Lucan 's disappearance has captivated the public 's imagination for decades , with thousands of sightings reported across the world . One of the earliest , shortly after the murder , turned out to be a British ex-politician , John Stonehouse , who had attempted to fake his own death . The police travelled to France in June the following year to hunt another lead , to no avail . A sighting in Colombia turned out to be an American businessman . John Miller , a bounty hunter who kidnapped the fugitive train robber Ronnie Biggs , claimed in 1982 to have captured the earl , but was later exposed by the '' News of the World '' as a hoaxer . In 2003 a former Scotland Yard detective thought he had tracked the earl to Goa , India ; the man he traced was actually Barry Halpin , a folk singer from St Helens . In 2007 , reporters in New Zealand interviewed a homeless British expatriate who neighbours claimed was the missing earl
train robber
Great Train Robbery (1963)
John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan