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

[RichardKimble]

It's been posted previously, either in this thread or the previous. A CPS lawyer said the police need to show a connection between SJL and JC. For all there's a circumstantial case, it falters on the issue that there's no evidence they ever met.

The obvious issue with such a case is that if it ever went to court, the defence would just say OK, how does the jury know you couldn't also concoct a similar case against any old Tom, Dick or Harry? Who else did you try to make this fit, apart from my client? if I can show a similar circumstantial case against Orville the Duck, will the police then dig up Keith Harris's mother's garage?

There are the usual errors in this article but the last paragraph does sum up the problems quite well.

...police held a press conference in connection with the Lamplugh case. Despite previous assurances from the crown prosecution service that Cannan's solicitors would be kept informed of events, they had no knowledge of the conference...."Because we had no prior knowledge of the announcement, we were effectively denied the opportunity of responding at that time on his behalf."...when the police were appealing for more evidence, it was not concerning potential suspects but solely in relation to John Cannan. It was unprecedented for such an appeal to be made on national television in circumstances where the CPS had advised there was insufficient evidence to proceed.

Thank you Westlondoner, I know I've seen it or heard it on one of the Docus ?

 

[WestLondoner]

The C5 documentary claims (at around 16.40) that the PoW was "frequented by Cannan". Do we know the origin of this claim?

AL is interviewed and claims that he and SJL went to the PoW that night (25/7). Why does he now deny ever having been there?

At 17.30 Jim Dickie claims "there was a mystery caller rang her estate agency stating they had found the cheque book and a policeman had rung up and reported this - well, that person wasn't a policeman. It had all the hallmarks of a stalker". This is news to me. Is there a source? The only purported such call was to the PoW, not to Sturgis, and nobody has mentioned such a thing.

There's a remarkable amount of disinformation in the documentary generally. At 19.35 it states that "one of the last sightings of Suzy was when her car was seen being driven erratically near Shorrolds Road", and it then segues to asserting that "next thing we've got, around the corner, Stevenage Road, we find her car". It fails to make it clear that the erratic driving sighting was made fourteen years later; that Stevenage Road is not "around the corner", it's a mile and a quarter away; and that the erratic driving sighting is debunked by WJ claiming to have seen the car almost as soon as SJL left the office.

One is left wondering whose mistakes these are.

 

[PPowell]

It's so frustrating how people can just go missing with no trace. I was looking at a missing people website, and thinking maybe similar things happened to them, but hardly anybody seems to have taken the time to look into their last movements. Or even how many faked it like the canoe man? Or even how many people are free despite killing them, and hiding the body well enough to not be found out?

 

[WestLondoner]

IIRC there are 8,000 missing persons in the UK who have never turned up. About 250,000 people go missing every year. Most turn up within a few days, but 1% are missing for more than a year, and 8,000 have never turned up at all, even though on presumed life expectancy they could in theory still be alive.

This number is not reliable. Reasons why is is probably understated include the fact that not all missing persons are reported. In addition, various mortuaries around the country hold about 1,000 bodies or body parts of unidentified people that don't match any missing person. This would suggest the real number is higher.

Reasons why the number might be overstated include the fact it includes things like fishermen lost at sea, where it's pretty clear what's happened, but we don't know where or when, nor do we have a body. It's also possible that some of the 8,000 are people who genuinely wanted and contrived to disappear.

Nonetheless, some fraction of these 9,000 people have quite likely been murdered. The FBI thinks there are 20ish serial killers active in the USA. UK society is not UK society, but if the incidence were the same here in the UK, then we would have 4 active at the moment. If they pick their victims from among those who can disappear and it's not even reported, we wouldn't know.

SJL would be a poor choice of victim if you were a killer who wanted not to be noticed.

 

[RichardKimble]

It's so frustrating how people can just go missing with no trace. I was looking at a missing people website, and thinking maybe similar things happened to them, but hardly anybody seems to have taken the time to look into their last movements. Or even how many faked it like the canoe man? Or even how many people are free despite killing them, and hiding the body well enough to not be found out?

Stephanie Lawrence being one, several arrest's but no charges .

