UK UK - Suzy Lamplugh, 25, Fulham, 28 Jul 1986 #3

[Konstantin]

To hide a body in a work place/public house with other staff accessing the private areas, without anyone noticing would be miraculous.

DV explains this by making a scenario that SJL was concealed in an area of the basement where only pest control people go. He accessed the space and says he saw a pile of builders rubble which he dated to the mid 80s by photographing it and finding there was a beer can on it with a design indicating it was from that time. However if SJL was concealed under there it does seem unlikely that she would not have been discovered, and if she was concealed temporarily and moved, then I doubt one person could comfortably have done that alone, and definitely not without being noticed.

3. Spur of the moment blackmail scenario for the diary (was is that salcious?) or sexual assault which resulted in murder/manslaughter and concealment. Firstly it's on home turf, with staff and quite likely customers around (13:00ish on summers working day).

Successful concealment would need considerable fore-thought.....unplanned killing provides significant logistical problems with body disposal....they start getting grotty pretty quickly and one fly can lay enough eggs to produce swarms of flies before long.....seriously unpleasant.

The police officer who met with DV also raised the issue of if the diary was salacious or not, on the grounds that it would plausibly have to have been to give the person DV was accusing a motive for a spur of the moment (or preplanned shortly before) sexual assault that led to a killing or tragic accident. DV takes this as evidence that the diary was indeed salacious and believes his theories were just dismissed without consideration. It was a pocket diary though, they are rather small so unless SJL had tiny handwriting what could it have contained? Those diaries were used for numbers and appointments. I really doubt she was recording hot dates with important celebrities and if the relief landlord were planning to blackmail her, having her come to the pub, an appointment that others knew about, was a fairly dim move. Also as per MH interview with DV, he claims the stuff was looked through and people at the pub asked around. If it was a salacious diary you would expect he or others would recall this.

Regarding the theory that a body was hidden in the space in the basement of the pub, DV notes that MH said there was an infestation of blowflies in the pub. He suggests this is suspicious and could add weight to a body being left there. DV includes this to add weight to his theory. Again, I feel that if there was an infestation due to a fresh body then that would have really been discovered at that stage? Surely the smell would be unbearable? The basement itself was accessed frequently even if the space where DV believes SJL is still concealed was not, so people would have noticed where the infestation was originating from, also by the smell (DV argues there are sewer pipes in the same space which would have masked the body smell but if the pub stank of sewage surely no one would wish to eat or drink there? It was a pub that served food and flies breed in rotting food too.

 

[WestLondoner]

It would be a huge setback if after years of work DV found out that the pub was open at lunchtime that day and the window of opportunity for something to have happened to SJL there had now gone.

A potential setback for that theory, but a step forward in finding out what happened, perhaps.

I've worked at a bar/restaurant that was was reliably dead at lunchtime and rammed at weekends. When I asked the manager why, the answer was that the crowd who rammed it at weekends lived around there but they didn't work around there.

MH indicates that the diary etc were found by 'staff' whom CV identifies as himself. This sounds like there could be a number of staff there on a Sunday night, but this tells us little about Monday morning.

Incidentally, to trace the Chinese that CV somehow remembers going to, one way would be to look at what takeaways / restaurants there are there now. A couple of mates and I fancied becoming restauranteurs in Little Venice about 20 years ago. We looked into what it entailed and found that the local council wasn't giving planning permission for any more commercial kitchens. If you wanted to open a restaurant, you could only do so where one had previously failed. That was in about 2000, but there've been no new eateries there to this day, just new players taking over existing ones. Restaurants come and go but mostly on the same few sites (or they reactivate as a restaurant, having had the permission of old but not used it). Hence there is quite a good chance that no new restaurant has opened in that road in Putney since 1986 and / or that there is still a takeaway on the original site.

 

[WestLondoner]

However if SJL was concealed under there it does seem unlikely that she would not have been discovered, and if she was concealed temporarily and moved, then I doubt one person could comfortably have done that alone, and definitely not without being noticed.

