On the evening of 7 November 1974, Sandra Rivett, the nanny of Lucan's children, was bludgeoned to death in the basement of the Lucan family home. Lady Lucan was also attacked; she later identified Lucan as her assailant. As police opened a murder investigation, Lucan telephoned his mother, asking her to collect the children, and then drove a borrowed Ford Corsair to a friend's house in Uckfield, East Sussex. Hours later, he left the property and disappeared. The car was found abandoned in Newhaven, its interior stained with blood and its boot containing a piece of bandaged lead pipe similar to one found at the crime scene. The police issued a warrant for Lucan's arrest a few days later, and the inquest into Rivett's death named him as her murderer.