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

[Terryb808]

If the couple had nothing to do with SLs disappearance then you can still understand the male of the couple wishing to dissociate himself from the notoriety of the case. Akin to AL, and others no longer giving interviews etc.

But for the female of the two, it does beggar belief. According to the AS book, the female turned up on the Weds 'blaming herself' for SLs disapperance as she was orginally due to meet SL that Monday lunchtime herself. Why has none of the countless tv docs mentioned this?

Plus being one of the founder fundraisers of the SL Trust she has never again spoken publically about SL, this despite her going on to become a (minor) uk tv celeb! Has she just point blankly refused to talk about SL? Or has she been told not to?

The female did publically mention Diana Lamplugh's death in one of her blog enteries. You will need to google that as that link is blocked on these pages?!

Maybe there is 'threatened legal action', which IMO is odd as names are already in the public domain, alongside the likes of 'Clive Vole', published in the 1988 book 'The Suzy Lamplugh Story'.

IMO the female minor celeb has been told to keep quiet, she doesn’t keep quiet about a lot of other subjects, so why this one?
Doing so just raises suspicions.

 

[WestLondoner]

It's quite odd. She's quite happy to talk about how to do @n@l sex properly or how she lived on cold baked beans, but she goes all shy on her close connection to one of the most famous missing persons in the country.

As I see it there are really only three things that could have happened to SJL.

1/ She went to 37SR, was abducted from there by someone she knew sufficiently that there was no commotion, and was killed elsewhere. Con: there's evidence she never went there.
2/ She went to the PoW and died there. Con: there's no evidence she went there, only that she intended to.
3/ She was intercepted somewhere en route to either of the above, again by someone she knew sufficiently that there was no commotion. Con: there's no evidence for this.

In all three cases, she could have been lured wherever she went by someone who wished her ill or to confront her. In case 1, this could be anyone from her past posing as a house buyer. In case 2, a person from her past would need the co-operation of the staff at the PoW, or to actually be the staff, because let's face it you don't arrange a violent confrontation at a random pub.

In case 1 and 3, we need to know who could have wanted to abduct her. There is no way of knowing this, but I see no reason to limit the shortlist to JC.

There's evidence she never went to 37SR which maybe eliminates 1. Searching the PoW (and probably the adjacent railway embankment) eliminates 2. If DV's proven wrong, his book gets pulped and we're down to 3.

Which means we need to know who might have met her en route, and an obvious person of interest is the one who said she has planned to meet her that lunchtime.

 

[Henry B]

It's quite odd. She's quite happy to talk about how to do @n@l sex properly or how she lived on cold baked beans, but she goes all shy on her close connection to one of the most famous missing persons in the country.

As I see it there are really only three things that could have happened to SJL.

1/ She went to 37SR, was abducted from there by someone she knew sufficiently that there was no commotion, and was killed elsewhere. Con: there's evidence she never went there.
2/ She went to the PoW and died there. Con: there's no evidence she went there, only that she intended to.
3/ She was intercepted somewhere en route to either of the above, again by someone she knew sufficiently that there was no commotion. Con: there's no evidence for this.

In all three cases, she could have been lured wherever she went by someone who wished her ill or to confront her. In case 1, this could be anyone from her past posing as a house buyer. In case 2, a person from her past would need the co-operation of the staff at the PoW, or to actually be the staff, because let's face it you don't arrange a violent confrontation at a random pub.

In case 1 and 3, we need to know who could have wanted to abduct her. There is no way of knowing this, but I see no reason to limit the shortlist to JC.

There's evidence she never went to 37SR which maybe eliminates 1. Searching the PoW (and probably the adjacent railway embankment) eliminates 2. If DV's proven wrong, his book gets pulped and we're down to 3.

Which means we need to know who might have met her en route, and an obvious person of interest is the one who said she has planned to meet her that lunchtime.

I always thought SJL was driven somewhere to look at a house which was not what she was expecting at all - no big commission there and not her idea of an ideal shared home -and things spiralled from there. But I've torn that theory up. Well, almost. As for the cold baked beans person - well, all I know is the name in the AS book from 1988. Mind you, I don't know a lot about celebrities these days.

