UK UK - Suzy Lamplugh, 25, Fulham, 28 Jul 1986 #5

[RichardKimble]

well we know where the checkbook fraud might be linked to Suzy - didn't she lose her chequebook at the pub?

The link is established for the story.

Cannan was released from the bail hostel on Friday, July 25, 1986 — just three days before Suzy went missing. That same evening, Suzy went to the Prince of Wales in Putney — a pub which was also one of Cannan’s haunts. Items from her handbag, including a diary, a chequebook and some cards, were later found by staff. It was the first of a host of strange incidents leading up to her disappearance that suggest, according to retired police officer Jim Dickie, that Suzy was being stalked by Cannan and was ‘possibly befriended by her’.

 

[WestLondoner]

We don't really know where or when she lost her chequebook. The complete and total incuriosity about this from everyone - the police, documentary makers, workmates, family - persisted until DV came along.

All we really know is that her chequebook and diary turned up at the pub by Monday 28/7. Someone at the pub rang the bank named on the chequebook. The bank had SJL's office number handy. They rang her and told her where the cheque book was. She rang the pub to arrange to collect it.

Those seem to be the facts. Then there's the conjecture.

Conjecturally, she seems to have rung the pub twice. The obvious time to go fetch it was after work, but a viewing request came in for 6pm, meaning she'd need to rearrange this collection if that had been what was agreed. In theory she could have just shown up late, but you can't be sure that someone you're speaking to at 11 in the morning is still going to be there at work at 7 that night or whenever.

We do not know when she lost her stuff at the PoW. In a TV documentary in the late 80s / early 90s, AL claims they went to the pub on Friday and a lovely evening was marred by the loss of her diary. More recently, he has said they never went to the PoW ever, and were in fact at Mossop's, a fairly smart restaurant next door, and it was Sunday. So at least one of those accounts is misremembered, and leaves us wondering about the movements through time and space of SJL's stuff between Friday and Sunday, or between the pub and the restaurant. CV and the landlord are adamant the diary etc were found on Sunday night.

Complicating this is that AL had clearly been chucked while he was on holiday, and that weekend was when he found out. So we don't know whether either of his accounts is to be believed.

DV's hypothesis about the PoW has legs because none of this was checked at the time.

We should remember that DL was so bat54it crazy she tried to get the libel laws changed to protect the reputation of a dead person. What she found out about SJL after her disappearance persuaded DL that her daughter had been - by her own religious lights, I emphasise, and absolutely nobody else's - a right slapper. She had uncomplicatedly slept with various boyfriends - perhaps three or four, perhaps 103 or 104. Either way she was harming nobody. But DL needed this not to be true, or at least not known, and in fact keeping this quiet was more important to her than finding her daughter's killer. Even though AL had been binned the week before, she therefore enlisted him in the charade of presenting SJL as what DL's generation would have called "a good girl", with one nice steady bloke. AL, maybe out of sympathy for a grief-stricken and bereaved woman, just played along. The police shouldn't have done so, and DL's involvement was disastrous for the prospects of success.

I struggle with the idea of Cannan as some sort of Zelig figure of crime. Supposedly he was an oily lounge lizard who liked to hang around wine bars, but at the same time, he was prepared to drive six miles from the Scrubs hostel to drink in a grotty, old men's pub like the PoW. Really? He was also apparently able to change his appearance - he could go from looking 25 to looking 45, from having a broken nose to not having one, from being pale to being suntanned. He could change a red Sierra into a black BMW. Again, really?

The plod's case against JC appears to rely on snitch accounts years after the fact. What is bizarre is that it occurred to nobody at the time to wonder what sex criminals had recently been released. Had they done so, they might have got to these witnesses sooner, and in time for the snitching to produce hard evidence. To be fair, we also don't know what else DV knows about the PoW that he's not sharing. What he presents in his book is not a case, just a missed line of inquiry from 37 years ago (this week).

For my money SJL is under a house, or maybe a garage floor, somewhere in west London. The movements of the car also strongly suggest to me that two people were involved.