It would have done as a temporary hiding place, but the better way would have been then to have moved her onto the adjacent railway embankment. It's not accessible except from the back of the row of shops, and has trees on it, so as well as being certain to be undisturbed while you hid the body you wouldn't be seen either. Leaving her in the basement would incriminate only pub staff whereas the embankment does not do so as conclusively.

Regarding the theory that a body was hidden in the space in the basement of the pub, DV notes that MH said there was an infestation of blowflies in the pub. He suggests this is suspicious and could add weight to a body being left there.

It's an interesting incidental observation but as you say pubs get flies round the huge bins outside so this would tend to be the more likely culprit.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

Businesses have cash flow problems all of the time, I don't think its a reason to abduct someone

depends on the situation and whether someone felt betrayed or disrespected or misled or messed around or lost money already sunk. They could have felt murderously angry and vengeful?

 

[WestLondoner]

It's worth noting that the errand to the PoW is the most reliably attested destination for SJL when she left. At least four people knew she intended to go there: MH, CV, KF and MG, plus anyone else she mentioned this too at the office, plus quite likely whomever she spoke to at the bank. There is also agreement that she was going there that day; the only point at issue is what the time was to begin with and what the final call changed it to.

The only evidence she intended to go to 37SR, in contrast, is a made-up name in her diary. She never mentioned this client or this appointment to anybody. Nobody reported seeing her there on the Monday, the police assumption that she went there initially produced no witnesses, and it was only when they broadcast a reconstruction that sightings started to trickle in.

Whether she ever made it to the PoW is the real mystery. She can of course have been carjacked en route.

 

[Whitehall 1212]

It's an interesting incidental observation but as you say pubs get flies round the huge bins outside so this would tend to be the more likely culprit.

<modsnip -

As an example if have looked into a large ground floor room picture window seeking a gap in the black curtain to peer through only to realise that it wasn't a curtain covering the window but a vast moving wall of flies on the other side of the window, in a room where the decomposing body was lying.

One fly can detect death within minutes and will start laying eggs on/in orifices of the body. 50,000 eggs is not uncommon and the adult flies take sustenance from the body.

After 21 days the eggs will have hatched into adult flies, which can produce eggs and so the cycle continues.

The devil is in the detail. To dismiss the detail as an inconvenient truth is to undermine the investigation process.

 

[Whitehall 1212]

It's worth noting that the errand to the PoW is the most reliably attested destination for SJL when she left.

It's not though is it!

37 SR was in the diary for 12:45. SJL was never known to have made bogus appointments.

The original appt at the PoW was for sometime around 18:00. If SJL was so desperate to collect her property I suggest that she would have not made an appt for around 18:00 originally, but would have gone sooner and made her excuses or a bogus entry....but she didn't!

The arranged viewing in Wardo Avenue did not need to get in the way of SJL collecting her property from the PoW....it's a pub....it's open until later in the evening.

I'm not saying that SJL's lost/found property doesn't have something to do with her disappearance, just that we should take note of the subtle cues that exist.

<modsnip - personalizing>

 

[Whitehall 1212]

DV explains this by making a scenario that SJL was concealed in an area of the basement where only pest control people go. He accessed the space and says he saw a pile of builders rubble which he dated to the mid 80s by photographing it and finding there was a beer can on it with a design indicating it was from that time. However if SJL was concealed under there it does seem unlikely that she would not have been discovered, and if she was concealed temporarily and moved, then I doubt one person could comfortably have done that alone, and definitely not without being noticed.



