 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, although 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.