 

[WestLondoner]

I always thought SJL was driven somewhere to look at a house which was not what she was expecting at all

Is that based on her car being found dumped near another Sturgis house?

 

[Terryb808]

It's quite odd. She's quite happy to talk about how to do @n@l sex properly or how she lived on cold baked beans, but she goes all shy on her close connection to one of the most famous missing persons in the country.

As I see it there are really only three things that could have happened to SJL.

1/ She went to 37SR, was abducted from there by someone she knew sufficiently that there was no commotion, and was killed elsewhere. Con: there's evidence she never went there.
2/ She went to the PoW and died there. Con: there's no evidence she went there, only that she intended to.
3/ She was intercepted somewhere en route to either of the above, again by someone she knew sufficiently that there was no commotion. Con: there's no evidence for this.

In all three cases, she could have been lured wherever she went by someone who wished her ill or to confront her. In case 1, this could be anyone from her past posing as a house buyer. In case 2, a person from her past would need the co-operation of the staff at the PoW, or to actually be the staff, because let's face it you don't arrange a violent confrontation at a random pub.

In case 1 and 3, we need to know who could have wanted to abduct her. There is no way of knowing this, but I see no reason to limit the shortlist to JC.

There's evidence she never went to 37SR which maybe eliminates 1. Searching the PoW (and probably the adjacent railway embankment) eliminates 2. If DV's proven wrong, his book gets pulped and we're down to 3.

Which means we need to know who might have met her en route, and an obvious person of interest is the one who said she has planned to meet her that lunchtime.

Your summary is right on the money, as you say all the police need to do is follow your suggestion and two possibilities are eliminated.
In the AS book a witness saw two men in a large dark saloon in Shorrolds Road. If you link these two to the couple outside 37 Shorrolds and she knew the couple, then she could have been abducted without a commotion.
This would mean CV lied about the phone calls, because they would already have SJL and wouldn’t be looking for her.
The only way CV could be telling the truth is if they were still looking for SJL at that time in the afternoon and she had avoided them.
There is a scenario that would make SJL a target, involve the £3k and her estate agent contacts.

 

[CocktailQueen]

The female did publically mention Diana Lamplugh's death in one of her blog enteries. You will need to google that as that link is blocked on these pages?!

I think I found the blog post you mentioned about Diana’s death. What do you mean it’s blocked? I will try posting it know. Not sure why it would be blocked. Seems pretty innocuous to me.

https:///category.php?category=blog&id=530

 

[CocktailQueen]

Well that is weird!! I see what you mean about blocked.

I didn’t even know that was possible.

 

[Henry B]

Is that based on her car being found dumped near another Sturgis house?

Yes, that was one of my original ideas. SJL was buying a property with somebody else, and hoping for £3,000 or so commission, but when he showed her the house he had in mind (the WJ house?) she was disgruntled and this started a confrontation. It leaks and is full of holes as a theory now - but it did tie in with the James Galway man.

 

[Crusader21]

Well that is weird!! I see what you mean about blocked.

I didn’t even know that was possible.

Welcome to the discussion Cocktail Queen and thank you so much for your posts ...

What's going on?

 

[Crusader21]

Cocktail Queen, I thought it was very interesting, when the subject of the couple was recently posed as a question to DV on his pre-Christmas Q&A you tube broadcast. That he quickly shut down that question!

Again, what's going on?

 

[Terryb808]

Cocktail Queen, I thought it was very interesting, when the subject of the couple was recently posed as a question to DV on his pre-Christmas Q&A you tube broadcast. That he quickly shut down that question!

Again, what's going on?

DV is a smart cookie and knows when to leave some subjects alone. Maybe he knows what happened, why they have stayed low profile and it has (in his opinion) nothing to do with her disappearance.
My money is on this as a reason.

 

[WestLondoner]

Again with the couple, there are limited possibilities.

