UK UK - Suzy Lamplugh, 25, Fulham, 28 Jul 1986 #6

[WestLondoner]

I find myself wondering about the alleged phone call on the last Sunday night between AL and SJL - in fact, the whole weekend.

AL gets back from holiday that week and meets up with SJL, we are told, on Friday. In a documentary made shortly after, he said this was at the PoW, and that her stuff was lifted from there. Later he said they went to Mossop's next door that Friday, had never been to the PoW and that the loss of stuff "never happened". We don't know what transpired between them but she did not see him all day on Saturday, was photographed sitting on someone else's knee at the party, avoided him to go to the coast on Sunday and avoided him again in travelling back.

AL says they spoke on the phone that evening. It is hard to know why, since they could have done so at any time all day. He does not know who 'phoned whom. If he had received a call from a payphone he'd know - the background noise and the sound of coins being added told you this. He does not mention this.

CV and MH both say that on that Sunday evening, her stuff was found outside the pub, by its phone box.

DL's account in her open letter to SJL says her daughter spent the balance of the evening in her flat gossiping with NB. She does not mention any calls made or taken at the family house. In fact, the conversation there seems to have been about a property wheeze SJL was putting together, something DL also edited from the narrative. NB, SJL's lodger, does not mention SJL taking or making any calls at the flat. So the sole source for the fact and content of this call would appear to be AL, and it would appear to have been about nothing; some event they were going to on Tuesday. In fact, he's also the sole source for their having met up on Friday.

Another way of looking at this is that SJL ended it with AL on Friday (perhaps having heard that DH, her ex with whom she'd never completely split up, was back in town - he was). AL was thus well and truly dumped and was ghosted all weekend. On the way back from her mother, SJL stopped at the PoW to make some phone call - her stuff being found there showed this - that she did not want overheard. So she made it not from home or from her mother's house, but from a payphone. AL later laid claim to receiving this call, at 10.15pm. He forgot that he'd have noticed if he had been called from a payphone, and has not given a credible account of what was said in it, given she had nothing to say to him all day.

AS subsequently said he'd altered some immaterial stuff in his book to suit DL. I wonder if he altered the bit where AL, having received no call at all, instead did so. Perhaps AS changed this to suit DL, who feared what would otherwise be read into SJL's furtive call from a payphone - yet another secret bloke perhaps.

So in 1988ish, to suit DL, AL sticks to the story that they went to the PoW on the Friday and she lost her diary then. He is never challenged with CV or MH's account that it was the Sunday, not least because the narrative has now taken hold that Cannan did it. By 2018 - after DL's death - he's telling DV that Friday at the PoW never happened at all, and that they were actually at Mossop's. A hallmark of the unskilled liar is of course that he forgets what he has said previously and to whom.

AL was conclusively eliminated at the time, so he's not concealing anything about any involvement because he had none. So, other than to protect SJL's posthumous reputation as DL saw it, why did he mislead everyone? SJL was clearly at that pub on Sunday. It could indeed have been 10.15pm. If so, CV just missed her when he came outside at 10.30 and saw her stuff. Did she call AL to say "Can you not take a hint"? Did he deduce a phone call, from where her stuff was found, and claim it had been made to him, to dissuade inquiry into whom SJL had really phoned?

 

[WestLondoner]

For anyone interested there is a copy of AS' book on Abebooks for £16 inc p&p.

 

[Terryb808]

I find myself wondering about the alleged phone call on the last Sunday night between AL and SJL - in fact, the whole weekend.

AL gets back from holiday that week and meets up with SJL, we are told, on Friday. In a documentary made shortly after, he said this was at the PoW, and that her stuff was lifted from there. Later he said they went to Mossop's next door that Friday, had never been to the PoW and that the loss of stuff "never happened". We don't know what transpired between them but she did not see him all day on Saturday, was photographed sitting on someone else's knee at the party, avoided him to go to the coast on Sunday and avoided him again in travelling back.

AL says they spoke on the phone that evening. It is hard to know why, since they could have done so at any time all day. He does not know who 'phoned whom. If he had received a call from a payphone he'd know - the background noise and the sound of coins being added told you this. He does not mention this.

CV and MH both say that on that Sunday evening, her stuff was found outside the pub, by its phone box.

DL's account in her open letter to SJL says her daughter spent the balance of the evening in her flat gossiping with NB. She does not mention any calls made or taken at the family house. In fact, the conversation there seems to have been about a property wheeze SJL was putting together, something DL also edited from the narrative. NB, SJL's lodger, does not mention SJL taking or making any calls at the flat. So the sole source for the fact and content of this call would appear to be AL, and it would appear to have been about nothing; some event they were going to on Tuesday. In fact, he's also the sole source for their having met up on Friday.

