UK UK - Suzy Lamplugh, 25, Fulham, 28 Jul 1986 #2

[Fate--]

Did the suspect/victim leave anything behind?

 

[Crusader21]

I think of it as like a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle that has 300 pieces missing plus 200 pieces in the box that are actually from other puzzles.

This is my nomination for 'Quote of the Year'! Brilliant ......

 

[Crusader21]

Did the suspect/victim leave anything behind?

Welcome to the discussion Fate.

It appears now we've good reason to suspect that SL drove to the Prince Of Wales Pub in Putney (Monday lunchtime) to retrieve personal items which she appeared to lose (Sunday evening) outside that pub. Namely her personal diary, chequebook and a postcard.

Her car unlocked, was then found around 10pm that evening on the Stevenage Rd, Fulham. Her purse was found in the car, and drivers seat extended to what is believed accommodate a taller person / male(?) driving / abandoning her car.

 

[WestLondoner]

The fact that DV has anonymised CV suggests he thinks CV had something to do with it. DV also speculates that she may have died in an accident ("what if Suzy hadn’t been murdered at all? Why did there have to be a serial killer, or a murder, or even a motive? What if there had been some sort of terrible accident at the pub and someone had simply covered it up?").

CV relates that there were calls to the pub; one supposedly from a policeman wanting to know when she was getting there, another from a woman wanting her kept there. Was CV a mate of these callers, and did her at their behest restrain SJL in a way that she came to accidental harm? And then indeed cover it up so that it wouldn't look like several people had planned her death?

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

Why would CV flag calls & call details to police a year later & to DV recently if involved? (I think the ‘keep her talking’, and ‘tell her you can’t find it’ are totally new)? These calls do give CV an alibi for being in the pub (all?) afternoon.

DV suggested, I believe, it may have remained closed all day or afternoon?

(‘it’ presumably being the ‘diary’ (?) & what was being chased?)

 

[WestLondoner]

I guess he has to stick to his story.

The police were alerted within a day or two of 28 /7/1986 and seem to have spoken to the landlord's wife. So the general facts were that SJL had left her stuff there and was returning and there were some odd calls. When the police turned up he supposedly gave them the phone numbers of the callers. The police were mystified a year later because there was no record of these numbers.

33 years on he has deniability if he thinks he's added too much.

The reported conversation with CV in DV's book reads like he recorded him and transcribed it after the fact. The manner of speech is rambling enough that CV could deny much of it later.

It's hard to fathom a motive for CV to kill SJL but it's equally hard to see how she could have met her end at the PoW without his involvement.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

DV doesn’t mention the calls in book as they seem to have been noted at time re: AS (who they were from & name given) & places great store in a caller mentioning ‘Susan’.

Was the 66 year old man -who all couldn’t fathom any link at all to SL - in this ‘diary’? (Later cleared as she wanted to buy a car, he said). Ditto the others mentioned in press.

The last call, seconds or moments before she left, half sitting on desk & half standing in haste to leave, AS says was with CV’s wife, why? Said who? Was this a change to earlier arrangements?

 

[WestLondoner]

DV does mention the calls:

It was one of the oddities we’d come across while talking to Clive Vole. He’d claimed that there had been a telephone call to the Prince of Wales, around two hours after he’d spoken to Suzy on the day she’d gone missing. He’d described a woman on the end of the phone who’d said to him: ‘Try to keep her there, while I get round there…’ And he’d told us the woman had used the name ‘Susan’ in reference to Suzy. I remembered reading this newspaper article during our searches at the British Library. I remembered it because it was one of the very first pieces published about Suzy’s disappearance. (p184)

He stopped and changed tack before continuing. ‘Somebody phoned up, they said they were from Chelsea police station. Had she been for the chequebook and diary? And I said no. And that was it.’ ‘Then they came in to get it off you?’ I asked. ‘Then they came to pick up the chequebook and diary. Yeah.’ (p196)

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

DV does mention the calls:

