The Disappearance of Lord Lucan

The following evening, police visited the hospital bed of Lady Lucan. She had suffered from shock, loss of blood and seven severe scalp wounds.

She told them that she had been watching television with her daughter that evening in the second-floor bedroom. Sandra had put the two younger children to bed earlier. As she and her daughter Frances watched television, Sandra knocked at the door. It was shortly before 9 p.m.

Sandra asked if they would like some tea, to which the Countess agreed. After about 15 minutes, Lady Lucan said she began to wonder what was keeping Sandra so long. She told investigators that she went downstairs to find the nanny and it was there, near the stairs on the ground floor, that she was brutally attacked. She discussed the struggle in great detail. She was certain that the assailant was her husband, Lord Lucan.

Lady Lucan said that after she grabbed his testicles, she and her husband fell to the ground in a state of exhaustion. According to Lady Lucan, her husband admitted to accidentally killing the nanny. She said that Lord Lucan had mistaken Sandra for his wife since Lady Lucan typically made the evening tea and Sandra usually had Thursday evenings off.

Linda Stratmann, author of Lord Lucan Mystery, writes that Lady Lucan tried to calm her husband down by persuading him that Sandra would not be missed. Lady Lucan told her husband that they could hide the body, and she could tell the police that a burglar was responsible for the attack, according to Stratmann. Fearing for her own life, she agreed to do whatever he wanted. Lord Lucan asked if she had any sleeping pills and suggested that she take some. She agreed to take the pills only if she could lie down for a while in her bed upstairs. The two rose from the floor and went up to the second level, dripping blood along the way. They entered the bedroom where Frances was still absorbed in the television program. In her statement to police, Frances said she noticed that her mother had blood on her face when her parents entered the room. Frances said she was sent to her room.

Lady Lucan stated that they went into the bathroom, where her husband inspected her wounds. She told police that Lord Lucan laid a towel down on the bed for her to rest on. When her husband went to the bathroom for more towels to clean her wounds, she seized that moment to escape. She ran out of the house to the Plumbers Arms pub nearby.