UK UK - Suzy Lamplugh, 25, Fulham, 28 Jul 1986 #4

[asyousay]

I think it's in AS which I don't have to hand. CV claimed to DV that KF knew nothing about any of this but apparently both CV and KF spoke to her.

It’s strange that there would be records of 2 phone calls so if they both denied that happened then that’s extremely strange.



Not that I believe they did it but it’s certainly a inconsistency that should of been looked into more.

 

[WestLondoner]

Phone records weren't all that in 1986. By request and at extra cost you could get an itemised bill but this was really so you could see if your cleaner was running your phone bill up by calling Portugal or whatever. Your bill was for calls you'd made, inbound calls didn’t cost, so you couldn't usually have them shown. This didn’t change until the early 90s when mobile phones became widespread but were costly to call, so your bill rationalised itself by listing all these.

 

[Terryb808]

If she had an opportunity to tell MG or the other staff, my question is why would she not just do that - why bother to write it down at all. It's not like it might slip her mind. She'd spent much of the morning chasing down her diary and rearranging stuff. According to CV he spoke to her before they opened, at what, 12? 12.30? And one of her colleagues said she was finishing a call before heading out. Why would she write Mr Kipper at 12.45 into her diary when it's 12.40 and she's leaving for that appointment? She doesn't need to write that down - she's not going to forget inside 5 minutes.

So, if there really was an appointment, it must have been made quite a long time before, maybe first thing. It cannot have been made and written in as she was leaving, there's no point. But if it was made at 9.30 or whenever, i.e. for 4 hours' time as well you might, what's she doing afterwards making, then changing an arrangement to go to the PoW at lunchtime? She already knew she couldn't go at lunchtime.

The entry says to me that it was to be read in case anyone not then in the office wondered where she was. The only person who matters is MG and / or KP, which undermines the idea that MG saw her taking the keys. If he was in when she left, she would just say where she was going.

The timing is not only relevant to whether she really intended to go to the PoW, it's also relevant if she really did go to 37SR. If someone lured her there to abduct her, is he really going to ring her up at 10 minutes' notice and demand a viewing? What if she's busy? An abduction would require some sort of set up - can he really organise an abduction on 10 minutes' notice? Cars need to be positioned, etc - surely he'd want time to set that up. He can't bundle her into e.g. a van if he can't park the van less than two streets away.

Of course letting the abductee choose when she gets abducted and in the middle of a work day carries the risk that she's missed immediately, but if that's what did happen, he got away with it - and I have trouble with the idea that he did so without significant prep before and on the day.

Perfect sense, who in their right minds are going to organise an abduction involving multiple cars / people in the middle of a busy working day.
Just too many things to go wrong, car parking, witnesses, and the victims reaction.
It would need to be done with military precision, it would be far easier to snatch your victim at night, less chance of being recognised.

Regards the diary entry and why not just tell MG where you intended going. SJL may well have done this, MG then says put something in the diary in case our boss asks where you are.
Once he’s not told the police about this there’s no going back, and the longer it goes on the less chance of the truth coming out.

To organise an elaborate abduction you’d need to be desperate to stop something coming out.

So the question is, what did Suzy know that needed her to be silenced. If you believe she was snatched by some organised gang this needs to be answered.

 

[WestLondoner]

Perfect sense, who in their right minds are going to organise an abduction involving multiple cars / people in the middle of a busy working day.
Just too many things to go wrong, car parking, witnesses, and the victims reaction.
It would need to be done with military precision, it would be far easier to snatch your victim at night, less chance of being recognised.

Regards the diary entry and why not just tell MG where you intended going. SJL may well have done this, MG then says put something in the diary in case our boss asks where you are.
Once he’s not told the police about this there’s no going back, and the longer it goes on the less chance of the truth coming out.

To organise an elaborate abduction you’d need to be desperate to stop something coming out.

So the question is, what did Suzy know that needed her to be silenced. If you believe she was snatched by some organised gang this needs to be answered.

