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

[EyeSpyU]

The police found the car at 10pm and had no information of their own as to how long it had been there. Two other witnesses - workmen laying pipes in the same road - had a line of sight to where it was found all day until 4pm, and they never saw any car there before they packed up for the day. WJ's supposed sighting is itself impossible, because she claimed to have seen SJL's car from about 12.30, which was before she left the office. She cannot today tell a blue Audi from a silver Jaguar, so it is far from clear that in 1986 she would have known a white Fiesta from a hole in the ground.

If the car turned up there sometime after 4pm, it allows the BW sighting and the pipe workers' non-sightings to be correct, and requires only that the taxi driver be wrong about when he saw it, by an hour or so. WJ would then have to be wrong by 3.5 hours. In all likelihood, WJ first noticed it just after 10pm when the police knocked at her door.

That’s not exactly accurate.

The workmen never “noticed” the car. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. There was nothing striking or unusual about the car; it was an ordinary car and one of thousands of white Fords that were popular in that day.

So why would they have noticed it when they were concentrating on laying pipes in trenches? I’m sure they didn’t notice all the other cars parked in the road, either…who does, except traffic wardens?

I believe that the police asked them if they saw who parked it there and none of them had. That’s because A) they had their heads downwards looking in ditches as they laid pipes and drilled machinery, and B) the person who parked it up obviously switched the ignition off and steered it without the engine running to glide into the kerb. They didn’t even apply the handbrake in order to make as little noise as possible, and I think (though I’m not 100% sure) they closed the door so gently that although it was closed it wasn’t closed tightly as it should be. It was obviously done to avoid detection before scurrying off, head down…

WJ noticed the car several times that afternoon (just as the taxi driver did at. 2:30pm), and whilst it’s likely she got the timings wrong, she definitely saw it there in the afternoon - and the evening. OK, she’s elderly now and possibly has Dementia, so of course she’s confused and can’t remember, but her statement at the time was correct in that the car was indeed parked there partly across the garage (hence her noticing it), and the only inaccuracy was the timings she gave. Going by the taxi driver who had no cause to make up a false story, it was definitely there at 2:30pm. And it certainly was there at 5pm when the garage owner returned home, wasn’t it…

Including at 10pm when the police found it.

 

[EyeSpyU]

<modsnip: Quoted post was removed> I showed the official weather stats for August 1986 which proves it was unseasonably wet and cold that month with lots of rain and grey skies. That’s simply a fact.

I think it is relevant to the case, because everyone knows when the weather is wet and cool it’s far less likely to get blowbottle infestations, especially when food businesses are legally bound to dispose of their food waste in such a way so as to prevent infestations.

For the staff at the PoW to become aware of an infestation heavily suggests something was attracting bluebottles at a time when they don’t normally congregate…

 

[Crusader21]

Any mileage (pardon the pun) in my idea that BW did indeed spot the white fiesta at 2.45 that Monday, noticing the B396 GAN reg, as her friend SLs car. A car BW herself had been driven in by SL

Yes quite a fleeting glimpse, BW saw a female (head slightly turned) and male. But was the female driving actually the female of the couple? With the duo en route to looking for a suitable place to abandon the car?

 

[Crusader21]

Since the council changed to fortnightly food waste collections where I live.

I regularly see blue-bottle maggots emerge in numbers from the bin, regardless of time of year or the weather!

 

[EyeSpyU]

It's also kind of irrelevant anyway, because blowfly infestations don't occur only in warm Augusts. Blowfly can't pick the weather any more than we can. They work with what there is.

The significance of an infestation is that it makes it possible to date a body, which between the lines of his book is something DV is clearly keen to do. He researched the brand history of Harp lager so as to date the cans he saw under the floor, for example.

If SJL were found there with evidence of blowfly infestation, it would prove her death definitely occurred in the summer. If there were no blowfly, it would mean it may have occurred in the summer but equally could have occurred in the winter. This would let CV off the hook, because he could then say Well, whatever happened to her, it must have been in the winter, which was either before I arrived or after I left. Infestation plus the 1987-era Harp cans DV found would prove the death occurred in a summer before 1987, i.e. CV may well have been there.

But if Suzy’s remains are found beneath the cellar floor, CV can’t say it must have happened before he started working at the POW as she was still alive then. Likewise, he couldn’t say it must have happened after he left as he worked there for one full year; so as the Harp cans DV found proved it must have been pre-summer of 1987, CV was still the landlord then. And that’s without forensics…

 

[EyeSpyU]

Nope. If you familiarise yourself with the case and the work done since by AS, DV and others, it's clear that is not known as fact. The car was very likely seen elsewhere at 2.30 and other witnesses say it wasn't there by 4pm. It's wholly inconclusive when it arrived there. If you assume it was 12.45 or so, essentially because WJ now says so, you're doing the same as the police did when they assumed she really went to Shorrolds.

