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

[EyeSpyU]

I was hoping DV would have tracked down the nanny in question.

Again (bizarrely) although so close to SL and indeed her disappearance, the couple are not only not in his book. But although DV days he is aware of them, he refuses / won't talk about those two individuals?! Why ....

Maybe they’re of no significance…

Maybe he knows the husband was away on business somewhere while the wife was at home…

Or maybe he hasn’t got much idea what their friendship actually was, and so didn’t feel fit to add them in his book.

 

[EyeSpyU]

It would be the bins. In 1985 I worked for the summer at a bar and restaurant and one of the unpopular dirty jobs we had to do was clean out the industrial bins. You got bluebottle infestations at the drop of a hat. We poured boiling water into them to kill the thousands of maggots you found. I think it's very common.

Re weather, you can download this at https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/stationdata/heathrowdata.txt. Heathrow is likely a good proxy for south-west London.

I've looked at August 1986 (versus the average of all previous Augusts since 1948) and I get:

High: 20.0 (21.8) - so cooler
Rain: 66.7 (55.2) - so wetter
Sunshine hours: 158.3 (178.9) - so sunnier

The coldest August was 1956 at 18.8 C. The hottest was 1975 at 25.9 C.
The wettest August was 1977 at 150.3. The driest was 1983 at 11.4.
The sunniest August was 1976 at 263.7. The cloudiest was 1958 at 103.1.

August 1986 was the fifth coldest August in 39 years, the 13th rainiest and the 9th from least sunny.

So in London at least August 1986 was a bit of a dud.

August 1986 was actually less sunny than normal by 20 hours:

“Sunshine hours: 158.3 (178.9) - so sunnier”

That whole month was unusually colder and wetter than average, hence why infestations of blow-bottles would have been less frequent. Whatever, for the pub to even comment on the infestation in that August suggests it was unusual for them…

I know food waste attracts blowflies, especially when the weather is warm, which is why restaurants and pubs are ordered by the Environmental Health to discard their food in such a way so that flies aren’t attracted to the bins.

 

[EyeSpyU]

Thanks so much for that. as I say, looking at my diary, the August weather is recorded as mainly being 'glorious', and I went to various barbecues and outdoor gatherings throughout the summer. The information about the bins is interesting and makes sense. You see, if the pub was harbouring an unsealed body beneath the floorboards, I think there would have been more infestation and more localised to that area - and it would only take a few complaints to bring Environmental Health down probably. I'm not saying SL wasn't/isn't there but I do wonder if the fly infestation is relevant.

I don’t know where you lived, Henry, but August 1986 was decidedly awful! It was rain, rain, rain…and chilly too. I remember it well.

The official stats prove that, so you’re very lucky that it was glorious in your part of the country. Maybe you’ve accidentally looked at the wrong diary?

Regarding the fly infestation, if the PoW were always getting them then that’s bad, and I can’t understand why the Environmental Health didn’t intervene. But it sounds to me that it was more of a one off episode…which does suggest something untoward, especially as the weather was wet and colder than normal.

Remember, flies can smell decaying flesh some way off, so whilst they wouldn’t have been able to get into the cellar providing the door was kept closed, the area itself would have attracted the flies…

 

[asyousay]

I’m sure BW was convinced she saw Suzy driving along, but I don’t see how she could have seen Suzy’s hat on the back ledge of the car when the car was travelling on the opposite side of the road to her, possibly going at 30mph, while she herself was riding in the opposite direction on a bicycle.

BW said she waved at Suzy, but even that seemed slightly odd to me…why would she wave at Suzy if she had her head turned towards her passenger? Something about it doesn’t add up, and whilst I don’t think she was lying, I do think she possibly convinced herself it was Suzy for some reason…

Besides, the taxi driver described Suzy’s car and how it was parked in Stevenage Road at around the same frame of time BW supposedly saw it, and it couldn’t have been at two places at the same time. Given that three separate witnesses all saw Suzy’s car parked in Stevenage Road - including the police themselves - and it was in the exact same position WJ had described - it’s logical to accept that that was where the car was all afternoon and evening.

DV may say WJ got her timings wrong, but he spoke to her almost 35 years after it happened and she may not be in the best frame of mind if she’s now elderly, which I think he alluded to. WJ was quite definite on the timings when she saw the car numerous times that day; even saying how the clock in the bank showed it was around 12:52pm after she’d first spotted the car. I’d say her account back then was extremely accurate, especially as it was parked right opposite her window and the reason she became aware of it was that it was parked askew and slightly across the garage.