Yes, I think this is true. Broadly, if she was indeed taken from outside 37SR, whoever did it was either inept and lucky, or extremely good.

If the former, he / they allowed her to leave a trail to where she went and to be missed within hours; to get seen there with her; for witnesses who saw her there to relate what they saw the same afternoon; and yet to get away with it, even so.

If the latter, i.e. extremely good, then she was made to vanish off the streets with no witness sightings provided worth a farthing - no valid sightings of her at all after 12.40, and her car's whereabouts unknown, despite the very small area in which it must have moved, for nearly ten hours. This would surely require a very high degree of expertise, which in turn implies a very large reason she needed to be disappeared; what that might be, we haven't a clue, literally.

You can see why DV thinks what he does. Both the above are so unlikely that his PoW theory doesn't seem that much crazier in comparison. It also does at least have the virtue of explaining them - the reason why there are no useful witnesses to either an inept or a skilled abduction was, per DV, that there wasn't any abduction at all. SJL and her car weren't sighted anywhere in Fulham because they were at a pub in Putney.

As we have noted before, it would be good to eliminate the PoW or to know how it was eliminated in 1986. We are then back to the other two, however unlikely. I'd also like to know JC's height definitively, and how tall you needed to be to drive SJL's car with the seat where it was.

 

[Terryb808]

Yes, I think this is true. Broadly, if she was indeed taken from outside 37SR, whoever did it was either inept and lucky, or extremely good.

If the former, he / they allowed her to leave a trail to where she went and to be missed within hours; to get seen there with her; for witnesses who saw her there to relate what they saw the same afternoon; and yet to get away with it, even so.

If the latter, i.e. extremely good, then she was made to vanish off the streets with no witness sightings provided worth a farthing - no valid sightings of her at all after 12.40, and her car's whereabouts unknown, despite the very small area in which it must have moved, for nearly ten hours. This would surely require a very high degree of expertise, which in turn implies a very large reason she needed to be disappeared; what that might be, we haven't a clue, literally.

You can see why DV thinks what he does. Both the above are so unlikely that his PoW theory doesn't seem that much crazier in comparison. It also does at least have the virtue of explaining them - the reason why there are no useful witnesses to either an inept or a skilled abduction was, per DV, that there wasn't any abduction at all. SJL and her car weren't sighted anywhere in Fulham because they were at a pub in Putney.

As we have noted before, it would be good to eliminate the PoW or to know how it was eliminated in 1986. We are then back to the other two, however unlikely. I'd also like to know JC's height definitively, and how tall you needed to be to drive SJL's car with the seat where it was.

I have considered trying to get a friendly car enthusiast with the same Fiesta to allow me to take some measurements.
Now I need to find one.

 

[Cluesleuth]

I have considered trying to get a friendly car enthusiast with the same Fiesta to allow me to take some measurements.
Now I need to find one.

Try the Fiesta owners club they might have a member that live close to you

 

[RichardKimble]

As we have noted before, it would be good to eliminate the PoW or to know how it was eliminated in 1986. We are then back to the other two, however unlikely. I'd also like to know JC's height definitively, and how tall you needed to be to drive SJL's car with the seat where it was.

Why would there be a need to drive her car, its reckoned Cannan had a black BMW ( was that confirmed) if he abducted SL after arranging to meet her at Shorrods Rd imo he would have put her straight into his car and away. When he abducted Shirley Banks he used her car . Musical cars makes no sense .

The above supposes that Kipper was real and Cannan was him.

 

[Cherwell]

Yes, I think this is true. Broadly, if she was indeed taken from outside 37SR, whoever did it was either inept and lucky, or extremely good.

If the former, he / they allowed her to leave a trail to where she went and to be missed within hours; to get seen there with her; for witnesses who saw her there to relate what they saw the same afternoon; and yet to get away with it, even so.

Both the above are so unlikely

Unless what happened after leaving Shorrolds Road was not premeditated.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

Why would there be a need to drive her car, its reckoned Cannan had a black BMW ( was that confirmed) if he abducted SL after arranging to meet her at Shorrods Rd imo he would have put her straight into his car and away. When he abducted Shirley Banks he used her car . Musical cars makes no sense .