I am familiarised with the case, actually, and have been for some years…

I’m certainly not taking the same stance that the original investigation team took. Nor do I blindly believe all witnesses are telling the truth, not exaggerating, or are not simply mistaken.

I do believe WJ saw Suzy’s car parked there for the simple reason she loved bag opposite where it was parked and asked herself if it would cause problems for the owner when he arrived hime, due to it partially overlapping the garage. So as the owner didn’t arrive home until 5pm, and it was definitely parked there then, and the taxi driver said he noticed it at 2:30pm, it’s fair to say it was definitely put there some time in the early to mid afternoon. I do think WJ got her timings wrong, but people do. That’s doesn’t detract from the fact that it was parked opposite her house, though.

As for others saying it wasn’t there prior to 4pm, what they’re really saying is they didn’t notice it. And why would they?

But the taxi driver noticed it, and as a rule London cab drivers are fairly observant, so I think his statement bears weight.

I still think BW was mistaken, as she herself admitted when she said it may not have been Suzy’s car…

But all that aside, and assuming Suzy did indeed drive to the PoW, she’d have parked as close to the pub as possible. What happened when/if she entered the PoW hasn’t been established, but DV is certain Suzy was killed inside there.

So who would want that car removed from outside the pub ASAP?

 

[EyeSpyU]

And then BW said she wasn’t adamant it was Suzy…

And then she said she couldn’t be sure it was Suzy or her car…

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

She said she was certain and ‘adamant’ it was SL but couldn’t be sure it was her car. Did she later revise her opinion?

 

[EyeSpyU]

Any mileage (pardon the pun) in my idea that BW did indeed spot the white fiesta at 2.45 that Monday, noticing the B396 GAN reg, as her friend SLs car. A car BW herself had been driven in by SL

Yes quite a fleeting glimpse, BW saw a female (head slightly turned) and male. But was the female driving actually the female of the couple? With the duo en route to looking for a suitable place to abandon the car?

But BW didn’t notice the reg as she said she couldn’t be certain it was Suzy’s car…

Yes, the woman was the driver, and BW never saw her face.

As for dumping a car, if I were to dump ne I’d dump it anywhere…I wouldn’t look for a suitable spot…

 

[Crusader21]

As for dumping a car, if I were to dump ne I’d dump it anywhere…I wouldn’t look for a suitable spot…

Whoever did abandon the fiesta did quite well leaving it facing a Sturgis for sale sign.

The 'second viewing' theory and another dead end for the cops to travel down....

Was that all down to luck or design?

 

[EyeSpyU]

The police found the car at 10pm and had no information of their own as to how long it had been there. Two other witnesses - workmen laying pipes in the same road - had a line of sight to where it was found all day until 4pm, and they never saw any car there before they packed up for the day. WJ's supposed sighting is itself impossible, because she claimed to have seen SJL's car from about 12.30, which was before she left the office. She cannot today tell a blue Audi from a silver Jaguar, so it is far from clear that in 1986 she would have known a white Fiesta from a hole in the ground.

If the car turned up there sometime after 4pm, it allows the BW sighting and the pipe workers' non-sightings to be correct, and requires only that the taxi driver be wrong about when he saw it, by an hour or so. WJ would then have to be wrong by 3.5 hours. In all likelihood, WJ first noticed it just after 10pm when the police knocked at her door.

<modsnip>

WJ possibly didn’t know the make of Suzy’s car, but she’d have known it was a white car parked slap in front of her house opposite. Yes, she clearly did get the timings wrong, but given the statements from the taxi driver, the garage owner’s, including BW’s who admitted she couldn’t be sure it was Suzy’s car she’d seen, it’s logical to accept - like it or not - that the car was abandoned there either early or mid afternoon.

<modsnip: Don't be rude>

 

[asyousay]

<modsnip>

WJ possibly didn’t know the make of Suzy’s car, but she’d have known it was a white car parked slap in front of her house opposite. Yes, she clearly did get the timings wrong, but given the statements from the taxi driver, the garage owner’s, including BW’s who admitted she couldn’t be sure it was Suzy’s car she’d seen, it’s logical to accept - like it or not - that the car was abandoned there either early or mid afternoon.

<modsnip: Don't be rude>

DV pointed out that WJ had young kids and was obviously very busy . It’s a white car hell it could of been a different white car she saw that then moved off.



A white car parked isn’t rare or exotic and considering she couldn’t tell makes of cars that makes it questionable.