It was one of the oddities we’d come across while talking to Clive Vole. He’d claimed that there had been a telephone call to the Prince of Wales, around two hours after he’d spoken to Suzy on the day she’d gone missing. He’d described a woman on the end of the phone who’d said to him: ‘Try to keep her there, while I get round there…’ And he’d told us the woman had used the name ‘Susan’ in reference to Suzy. I remembered reading this newspaper article during our searches at the British Library. I remembered it because it was one of the very first pieces published about Suzy’s disappearance. (p184)

He stopped and changed tack before continuing. ‘Somebody phoned up, they said they were from Chelsea police station. Had she been for the chequebook and diary? And I said no. And that was it.’ ‘Then they came in to get it off you?’ I asked. ‘Then they came to pick up the chequebook and diary. Yeah.’ (p196)

Yes, you're right, thank you, no reference as to the name of the friend given in AS (from CV) though. Poss the timeline wrong the calls there (AS). Also, for me the 'keep her talking' is interesting and new information. It must surely have provoked questions in CV's mind at the time (?)

 

[Konstantin]

I have to say I think that CV was just muddled over the phone calls he claims (a year later) to have received.

-- He did arrange with SJL that she come pick up her missing stuff but that was supposed to be later that day, I think that this appointment time was confirmed by his wife not just him at the time. Otherwise how do we know that she made the appointment for a certain time? It's not like SJL left a record and of course she is not around to confirm it.

-- I find it very hard to believe that someone would call CV on the day that SJL was supposed to come and collect her stuff, before anyone knew she was missing and claim to be a police officer, if that really happened then it would ahve been so weird that CV would have mentioned it when the police did come along to see him and collect SJLs items (and they did interview him, at the time, because the year later interview when he told them about the phone calls was the SECOND time he was spoken to). There is no reason for a kidnapper to pretend to be a police officer and phone a pub where SJL was supposed to attend later that day, what does it achieve if he already has SJL? Nothing, apart from draw attention to himself.

I know that JC got his victim SB to call into work sick but that makes sense, because it stopped her work raising the alarm over SBs absence, calling the pub to say some nonsense would either just get ignored, or more likely raise the alarm that something was weird.

I think CV just was busy in the pub, maybe a bit scatty anyway and just mixed up days, and is remembering that a cop called him at some point soon after SJLs disappearance to ask about if she came to get the stuff. The cops started looking for SJL very soon after she disappeared after all.

I think DV deliberately portrays CV in his book as weird to give the impression that he must be guilty of something. Because he wants his theory to be true. But CV has no motive to kill and hide SJL apart from a spur of the moment sex attack gone wrong, and he has no other convictions as far as we know for similar offences. If he was that out of control to a strange woman in the middle of the day, you'd definitely expect some other stuff to show up in his life. Yet the police thought he was honest.

I am starting to think the CV theory is just a big red herring because he is a character in the story we know about, whereas there were lots of people, mostly men, in SJLs life that we have no idea exist. It is more likely, given the time of day she went missing, that this was linked to someone or more than one person she knew, but she was very secretive and compartmentalised her life so whatever she was involved in wasn't gotten to the bottom of. It reminds me of the Claudia Lawrence case where the police were slammed for trying to raise the issue of her complicated private life with affairs, as if they were *advertiser censored* shaming or speaking ill of the dead, even though this really is probably the area we need to unravel if we are to find out what happened to her.

I also don't think that SJL lost her stuff on the Friday night when she was out with AL. Maybe AL thought she did at first, because this was what he was told, and that is why he said that in interviews initially. He didnt know SJL as well as he thought he did, he probably liked her way more than she liked him, even the AS book says that SJL had told friends she was planning to dump him. So he hears a story how she lost her stuff near the pub, thought oh we were next door to that on Friday, and made the assumption she lost the stuff then, not wanting to think that she could have gone out Sunday without telling him. I think he does likely remember who called who on the Sunday but for some reason doesn't want to admit what went on, which is most likely that he had realised SJL had dumped him, or she told him so. Suddenly she goes missing and he is dragged in to events as the perfect boyfriend (that he probably wanted to be) and doesn't feel he can say otherwise to SJL's frightened and upset parents, plus if he did it would give him a motive to harm SJL and he probably didn't want to go there.

