He still qualifies for a place in the profile slot - just. It was the obituary page editors who were flexing their muscles earlier in the week as Lord Lucan, the missing earl, was reported "officially" dead. He was promptly resurrected on Wednesday, however, and officially declared alive and well and living in . . . well, take your pick.
Since his disappearance 25 years ago there have been reported sightings in South Africa, Trinidad, Australia, Canada, Botswana and South America.
Interestingly, he has never been sighted in Co Mayo, where Castlebar householders have waged a battle against paying ground rents to their absentee landlord since he disappeared. His son attempted to claim outstanding debts in 1981, but the "tenants" have refused to pay the rents, worth an estimated £30,000 per annum, since 1976. It was a small report in Tuesday's London Times which appeared to bury any hope the earl might still live.
The paper quoted a court document which said the earl, ". . . died on or since the 8th day of November 1974". This would mean, said the paper, his family would be granted full probate and that his son, George Bingham, might finally be entitled to take the family seat in the House of Lords. However, the High Court denied the report the following day, saying that although a certificate granting Lucan's executors consent to deal with the estate, valued at £14,079, had been issued, no declaration had been made about his death.
Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl and 3rd Baron of Lucan, was last seen (officially) by his friend, Ms Susan Maxwell Scott, in the later hours of November 7th, 1974, - some hours after the nanny of his three children had been bludgeoned to death and their mother assaulted. Over the following quarter-of-a-century a healthy curiosity - unhealthy obsession? - has grown up around the question of whether he is alive or dead, where he might be and whether he murdered Ms Sandra Rivett, having mistaken her for his wife. The file has never been closed on the investigation into her death.
Known to his gambling friends, ironically, as Lucky Lucan, he might also have been called the Reluctant Earl.
Born in 1934, the bounder and cad married the quiet and tiny Veronica Duncan in 1963. He had known her just a few months.
The young couple spent their honeymoon on the Orient Express and shortly after their return, John's father died suddenly. His father, who referred to himself as Pat Lucan, was a member of Clement Atlee's Labour government and later Labour's chief whip in the House of Lords. And so, less than two months after his marriage to a quiet girl whom he reasoned would not put a halt to his gambling and carousing gallop, 29-year-old John Bingham found himself the 7th Earl of Lucan.
He and his countess lived at 46 Lower Belgrave Square in London. Over the following seven years they had three children - Frances, George and Camilla.
While he spent every afternoon and almost every evening gambling at the Clermont Club, Veronica spent her days in varying degrees of mental ill-health in the company of her children and a variety of agency nannies. He referred to the club as his "work" and on leaving the Belgravia home each day he said he was going "to work".
Not terribly bright, he seems to have assumed the warm welcome that greeted him was born of affection. Perhaps, to a degree, it was, but the fact he "worked" so well at losing vast sums of money certainly helped. As a handsome, debonair member of the aristocracy, who was no threat to the company finances, he was an ideal member of the Clermont Club.
While he was still getting on reasonably well with his wife, she used to come and watch him at the club. Soon, he began to tell others around the tables that she was going mad and needed help. On one occasion he told her they were going for a drive and he took her to the Priory - an exclusive psychiatric nursing home. A scene ensued which culminated in Lady Veronica running away. Though their relationship deteriorated and his finances became increasingly complicated, his love for the children was never in doubt. However, he eventually moved out of number 46 Lower Belgrave Square, his wife won custody of the children and he got a flat around the corner. He reputedly walked past the house several times a day just to get a glimpse of his children.
It was 11 years after that stylish society wedding, at quarter to ten in the evening, that the door to a pub near the Lucan home was flung open and there, her nightdress covered in blood, a great wound in her head, was Lady Lucan. She was screaming.
"Help me. Help me. I've just escaped from a murderer. My children, my children. He's in the house. He's murdered the nanny."
AN ambulance was called, she was taken to hospital and police found, in the house, blood everywhere, the body of Ms Rivett and the three Lucan children upstairs.
Lady Lucan's statement to the police is well known. It was the nanny's night off but she had changed it, so one - perhaps Lord Lucan - would not have expected to find her there. She offered to make Lady Lucan a cup of tea, but was gone so long that Lady Veronica came to investigate what was detaining her. She was grabbed by a man she says was her husband and they struggled. They talked before she raced out of the house to raise the alarm.
He apparently called to two friends, the last one being Ms Maxwell Scott in Sussex. He asked her for sleeping tablets and told her an intruder had murdered the nanny, and that his wife would say he had hired the killer.
His said he was going to lie low for a while - and was never "officially" seen again. His car was found abandoned at the port of Newhaven. Some speculated that he might have committed suicide, though no body was ever washed ashore.
The Dowager Countess Veronica Lucan commented during the week that she hoped the granting of probate would put an end to "it".
"It was 25 years ago . . . and it should be forgotten," she said.
And though his "tenants" in Castlebar may grumble that they still cannot clear up the matter of outstanding "debts", they would probably agree that even when he was here, as absentee landlords go he wasn't so bad.
They would certainly also agree that as absentee landlord go, he's gone.