Another way of looking at this is that SJL ended it with AL on Friday (perhaps having heard that DH, her ex with whom she'd never completely split up, was back in town - he was). AL was thus well and truly dumped and was ghosted all weekend. On the way back from her mother, SJL stopped at the PoW to make some phone call - her stuff being found there showed this - that she did not want overheard. So she made it not from home or from her mother's house, but from a payphone. AL later laid claim to receiving this call, at 10.15pm. He forgot that he'd have noticed if he had been called from a payphone, and has not given a credible account of what was said in it, given she had nothing to say to him all day.

AS subsequently said he'd altered some immaterial stuff in his book to suit DL. I wonder if he altered the bit where AL, having received no call at all, instead did so. Perhaps AS changed this to suit DL, who feared what would otherwise be read into SJL's furtive call from a payphone - yet another secret bloke perhaps.

So in 1988ish, to suit DL, AL sticks to the story that they went to the PoW on the Friday and she lost her diary then. He is never challenged with CV or MH's account that it was the Sunday, not least because the narrative has now taken hold that Cannan did it. By 2018 - after DL's death - he's telling DV that Friday at the PoW never happened at all, and that they were actually at Mossop's. A hallmark of the unskilled liar is of course that he forgets what he has said previously and to whom.

AL was conclusively eliminated at the time, so he's not concealing anything about any involvement because he had none. So, other than to protect SJL's posthumous reputation as DL saw it, why did he mislead everyone? SJL was clearly at that pub on Sunday. It could indeed have been 10.15pm. If so, CV just missed her when he came outside at 10.30 and saw her stuff. Did she call AL to say "Can you not take a hint"? Did he deduce a phone call, from where her stuff was found, and claim it had been made to him, to dissuade inquiry into whom SJL had really phoned?

It’s clear from the events of that weekend and AL’s reaction to DV interviewing him that the events of Friday evening were fabricated.
If the official police account is a fabrication and that was put out officially, what chance do we have when it comes to believing anything else.

 

[WestLondoner]

Indirectly relevant but interesting article on the misuse of statistics in criminal trials.

Food for thought when we consider things like "60% match to SJL's DNA in JC's Sierra"....

 

[Eastend Eagle]

But if Suzy was snatched from right outside Sturgis, whether by one person, two people or a gang of people, it does rather beg the question of why they bothered to move her car at all. Easier to grab her and go.

Because Suzy's car appears to have been outside 123SR so close to the time she left work, it doesn't seem to leave many plausible options: she either drove there herself straight from work, or someone snatched her/the car immediately as she was leaving work. Or, less likely, her car wasn't outside work to begin with.

Though it may appear less likely that her car wasn't outside work to begin with we appear to have the word of just one person that it actually was there.

 

[Eastend Eagle]

Even if Suzy's family (and the police) had always known about Steve Wright being mentioned in her diary, presumably it wasn't until he was arrested in 2006 that anyone even considered him a potential suspect.

Diane pushed the JC narrative, when she might have had Suzy's killer under her nose the entire time. That would be sad.

Is it bizarre for me to say I'd been so preoccupied with 123SR and 37SR, that I'd never actually looked at Whittingstall Road? It's so much like Gowan Avenue. Quiet, narrow, fairly non-descript. It would be so easy for something to happen with barely anyone noticing, just like with Jill Dando.

Rostrevor Mews appears a far easier place to have carried out an unobserved abduction than Whittingstall Road IMO

 

[Terryb808]

Rostrevor Mews appears a far easier place to have carried out an unobserved abduction than Whittingstall Road IMO

According to TF / Supersleuth Whittingstall Road is very quiet at its far end by the bend and that’s today.
Maybe quieter in 86.

 

[Salah11]

I don’t like Whittingstall Road as the abduction site because she obviously had a chance to get in the car and sort out out where to put her stuff.

The most logical place to kidnap her would be in an empty property where she was alone and she wasn’t expecting it.

Moo

 

[ruby925]

It would provide another reason to withhold Suzy’s personal diary all this time. If it actually contained the name of her killer and the police ruled him out. Having then gone all out on JC as their prime suspect.
As any psychologist will tell you it’s unlikely that Steve Wright started offending that late in life. So was Suzy his first victim.
No proof, but can’t be ruled out.

This week Steve Wright has been charged with the murder of Victoria Hall in 1999.

 

[WestLondoner]

This week Steve Wright has been charged with the murder of Victoria Hall in 1999.

And he was 28 in 1986. Peak age for serial killers to start killing.

You wonder if anyone from ashore went missing when his ship was in port.