SJL was up to stuff and AL, her parents, and others didn't know about it, or only knew fragments. I don't think we will ever know what.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

I have to say I think that CV was just muddled over the phone calls he claims (a year later) to have received.

-- He did arrange with SJL that she come pick up her missing stuff but that was supposed to be later that day, I think that this appointment time was confirmed by his wife not just him at the time. Otherwise how do we know that she made the appointment for a certain time? It's not like SJL left a record and of course she is not around to confirm it.

-- I find it very hard to believe that someone would call CV on the day that SJL was supposed to come and collect her stuff, before anyone knew she was missing and claim to be a police officer, if that really happened then it would ahve been so weird that CV would have mentioned it when the police did come along to see him and collect SJLs items (and they did interview him, at the time, because the year later interview when he told them about the phone calls was the SECOND time he was spoken to). There is no reason for a kidnapper to pretend to be a police officer and phone a pub where SJL was supposed to attend later that day, what does it achieve if he already has SJL? Nothing, apart from draw attention to himself.

I know that JC got his victim SB to call into work sick but that makes sense, because it stopped her work raising the alarm over SBs absence, calling the pub to say some nonsense would either just get ignored, or more likely raise the alarm that something was weird.

I think CV just was busy in the pub, maybe a bit scatty anyway and just mixed up days, and is remembering that a cop called him at some point soon after SJLs disappearance to ask about if she came to get the stuff. The cops started looking for SJL very soon after she disappeared after all.

I think DV deliberately portrays CV in his book as weird to give the impression that he must be guilty of something. Because he wants his theory to be true. But CV has no motive to kill and hide SJL apart from a spur of the moment sex attack gone wrong, and he has no other convictions as far as we know for similar offences. If he was that out of control to a strange woman in the middle of the day, you'd definitely expect some other stuff to show up in his life. Yet the police thought he was honest.

I am starting to think the CV theory is just a big red herring because he is a character in the story we know about, whereas there were lots of people, mostly men, in SJLs life that we have no idea exist. It is more likely, given the time of day she went missing, that this was linked to someone or more than one person she knew, but she was very secretive and compartmentalised her life so whatever she was involved in wasn't gotten to the bottom of. It reminds me of the Claudia Lawrence case where the police were slammed for trying to raise the issue of her complicated private life with affairs, as if they were *advertiser censored* shaming or speaking ill of the dead, even though this really is probably the area we need to unravel if we are to find out what happened to her.

I also don't think that SJL lost her stuff on the Friday night when she was out with AL. Maybe AL thought she did at first, because this was what he was told, and that is why he said that in interviews initially. He didnt know SJL as well as he thought he did, he probably liked her way more than she liked him, even the AS book says that SJL had told friends she was planning to dump him. So he hears a story how she lost her stuff near the pub, thought oh we were next door to that on Friday, and made the assumption she lost the stuff then, not wanting to think that she could have gone out Sunday without telling him. I think he does likely remember who called who on the Sunday but for some reason doesn't want to admit what went on, which is most likely that he had realised SJL had dumped him, or she told him so. Suddenly she goes missing and he is dragged in to events as the perfect boyfriend (that he probably wanted to be) and doesn't feel he can say otherwise to SJL's frightened and upset parents, plus if he did it would give him a motive to harm SJL and he probably didn't want to go there.

SJL was up to stuff and AL, her parents, and others didn't know about it, or only knew fragments. I don't think we will ever know what.

All plausible. The woman who called and allegedly left her number possibly warrants some more thought

I have to say I think that CV was just muddled over the phone calls he claims (a year later) to have received.

-- He did arrange with SJL that she come pick up her missing stuff but that was supposed to be later that day, I think that this appointment time was confirmed by his wife not just him at the time. Otherwise how do we know that she made the appointment for a certain time? It's not like SJL left a record and of course she is not around to confirm it.

-- I find it very hard to believe that someone would call CV on the day that SJL was supposed to come and collect her stuff, before anyone knew she was missing and claim to be a police officer, if that really happened then it would ahve been so weird that CV would have mentioned it when the police did come along to see him and collect SJLs items (and they did interview him, at the time, because the year later interview when he told them about the phone calls was the SECOND time he was spoken to). There is no reason for a kidnapper to pretend to be a police officer and phone a pub where SJL was supposed to attend later that day, what does it achieve if he already has SJL? Nothing, apart from draw attention to himself.