The car couldn’t of possibly of been there at 12.52 pm though and then that brings into question everything else she says. IMO

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

BW hasn’t said she SAW the hat, AS ‘scene sets’, to paraphrase ‘who should see see but her old friend, SL, bowling happily along the road, driving in her trusty white fiesta with the hat in back of it’ Just an ordinary afternoon, etc…in other words etc. That’s my read of it, AS does similar elsewhere.

WJ didn’t flag a hat.

BW doesn’t mention hat in interviews, she says ‘it might not have been SL’s white fiesta’ ‘conceivably’ as the white fiestas were ‘quite common’. It could have been another car in theory flags BW.

The police checked out BW’s ‘sighting’ & found she left at that time & correct day, all colleagues confirmed & police checked ‘speedily’. She was ‘adamant’ it was SL but was she less so after a time? BW also said on TV interviews SL’s was looking at passenger so didn’t see her. So she could then have only strongly inferred and ‘felt’ she was serious but not particularly distressed.

The details if/when you can nail them down poss confirm the answers here & more widely.

 

[asyousay]

BW hasn’t said she SAW the hat, AS ‘scene sets’, to paraphrase ‘who should see see but her old friend, SL, bowling happily along the road, driving in her trusty white fiesta with the hat in back of it’ Just an ordinary afternoon, etc…in other words etc. That’s my read of it, AS does similar elsewhere.

WJ didn’t flag a hat.

BW doesn’t mention hat in interviews, she says ‘it might not have been SL’s white fiesta’ ‘conceivably’ as the white fiestas were ‘quite common’. It could have been another car in theory flags BW.

The police checked out BW’s ‘sighting’ & found she left at that time & correct day, all colleagues confirmed & police checked ‘speedily’. She was ‘adamant’ it was SL but was she less so after a time? BW also said on TV interviews SL’s was looking at passenger so didn’t see her. So she could then have only strongly inferred and ‘felt’ she was serious but not particularly distressed.

The details if/when you can nail them down poss confirm the answers here & more widely.

so she was adamant it was Suzy at the beginning and she knew her. That holds more water to me than somebody who claims a car was at a house at 12.52 when it couldn’t of been IMO


She left the office at about 12.40pm that doesn’t tie in with the witness who claims the was ditched by 12.52.

 

[Crusader21]

Or maybe he hasn’t got much idea what their friendship actually was, and so didn’t feel fit to add them in his book.

If that's true that would be poor form from DV. I'm still bemused tho as to why there's no mention of these two, even a paragraph or two to the effect of DV ruling them out of any suspicion.

The female of the couple certainly appeared to raise a few eyebrows at DLs birthday on the Weds, when she arrived at the Lamplugh home.

I certainly feel involvement by these two is way more plausible than CV murdering someone who he's just chanced upon via their diary. Bang in middle of pub handover, brewery stock take, first full day and his wife in the wings too...

I don't know how you'd track down the nanny or get her to remember a day in 1986. If she was a live-in nanny she might be on the electoral roll at that address.

A good place to start would be the agencies that supplied nannies in Belgravia. The order of nannies at no 46 Lower Belgravia St was easy to uncover for example, over 10 prior to 1986.

Btw, there's an interesting parallel too between Lord Lucan and this case. Lucan also lived in Elizabeth Street. And despite his privileged background was also broke, in fact heavily in debt.

It appears (his) money diffs was a factor in murder, did something similar happen in the SL case?

If the couple's nanny was long-term she'd have known SL quite well. Surely the nanny (if alive) would still remember events quite well around that time, including if she was on leave, as it was claimed, that Monday ....

 

[asyousay]

If that's true that would be poor form from DV. I'm still bemused tho as to why there's no mention of these two, even a paragraph or two to the effect of DV ruling them out of any suspicion.

The female of the couple certainly appeared to raise a few eyebrows at DLs birthday on the Weds, when she arrived at the Lamplugh home.

I certainly feel involvement by these two is way more plausible than CV murdering someone who he's just chanced upon via their diary. Bang in middle of pub handover, brewery stock take, first full day and his wife in the wings too...