 

[Terryb808]

We don't really know where or when she lost her chequebook. The complete and total incuriosity about this from everyone - the police, documentary makers, workmates, family - persisted until DV came along.

All we really know is that her chequebook and diary turned up at the pub by Monday 28/7. Someone at the pub rang the bank named on the chequebook. The bank had SJL's office number handy. They rang her and told her where the cheque book was. She rang the pub to arrange to collect it.

Those seem to be the facts. Then there's the conjecture.

Conjecturally, she seems to have rung the pub twice. The obvious time to go fetch it was after work, but a viewing request came in for 6pm, meaning she'd need to rearrange this collection if that had been what was agreed. In theory she could have just shown up late, but you can't be sure that someone you're speaking to at 11 in the morning is still going to be there at work at 7 that night or whenever.

We do not know when she lost her stuff at the PoW. In a TV documentary in the late 80s / early 90s, AL claims they went to the pub on Friday and a lovely evening was marred by the loss of her diary. More recently, he has said they never went to the PoW ever, and were in fact at Mossop's, a fairly smart restaurant next door, and it was Sunday. So at least one of those accounts is misremembered, and leaves us wondering about the movements through time and space of SJL's stuff between Friday and Sunday, or between the pub and the restaurant. CV and the landlord are adamant the diary etc were found on Sunday night.

Complicating this is that AL had clearly been chucked while he was on holiday, and that weekend was when he found out. So we don't know whether either of his accounts is to be believed.

DV's hypothesis about the PoW has legs because none of this was checked at the time.

We should remember that DL was so bat54it crazy she tried to get the libel laws changed to protect the reputation of a dead person. What she found out about SJL after her disappearance persuaded DL that her daughter had been - by her own religious lights, I emphasise, and absolutely nobody else's - a right slapper. She had uncomplicatedly slept with various boyfriends - perhaps three or four, perhaps 103 or 104. Either way she was harming nobody. But DL needed this not to be true, or at least not known, and in fact keeping this quiet was more important to her than finding her daughter's killer. Even though AL had been binned the week before, she therefore enlisted him in the charade of presenting SJL as what DL's generation would have called "a good girl", with one nice steady bloke. AL, maybe out of sympathy for a grief-stricken and bereaved woman, just played along. The police shouldn't have done so, and DL's involvement was disastrous for the prospects of success.

I struggle with the idea of Cannan as some sort of Zelig figure of crime. Supposedly he was an oily lounge lizard who liked to hang around wine bars, but at the same time, he was prepared to drive six miles from the Scrubs hostel to drink in a grotty, old men's pub like the PoW. Really? He was also apparently able to change his appearance - he could go from looking 25 to looking 45, from having a broken nose to not having one, from being pale to being suntanned. He could change a red Sierra into a black BMW. Again, really?

The plod's case against JC appears to rely on snitch accounts years after the fact. What is bizarre is that it occurred to nobody at the time to wonder what sex criminals had recently been released. Had they done so, they might have got to these witnesses sooner, and in time for the snitching to produce hard evidence. To be fair, we also don't know what else DV knows about the PoW that he's not sharing. What he presents in his book is not a case, just a missed line of inquiry from 37 years ago (this week).

For my money SJL is under a house, or maybe a garage floor, somewhere in west London. The movements of the car also strongly suggest to me that two people were involved.

Great summary, agree that this looks very much like a two man job. Let’s theorise on the DNA that the police say they’re looking at.

They must believe this belongs to JC, however, with two people involved there’s only a 50% chance of this being the case.

If BW sighting at approximately 2.45pm was SJL and perpetrator one was in the passenger seat there’s the first ones possible DNA.

Then as (IMO) SJL’s car was abandoned by perpetrator two later that afternoon (maybe the James Galway Man), that’s DNA possibility no2.

A few things make me wonder about JC as SJL’s killer:

1. Sandra Court, if he was responsible for her murder, while awaiting release from the hostel, he was clearly out of control.