I know that JC got his victim SB to call into work sick but that makes sense, because it stopped her work raising the alarm over SBs absence, calling the pub to say some nonsense would either just get ignored, or more likely raise the alarm that something was weird.

I think CV just was busy in the pub, maybe a bit scatty anyway and just mixed up days, and is remembering that a cop called him at some point soon after SJLs disappearance to ask about if she came to get the stuff. The cops started looking for SJL very soon after she disappeared after all.

I think DV deliberately portrays CV in his book as weird to give the impression that he must be guilty of something. Because he wants his theory to be true. But CV has no motive to kill and hide SJL apart from a spur of the moment sex attack gone wrong, and he has no other convictions as far as we know for similar offences. If he was that out of control to a strange woman in the middle of the day, you'd definitely expect some other stuff to show up in his life. Yet the police thought he was honest.

I am starting to think the CV theory is just a big red herring because he is a character in the story we know about, whereas there were lots of people, mostly men, in SJLs life that we have no idea exist. It is more likely, given the time of day she went missing, that this was linked to someone or more than one person she knew, but she was very secretive and compartmentalised her life so whatever she was involved in wasn't gotten to the bottom of. It reminds me of the Claudia Lawrence case where the police were slammed for trying to raise the issue of her complicated private life with affairs, as if they were *advertiser censored* shaming or speaking ill of the dead, even though this really is probably the area we need to unravel if we are to find out what happened to her.

I also don't think that SJL lost her stuff on the Friday night when she was out with AL. Maybe AL thought she did at first, because this was what he was told, and that is why he said that in interviews initially. He didnt know SJL as well as he thought he did, he probably liked her way more than she liked him, even the AS book says that SJL had told friends she was planning to dump him. So he hears a story how she lost her stuff near the pub, thought oh we were next door to that on Friday, and made the assumption she lost the stuff then, not wanting to think that she could have gone out Sunday without telling him. I think he does likely remember who called who on the Sunday but for some reason doesn't want to admit what went on, which is most likely that he had realised SJL had dumped him, or she told him so. Suddenly she goes missing and he is dragged in to events as the perfect boyfriend (that he probably wanted to be) and doesn't feel he can say otherwise to SJL's frightened and upset parents, plus if he did it would give him a motive to harm SJL and he probably didn't want to go there.

SJL was up to stuff and AL, her parents, and others didn't know about it, or only knew fragments. I don't think we will ever know what.

All very plausible, although the woman who left her number for Suzy (for when she came into the pub later) is possibly more perplexing. Although I suspect more '*advertiser censored* up' than 'conspiracy' at play, you're right. The 'two young officers' if we take AS's word for it were quite troubled by these calls, 'aghast' is quite strong, why not brush aside as understandable confusion at the time (?) And they were revisiting after a year, after all. AS says after a year some who know rather more etc, adjust story in some fashion or alter habits and behaviour and then launches into this narrative. He does prefix hat CV was honest etc, like everyone else involved.

 

[WestLondoner]

There is no reason for a kidnapper to pretend to be a police officer and phone a pub where SJL was supposed to attend later that day

Well, there is. It could be that he intended to not to kidnap but to confront her, eg over money or some other issue (cf the story she told her uncle about someone pressuring her). But she has been vague about when she would be going there. Right away, that afternoon, that evening - not clear. This caller thus needed to know when she was expected there, so that he could be waiting for her.

He's organised the loss and retrieval of her diary, but also her cheque book. This inference is unavoidable given what we know. Only she, the pub, and the bank staff knew where her stuff was. How else can he know the fact and place she's mislaid them, unless he heard it from someone at the pub?

So he intends to ambush her there, and demand she write him a cheque, right there on the spot, for the money he thinks he's owed (someone AS mentions was bankrupted a week later). She can't say she doesn't have the cheque book, because she does. Or rather, the pub does.