The above supposes that Kipper was real and Cannan was him.

Someone who almost certainly wasn't her, drove her car and hurriedly abandoned it, parked awkwardly with the driver's door unlocked and slightly blocking the access to the garage, where it was found. That much we know. It's a 'hard fact' as they say on other threads.

If narratives don't fit in with the hard facts, then they can't apply.

 

[asyousay]

The police never even worked out if Stevenage Road was significant

 

[RichardKimble]

Someone who almost certainly wasn't her, drove her car and hurriedly abandoned it, parked awkwardly with the driver's door unlocked and slightly blocking the access to the garage, where it was found. That much we know. It's a 'hard fact' as they say on other threads.

If narratives don't fit in with the hard facts, then they can't apply.

Agreed but in broad daylight no one saw any one hastily abandon said car.

 

[asyousay]

Agreed but in broad daylight no one saw any one hastily abandon said car.

Why would they millions park their cars daily without it being significant.

 

[lee sumner]

I firmly believe that it required SJL to know her abductor on some level and go with him willingly to a location that was out of the sight and hearing of others.

The abductor needed the acquaintance with SJL to provide him with the opportunity to be in her company long enough without causing her any alarm. I think his strike was unplanned and spontaneous on account of her rejecting his attempt to either kiss her or engage in other sexual activity.

The abduction of a stranger in broad daylight in a west London street at lunchtime on a summers working day would have been far, far too risky.

JMO

suzy being an estate agent means she could go off quite easy with a total stranger. he could get her to a location all alone, so i dont believe she did know, MR KIPPER.

 

[lee sumner]

DV sets up his book to lead the reader to a certain conclusion. I think he is actually quite clever in how he does it--he presents witnesses in such a way as to lead you to think that they are weird or odd in some way, words he uses himself a lot to describe them. HIs interview with the temp landlord is the best example of this as he presents him in a very negative light. It is not a neutral presentation at all. I have no idea what his motivation is. He claims to have spent a fortune on his investigation and I beleve the book is self published so he had no advance.

He sets up his book to try to demonstrate that (1) SJL was not going to 37SR and (2) her appointment with Kipper was faked so she could go somewhere else (3) which he decides can only be the POW and then (4) presents the interview with the temp landlord to set him up as being somehow dodgy and basically accuses him of murdering SJL although he is careful to hedge this by not overtly saying it--probably he has had legal advice (which is not cheap).

For him to have a reasonable go at (4) he has to destroy the 37SR working police theory.

His reasonings are:

(1) SJL "never took the keys" which is based on his hypothesis that the police did not have to break in to the property, which he bases on a press photo of the door, and the former owner of Sturgis telling him that normally there was only one set of keys per property.

For this to be true, we would have to have the Sturgis staff be either thick, lying to the police (because if they knew there was only one set of keys and they were in the office, they would have had to lie to say SJL took them), and all the staff conspiring to continue the lie, and/or the police being bumbling idiots who were all recruited from various village idiot competitions.

He also dismisses all the witness sightings (one dismissal involves him trying to locate one of the unemployed males who were on the street at the time of SJL's appointment at SR, because they were attending or returning from collecting benefits). He cannot locate the male but locates someone with his name at an address via the electoral roll and talks to a female at the address who says she has no knowledge of the male ever living there, DV dismisses this as the woman lying and gives the impression there is some dark nefarious reason for it (either she is telling the truth and has no knowledge of the male who may or may not be the same person as the witness from 30 years ago or she didn't want to talk to some rando who knocked on her door and was a bit persistent). Either way, this is meaningless.

(2) He bases this on the name being most likely fake, no record of the person in Sturgis files. I also think there is no real live person called Mr Kipper but this does not mean SJL did not go to 37 SR with the intention of meeting someone there.