2. The Richmond Rapist has JC’s MO all over it, committed one week before SJL disappeared.

Yes the crime he went down for was a catalogue of errors and showed how inept he was, but but this time he’d probably lost all sence of reality.

I agree JC at the time was a predator (lounge lizard), not in SJL’s class at all. However, there’s every chance she’d have tried him out to see how he measured up.

There are more complicated possibilities, but often the simple ones are the most likely.
JC’s pal (the owner of the red Ford Sierra) lived just a few minutes away from Shorrolds Road. JC was paying the HP on the Sierra, so he owed JC. Not enough to willingly partake in murder, but maybe enough to agree to dump SJL’s car in Stevenage Road.
DV’s POW theory is the other simple one I like, what’s clearly missing is a solid motive for CV to kill SJL.
If DV has this it’s about time he let everyone know what it is.

 

[WestLondoner]

It would also be interesting to know how the snitch knew JC went to the PoW. Had this been bottomed out at the time, the PoW staff could have been shown a photo of JC and asked if they'd ever seen him around there.

 

[Terryb808]

It would also be interesting to know how the snitch knew JC went to the PoW. Had this been bottomed out at the time, the PoW staff could have been shown a photo of JC and asked if they'd ever seen him around there.

Agreed, but as you said, it was a working man’s pub, a favourite with Fulham supporters on match days. Hardly worth JC lounging about looking for a victim.
As far as I know there was no witnesses putting him in the POW until much later.

The link with Fulham FC does fit with DV’s CV did it scenario, being a non-Londoner it would be likely his choice to abandon SJL’s car in Stevenage Road (he have known about it from supporters).

 

[Pinkizzy]

Dbm

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

Great summary, agree that this looks very much like a two man job. Let’s theorise on the DNA that the police say they’re looking at.

They must believe this belongs to JC, however, with two people involved there’s only a 50% chance of this being the case.

If BW sighting at approximately 2.45pm was SJL and perpetrator one was in the passenger seat there’s the first ones possible DNA.

Then as (IMO) SJL’s car was abandoned by perpetrator two later that afternoon (maybe the James Galway Man), that’s DNA possibility no2.

A few things make me wonder about JC as SJL’s killer:

1. Sandra Court, if he was responsible for her murder, while awaiting release from the hostel, he was clearly out of control.

2. The Richmond Rapist has JC’s MO all over it, committed one week before SJL disappeared.

Yes the crime he went down for was a catalogue of errors and showed how inept he was, but but this time he’d probably lost all sence of reality.

I agree JC at the time was a predator (lounge lizard), not in SJL’s class at all. However, there’s every chance she’d have tried him out to see how he measured up.

There are more complicated possibilities, but often the simple ones are the most likely.
JC’s pal (the owner of the red Ford Sierra) lived just a few minutes away from Shorrolds Road. JC was paying the HP on the Sierra, so he owed JC. Not enough to willingly partake in murder, but maybe enough to agree to dump SJL’s car in Stevenage Road.
DV’s POW theory is the other simple one I like, what’s clearly missing is a solid motive for CV to kill SJL.
If DV has this it’s about time he let everyone know what it is.

Motive?:

P.312 Finding Suzy, DV: 'You would need to get a proper motive for the actual incident' 'rather than just there was something SALACIOUS in her diary and she didn't want someone to take it, and therefore she's tried to get it back and there's been an argument and someone killed her'. [DS Ryan}.

'It was a bizarre comment something SALACIOUS in her diary and she didn't want someone to take it'. [DV].

'In all our witness statements, evidential packages and written submissions to the police, we'd never once speculated about the contents of Suzy's personal pocket diary. In fact we'd not found a single witness who remembered ever seeing her with this personal pocket diary'.

AS 'The Suzy Lamplugh Story' P.111:

'It did not take the police long to realise that such an involved personal life could have a bearing on her disappearance. Tracing all Susannah's secret contacts sexual or otherwise, was complex work, and before long the investigating team decided there had been so many men in her life that they would take statements from only a selection of them'.

