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

[TimFisher1965]

On the Sunday evening she went to her parents, then went home and passed the time of day with Roger the lodger. She also had a personal phone call with AL at about 10.15, not made from her parents' home or from her flat.

From her parents' house in East Sheen, she drives along the Upper Richmond Road to get to Putney. She can't turn left off the Upper Richmond Road and right into Disraeli because it's a one-way street, so she carries on to Oxford Road, turns left, and left again into Disraeli. The PoW is on the corner of Upper Richmond and Oxford, so she had to drive literally right past the PoW to get home from her parents' house.

We know she lost her stuff there. Outside the PoW were two call boxes. Ergo, she made her call to AL from there on her way home. The content of the call preoccupied her enough that she forgot to pick up her diary, or didn't notice when she dropped it.

If she went to the PoW the next day, logically she's going to park as close as she can to where she's going. She's not going to park 200 yards away.

According to NB she did not see him on the Sunday night its only in the public domain because it was in the open letter Diana wrote about a week alter, there is no proof for this or witness testimony to back it up

 

[Terryb808]

From my understanding she went home first and chatted to her lodger and then went out. She didn’t arrive home that late from her parents as far as I’m aware as she had work the next day. I can not check my book as I got it free on Amazon prime books and now I have to pay.


Am I wrong?

Well, if you went home first and then went out to avoid Roger the lodger listening to your call why would you take your diary and chequebook on your 200 yard walk to the PoW call boxes?
On the other hand if you made the call via a stop on the way home then you might take these things out of the car, also, if CV was outside at the time SJL made the call he may have clocked by SJL and the car she was driving?

 

[Terryb808]

Do we know anything at all about the cellarman?

No, but his reaction to DV turning up speaks volumes, it tends to suggest he may have a shady past with something to hide.

 

[TimFisher1965]

I'm not sure locating SJL's car would have been that hard at all. As has been said, she left her purse in the door pocket, so she clearly wasn't far from the PoW.

You could tell a surprising amount about a Ford just from the key fob. I drove a new Ford in 1985, C-reg rather than SJL's B-reg, followed by another in 1988. These cars when new came with two keys. On higher spec models, the main one was what Ford called a "torch key", which had a push-button torch built in so you could find the door lock in the dark. The spare key was just a basic key, with a logo. Smaller or more basic models came with two of the basic keys. As a 1984 base Fiesta, SJL's car would have had two basic keys. MG's XR3i would have had a torch key and a basic as spare.

So you look at the basic key, you figure this is probably not the spare key of a higher model, as this is a young driver; so you're looking for a basic Ford that this key will open, and that may show signs of being driven by a woman (eg a girly umbrella on the front seat, or something). Starting with the nearest to the pub, you quickly find a Ford that has a woman's straw hat on the back seat. And the key fits. Bingo.

I struggle a bit with SJL popping out on a swift errand but then parking outside her own house. This is going to involve her in walking a quarter of a mile, there and back, so how swift will this be? Second, if the car's that far away, CV or whoever stands no chance of finding it. If anything on her property told him where she lived, the pub manager could have contacted her there. They don't know where she lives, so they would not know where to find her car to move it, and he can't search hundreds of yards in every direction. Third, if she parked outside her own house and somehow you knew this, would you actually move her car anyway? If it were me, I wouldn't be driving her car away at all. I'd leave it right there where it was. It's perfect; she went home on some errand and disappeared, and right away the lodger or one of the boyfriends is in the frame. It would be a big jump for the plod to assume that she parked outside her house to go into the pub 200 yards away. They'd more likely assume she parked outside her house to go into her house.

Incidentally, MG's XR3i probably explains the "BMW" sightings in Shorrolds. Double-parked so you can only see the roofline, you could mistake an XR3i for a 3-series BMW. Here's an XR3i:
https://www.mini2.com/cdn-cgi/image...-down//media/1986-ford-escort-xr3i.16534/full

and here's a contemporary BMW from a similar angle:
https://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/images/gallery/BMW-3-Series-Coupe--E30--763_33.jpg

I suggest that if you were looking from a house in Shorrolds over intervening cars at the roof, pillars, door mirrors, door handles, bootlid spoiler and side glass of MG's double-parked XR3i, you could easily mistake it for a 3-series BMW. The "sightings" of "Mr Kipper", a blonde and a BMW are, for my money, sightings of the search party: MG, SF, and MG's XR3i.