MOO

 

[asyousay]

Whoever did abandon the fiesta did quite well leaving it facing a Sturgis for sale sign.

The 'second viewing' theory and another dead end for the cops to travel down....

Was that all down to luck or design?

Did her car keys have a sturgis label on them? I think I remember it was said they did and depending on who is guilty it could of been by design to muddy the water.

 

[EyeSpyU]

<modsnip>

Whoever did abandon the fiesta did quite well leaving it facing a Sturgis for sale sign.

The 'second viewing' theory and another dead end for the cops to travel down....

Was that all down to luck or design?

That could have been sheer coincidence - house sales were booming in 1986 and almost every road had scores of For Sale signs up - so I wouldn’t put much store by that. It is possibly that the driver deliberately chose a road across the river where Sturgess had boards up, in order to throw the police off the scent and make it look like Suzy may have gone to one, but everyone knows she didn’t. She took no keys with her. Nor details. And that isn’t how viewings are carried out…they need to be pre-arranged.

Back then local newspapers that were pushed through your letterbox listed pages & pages of properties for sale, so it would’ve been easy to “stick a pin” in a Sturgess one not far from her office - and on that side of the river, thereby “subliminally removing” the possibility Suzie had driven over the bridge towards the PoW - and simply dump the car as near as possible.

It could have been luck or design…it’s hard to say.

What is obvious, though, is that if Suzy did go to the PoW (which DV is certain she did), then whoever drove that car and dumped it were frantic to remove it from outside the PoW.

 

[asyousay]

So in Stephens book CL is described as being 'patently honest and straightforward'.

i have just found this quote elsewhere and certainly doesn’t fit into DV narrative 35 years later on his behaviour for the book.

 

[WestLondoner]

I think Konstantin quoted that back in thread 1.

I have observed before that DV's book reads like parts 1, 2 and 4. Somewhere in the unpublished part 3 is who killed SJL and why. What he has put out there is an incomplete account.

For my money he can't identify his suspect because the police failed to gather the right evidence at the time. Instead he needs a location searched because if he is right there will be forensic evidence identifying the perpetrator. It is chicken and egg.

 

[EyeSpyU]

She said she was certain and ‘adamant’ it was SL but couldn’t be sure it was her car. Did she later revise her opinion?

But BW admitted she never saw Suzy’s face as it was turned towards her passenger - so how could she be adamant it was Suzy?

Then to admit it may not have even been her car is doubly odd…

In her interview on TV she said she thought it was Suzy’s car, then said maybe it wasn’t as so many cars looked the same.

What I found strange about BW’s statement is when she said she waved at Suzy. Considering Suzy wasn’t even looking at BW ( she had her head turned away from her) why would she wave when she wouldn’t have been able to see Barbara? And isn’t it awkward to wave when you’re bicycling on a busy main road with traffic pouring by at 30mph?

She seemed normal, but that doesn’t mean she was giving a full true account of her story. I find it weird…

 

[asyousay]

I think Konstantin quoted that back in thread 1.

I have observed before that DV's book reads like parts 1, 2 and 4. Somewhere in the unpublished part 3 is who killed SJL and why. What he has put out there is an incomplete account.

For my money he can't identify his suspect because the police failed to gather the right evidence at the time. Instead he needs a location searched because if he is right there will be forensic evidence identifying the perpetrator. It is chicken and egg.

I just hope he does someting next year to push his theory forward as he didn’t seem that keen in that interview.


He has a theory and LE won’t touch it as they are convinced they know who has done it so the ball it’s in his court to prove he hasn’t made a load of old crap up to sell a book IMO.



ETA dyslexic moment

 

[asyousay]

But BW admitted she never saw Suzy’s face as it was turned towards her passenger - so how could she be adamant it was Suzy?

Then to admit it may not have even been her car is doubly odd…

In her interview on TV she said she thought it was Suzy’s car, then said maybe it wasn’t as so many cars looked the same.

What I found strange about BW’s statement is when she said she waved at Suzy. Considering Suzy wasn’t even looking at BW ( she had her head turned away from her) why would she wave when she wouldn’t have been able to see Barbara? And isn’t it awkward to wave when you’re bicycling on a busy main road with traffic pouring by at 30mph?

She seemed normal, but that doesn’t mean she was giving a full true account of her story. I find it weird…

Well she waved at Suzy so you don’t wave at people you don’t know who it is.


Basically it seems like she was sure it was Suzy as she waved but years later because it doesn’t fit the agenda people have put doubts in her mind ( IMO that’s how I read it)

 

[WestLondoner]

Agreed. BW's sighting is fatal for the JC fit-up, so she had to be persuaded to recant. Compared to the other witnesses, she's the most credible, however.