 

[PPowell]

The evidence would be a syllogism.

Cannan's a bad man
This place is linked to Cannan
Therefore SJL is buried in this place.

It's essentially the same as the argument that Cannan was in Fulham on 28/7 - he was a bad man.

I don't think that's the case. Some people are trying to say the only reason JC has been accused is he's a rapist and murderer. After a certain amount of coincidences you can't help wondering if they are just coincidences. Such as:
John Cannan has abducted, raped and murdered women, for which he denied.
He was known for hanging around bars in the Fulham area.
A few days before Suzy Lamplugh disappeared, JC was actually looking in a house for sale in Shorrolds Road and started acting odd, until the woman's husband turned up. Why would a criminal on day release with no money be looking at houses for sale?
Suzy was seen with a man who was holding champagne. JC was known to ply women with chocolates and champagne.
JC resembles photofits.
His ex girlfriends suspect him.
A car that Canann had put for scrap showed Suzy's DNA in it as well as his, but the CPS said it can't be proved they were in it at the same time.
This case is frustrating, and how can we dismiss JC because he denies it, when he still protests his innocence about the others?

 

[asyousay]

So the police had searched it then?

A shame DV didn’t give the update himself as he must know. Probably doesn’t want to admit his book is a pile of trash.

 

[Terryb808]

I don't think that's the case. Some people are trying to say the only reason JC has been accused is he's a rapist and murderer. After a certain amount of coincidences you can't help wondering if they are just coincidences. Such as:
John Cannan has abducted, raped and murdered women, for which he denied.
He was known for hanging around bars in the Fulham area.
A few days before Suzy Lamplugh disappeared, JC was actually looking in a house for sale in Shorrolds Road and started acting odd, until the woman's husband turned up. Why would a criminal on day release with no money be looking at houses for sale?
Suzy was seen with a man who was holding champagne. JC was known to ply women with chocolates and champagne.
JC resembles photofits.
His ex girlfriends suspect him.
A car that Canann had put for scrap showed Suzy's DNA in it as well as his, but the CPS said it can't be proved they were in it at the same time.
This case is frustrating, and how can we dismiss JC because he denies it, when he still protests his innocence about the others?

I’m not a JC fan, far from it, but he is an easy target.

He has been convicted of murdering one person, Shirley Banks, there’s absolutely no evidence that he has killed others and this fact does NOT make him a serial killer.

All the accounts that have surfaced that JC frequently visited bars in Fulham surfaced many years later and the witnesses at best are unreliable.

Many newspapers quote the Ford Sierra DNA, this was recovered from the car while it was in a scap yard. Again the passage of time alone makes this unreliable and the sample matched many other woman as it was not a full DNA sample.

As @WestLonder has pointed out the C5 (like so many others) is full of errors, this sadly results in the viewers believing it as fact.
The account the JC visited a property in Shorrolds Road is one such error. This comes from CBD’s book “Prime Suspect” and relates to a property in the midlands.

Prior to the police reconstruction the only witness was HR, he never actually saw or identified the women he saw as SJL. He later retracted his account of SJL being bundled into a vehicle in Shorrolds Road.
This makes the only witness (prior to the reconstruction) to be unreliable.

The witness accounts after the reconstruction also do not positively identify SJL and there are various versions of what Mr Kipper was supposed to have looked like.

As has been pointed out by met detective MB “all we know is that SJL left the office at approximately 12.40pm and her abandoned car turned up at 10.03pm that Monday”.
Over the last 36 years this basic statement has not changed.

The press & TV just keep coming up with totally uncorroborated witnesses to further muddy the water.

 

[asyousay]

I have yet to see any logical explanation on a man and a woman being seen at the time Suzy had wrote down she would be showing a property.


it was a empty property so Suzy goes off to do a property viewing and then is seen in that time frame but everybody is meant to believe that’s purely a coincidence .


mooooooooooooo

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

So the police had searched it then?

A shame DV didn’t give the update himself as he must know. Probably doesn’t want to admit his book is a pile of trash.