The police officer who met with DV also raised the issue of if the diary was salacious or not, on the grounds that it would plausibly have to have been to give the person DV was accusing a motive for a spur of the moment (or preplanned shortly before) sexual assault that led to a killing or tragic accident. DV takes this as evidence that the diary was indeed salacious and believes his theories were just dismissed without consideration. It was a pocket diary though, they are rather small so unless SJL had tiny handwriting what could it have contained? Those diaries were used for numbers and appointments. I really doubt she was recording hot dates with important celebrities and if the relief landlord were planning to blackmail her, having her come to the pub, an appointment that others knew about, was a fairly dim move. Also as per MH interview with DV, he claims the stuff was looked through and people at the pub asked around. If it was a salacious diary you would expect he or others would recall this.

Regarding the theory that a body was hidden in the space in the basement of the pub, DV notes that MH said there was an infestation of blowflies in the pub. He suggests this is suspicious and could add weight to a body being left there. DV includes this to add weight to his theory. Again, I feel that if there was an infestation due to a fresh body then that would have really been discovered at that stage? Surely the smell would be unbearable? The basement itself was accessed frequently even if the space where DV believes SJL is still concealed was not, so people would have noticed where the infestation was originating from, also by the smell (DV argues there are sewer pipes in the same space which would have masked the body smell but if the pub stank of sewage surely no one would wish to eat or drink there? It was a pub that served food and flies breed in rotting food too.

The one thing that shines through from what say of DV's 'investigation', is that for a supposedly experienced detective he fails to really dig down into the detail and ask the relevant questions to either steadfastly show a genuine suspicion or seek to eliminate a line of enquiry.

He appears to leave things half baked and all a bit opaque, when he could have asked the searching questions without being concerned about the PoW 'theory' blowing up in his face. Now that would have demonstrated real credibility.

 

[Pinkizzy]

I guess DV has left things half baked and opaque until a proper investigation has looked into his findings at the PoW

 

[Whitehall 1212]

I guess DV has left things half baked and opaque until a proper investigation has looked into his findings at the PoW

DV had the opportunity to ask searching questions and drill down into the detail. He failed to do so and left things open ended.

Ask yourself why he didn't? I suggest it's because book sales were more important than his 'sensational' theory being undermined.

 

[Konstantin]

Either that or SJL had given the pub her work contact details, prompting the PoW to phone Sturgis on Tuesday morning when SJL didn't turn up to collect her property the evening before and prompting the prompt police attendance at the PoW.

Your assertion is more likely, assuming the Sturgis staff were aware and mentioned it to the police.

Quite. AS doesn't say how they found out about it as I think he didn't see this particular thread as important perhaps. However IIRC he does say that Suzy had talked about the missing items with her colleagues.

The first hypothesis, that SJL told people at her work about the missing items being in the pub, fits with the above too. I wonder if she told them how she reckoned they ended up there. There's no record of her being freaked out about it, her colleagues seemed to think she was in a good mood that day. Unless she was very good at masking her emotions, and she did compartmentalize her life a great deal, that doesn't suggest she was very scared about someone reading salacious stuff in a diary although she did care about getting her stuff back.

I also think as noted before that this first hypothesis helps explain the phone calls the relief landlord says he got. As Sturgis were certainly trying to locate her that Monday afternoon if they knew the POW was somewhere they might have gone, they might well have called. If he gave the number of someone at Sturgis to the officers who attended to pick up her stuff they probably just didn't think much of that perhaps. Her office left their number to call back, that's all. BUt that is pure speculation, we have no idea.

 

[Whitehall 1212]

Quite. AS doesn't say how they found out about it as I think he didn't see this particular thread as important perhaps. However IIRC he does say that Suzy had talked about the missing items with her colleagues.

The first hypothesis, that SJL told people at her work about the missing items being in the pub, fits with the above too. I wonder if she told them how she reckoned they ended up there. There's no record of her being freaked out about it, her colleagues seemed to think she was in a good mood that day. Unless she was very good at masking her emotions, and she did compartmentalize her life a great deal, that doesn't suggest she was very scared about someone reading salacious stuff in a diary although she did care about getting her stuff back.