A good place to start would be the agencies that supplied nannies in Belgravia. The order of nannies at no 46 Lower Belgravia St was easy to uncover for example, over 10 prior to 1986.

Btw, there's an interesting parallel too between Lord Lucan and this case. Lucan also lived in Elizabeth Street. And despite his privileged background was also broke, in fact heavily in debt.

It appears (his) money diffs was a factor in murder, did something similar happen in the SL case?

If the couple's nanny was long-term she'd have known SL quite well. Surely the nanny (if alive) would still remember events quite well around that time, including if she was on leave, as it was claimed, that Monday ....

If this is the famous woman the reason DV didn’t mention them is because he is obviously <modsnip: Circumventing WS board profanity filters> scared of getting sued. He won’t touch that question with a barge pole on that chat he did last week. He clearly knows about them but just won’t breath a word about them.

 

[Crusader21]

Would DV be sued if he used a made up name like he has with 'Clive Vole'?

I've read countless published accounts of crimes being carried out by a Mr A, helped by Mr B and Mr C etc etc. There are ways around falling foul of liable laws...

Also many names associated with this case are already in the public domain. AS and Berry - Dee have openly named people in their books AFAIK without any legal action.

 

[asyousay]

Would DV be sued if he used a made up name like he has with 'Clive Vole'?

I've read countless published accounts of crimes being carried out by a Mr A, helped by Mr B and Mr C etc etc. There are ways around falling foul of liable laws...

Also many names associated with this case are already in the public domain. AS and Berry - Dee have openly named people in their books AFAIK without any legal action.

You would have to ask DV but he clearly won’t talk about them as we saw last week.

 

[WestLondoner]

I believe the man in question is still extremely rich, actually. And at the time they were living in Belgravia they must have had a huge income to afford the lifestyle they were leading. Yes, he declared himself bankrupt, but that’s how very rich people hang onto their assets.

They possibly lived in Belgravia in order to look rich, but they were clearly up to their eyeballs in debt that they could not afford to serve. The point about bankruptcy is that it happens because your debts exceed your assets. Everything you own is liquidated and distributed among those to whom you owe money. There are preferred debtors so the distribution's not pro-rata - the tax man is paid first, foe example - but that's how it works. You as the bankrupt can't use lawyers and accountants to hide your assets because firstly it's criminal, and secondly, if you can afford to pay them, that money gets seized and used to pay your creditors. Insolvency practitioners exist but they don't make a living hiding bankrupts' money so they can screw over creditors. They are instructed by debtors to find all the bankrupt's money so as to pay off as much as possible.

The idea that there are somehow rich bankrupts who get away with it and remain rich is one of those urban myths, like rich people not actually paying any taxes, i.e. it's completely untrue. You're banned from being a director, from being given any kind of credit agreement, from having a bank account, and so on. You could try to trade as a sole trader but you wouldn't be able to buy stock on credit, you'd have to pay literal cash and you'd likewise have to be paid in cash because you'd have no account into which to receive cheques. If it looks like you've hidden any assets, your creditors can come after them until you're discharged, which you won't be if it looks like you're hiding assets.

The man we’re talking about is still extremely rich now, so how did he turn things around after bankruptcy if he was penniless? It’s obvious he had money stashed away…

It's not obvious at all. It's plausible he got involved in cash-only businesses after his bankruptcy. The only all-cash businesses I can think of where you get rich quickly are criminal ones, which is not a good look if his is supposed to explain how he can't have killed SJL.

I know bankrupts can’t have bank accounts for six years, so as he knew he was entering bankruptcy just days after Suzy’s disappearance, he’d hardly have wanted a cheque off her.

Not at all. He's trying to stave it off. He projects an outward impression of being rich but in fact he is just borrowed to the hilt. He is going round everyone he reckons he is owed money by shaking them down because if he doesn't pay X by the end of the week they're going to petition him for bankruptcy. His wife likes his money but she won't like a penniless loser, so he is about to lose his house (to the bank), his car, his wife and of course she'll get custody of the kid(s). He's got a week to rescue his lifestyle and this bl00dy estate agent whose project he's sunk money into is avoiding him and she needs to pay back her share.