(3) I think his reasoning here is not very convincing. We don't know everything about SJL's life so if she were not going to SR that does not mean she was going to the POW, she could have gone literally anywhere. He decides she is going to the pub because picking her diary up cannot wait until after she finishes work. To boost this theory he relies on a radio interview with DL, who he elsewhere slams as being totally unreliable, who says SJL was planning to play tennis that evening. I really don't think that this is at all reliable and no one ever came forward to say they had plans to meet SJL that evening for tennis or anything else.

(4) I'm not impressed with him setting up an easy to find, real person as a murder suspect. He should know better than that. His interview with the temp landlord was disrespectful.

Again, I don't know what DV's motivations are but they seem more complex than just him wanting to find SJL. I am sure he wants to find SJL, I don't doubt that. But he has some deeper, probably personal, issues with the Met, I would suggest. What they are and why-- no clue.

I AGREE. DV theory is BS.

 

[WestLondoner]

Why would there be a need to drive her car, its reckoned Cannan had a black BMW ( was that confirmed) if he abducted SL after arranging to meet her at Shorrods Rd imo he would have put her straight into his car and away. When he abducted Shirley Banks he used her car . Musical cars makes no sense .

The above supposes that Kipper was real and Cannan was him.

Someone not SJL ditched her car outside 123SR. It can't have been SJL, because the seat position was wrong for someone of her height.

There is no public domain evidence that Cannan had a BMW in 1986, btw. He is known to have had a share of a red Sierra. Regardless of what the putative abductor was driving, he wasn't driving two cars at the same time.

 

[Sabex]

I AGREE. DV theory is BS.

I think so too. The only thing I partially agree with is that 'Kipper' is a really naff pseudonym to lure someone somewhere. Surely you'd use something plain like 'Johnson' and not something obviously fake.

'Mr Kipper' sounds like a codeword you might write in your diary to remind you to do something that you don't want to spell out in plain English that other people might read.

MOO, no relevant skills.

 

[lee sumner]

All hypothesis, with nothing to support it. It only results in a jolly merry go round with no one getting anywhere.

The constant thing about witness statements is that the genuine one's, without collaboration, will have inconsistencies in the detail. It's a red flag if they don't.

The first description from HR and the two further witnesses collectively describe a woman on her own O/S 37 SR, then with a man, who was was given a good description, in a situation that very much gave the impression of a house viewing.

This supports the entry in SJL's work diary in terms of time, location, meeting a male client and her leaving with the keys to 37 SR and the sale particulars.

yes, i agree. suzy went to 37 shorrolds rd. i believe she had the keys and paperwork.

 

[lee sumner]

That is to miss the point though!

The point is that JC was was positively identified looking into the Sturgis, Fulham window on the Sunday, the day before SJL went missing. The woman who ID'd JC was standing next to him.

This firmly places JC in Fulham, a place he has always denied going to. Not only this, it places him at Sturgis, where SJL worked. This could be indicative of stalking/obsessional behaviour.

See at 40 mins 30 seconds in

No access outside UK

the sturgis office would not have been open on a sunday. its the weekend.

 

[lee sumner]

That is to miss the point though!

The point is that JC was was positively identified looking into the Sturgis, Fulham window on the Sunday, the day before SJL went missing. The woman who ID'd JC was standing next to him.

This firmly places JC in Fulham, a place he has always denied going to. Not only this, it places him at Sturgis, where SJL worked. This could be indicative of stalking/obsessional behaviour.

See at 40 mins 30 seconds in

No access outside UK

the sturgis office would not have been open on a sunday. its the weekend.

 

[Terryb808]

I think so too. The only thing I partially agree with is that 'Kipper' is a really naff pseudonym to lure someone somewhere. Surely you'd use something plain like 'Johnson' and not something obviously fake.

'Mr Kipper' sounds like a codeword you might write in your diary to remind you to do something that you don't want to spell out in plain English that other people might read.

MOO, no relevant skills.

JC often used common names like Johnson, so why in this instance change his MO and use the really obvious false name Mr Kippet.