I agree with the sighting being the search party, re knowing her address my point is if MH the permanent landlord did not mention the postcard maybe he never saw it? he says in DV's book her address was not in the diary or chequebook he never mentions the postcard which was likely the only thing in the possessions that would have had her address on it (if it had been sent through the post and was not merely a souvenir) her flat was 200m from the pub I could walk that in a couple of minutes tops so my thinking is that she weighed up the hassle of parking against definitely being able to park outside her flat. If we are correct it was a 5 minute walk there and back to quickly get her stuff and possibly go up to her flat to pick up tennis stuff, that seems reasonable to me?

 

[TimFisher1965]

Well, if you went home first and then went out to avoid Roger the lodger listening to your call why would you take your diary and chequebook on your 200 yard walk to the PoW call boxes?
On the other hand if you made the call via a stop on the way home then you might take these things out of the car, also, if CV was outside at the time SJL made the call he may have clocked by SJL and the car she was driving?

We can only theorise but its possible she went home and walked back to the pub and went in for a drink, to get Dutch courage before going outside to use the phone to possibly end it with AL? How busy was it? would anyone remember her? Where she was from the time she left her parents house is important to try and nail down.

 

[TimFisher1965]

Do we know anything at all about the cellarman?

No and we really do need to know more, I wonder how old he was then? Maybe Michael Hutchings knows more?

 

[WestLondoner]

No, but his reaction to DV turning up speaks volumes, it tends to suggest he may have a shady past with something to hide.

Different cellarman though. There's ND the cellarman who claimed to be a witness, but who when DV called on him hid in the house and pretended he wasn't in. Then there's Brendan / Brendon the cellarman employed at the PoW.

 

[WestLondoner]

Well, if you went home first and then went out to avoid Roger the lodger listening to your call why would you take your diary and chequebook on your 200 yard walk to the PoW call boxes?

The diary I guess because she couldn't remember AL's phone number. She had a lot of them to remember. But why would you drive right past the place you need to call from then walk back 200 yards each way? Why wouldn't you just stop off?

 

[WestLondoner]

my thinking is that she weighed up the hassle of parking against definitely being able to park outside her flat?

Could she definitely park outside her flat? I lived in W9 in 1988 and I couldn't count on being able to do this at all. But she could in any case park outside either destination on the Monday, and walk back to the other. She could just as easily have parked outside the pub and walked to her flat.

She's got two errands to run and clearly didn't stop at her flat at all. We know this because her tennis stuff was found there. I reckon she heads for the PoW first and does a Kojak - she drives right into an empty space right outside.

All CV then has to do is find her car. The chances of it being 200 yards away are very remote - and surely if it were, it's far enough away that it no longer points to the pub?

 

[Terryb808]

Okay the police didn't focus on the Putney area, however, on the Wednesday afternoon the TV & press were involved big time, so why didn't anyone come forward to say "I saw someone just like her on Upper Richmond Road", or outside the pub.
We have enough witnesses saying she was in SR, Stevenage Road, Bishops Park, so why not near the PoW?
This would suggest that unless the police provide a location, the public just don't remember what they may have seen, or in the other cases above, just subconsciously filled in gaps with SJL.

 

[Konstantin]

So I just found this on a blog devoted to unsolved murders in london.

“Speaking in 2006, Detective Superintendent Jim Dickie said there was evidence Cannan had been monitoring Suzy before her disappearance.”

I haven’t heard this before. Does anyone know anything about this claim? What evidence could there be to suggest that JC was monitoring SJL?

 

[WestLondoner]

So I just found this on a blog devoted to unsolved murders in london.

“Speaking in 2006, Detective Superintendent Jim Dickie said there was evidence Cannan had been monitoring Suzy before her disappearance.”

I haven’t heard this before. Does anyone know anything about this claim? What evidence could there be to suggest that JC was monitoring SJL?

Probably nonsense. The "evidence" is quite likely the people who claimed 14 years later that they'd seen JC looking in Sturgis' window.

Personally, I can't remember anyone I might have seen looking in any shop windows in 2008.

 

[Konstantin]

Probably nonsense. The "evidence" is quite likely the people who claimed 14 years later that they'd seen JC looking in Sturgis' window.

Personally, I can't remember anyone I might have seen looking in any shop windows in 2008.

that makes sense thanks.
And yes of course no one can remember seeing a total stranger decades ago. If they’d seen Prince Philip or another celebrity looking through the sturgis window one might expect to recall this as it would stand out. But it’s not credible that someone recalled a stranger

I’m not surprised the cps turned this down if that’s all they had.

JC wasn’t very good at all at covering up his crimes. I can’t see how he would have got so lucky with hiding SJL — a crime he allegedly committed before SB, where he left more traces than a tornado.