Here was a man living in Belgravia, albeit going into receivership, while Suzy was paying a mortgage on a small top floor flat in Putney. They were worlds apart financially, and a meagre £3,000 would have been peanuts to him

He's a bankrupt living in Belgravia for about another week, at which point it becomes publicly clear that he cannot and never could afford it. They were worlds apart, yes. She was solvent and he's bankrupt. She's much better off than him - he has negative net worth. As I said above the £3,000 is nothing to do with this. We don't know what she meant by that. For all we know this bloke had been helping her conduct off-books property sales and she's got a sum of money stashed somewhere that he wants.

All that aside, who says that this man met Suzy in the PoW? He’s never been mentioned, ever. How do you you know he met Suzy there?

We don't. It's inference. There's neither motive nor opportunity for CV to have done this, however. He didn't even make the calls to the bank, some of which involved his partner or the landlord's wife. For him to have done this, he'd have had to kill her on impulse with people around, hide the body while running a pub, convince everyone else she's never turned up, dispose of her car, then act normally. He could not have done that without help.

Someone who actually did have a reason to confront her was whoever was hassling her, as she told her uncle. The only person we know of who this might have been is the guy who is involved in a business project with her who goes bankrupt within days of her disappearance. There were two calls to the pub trying to establish when she'd be getting there. The couple we know stamp instantly on any attempt to mention them. Why?

<modsnip: Rude and personalizing> There’s nothing wrong in coming up with hypothesis, but the scenario you’ve suggested - where this astute businessman has roped in naive barmen who are strangers to him

Who says he's astute? He's bankrupt. How good a businessman is he? Did he just not pay his suppliers, until it caught up with him? Any fool can do that. Who says they're strangers? He can't confront her at her office because someone's going to step in.

And the money to open a beauty shop (which is just rumours) and did it ever exist - that wouldn’t have bankrupted him if he never took the lease on, which it appears he never did.

If he owed £100k and was worth £100k, £10 would have bankrupted him. The beauty chain was well established, confirmed IIRC by PS, and money had been spent; money his bankruptcy shows he didn't have (borrowed, presumably).

I also think that CV sounded too naive and inexperienced to get himself involved in a murder - with a stranger at that.....I personally think CV is the perpetrator

Riiiiiiiiiiight....

The issue here is that almost every bit of information is undermined by other bits. There is no hypothesis of what may have happened that fits everything.

 

[WestLondoner]

Given that three separate witnesses all saw Suzy’s car parked in Stevenage Road - including the police themselves - and it was in the exact same position WJ had described - it’s logical to accept that that was where the car was all afternoon and evening.

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.

 

[WestLondoner]

You would have to ask DV but he clearly won’t talk about them as we saw last week.

"Clive Vole" is a retired barman who doesn't have a <modsnip: Circumventing WS board profanity filters>, so it's safe to bring him into it, although as his name has been disguised, I would imagine so has his appearance. DV describes him as short, stout with a mane of wild hair, so just like he's not actually called "Clive Vole", probably he's not actually short, stout with a mane of wild hair either. He's probably six feet tall, thin, and as bald as a cue ball. Or something.

He's also described as having hearing aids in both ears. I wonder if he doesn't and in fact the disjointed conversation is the result not of deafness, but of him getting panicked. We don't know. From the info in the AS and DV books, you could doorstep him and find out, I suppose.

It is very, very interesting that this couple are so completely absent from the unofficial investigative record. They were in financial difficulties and SJL was trying to disentangle herself from a financial involvement with them. SJL disappears, he's bankrupted within days, they divorce, she then seeks and obtains a degree of fame, yet has never once attempted to accelerate or heighten her fame by reminding us of who her best mate used to be.

SJL's former flatmate has said she used to get calls for people who were neither Putney mates nor QE2 mates - so who were they? It seems an obviously worthwhile line of inquiry to understand whether this couple knew anything helpful about this aspect of her life, or the contacts she made therein. Perhaps they can explain why SJL was so adept with money. Instead, every TV documentary and sensationalist book on this case ignores them completely - or is warned off - and it's always all about rehashing the police attempts to frame JC.

 

[Henry B]

"Clive Vole" is a retired barman who doesn't have a pot to p155 in so it's safe to bring him into it, although his name has been disguised and I would imagine so has his appearance. DV describes him as short, stout with a mane of wild hair, so just like he's not actually called "Clive Vole", probably he's not actually short, stout with a mane of wild hair. He's probably six feet tall, thin, and as bald as a cue ball. Or something.