1/ He didn't know about or consider them. Con: unlikely, since when raised in the interview, he instantly declined to discuss them. He didn't say 'who?'
2a/ He has looked into them and thinks there is nothing of relevance to SJL's disappearance. Con: if so, DV could just say so.
2b/ As 2a but the couple lawyer up aggressively demand they not be mentioned regardless. Con: legally you haven't a leg to stand on to demand anything of the kind, unless it's libellous. Michael Crick, Kitty Kelley, and others, for example, write books all the time about slebs, royals and politicians bringing up stuff that's embarrassing, but that they can't suppress.
3/ He has looked into them and thinks there is something of relevance to SJL's disappearance, but can't say what he's found out or suspects. It would be libellous unless he can prove it, and he can't prove it without searching the PoW. Con: no evidence of wrongdoing, and surely our splendid police force would never have overlooked such an obvious pair to eliminate.

2a seems to me the most intuitively likely, but DV is acting like it's 3. He could simply say 'I am happy there's absolutely nothing to implicate them and conclusive grounds to eliminate them. This was somebody else' but he hasn't.

 

[rls11]

I'm loving your summaries, @WestLondoner, thanks. Re number 1 - if we were being pedantic, could we rightly say that there is evidence she never intended to go inside 37SR (because she didn't take the keys) but could she possibly have arranged to meet someone she knew outside to then travel on to somewhere else? If she was up to something outside work, she wouldn't very well arrange to meet anyone connected to this activity outside the Sturgis office, whereas hanging around one of their properties waiting for this person / these people would look perfectly natural. It would at least explain her diary entry...

It's quite odd. She's quite happy to talk about how to do @n@l sex properly or how she lived on cold baked beans, but she goes all shy on her close connection to one of the most famous missing persons in the country.

As I see it there are really only three things that could have happened to SJL.

1/ She went to 37SR, was abducted from there by someone she knew sufficiently that there was no commotion, and was killed elsewhere. Con: there's evidence she never went there.
2/ She went to the PoW and died there. Con: there's no evidence she went there, only that she intended to.
3/ She was intercepted somewhere en route to either of the above, again by someone she knew sufficiently that there was no commotion. Con: there's no evidence for this.

In all three cases, she could have been lured wherever she went by someone who wished her ill or to confront her. In case 1, this could be anyone from her past posing as a house buyer. In case 2, a person from her past would need the co-operation of the staff at the PoW, or to actually be the staff, because let's face it you don't arrange a violent confrontation at a random pub.

In case 1 and 3, we need to know who could have wanted to abduct her. There is no way of knowing this, but I see no reason to limit the shortlist to JC.

There's evidence she never went to 37SR which maybe eliminates 1. Searching the PoW (and probably the adjacent railway embankment) eliminates 2. If DV's proven wrong, his book gets pulped and we're down to 3.

Which means we need to know who might have met her en route, and an obvious person of interest is the one who said she has planned to meet her that lunchtime.

 

[Terryb808]

I'm loving your summaries, @WestLondoner, thanks. Re number 1 - if we were being pedantic, could we rightly say that there is evidence she never intended to go inside 37SR (because she didn't take the keys) but could she possibly have arranged to meet someone she knew outside to then travel on to somewhere else? If she was up to something outside work, she wouldn't very well arrange to meet them outside the Sturgis office, whereas hanging around one of their properties waiting for them would look perfectly natural. It would at least explain her diary entry...

I’d say you need to decide what the chances are of someone from the Sturgis office checking up on what she was up to.
Generally the Sturgis management seem happy with her performance and appear aware that (according to the DV book) she nipped out to do some shopping from time to time.
So if she was meeting someone she could have met them anywhere, why not a pub or restaurant?
This applies to the couple outside 37 Shorrolds that Monday, if they were meeting SJL why not a pub or restaurant? This suggests they found out she was going to 37 Shorrolds and decided to intercept her there.
Just a thought.

 

[Crusader21]

but could she possibly have arranged to meet someone she knew outside to then travel on to somewhere else?

Good line of thinking rls11.

IMO 37SR would not have been a good place to meet someone simply because of the car parking situation. The police even had witnesses that day mentioning the double parking etc in the street.

This applies to the couple outside 37 Shorrolds that Monday, if they were meeting SJL why not a pub or restaurant? This suggests they found out she was going to 37 Shorrolds and decided to intercept her there.