We don't know this for sure or what the details are. It's not as if Ben's account is a legally sworn testimony is it? Also we don't know if the police did go there, how extensive their search was or what the nature of any searching was. I believe an old undisturbed rubble bag was mentioned in the book and maybe they just wanted to check that?

 

[asyousay]

We don't know this for sure or what the details are. It's not as if Ben's account is a legally sworn testimony is it? Also we don't know if the police did go there, how extensive their search was or what the nature of any searching was. I believe an old undisturbed rubble bag was mentioned in the book and maybe they just wanted to check that?

so by all accounts it’s been searched but of course it’s not been done correctly. Not that simply the whole idea is absolutely ridiculous and has zero merit.


A completely innocent man in a pub full of people with his wife underfoot managed to
murder and bury her in a cellar for 35 years.


ETA - for people who are still clinging on to this notion go to the pub and buy food or even try and ring it and see if they will confirm it. From all accounts the landlord is a lovely chap and will chat.

 

[WestLondoner]

I have yet to see any logical explanation on a man and a woman being seen at the time Suzy had wrote down she would be showing a property.

We don't know that a man and a woman were seen at the time she would be there. What we have is three mutually exclusive accounts from HR, whereby he saw:

1. an unidentified woman and a slim well-dressed man aged 25 to 30 coming out of 37SR at 1pm;
2. the man bundling the woman into a vehicle at 1pm;
3. an unidentified woman and a podgy nondescript man aged 40 to 45 coming out of 37SR at 1pm.

The podgy nondescript bloke of 40 to 45 is the diamond dealer he later said was a dead ringer for Mr Kipper. Sources do not indicate whether the police challenged this major change to his account. If his view was so poor or brief that he couldn't even tell the man's age, of what value was his account?

HR asserted all three. You can't insist on any of the three being correct without also conceding that the other two must be false. "Mr Kipper" was either late 20s or mid-40s, but not both. He either bundled the woman into a vehicle, or he did not. In fact, all three could be false - there was no evidence of SJL inside 37SR, even though HR claimed to have seen the couple leaving.

So, on the basis that most of HR's evidence is inaccurate, with two-thirds of his claims clearly wrong, it's not a huge jump to suggest that what he actually saw was

4. an unidentified woman and a slim well-dressed man aged 25 to 30 failing to enter 37 SR at 4pm.

For this to have been Stephanie Flower and Mark Gurdon, the only error HR would need to have made would be to get the time wrong. Otherwise it's spot-on as a description. And if he got so much else wrong, there's no reason he couldn't have got the time wrong.

The difference between his 1 and my 4 is far less than the difference between his 1 and his 2, or his 1 and his 3. On the basis that it's the least erroneous account, I prefer 4 as a description of what HR actually saw.

 

[asyousay]

Is there not 3 Witnesses to her being outside SR?

We don’t have simply have one witness who claims they saw her at SR at 1pm to my understanding.

 

[WestLondoner]

Is there not 3 Witnesses to her being outside SR?

We don’t have simply have one witness who claims they saw her at SR at 1pm to my understanding.

HR was the first. On Tuesday PM, less than 24 hours later, there was a prezzer at which the police appealed for more witnesses. This produced nothing and nor did house to house inquiries. They only started getting sightings after they broadcast a reconstruction on TV on Monday 4 August. People then started coming forward repeating what they'd seen on TV but adding nothing new - nothing of value about cars, happenings, etc. In October Crimewatch broadcast another reconstruction and the same thing happened: repeat accounts of what the punters had seen on TV.

It's a bit like the four Gospels, really. There are actually only two, because there's John which is an original work, and then there are the other three which all appear based on the same (lost) earlier source and contain much the same content as each other. This is what I suspect is going on with these supposed other SJL sightings. As widely written up as her case was, it didn't grab these witnesses' attention until they saw on TV what was supposed to have happened, at which point they came forward and said that was what they'd seen.

The ones from 14 years later claiming perfect recall are IMO basically worthless.

 

[WestLondoner]

John Cannan has abducted, raped and murdered women, for which he denied.

He is known to have murdered one woman.

He was known for hanging around bars in the Fulham area.