AS letters, Sunday Times, 28th Oct 1990

'Most of [my] speculation was wrong? Your reporter obviously did not have the access to the MET official report into Lamplugh's disappearance nor to the many signed statements to the police about her. Not 'speculation' but sworn evidence that could be admissible in court'.

P.189 'The Suzy Lamplugh Story'. AS:

'I talked for hours to Paul and Diana Lamplugh, to members of their family, to Susannah's boyfriends, and to family friends and others'. [As well as the detectives on the case] 'I sought out other policemen and women at all levels of the MET and received considerable unofficial cooperation from them too. The detectives had not only carefully talked to everyone connected with the tragedy but literally thousands of others too, and in effect I was able to take advantage of their vast research and knowledge of the case'.

It said Mr Stephen was meticulous in his research for the book, which included substantial written material and taped interviews with members of the family, colleagues and friends of Miss Lamplugh.
The above, published: 24 September, 1988
The Times

The Observer, 1988:

At one particularly harrowing meeting Faber’s lawyer read out the details of Susannah’s life, unknown to her parents, that had been intentionally left out of the book

 

[Terryb808]

Motive?:

P.312 Finding Suzy, DV: 'You would need to get a proper motive for the actual incident' 'rather than just there was something SALACIOUS in her diary and she didn't want someone to take it, and therefore she's tried to get it back and there's been an argument and someone killed her'. [DS Ryan}.

'It was a bizarre comment something SALACIOUS in her diary and she didn't want someone to take it'. [DV].

'In all our witness statements, evidential packages and written submissions to the police, we'd never once speculated about the contents of Suzy's personal pocket diary. In fact we'd not found a single witness who remembered ever seeing her with this personal pocket diary'.

AS 'The Suzy Lamplugh Story' P.111:

'It did not take the police long to realise that such an involved personal life could have a bearing on her disappearance. Tracing all Susannah's secret contacts sexual or otherwise, was complex work, and before long the investigating team decided there had been so many men in her life that they would take statements from only a selection of them'.

AS letters, Sunday Times, 28th Oct 1990

'Most of [my] speculation was wrong? Your reporter obviously did not have the access to the MET official report into Lamplugh's disappearance nor to the many signed statements to the police about her. Not 'speculation' but sworn evidence that could be admissible in court'.

P.189 'The Suzy Lamplugh Story'. AS:

'I talked for hours to Paul and Diana Lamplugh, to members of their family, to Susannah's boyfriends, and to family friends and others'. [As well as the detectives on the case] 'I sought out other policemen and women at all levels of the MET and received considerable unofficial cooperation from them too. The detectives had not only carefully talked to everyone connected with the tragedy but literally thousands of others too, and in effect I was able to take advantage of their vast research and knowledge of the case'.

It said Mr Stephen was meticulous in his research for the book, which included substantial written material and taped interviews with members of the family, colleagues and friends of Miss Lamplugh.
The above, published: 24 September, 1988
The Times

The Observer, 1988:

At one particularly harrowing meeting Faber’s lawyer read out the details of Susannah’s life, unknown to her parents, that had been intentionally left out of the book

Excellent summary of AS’s book and his methodology. Some have been critical of him in the past which (IMO) is grossly unfair.

The publication of his book cost him dearly. DL was openly critical (wrongly IMO) of AS.
I have a copy and it goes as far as was legally possible at the time, he clearly had more (like DV may) than is in the book.

What is evident is that John Cannan was not on the police radar at the time, if he was it would have made it into the book.

At the time Suzy disappeared we also have apparently operating in the Fulham area The Richmond Rapist, he abducted a victim in Fulham just one week before Suzy disappeared.

Unless the police files are released we’ll never know who the suspects were back in 86.

Sadly the answers to what happened to Suzy are not in any of the many books published so far.

There are possible leads still to be followed up today, but after 37 years the police won’t spend time, resource and money without something solid being presented in the first place.

 

[WestLondoner]

It appears that the entire case against Cannan is based on anecdote from one informant. If we look at the timeline of Cannan coming into the investigation, it offers an interesting picture.