Just a thought.

As we know, at least one witness said they saw a lone female 'matching Suzy' at 37SR, others reported 'a blonde' and 'well dressed tanned man' at the property.

So was this indeed that couple at 37SR? Who perhaps led SL off elsewhere to discuss things? Obviously there wouldn't have been a notable scene / abduction etc because at that point, SL wouldn't have thought there was any immediate threat to her.

With the male of the couple returning later to move SLs car away from 37SR?

Only sticking point for me is again why 37SR? Yip it would be ok for SL to put down 37SR in the diary as cover, but then maybe it would have made perfect sense for SL to say to the couple 'Oh!, I'll meet you at the Prince of Wales, Putney, as I'm going there on some lunchtime personal business anyway!' .....

 

[WestLondoner]

Good points all. Yes, conceivably she could have intended to go there but not go inside. It's perhaps not an obvious meeting place unless the reason was to have a discussion about some other property nearby. Eg perhaps she had, as we speculated above, some sort of dodgy sideline, selling Fulham properties privately to other Sturgis buyers without Sturgis' knowledge. She'd have access to their list of credible buyers, so if a mate of hers says Oi Suze, I have this place to sell, can you find me a buyer so I don't have to pay 2% + VAT to an agent? she could have a look through the card index and call a few people up. So when she said she was going to 37SR, maybe she was actually going to 55 (or wherever). It would explain the sightings there.

It does seem like 37SR and the PoW are the only two places she could have been headed. An interesting scenario is whether DV's hypothesis (hazy at it seems to be) falls apart if the PoW - and possibly the adjoining railway cutting - are searched and she's not found. That doesn't mean she didn't die there, it just means she wasn't hidden there. As there was no attempt in 1986 to collect evidence for her having gone anywhere but 37SR, there's none that she went to the PoW. The only new evidence, that you could still obtain now, that would prove she went to the PoW would be finding her there.

If she were not, I'd think that's curtains for DV's theory, even if he's right about all but the place she's hidden.

 

[WestLondoner]

I had a further thought re the couple who cannot be mentioned. What if there are good reasons to eliminate them, but stating them would involve bringing up something unrelated, but discreditable?

By way of example, there was a libel case about 25, 30 years ago involving Private Eye and The Sun. Some murderer had been found guilty of murdering his wife, and The Sun published a ranty editorial demanding that he be torn apart by dogs or something. Private Eye then published a piece saying that the editorial writer, let's call him "Fred Bloggs", should know all about how to treat people who kill their wives, because some years ago, he'd killed his wife.

He pursued Private Eye for libel and either they settled it or he won. It transpired that this was in fact completely true; "Fred Bloggs" had killed his wife, done about 8 years for it, got out, and got his old job back at The Sun. Normally, that something's true is a complete defence, but FB was not saying it was untrue. He was saying it was discreditable to him now because he'd served the time, his good name was restored and he was entitled to expect this not to be brought up. This argument worked, so amazingly, a wife killer collected libel damages for being named a wife killer from someone who truthfully mentioned that he was a wife killer.

Likewise, about 10 or 15 years ago a newspaper hinted strongly that a celebrity musician's wife had been on the game. She announced she was suing the paper (it's discreditable if not actually illegal), but no case ever eventuated. The claim's not been repeated but neither was there ever any news story of the outcome.

Something comparable could be up with either member of this couple. If they can prove they were nowhere near the area, but only because, I don't know, they were at a swingers' party elsewhere, or they were burgling an office, bringing that up now would clear them of any connection to SJL's fate. But even though true it would be ancient history and still discreditable. Current business associates know nothing about it and your career as a sex columnist could be harmed if it came out that 35 years ago you went to orgies, or whatever.

So my 2b/ above, the couple lawyer up aggressively demand they not be mentioned, could be the case even though nobody's contemplating linking them to SJL. Just bringing why they're not suspects could be in some way actionable.

 

[WestLondoner]

Well that is weird!! I see what you mean about blocked.

I didn’t even know that was possible.

If you google "diana lamplugh" sad blog the first result should be the blogpost in question.

No mention of any personal acquaintance with SJL or DL, though.

