Are we now questioning all the facts that were established at the time of Suzy's disappearance? If you accept the evidence compiled by Andrew Stephen, there seems little doubt that she was going to meet a client outside 37 Shorrolds Road. What is the basis for scepticism regarding these events? There is solid, factual witness evidence she was there.
When you pay close attention to the original timeline, it becomes clear that a lot of the established facts aren't any such thing. This, coupled with the failure of the investigation to charge anybody, is a strong pointer to the original investigation having been seriously compromised from the outset. Following in the footsteps of its assumptions is asking to repeat the same errors.
SJL's uncharacteristic absence was noticed during the afternoon, but nobody knew where she was supposed to have gone. Colleagues had to consult her diary to find out. This said 37SR but two visits to the property including entry by Sturgis staff showed no evidence she had been there. As they had the keys to get in, which they shouldn't have had if she really went there, it's reasonable to wonder if she did.
The basis of the subsequent belief that she did is that HR said he'd seen a man and a blonde woman. He did not ID the woman as SJL. This was 100% a police snap assumption. Nobody was ever put on an identity parade in front of HR, so subsequent claims that the man he saw resembles this person or that are entirely suppositious. Having described Mr Kipper as slim and 25 to 30, he later declared a podgy 44-year-old to be a dead ringer for him, and he also made then retracted a claim that he'd seen SJL being bundled into a vehicle. Mr Kipper actually looks a lot like SJL's boss, and as the Crimewatch reconstruction shows, all the women in the Sturgis office were blonde-ish. Taken together, the sole witness of anyone at 37SR starts to look a bit flakey. It looks entirely possible that HR saw MG and one of the office women.
Ordinarily you'd expect police procedure to kick in and screen out any such c0ckup, but this did not happen. The police were notified at 18.45 and initially were concerned with 37SR and SJL's own flat. They were there at 10pm when her car was found and that then became the focus until AL was located. He was questioned until 3.30am. From 7am uniforms were making house to house inquiries in Stevenage and Shorrolds. It was no later than about 9 or 10 when the police decided to call a press conference for 2pm. At this point they had taken no statements from anyone, and certainly had not had time to work through the likely sequence of events at 37SR. Even so they went ahead and declared that SJL had gone there, even though nobody had ID'd her there. The press conference was clearly a failure, because the police told ITN that the response was disappointing. Well, it would be; if you ask for witnesses to something that didn't happen, disappointment is nailed on. The supposed independent sightings were clearly influenced by each other and included mutually contradictory details that were glossed over.
What they should have done was establish and search everywhere she might have gone, then ask for sightings anywhere. How did her car get to 123SR? If she really went to 37SR, how did she leave and where did she go? Witnesses did come forward, but where their accounts conflicted with the abduction narrative they were ignored or explained away.
To be clear, this is true of all theories. All are contradicted by some witness or another and you have to cherry pick those you want to believe because they support your theory. DV does this, I do this, writers do this, the police do this.
For bonus points the police could have looked into recently-released sex offenders. This would have eliminated JC, who had an alibi, but about 30 such offenders must have been released from Wormwood that year - where were they, and were they accounted for? This was not done. As a result, all the "evidence" against JC is stuff that surfaced literally decades later, after he had been named by the police and the press. The evidence against him from 1986? There isn't any.
<modsnip: Websleuths is primarily pro-LE. Please forego the blatant generalizations and putdowns of police>
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