1974: The Earl Who Vanished: Lord Lucan Disappears After a Nanny Is Bludgeoned to Death

Sandra Rivett, nanny to the children of Lord Lucan's estranged wife, was beaten to death in the basement of a London house on 7 November 1974. Lucan's wife was also attacked that night and later told police it was her husband who had struck her and killed the nanny in the dark, apparently mistaking her for his wife.

On this day, 8 November 1974, Lucan's car was found abandoned at Newhaven, the ignition key still in place and bloodstains inside. He was never seen again. Despite decades of reported sightings from Africa to Australia and a police search that never closed, no trace of him has ever been found, and his name has become shorthand for a man who simply vanished.

A vanised Earl and an abandoned car
A vanised Earl and an abandoned car

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1977: Fake Detectives, Real Killers: the Hillside Strangler Murder That Broke the Pattern

Elissa Kastin was driving home from her waitressing shift when two men flashing police badges pulled her over, the same ruse the Hillside Stranglers used to lure women into their car. Her body was later round on an embankment near a Glendale country club on this day in 1977, strangled like the others before her.

But Kastin broke the pattern investigators thought they understood. Every previous victim had been a sex worker or runaway, a detail police had quietly used to narrow their search. Kastin was a professional dancer with no such history, and her murder forced detectives to confront a harder truth: the killers were not hunting a type, they were simply hunting whoever stopped for the badge.

Hillside Strangler: Aerial view of rush hour traffic on the 101 Ventura Freeway
Hillside Strangler: Aerial view of rush hour traffic on the 101 Ventura Freeway

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1990: The Rostov Ripper Claims His Final Victim, Then Is Undone by a Suspicious Walk From the Woods

A 350-officer manhunt across the Rostov region had already failed once to stop him, and on this day in 1990 Andrei Chikatilo killed again, murdering Svetlana Korostik in woodland near a rural train station. It was his last victim.

Days later a plainclothes officer, part of the same exhausted operation, spotted a dishevelled man emerging from the trees near the station, wiping his face and straightening his clothes. Something about him seemed wrong enough to stop him and take his details. A records check turned up a prior arrest from 1984, and surveillance was quietly placed on him. Weeks later, Chikatilo, dubbed the Rostov Ripper and found to have killed and in some cases cannibalised dozens of victims over more than a decade, was arrested.

Aerial view of Rostov
Aerial view of Rostov

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2003: The Green River Killer Pleads Guilty to 48 Murders to Escape the Death Penalty

Gary Ridgway killed women across the Seattle area through the 1980s and into the 1990s, most of them sex workers whose bodies he dumped near the Green River, and evaded capture for two decades until DNA evidence finally linked him to the murders. Facing the death penalty, he struck a deal: a guilty plea and full cooperation in locating the remains of still missing victims, in exchange for life in prison instead of execution.

On 5 November 2003, Ridgway pleaded guilty to 48 counts of aggravated murder, making him one of the most prolific confirmed serial killers in American history. He led investigators to burial sites he had kept secret for years, trading confession for survival.

Green River
Green River

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On This Day in True Crime History
1858·The Rope Broke, So They Hanged Him Again: Samuel Gibbs Executed in Melbourne for the Murder of His Wife
1858·He Named Four Innocent Men as the Killers: Hanged in Melbourne for a Ballarat Murder
1929·She Asked for a Kiss, Then Bled to Death: Frederick Carr Hanged in Adelaide for Murdering His Wife
1963·The Royal Commission That Cleared Brisbane Police, Then Unravelled as a Cover-up
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