 

[Jackster]

If you follow the chronology closely, there is actually no witness who said they saw her in Shorrolds unprompted. HR didn't identify her. He told MG he saw a couple, which was what MG expected to hear, and he later told the police what they expected to hear, then retracted it. Based on HR alone the police announced that SJL had been seen at Shorrolds even though he had not said this, and all the other "sightings" of her were after that public assertion.



The trouble is that none were sought. One narrative was established immediately, and no sightings elsewhere were canvassed. If anyone saw her going into the PoW they'd have said nothing, because nobody was saying she might have gone there. As DV said in the podcast, the weird thing was that nobody he spoke to believed at the time that there had ever been a viewing. It is clear though from the calls between the bank and the pub that her stuff was there and that she intended to go there.

BW's sighting is a problem, I agree, but only if she was recollecting the right day.


We don't know she took any house particulars with her. That she did is an assumption based on what she would have done had she really been going to a viewing. As far as I know nobody claims to have seen her taking the keys or any particulars, and the fact that the keys were still around the next day strongly suggests she took neither.


Agree, it's not him. It's someone he knew well enough to cover up for; someone who wanted to engineer a meeting with SJL that she wouldn't agree too. Somebody she had chucked; somebody she owed money to, or who had spent money on her; someone who rang the PoW posing as a police officer to find out what time she'd be there; someone who CV helped lure her to the PoW where the confrontation went horribly wrong.


The fact that whoever did this knew where her diary was but didn't trouble to hang onto it suggests either that he knew he wasn't in there, or that her connection to him would be obvious anyway. So the police getting hold of her diary was not a problem, and in fact quite helpful because it contained lots of dead ends that would waste the police's time.


And we can be sure the police won't do so, because first they gave up, and then they put JC into the frame on no evidence.

I think if we could all see the diary things would make sense , also this case would have been solved quicker I’m sure if mobile phones were about at time , what does everyone think about AL having lured SL to her death? Sorry don’t know how to start new thread

 

[Jackster]

DL and her agenda are IMO quite a big part of why SJL's life developed as it did and why the search for her failed. DL was out to protect SJL's posthumous reputation, and the misapprehension she held, carefully-curated by SJL, of how she had lived her life. Nothing else mattered more. DL was not about finding out what happened to SJL if this involved accepting even that she wasn't a 25-year-old virgin, never mind that she had slept with dozens of men. DL wanted an account of SJL's fate that showed her to be a blameless innocent - which by pretty well everyone's standards she was, but not by her mothers: those of 1950s East Sheen. DL wanted this more than she wanted SJL found; more than she wanted the truth.

The instant attempt to shut down an innocent conversation with the flat mate is evidence of this. She wouldn't tolerate even a hint that SJL might actually have been sleeping with a man. That would mean, in the parlance of the day, that far from having a lodger, SJL had "shacked up with" a bloke and was "living in sin". Yuck. Won't have that said.

DL had previously attempted to police her daughter's love life and deliberately interfered in it without hesitation. This attempt at control led SJL to seek work and any other opportunities that would allow to her to move out of home ASAP. She did and she heavily edited her accounts to DL of what was happening in her life.

This may have doomed her. Nobody but SJL seems to have known what went on between her and PSS, for example. If she had told her parents about things in her life that were worrying her, someone worldlier might have warned her. Her dad might have told whomever this bloke was that was "hassling" her to leave his daughter alone. But she did not have those conversations with her parents, and as the eldest sibling, nor had she any big brother or sister to confide in either.

So SJL's backstory is acutely relevant, but just not in the way usually assumed.

This is IMO why DL was so keen on JC as a patsy. His history of being a smooth and persuasive liar meant that a trusting innocent was duped. He was the perfect killer SJL could have done nothing to save herself from, and who stalked her after he looked at her in a shop window. She died because she was pretty, not because she was a hussy. For DL, that account is much preferable to any in which her associates and choice or number of bedmates is a factor. So that's the account that gets pushed, and as a result of this misconceived reputation management exercise, someone gets away with it.

Yes! Totally agree with all the above, DL was so eager to protect SL reputation that investigation got steered in totally wrong direction