New Clues in the Notorious Lord Lucan Murders?

Lord Lucan, as is his wont, is back in the news. The British peer suspected of murdering the family nanny with a lead pipe and attempting to murder his wife as well before disappearing—all in a matter of several hours one night in 1974—and who has long been presumed dead, might in fact be living outside Brisbane, Australia. (Not the same thing—no jokes, please.) The Daily Mail reported on “bombshell claims that a facial recognition match for the peer has been made,” specifically that “an 87-year-old Buddhist who lived in Nepal before moving Down Under is a ‘definite match’ for Lord Lucan, according to Professor Hassan Ugail, a leading expert in the field who correctly identified the Russian agents behind the 2018 Salisbury Novichok poisonings. The computer scientist claims to have used an AI algorithm to run 4,000 cross-checks of seven photos: four of Lord Lucan … and three of the frail Australian pensioner,” from which Ugail drew that conclusion. “When confronted about his identity, the 87-year-old’s carers reportedly denied he was Lord Lucan.”

But credit the man for knowing, after 87 years, who he is and isn’t. Within days, “a Home Office-approved team of facial recognition experts … definitively rule[d] him out as Lucan,” the Mail said, based primarily on the fact that the two men barely look anything like each other—the noses and ears are thoroughly dissimilar.