He's also described as having hearing aids in both ears. I wonder if doesn't and in fact the disjointed conversation is the result not of deafness but of him getting panicked. We don't know. From the info in the AS and DV books, you could doorstep him and find out, I suppose.

It is very, very interesting that this couple are so completely absent from the unofficial investigative record. They were in financial difficulties and SJL was trying to disentangle herself from a financial involvement with them. SJL disappears, he's bankrupted within days, they divorce, she seeks and obtains a degree of fame, yet has never once attempted to accelerate or heighten her fame by reminding us of who her best mate used to be.

SJL's former flatmate has said she used to get calls for people who were neither Putney mates nor QE2 mates - so who were they? It seems an obviously worthwhile line of inquiry to understand whether this couple knew anything helpful about this aspect of her life, or the contacts she made therein. Perhaps they can explain why SJL was so adept with money. Instead, every TV documentary and sensationalist book on this case ignores them completely - or is warned off - and it's always all about rehashing the police attempts to frame JC.

I'm still waiting for my copy of the DV book. Are the couple the same as the one referred to in the AS book?

 

[WestLondoner]

<modsnip: Quoted post was removed>

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.

 

[EyeSpyU]

The car couldn’t of possibly of been there at 12.52 pm though and then that brings into question everything else she says. IMO

It’s hugely doubtful that Suzy’s car was parked in that spot at precisely 12:52 pm - but we all know it definitely was parked there for most of the day, from around lunchtime onwards until the police discovered it at 10:02pm. Various witnesses saw it there, including the taxi driver who saw it at about 2:30pm; the garage owner himself who saw it at 5:00 pm; and the police later that night.
I believe WJ saw the car at various intervals that day but simply got her timings wrong. It’s the same as Sturgess Estate Agents - they said Suzy left at about 12:40 - but how sure were they on that? They also said Suzy had taken the keys for Shorrolds, but it was then discovered she hadn’t.

So the point I’m making is that people can and do make mistakes on precise times/movements etc.

But what is known as fact is that Suzy’s car was parked in that way, in that exact same space WJ described from early afternoon until late evening.

.

 

[WestLondoner]

But what is known as fact is that Suzy’s car was parked in that way, in that exact same space WJ described from early afternoon until late evening.

.

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.

 

[EyeSpyU]

BW hasn’t said she SAW the hat, AS ‘scene sets’, to paraphrase ‘who should see see but her old friend, SL, bowling happily along the road, driving in her trusty white fiesta with the hat in back of it’ Just an ordinary afternoon, etc…in other words etc. That’s my read of it, AS does similar elsewhere.

WJ didn’t flag a hat.

BW doesn’t mention hat in interviews, she says ‘it might not have been SL’s white fiesta’ ‘conceivably’ as the white fiestas were ‘quite common’. It could have been another car in theory flags BW.

The police checked out BW’s ‘sighting’ & found she left at that time & correct day, all colleagues confirmed & police checked ‘speedily’. She was ‘adamant’ it was SL but was she less so after a time? BW also said on TV interviews SL’s was looking at passenger so didn’t see her. So she could then have only strongly inferred and ‘felt’ she was serious but not particularly distressed.

The details if/when you can nail them down poss confirm the answers here & more widely.

So going by BW’s statement she wasn’t sure if it was Suzy - she just thought it may have been.

Even though she didn’t see her face.

But because she was driving a white car that looked like Suzy’s, although, in her words “it may not have been Suzy’s”, she made a statement on TV that she was certain is was Suzy…

I don’t think her statement could be taken seriously at all.

 

[EyeSpyU]

so she was adamant it was Suzy at the beginning and she knew her. That holds more water to me than somebody who claims a car was at a house at 12.52 when it couldn’t of been IMO


She left the office at about 12.40pm that doesn’t tie in with the witness who claims the was ditched by 12.52.

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

 

[asyousay]

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

We can go around in circles here I believe the sighting was legit. It’s my opinion that she saw Suzy that day heading towards Hammersmith with a man in the car. I believe it fits in with the car being ditched after 4pm in SR.


I could be off base but I think it fits the narrative and I don’t believe DV’s version until he comes out with more proof.


DV states there is not a single bit of evidence with JC doing this and I 100% agree with him but there is also not a single bit of evidence she went to the POW pub that afternoon. She also didn’t get home either to pick up tennis gear so it just doesn’t add up she made up a fake appointment to go to the pub.