Thus nobody intended her harm. What someone wanted was money, she'd been avoiding meeting that someone, so he / they set her up to be surprised at the pub.

CV has no motive to kill and hide SJL

As related in DV, no, he doesn't, nor does he have the right opportunity. But if he is an associate of the other man / couple, maybe he lifted the cheque book for them, and / or has agreed to keep her there when she comes for it. CV in real life is not short and dumpy; he's over 6 feet and capable of overpowering SJL. Maybe she is killed when he physically restrains her from leaving: DV's accident hypothesis - panic attack while locked into a cellar, for example.

The key point in this is that nobody ever intended to kill her. At most someone desperate for money, who felt she'd turned him over, wanted to intimidate her into writing a cheque. If harm were intended, no way would the woman have phoned and left a phone number. She'd only do that if she had legitimate intentions ('Then I got a phone call about two o’clock from a woman, saying, “If she comes, tell her you can’t find ’em and give us a ring,” ’ p165)

This account then ties quite a few points together.

• It fits with the account she gave her uncle of a troublesome man.
• It explains why someone might have been desperate enough for money to confront her.
• It fits with the DV theory that she didn't go to Shorrolds.
• It fits with the cabbie sighting of someone who looked like James Galway (CV) one street from Stevenage Road, who said he'd seen a couple 'having a right ruck' - this relocates where harm came to her away from the pub, and to where the car was dumped.
• This happened at maybe 3 or 4 o'clock; late enough for the BT workers not to have seen the car ditched, and late enough for her body to have been hidden first.
• It explains the calls to the pub, some of which were not to/from CV but rather the landlord, his wife, etc.
• The fact of SJL's death would mean murder would be a possibility, with all three knowledgeable parties in the frame as either perps or accessories; so all three would keep it quiet.
• It explains why CV's appalled ex dumped him - she was the fourth person around but not involved; she'd worked out what happened and where SJL really was instead of Shorrolds.
• It explains why CV instantly remembered stuff DV had not raised. You'd remember the day you killed someone all your life.

Of course there's no conclusive evidence, and some evidence contradicts this, like with every other hypothesis. But if a search of the pub turned up her body, and DNA linking her to CV...well, that's where DV has got to.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

Galway look-alike never came forward and was an important witness. Press at time: 'A middle aged man waiting for a cab saw a couple struggling violently with each other just yards from where she was last seen'.

'He did not intervene as he thought it was a lover's tiff' 'detectives believe the couple may have been 25 year old Susie and Mr Kipper - the man who phoned to make an appointment with her to view a house'. 'The man told the cabbie 'there's a couple having a right ruck It looks as if I am watching them, thank Christ you have come'.

He was dropped off after a 1.60 ride to a McDonalds takeaway in North End Rd, Fulham. The witness was about 40 with dark hair and a greying beard and moustache. He wore dark trousers and a blue and white T-shirt [the same as Crimewatch reconstruction then, where the blue and white top looks like a rugby shirt, and I think other reports said he was carrying a bag].

 

[WestLondoner]

A very odd sighting at face value. There's a couple having a 'right ruck' and it looks like they can see him looking at them, but she's not in sufficient distress that she needs him to intervene. Nobody else saw this, not even the taxi driver. Despite the enormous publicity, this guy has never come forward.

This fact, the northernism 'right ruck' and the description all fit CV - I had a beard when I was 30 and it made me look about 45 too.

The police inference that this was SJL means that if this was a ruse to place her somewhere else than the PoW, it worked like a charm. At this point CV has never heard of any Mr Kipper, but it's a reasonable false trail to suggest that a looker like SJL might have the odd troublesome beau who could be the culprit. Imagine his relief later to learn that the police are looking for Mr Kipper, but not for any SJL sightings near the PoW.

It's also interesting that there has never been any sighting of SJL's car at Shorrolds or between there and Stevenage.

 

[Konstantin]

But if CV was in on the rise why would anyone need to phone him and relate the things he claimed were related to him?

If he was in on it then he’d be the one phoning his associates telling them the ruse worked and SJL has arrived at the pub.

also if I were Cv and I were in on the ruse if not be telling the police about any phone calls I got from my associates. Why would he tell the police about the calls at all?