 

[Interested_But_Confused]

If Suzy's personal life was very complicated, and thanks to her mother/family many details were withheld or fabricated to protect Suzy's reputation, then they may very well have inadvertently--or perhaps even purposely--hindered the investigation. She'd be another Claudia Lawrence.

As long as people aren't breaking the law, I don't judge. But without meaning to victim-blame, it's a sad reality that the things people do, and the people they spend time with, can absolutely increase their chances of bad things happening to them. It's crucial for the police to know those details if there's to be any hope of them figuring out what happened.

There may be a very simple answer to where Suzy was really going and who she was really meeting. There may be equally simple explanations for things that don't appear to make any sense. But it's now almost certainly too late to find those answers.

 

[Salah11]

If Suzy's personal life was very complicated, and thanks to her mother/family many details were withheld or fabricated to protect Suzy's reputation, then they may very well have inadvertently--or perhaps even purposely--hindered the investigation. She'd be another Claudia Lawrence.

As long as people aren't breaking the law, I don't judge. But without meaning to victim-blame, it's a sad reality that the things people do, and the people they spend time with, can absolutely increase their chances of bad things happening to them. It's crucial for the police to know those details if there's to be any hope of them figuring out what happened.

There may be a very simple answer to where Suzy was really going and who she was really meeting. There may be equally simple explanations for things that don't appear to make any sense. But it's now almost certainly too late to find those answers.

It’s absolutely crazy that the victims family may of played a part in letting the killer getting away with murder.

A sign of the times I guess that they were able to actively allowed to lie and get some of her private life covered up. Moo

 

[Terryb808]

One thing AFAIK that hasn’t been discussed and this is probably because Suzy is alleged to have said to James C as she left”where did you say you parked my car”.
This suggests she going to drive to where she went when she left the office.
However, what if she did go to Shorrolds Road, but didn’t come immediately take her car?
On the basis that she did go to 37SR and the Kipper / Skipper actually had a real meaning, who of those seen outside did she meet.
The suntanned male immediately comes to mind, and I’m guessing both SW & DH would both have had a suntan. They both were abroad prior to Suzy going missing. This of course would mean that WJ & DV are completely wrong, and that BW could then be correct.

 

[Salah11]

One thing AFAIK that hasn’t been discussed and this is probably because Suzy is alleged to have said to James C as she left”where did you say you parked my car”.
This suggests she going to drive to where she went when she left the office.
However, what if she did go to Shorrolds Road, but didn’t come immediately take her car?
On the basis that she did go to 37SR and the Kipper / Skipper actually had a real meaning, who of those seen outside did she meet.
The suntanned male immediately comes to mind, and I’m guessing both SW & DH would both have had a suntan. They both were abroad prior to Suzy going missing. This of course would mean that WJ & DV are completely wrong, and that BW could then be correct.

Then how did her purse end up in the car?

She most of gotten in the car as the stuff she left the office with were found in the car.

 

[Interested_But_Confused]

The only witness in this whole thing whom I truly believe is WJ. Not because I particularly believe WJ (I never believe a single source) but because she appears to have a strong corroborating witness in AM, and other witnesses such as the taxi driver who also strengthen her sighting.

WJ said she saw the car before she went to AM's house, and mentioned the car to AM. It's not clear if AM actually saw it, but she presumably remembered being told about it. Then they both went shopping and AM said it was 12:49 when she looked at the clock in the bank. Logically, that means the car was outside 123SR before 12:49.

The only way WJ can be wrong is either if there *were* two near-identical cars parked in exactly the same place that afternoon, or if AM was wrong about the time on the bank clock--or if the bank clock was wrong! None of those things seems to be very likely IMO.

 

[Terryb808]

Then how did her purse end up in the car?

She most of gotten in the car as the stuff she left the office with were found in the car.

I didn’t say she never used the car, just met Mr Kipper / Skipper o/s 37SR. This would mean it was him BW saw at 2.45pm and him again who abandoned her car before 5.15pm when WJ husband returned from work.

 

[Salah11]

I didn’t say she never used the car, just met Mr Kipper / Skipper o/s 37SR. This would mean it was him BW saw at 2.45pm and him again who abandoned her car before 5.15pm when WJ husband returned from work.

Well yes that’s the working assumption I thought?



Why would somebody who had lured her away from her job try and kidnap her in broad light and risk being seen by multiple people when they had a flat viewing where nobody would disturb them?!

 

[Terryb808]

The only witness in this whole thing whom I truly believe is WJ. Not because I particularly believe WJ (I never believe a single source) but because she appears to have a strong corroborating witness in AM, and other witnesses such as the taxi driver who also strengthen her sighting.

