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The 'last person to see Lord Lucan alive' dies
By Robert Jobson And Jason Beattie, Evening Standard Last updated at 00:00am on 28.09.04The last person officially to see Lord Lucan alive has died, taking her secrets to the grave.
Susan Maxwell-Scott spent several hours with fugitive Lucan after the murder of his family's nanny 30 years ago.
He had driven to Mrs Maxwell-Scott's Sussex home as his estranged wife, drenched in blood, fled their Belgravia home to raise the alarm.
While at his friend's house Lucan composed himself enough to write two letters before fleeing. Some days later his borrowed car was found at Newhaven, but there was no sign of the earl.
Mrs Maxwell-Scott was later interviewed by detectives. A family member today confirmed that she died on Sunday at her London home.
Lucan's friends have always insisted he is dead. Some claim he "did the decent thing" and drowned himself in the Channel. The old Etonian peer had broken into his wife's house in Lower Belgrave Street and bludgeoned the nanny, Sandra Rivett, to death with a piece of lead piping, having mistaken her for his wife.
Realising his mistake, Lucan made a second attempt, but his wife fought him off and he fled.
Inspector Roy Ranson, who led the murder investigation, claimed in his book on the case that he believed Lucan did not kill himself but fled to Africa with the help of influential friends. He said he was convinced that the car in Newhaven was a red herring.
He also believed that Lucan escaped to Portugal in a private plane belonging to a friend, racing Graham Hill, who died in 1975.
Later "evidence" suggested that Lucan was in Mozambique in 1975 where he allegedly had a series of conversations with a Welsh doctor, himself on the run from the
police. Since then there have been various sightings in southern Africa.
In 1980, former Grenadier Guards officer David Hardy was killed in a road accident in Essex, and an contact for Lucan was discovered in his address book. The entry read: "Lord Lucan, c/o Hotel Les Ambassadors, Beira, Mozambique."
Reporters headed there after discovering Hardy was a regular client at the Clermont gaming club, where he would undoubtedly have known Lucan.
