Murder of the Earl of Shaftesbury

The scandalous debauchery of the playboy 10th Earl of Shaftesbury sent seismic shock waves through the British aristocracy. He divorced the mother of his children to marry a foreign prostitute, installing her as the new, grand Countess of Shaftesbury, the female figurehead of an historic family revered for centuries for its probity and charity. Incredibly, he flirted with more prostitutes divorcing his whore-countess in order that another of his stable of swingers could acquire the ancient and noble title.

But ugly fate caught up with him first. After being reported missing, his skeletal remains were found several months later just outside Cannes, on the French Riviera. The Countess and her psychopath brother were convicted of the premeditated murder, committed in a desperate attempt to retain the titled status and a lion's share of the inheritance before the Earl had changed his will.

Hollywood superstars and a reigning monarch were even cited at the trial. But the full, tawdry story has never been told, un.