There is no source for this. This claim appears to have originated 14 years after the fact, presumably from people with perfect recall.

A few days before Suzy Lamplugh disappeared, JC was actually looking in a house for sale in Shorrolds Road and started acting odd, until the woman's husband turned up.

See previous.

Suzy was seen with a man who was holding champagne. JC was known to ply women with chocolates and champagne.

Depends which witness you believe. The woman outside Shorrolds was not necessarily SJL. Only one seems to have noticed champagne.

JC resembles photofits.

In whose opinion? Not in mine. Nobody who claimed to have seen "Mr Kipper" ever picked him out of an ID parade.

His ex girlfriends suspect him.

So what? A lot of women reported their husbands to the inquiry as probably being Mr Kipper. None was; they just disliked their husbands.

A car that Canann had put for scrap showed Suzy's DNA in it as well as his, but the CPS said it can't be proved they were in it at the same time.

It really didn't. This is an urban myth. Two hairs were found 20 years later. One was a partial match to Sandra Court, but shared with about 1,500 others, i.e., not of forensic quality. The other hair was not IIRC matched to anyone, certainly not to SJL.

how can we dismiss JC because he denies it, when he still protests his innocence about the others?

Nobody dismisses JC "because he denies it". Some, including the CPS, are sceptical of the case against him because of its poor quality. A lot of it relies on believing people's perfect recall of things JC supposedly said 14 years before. Even if their recall was perfect, why believe anything Cannan says? You can't really believe anything a psychopath says; obviously he's going to claim he committed other crimes because that way he can kid himself he's scored one over the police.

The case against JC is feeble regardless of whether DV's theory holds up. It's not a case of people not buying that JC did it because DV's case is better. It would be more accurate, actually, to say that people who believe he did it believe this because JC said so.

If DV's claim falls over, then my interest shifts to PSS / TS. The former was supposed to be having lunch with SJL that Monday but had cancelled (what if she didn't?). The latter was supposed to be going into business with SJL but 8 days after she vanished he was bankrupted.

 

[asyousay]

The problem for me is there are witnesses that can place Suzy at the location she said she would be that afternoon.


There is nobody who came forward to say they were actually the man and woman at an empty property that afternoon and that’s where the confusion came from ( also why would there be it’s a empty property)


So Suzy writes down in her diary she is off to show Mr Kipper a property and low and behold there are witnesses that came forward and placed her there with a man.


The few facts in the case point to her making that appointment and then going off for that viewing. The police obviously share that view as well.

So just to say brush off these multiple people as wrong just doesn’t wash for me. Yet I am meant to believe a random man in a pub 3 miles away murdered her and got away with it for 35 years.

 

[WestLondoner]

The problem for me is there are witnesses that can place Suzy at the location she said she would be that afternoon.

As a matter of interest which two of HR's accounts do you think are wrong, and why do you believe the other?

It's not correct that nobody else came forward to say they'd been to 37SR. Staff from Sturgis went there.

 

[asyousay]

As a matter of interest which two of HR's accounts do you think are wrong, and why do you believe the other?

It's not correct that nobody else came forward to say they'd been to 37SR. Staff from Sturgis went there.

Yes staff of Sturgis later on in the afternoon. That was way out of the time frame Suzy would have been there. She was there at Lunch time and the office wasn’t even alarmed until mid afternoon.

 

[asyousay]

As a matter of interest which two of HR's accounts do you think are wrong, and why do you believe the other?

It's not correct that nobody else came forward to say they'd been to 37SR. Staff from Sturgis went there.

Do you have all the witness statements from the people who claim they saw her at SR?


I would need to compare notes on the difference in descriptions that each witness gave to come to a conclusion.

 

[WestLondoner]

Yes staff of Sturgis later on in the afternoon. That was way out of the time frame Suzy would have been there. She was there at Lunch time and the office wasn’t even alarmed until mid afternoon.

But HR has no idea what he saw. None at all. He doesn't know if he saw a 40-something man or a 20-something man, he doesn't know if he saw a woman being bundled into a vehicle or not. Why would you believe he knows when he saw it?