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

Any phone call proves that CV was in the pub all afternoon. Was it closed to the public all day? No one seems to know and I think DV said that was possible, or certainly possible at lunchtime and possibly no food served that day.

Phone calls certainly came later from the police etc when they visited a day or so later on.

 

[asyousay]

The phone calls could of easily of been alter that afternoon. By that stage she had vanished so if anybody in the office knew she was missing knew she was going to visit there could of easily or rung to say “ if she turns up keep her there” nothing at all sinister in that.


MOO

 

[Fate--]

Hello. Any leads?

 

[WestLondoner]

I just wanted to talk about this £3,000 for a mo. In the late 80s, 89 I think, a good mate of mine was briefly an estate agent in West London. He described it as a pretty cut throat line of work because essentially you were always at risk of being done over by your colleagues. He had certain buyers who were assigned to him on registration of their interest, and the aim was for it to be his buyer whose bid for a property was accepted. That was what earned commission. His colleagues of course wanted their buyer to be the one the vendor proceeded with, so these estate agents were constantly winding their buyers up to gazump a colleague's buyer even after a sale had been agreed. He had sales targets which were to obtain so many exchanges of contract a quarter, and he got paid when the sales actually completed and money was paid over.

The commission rate charged by the agency was 2.25% and the negotiator whose buyer "won" got 15% of that. This was pretty typical as I recall. It is probably similar today except the agency commission rates vary more. The manager took 10% and the other 75% of what the vendor was charged went to pay the agency's overheads, partners etc. It would be the job of someone like MG to apportion buyers to negotiators, to decide which should be recommended to the vendor as best buyer, and to make sure SJL and her colleagues were hitting their targets.

Assuming SJL was on a similar structure then we can understand what she might have meant when she said she was "expecting" a £3,000 payout. On a normal vanilla house sale, she would be expecting her commission as soon as contracts had been exchanged, and she would actually get paid upon completion.

It's trivial to work out what value of house sale would have earned her £3,000. It would be an £888,888 house, because 2.25% of that is £20,000, and her 15% share of that £20,000 is £3,000. Right away, this tells us that her £3,000 was nothing to do with work. An £889k property then would be a very high end sale, and there is no way SJL, who had been an estate agent barely a year, would have been involved in anything of the kind. She would more likely have been involved with lower end buyers in the £80 to £200k mark, such as Shorrolds. Someone selling a property that valuable would have dealt with experienced senior members of staff, not a 25-year-old. I am handling a £2 million probate sale at the moment and it is being handled entirely by partner level staff.

The fact that nobody at Sturgis mentioned any high end sale at all that she might have been involved in points clearly to this being some private enterprise.

Do we have any inkling what this might have been about?

One possibility I can think of is that she would have had access to Sturgis' list of buyers. Agents were supposed to complete a card for each one setting out what they were looking for, price range, ource of funds, bids made, etc. This would form part of how MG would decide who was a more credible buyer. SJL would have had access to this, so one possibility that occurs to me is whether she was using Sturgis buyers to sell property on the side for people who had not instructed Sturgis? That is, someone says Hey Suze, I have this £200k house to sell but I don't want to pay an agent £5,000 for selling it - can you find me someone to buy it? So SJL says Sure, I know a few and I'd only charge you £3,000 for the introduction.

This is the only way I can see her making a one-off £3,000 whereby she knew it was coming (exchange had happened) but she had not yet had the dosh (payable on completion). At the price level of property she would ordinarily be involved with, she'd make more like £300 per, not £3,000.

She could still have made reasonable money. There were no punitive taxes on property dealing then, so volumes were far higher and she could have been collecting 30 commissions a year - maybe £15,000 on top of her basic, with the prospect of more as she was allowed to work on higher value houses.

The key to understanding this is who she knew and how: business partners, sex partners and of course anyone who was both. The circumstances in which she disappeared, like Claudia Lawrence, point to this happening at the hands of someone she knew and of whom she was not afraid

 

[Fate--]

Suzy's lost belongings - look for evidence everywhere...