I also think as noted before that this first hypothesis helps explain the phone calls the relief landlord says he got. As Sturgis were certainly trying to locate her that Monday afternoon if they knew the POW was somewhere they might have gone, they might well have called. If he gave the number of someone at Sturgis to the officers who attended to pick up her stuff they probably just didn't think much of that perhaps. Her office left their number to call back, that's all. BUt that is pure speculation, we have no idea.

AS says all witnesses were re-visited during the period of the first anniversary.

AS says CV had remembered the phone call from 'Sarah' who asked for SJL by name (exactly what variation of name it doesn't say, which could be relevant) and left a number to contact SJL on. Also a call received from someone saying they were a police officer.

If CV claims he handed over the piece of paper with the number on 29th July 1986, how could this not be a prompt to explain to the officers how it came to be? And also to mention the call from the 'police officer' at the same time?

That doesn't add up!

 

[Pinkizzy]

AS says all witnesses were visited in the period of the first anniversary.

AS says CV had remembered the phone call from 'Sarah' who asked for SJL by name (exactly what variation of name it doesn't say, which could be relevant) and left a number to contact SJL on. Also a call received from someone saying they were a police officer.

If CV claims he handed over the piece of paper with the number on 29th July 1986, how could this not be a prompt to explain to the officers how it came to be? And also to mention the call from the 'police officer' at the same time?

That doesn't add up!

I guess he confused the day when an actual policeman called the pub. He confused stations too.

 

[Whitehall 1212]

I guess he confused the day when an actual policeman called the pub. He confused stations too.

That wouldn't explain, if he had handed the piece of paper with the number on to the detectives, why he didn't explain how he had come by it.

I accept the 'police officer' call may have occurred after the detectives spoke to CV on 29th July 1986.

 

[NorthParade]

A potential setback for that theory, but a step forward in finding out what happened, perhaps.

I've worked at a bar/restaurant that was was reliably dead at lunchtime and rammed at weekends. When I asked the manager why, the answer was that the crowd who rammed it at weekends lived around there but they didn't work around there.

MH indicates that the diary etc were found by 'staff' whom CV identifies as himself. This sounds like there could be a number of staff there on a Sunday night, but this tells us little about Monday morning.

Incidentally, to trace the Chinese that CV somehow remembers going to, one way would be to look at what takeaways / restaurants there are there now. A couple of mates and I fancied becoming restauranteurs in Little Venice about 20 years ago. We looked into what it entailed and found that the local council wasn't giving planning permission for any more commercial kitchens. If you wanted to open a restaurant, you could only do so where one had previously failed. That was in about 2000, but there've been no new eateries there to this day, just new players taking over existing ones. Restaurants come and go but mostly on the same few sites (or they reactivate as a restaurant, having had the permission of old but not used it). Hence there is quite a good chance that no new restaurant has opened in that road in Putney since 1986 and / or that there is still a takeaway on the original site.

I lived down the road in the centre of Wandsworth from 1995-2001, and lived and worked in SW London generally until 4 or 5 years ago. I knew that stretch of the Upper Richmond Road well in those years; there was definitely a fairly steady turnover of restaurants and bars, though I reckon you’re probably right about the same sites being used rather than new ones. Kelly’s Directories are good for finding out what businesses were where in the past - using them, along with street view and visiting the area, you can usually reconstruct things quite well. I know the Bishopsgate Institute have a full set in their archive room.

I drank in the PoW now and then over the years, and recall that in my early years in the area - say, mid 90s to early 00s - it was a comparatively scruffy place, you know the type, quite dingy, a few older regular most days, a load of the guvnor’s mates hanging round the pool table most evenings, very far from “gastro”. It’s certainly smartened up since then - I’m too young to remember what it was like in the 80s, though!

 

[Whitehall 1212]

I lived down the road in the centre of Wandsworth from 1995-2001, and lived and worked in SW London generally until 4 or 5 years ago. I knew that stretch of the Upper Richmond Road well in those years; there was definitely a fairly steady turnover of restaurants and bars, though I reckon you’re probably right about the same sites being used rather than new ones. Kelly’s Directories are good for finding out what businesses were where in the past - using them, along with street view and visiting the area, you can usually reconstruct things quite well. I know the Bishopsgate Institute have a full set in their archive room.

