but there are certain things that you can’t get away from.He was about six feet four in height, a left-hand smoker, and he used to play golf.I expect someone who may be able to help would be a Namibian who was a caddy for him,” Crosby says.At least seven books on the Lord Lucan mystery have already been published, mostly by former police investigators in the case.However, none has so far been able to put to rest speculation and counter-theories regarding the whereabouts of the missing earl.Crosby says he has been intrigued by the case since 1975 when he was 14 years old, and has been actively pursuing it for the past six years.Anyone who would like to contact him regarding this case can reach him at his email address, iancrosby@btconnect.com.Binham’s children’s nanny, Sandra Rivett (29 at the time) was found murdered that night at his estranged wife’s home in London.His wife, who burst into a nearby bar with bloodstained clothes on the same night crying for help, attributed the murder to her husband, and claimed that he had in fact intended to kill her. The case made history at the time as Binham, better known as Lord Lucan, was named as Rivett’s killer by a coroner’s jury, without his ever being tried in person.As a direct result of this case, the right by such a jury to name a murderer was abolished in that country’s Criminal Law Act of 1977.While his wife, some family members and friends have publicly concluded that Lucan committed suicide after the incident, others, including Crosby, believe that he in fact used his well-placed sources around the world to evade arrest and start a new life.One such theory is that Lucan fled to Mozambique by private plane flown by a friend.He then, according to this theory, moved to a vineyard in South Africa, where he started a new life with a Scottish family.Evidence supporting this theory, Crosby says, include an entry in the address book of a friend of Lucan’s, David Hardy, who died in a road accident in 1975.The entry, which was reported in Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper in 2004, reads “Lord Lucan: c/o Hotel Les Ambassadeurs, Beira, Mozambique”.Adding fuel to the rumours about Lucan’s whereabouts are a number of visits his children and friends have been making to this part of the world.It is these visits, Crosby says, which led him to Namibia in 2004, when he received information that Lucan’s son and daughter, George and Frances, had booked themselves into the Kalahari Sands Hotel in Windhoek in 2000.”I discovered that he had come to Namibia many times.In 2000 he stayed, on various occasions, at the Kalahari Sands hotel.Through a contact at the hotel I was able to get his bar bill, his room number, and also a list of telephone numbers he had dialled,” Crosby says.”What’s interesting is that he never stayed there”, he suggests.According to Crosby, Lucan’s children had in fact stayed at a remote guest farm on the way to the Hosea Kutako airport, and only occasionally checked in at the hotel.Crosby suspects that the two were in Namibia to visit their ailing father, who he suspects may by now have died and been buried or cremated either here or in one of the other southern African countries they had been visiting during this time, more specifically Botswana or Johannesburg in South Africa.”I understand there is only one crematorium in Namibia, but I can’t be sure of any name he may have gone under,” he says.”That’s why I’d like to offer this reward of half a million Namibian dollars to anyone who may help me put this case to rest,” Crosby says, adding that he particularly has in mind bartenders, waiters, staff at gambling houses, and others who may have served Lucan.”He could possibly have changed his features to avoid detection, but there are certain things that you can’t get away from.He was about six feet four in height, a left-hand smoker, and he used to play golf.I expect someone who may be able to help would be a Namibian who was a caddy for him,” Crosby says.At least seven books on the Lord Lucan mystery have already been published, mostly by former police investigators in the case.However, none has so far been able to put to rest speculation and counter-theories regarding the whereabouts of the missing earl.Crosby says he has been intrigued by the case since 1975 when he was 14 years old, and has been actively pursuing it for the past six years.Anyone who would like to contact him regarding this case can reach him at his email address, iancrosby@btconnect.com.

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