 

[Terryb808]

One thing about JD from DV and that’s DV’s anagram for his disguised name “ clearly bent”.
Now maybe DV has good reason for this, or he’s annoyed that JD is obstructing his PoW theory.
Either way it casts doubt on anything JD comes up with, like the Gallows Bridge canal sighting.
No police records of this witness reporting seeing JC throwing a large bag in the canal.
The actual witness died some time ago so can’t be interviewed and the account came via a third party.
This just smells of JD keeping his JC did it alive when DV seems to have proved SJL never went to SR and Mr Kipper is as real as Batman.

 

[WestLondoner]

that makes sense thanks.
And yes of course no one can remember seeing a total stranger decades ago. If they’d seen Prince Philip or another celebrity looking through the sturgis window one might expect to recall this as it would stand out. But it’s not credible that someone recalled a stranger

I’m not surprised the cps turned this down if that’s all they had.

JC wasn’t very good at all at covering up his crimes. I can’t see how he would have got so lucky with hiding SJL — a crime he allegedly committed before SB, where he left more traces than a tornado.

Indeed. The basis of the police argument that JC did it is that he later did something similar to what they presume happened. The obvious problem with this line of thinking is hence that, in 1986, this was not the kind of thing JC yet did. It's saying that in 1986 he committed a crime typical of what he did in 1987. But up until this point and afterwards he was just a thief and rapist. He assaulted a woman in a phone box in 1978, he raped his partner in 1980, he robbed a petrol station and he raped a woman in her shop in 1981, during which latter crime the fool cut himself on his own weapon. Ten weeks after he was released from prison for the latter - months after SJL disappeared, presumed murdered - he raped a woman into whose car he had forced his way. A year after that he murdered Shirley Banks.

So we are being asked to believe that he committed a series of rapes, then the murder of SJL, but that then he then de-escalated, took it back down a notch and went back to just rape. A year after that, he re-escalates to murder.

I don't buy it. Everything I've read about psychopathic offenders like JC says that the attacks get worse over time. They don't lessen. And JC isn't a master criminal - he seems to have got caught pretty well every time (he claims otherwise, but he would; he's a psychopath).

This just smells of JD keeping his JC did it alive when DV seems to have proved SJL never went to SR and Mr Kipper is as real as Batman.

Yep. I've never heard of any killer being convicted on a "case" as flimsy as this.

 

[TimFisher1965]

Well, if you went home first and then went out to avoid Roger the lodger listening to your call why would you take your diary and chequebook on your 200 yard walk to the PoW call boxes?
On the other hand if you made the call via a stop on the way home then you might take these things out of the car, also, if CV was outside at the time SJL made the call he may have clocked by SJL and the car she was driving?

That's possible, if we say CV is involved he was there and saw SL or he planned it somehow or he was incredibly lucky if indeed he was involved. There is a lot of interesting discussion here but we are left with virtually every possibility on the table. The only way to get any closer to the truth is to remove some of the smoke and it seems to me that the only way to do this is remove some contradictory info. Ie is WJ right or is BW right they cannot both be right.

 

[TimFisher1965]

So I just found this on a blog devoted to unsolved murders in london.

“Speaking in 2006, Detective Superintendent Jim Dickie said there was evidence Cannan had been monitoring Suzy before her disappearance.”

I haven’t heard this before. Does anyone know anything about this claim? What evidence could there be to suggest that JC was monitoring SJL?

JD's idea of evidence is to say things like "I believe" or "it fits his MO" there is NO evidence whatsoever that JC had anything to do with it

 

[Terryb808]

To remove some of the smoke I’d say we need to eliminate or confirm DV’s theory. To do this we’d need access to the PoW cellar and the void.
Sadly with the change of ownership this is not going to happen without the Met getting involved.
IMO DV should have been more proactive when he first put his head and his phone into the void.
Finding some evidence that SJL had been (at some point) in the void would have resulted in the Met having no option but to get involved.
Any idea why he didn’t do this?

 

[TimFisher1965]

To remove some of the smoke I’d say we need to eliminate or confirm DV’s theory. To do this we’d need access to the PoW cellar and the void.
Sadly with the change of ownership this is not going to happen without the Met getting involved.
IMO DV should have been more proactive when he first put his head and his phone into the void.
Finding some evidence that SJL had been (at some point) in the void would have resulted in the Met having no option but to get involved.
Any idea why he didn’t do this?

he said he didn’t want to contaminate the scene I guess at that point he thought the police would look?

 

[Terryb808]

he said he didn’t want to contaminate the scene I guess at that point he thought the police would look?

He’s an ex-Met detective, well versed in conservation of evidence, at the time the PoW landlord was very helpful.
He could have put on protective clothes and found that vital evidence and not contaminated the scene.