WJ said she saw the car before she went to AM's house, and mentioned the car to AM. It's not clear if AM actually saw it, but she presumably remembered being told about it. Then they both went shopping and AM said it was 12:49 when she looked at the clock in the bank. Logically, that means the car was outside 123SR before 12:49.

The only way WJ can be wrong is either if there *were* two near-identical cars parked in exactly the same place that afternoon, or if AM was wrong about the time on the bank clock--or if the bank clock was wrong! None of those things seems to be very likely IMO.

I’ve posed this question before, can you or anyone (based on it being a normal day) recall accurately what was parked opposite their house, exactly how it was parked, what make of car it was and the exact time.
I appreciate that WJ generates a lot of faith in her account, but if AM didn’t actually see the vehicle, you have only WJ’s opinion.
It’s not unknown for our brain to subconsciously fill in the gaps in our memory when asked to recall it.
This is perfectly natural and not done deliberately, it just happens.
That’s why IMO re-interviewing witnesses many years later is of little real value.
If you were to ask WJ if the car had a straw hat on the rear parcel shelf, my bets on the answer being “yes”. Not because she actually remembers, but because she’s seen it post the actual event and that memory gap has been filled in.
I’m not being critical, just realistic.

 

[Interested_But_Confused]

I’ve posed this question before, can you or anyone (based on it being a normal day) recall accurately what was parked opposite their house, exactly how it was parked, what make of car it was and the exact time.
I appreciate that WJ generates a lot of faith in her account, but if AM didn’t actually see the vehicle, you have only WJ’s opinion.
It’s not unknown for our brain to subconsciously fill in the gaps in our memory when asked to recall it.
This is perfectly natural and not done deliberately, it just happens.
That’s why IMO re-interviewing witnesses many years later is of little real value.
If you were to ask WJ if the car had a straw hat on the rear parcel shelf, my bets on the answer being “yes”. Not because she actually remembers, but because she’s seen it post the actual event and that memory gap has been filled in.
I’m not being critical, just realistic.

If WJ had "remembered" these things after the fact, I would tend to agree with you.

But if, as she (and seemingly AM) claims, she noted the position of the car when she first saw it because of the strange way it was parked, and then told AM about it almost immediately... that seems to virtually remove the possibility of well-intentioned but incorrect memory.

Either WJ saw the car and made note of it *before* going to see AM, and noticed it was still there when she returned from shopping, or she didn't.

I don't always make note of parked vehicles, but I have sometimes made note of particular vehicles; I live on a much smaller street than Stevenage Road and parked cars have a tendency to block access. When that happens I'll sometimes make a note of it--which is actually the same reason why WJ claims to have made note of it.

 

[WestLondoner]

It's interesting to focus on a detail like this because it so typifies the entire case.

The purse detail is telling. This is a woman who's spent a fair part of her morning chasing down her mislaid cheque book. She's going to do all that then literally immediately after, leave her purse in an unlocked car?

If WJ is correct, then all of the 37SR "witnesses" are nothing of the kind. There is simply no conceivable reason why, to go to 37SR which is north-east of the office, SJL would head off west, in exactly the wrong direction, leave her car outside 123SR unsecured with her purse in it, and then be driven back by A N Other to 37SR. It's 2.4 miles round the houses instead of 0.5 miles, and she then supposedly carried out a totally normal-looking viewing except that she got killed at some point.

Likewise BW has to be wrong. Although there's a window when WJ wasn't there during which the car could have moved, for BW to be right SJL's car had to have been brought back and misparked again in the identical place in order to look like it had been there all day.

Another witness who has to be wrong is MJ, who said she saw a couple in that part of Stevenage Road later that afternoon. If WJ is right, SJL and A N Other were already long gone and not coming back.

It doesn't get a lot better if you assume instead that the 37SR "sightings" are right. You sort of can't because they're inconsistent, but inconsistent as they are, they don't leave any room for WJ to be right.

Likewise if BW is right WJ is necessarily wrong.

This is not the only such example in this case. AL's account of the PoW is certainly inaccurate - he's given two that conflict and neither reconciles to KH/CV or MH's account. Either the stuff was lost on Friday at the pub or on Sunday at the pub, but it cannot have been lost at Mossop's on either day.

If it was lost at Mossop's on Friday how did it spend 48 hours travelling to the PoW on Sunday?

It can't have been lost at Mossop's on Sunday. Nobody has suggested they went out on Sunday night. SJL left the beach separately having ignored AL all weekend, went to her parents' house, then home. There's room in this for a 10.15 phone call but not for a meal at that time, nor for her to have spent a couple of hours nattering to NB. Was Mossop's even open on a Sunday night? So DL, AL, CV/KH, MH and NB cannot all be giving accurate accounts.