I drank in the PoW now and then over the years, and recall that in my early years in the area - say, mid 90s to early 00s - it was a comparatively scruffy place, you know the type, quite dingy, a few older regular most days, a load of the guvnor’s mates hanging round the pool table most evenings, very far from “gastro”. It’s certainly smartened up since then - I’m too young to remember what it was like in the 80s, though!

It was all going so well until the low blow about being too young to remember what it was like in the 80's

 

[Konstantin]

If CV claims he handed over the piece of paper with the number on 29th July 1986, how could this not be a prompt to explain to the officers how it came to be? And also to mention the call from the 'police officer' at the same time?

One wonders if AS made more of it than it was. It's not that hard to understand why he would have got a phone call from someone looking for SJL on the day she disappeared when it does seem to be the case that people in her office, who were looking for her, knew she had mentioned the POW. A year later, time has passed and since the police did attend literally the next day to get her stuff and likely called ahead, it's not surprising he mixed the day up.

A phone call to the pub from SJL's office looking for her at the pub is not suspicious or interesting so perhaps that is why it was not documented at the time?

 

[Konstantin]

I drank in the PoW now and then over the years, and recall that in my early years in the area - say, mid 90s to early 00s - it was a comparatively scruffy place, you know the type, quite dingy, a few older regular most days, a load of the guvnor’s mates hanging round the pool table most evenings, very far from “gastro”. It’s certainly smartened up since then - I’m too young to remember what it was like in the 80s, though!

That fits with what AL told DV about the pub not being somewhere that he and SJL frequented. It wasn't smart enough for them. Sloane rangers (did people really call themselves that?) didn't drink with older geezers in dingy pubs when you could go to fancy wine bars. Assuming it was the same sort of place back in 1986. Would explain why no one in the pub knew who she was when the landlord asked around.

 

[ruby925]

That fits with what AL told DV about the pub not being somewhere that he and SJL frequented. It wasn't smart enough for them. Sloane rangers (did people really call themselves that?) didn't drink with older geezers in dingy pubs when you could go to fancy wine bars. Assuming it was the same sort of place back in 1986. Would explain why no one in the pub knew who she was when the landlord asked around.

But wasn't Suzy in the POW over the weekend when she lost her diary? Maybe AL and Suzy didn't go there together, but Suzy may have gone there with others as it was near her flat?

 

[WestLondoner]

The PoW was extended and refurbished in 1984 and reopened at the end of that year under one landlord, NB, for less than a year before MH took over in August 1985. MH says he took it over from people under whom it was doing £1,500 which he improved to £8,000 - details which confirm it was a brewery-owned tenanted site and not a free house owned by its landlord. Presumably the people were NH and partner (the brewery seems to have liked couples running pubs). In 1986, therefore, the place would have been in reasonable nick 18 months after its facelift and presumably as it was being used for training it can't have been that grotty. By the mid-90s if no more was done it could have been looking quite scruffy again.

This seems to have been a thing with pubs. They were quite frequently allowed to get quite rundown before the owner either spent some money to jazz them up or they just closed (which is more normal now).

There is no suggestion that SJL was ever a patron, though. MH didn't recognise her as a regular. Given where her stuff was found, i.e. by the phone boxes outside, and that she was at her mother's until gone 9, and that she drove home, and that in doing so passed the PoW, and that she had a phone conversation with AL about 10, it would appear she lost this stuff when she stopped off to use a phone box, then drove on home.

I tend to doubt that she drove past, went home, parked, and then walked back 200 yards to use a phone box. If her flatmate was out she could just use the phone in the flat for a personal call, whereas if he's in, she has to go out again and walk to a phone box she has literally just driven past.