In 1986 SJL disappears - a week over 37 years ago, poor thing. In 1988 Shirley Banks is abducted and murdered. In 1989 Cannan is interrupted trying to rape someone else, and in 1989 is convicted for this. After that trial, right away, it starts to be suggested that he looks a lot like the Mr Kipper sketch. For my money, on that basis Shakin' Stevens should also have had his collar felt, but let's park that.

Eleven years then go by, during which there is no movement or development at all. Then suddenly the police start getting all interested in Cannan. They begin the first of several searches at sites supposedly related to Cannan.

The pressure to do this came from Diana L, but the proximate source of Cannan-related information was this character Joseph Taggart (hereafter JT). JT was a cook in the pre-release hostel Cannan was held in early in 1986 - I'm not sure whether he was a cook in the hostel, or lived in the hostel and cooked in the prison, or cooked elsewhere. Whatever; Taggart was a lifetime habitual thief and fraudster who by 1999 / 2000 was claiming to have been an associate of Cannan's thirteen years previously.

JT was apparently now giving the police all kinds of stuff on Cannan. For example, the supposed BMW, the supposed cunning use of his prison nickname (with at least three different origins), and Cannan's habit of poncing around fancy Fulham wine bars were all "corroborated" by JT. Yet JT also seems to be the source of the claim that JC frequented the PoW, which wasn't a fancy Fulham wine bar at all, but a scruffy pub in Putney, and somehow JT remembered its name thirteen years later. You also wonder how JC hung around the pub and nicked her diary if she knew him by sight, and why, as a cheque book fraudster, he didn't steal money from her.

Unfortunately, all this seems to have been stuff JT could simply have read about JC in the newspapers ten years before (at which point JT was out). Even more unfortunately, the thing JT didn't seem to be able to remember, even though he was supposedly JC's mate, was JC's movement the day SJL disappeared, or where he had buried her. That is, JT conveniently couldn't remember anything that would lead to any actual evidence against JC.

One is therefore left wondering what JT was up to, and whether all this stuff came out because he needed a deal with the police. They clearly bought his story. The reason the nonsensical tripe about people remembering stuff from 14 years ago is wheeled out by JD et al as part of their case against JC may be because their real case is based wholly on the word of a lifetime felon. He didn't come forward for ten years, gave them nothing that could be verified and is by any measure 0% credible. They can't really say that out loud, so perhaps the appeals for more witnesses came about because they needed others, more plausible than their snitch, to verify JT's account. As a witness or even informant, he was worthless.

For JT to wait ten years, he can't have been acting as an upstanding concerned citizen. He must have needed something from the police. What he had to proffer in return, but carefully, was information about SJL. If he gave them too much accurate stuff on JC, he risked being connected with her fate himself. Too little, and it would look like he had no information at all. What he seems to have given them is what they wanted to hear, but with absolutely no concrete leads to where her body is. The police have been digging in all kinds of random spots with no luck, because JT either didn't know or was not going to tell where she really was.

For my money she's under a floor somewhere in west London; whether JC was involved remains impossible to say.

MOO...etc

 

[Terryb808]

It appears that the entire case against Cannan is based on anecdote from one informant. If we look at the timeline of Cannan coming into the investigation, it offers an interesting picture.

In 1986 SJL disappears - a week over 37 years ago, poor thing. In 1988 Shirley Banks is abducted and murdered. In 1989 Cannan is interrupted trying to rape someone else, and in 1989 is convicted for this. After that trial, right away, it starts to be suggested that he looks a lot like the Mr Kipper sketch. For my money, on that basis Shakin' Stevens should also have had his collar felt, but let's park that.

Eleven years then go by, during which there is no movement or development at all. Then suddenly the police start getting all interested in Cannan. They begin the first of several searches at sites supposedly related to Cannan.

The pressure to do this came from Diana L, but the proximate source of Cannan-related information was this character Joseph Taggart (hereafter JT). JT was a cook in the pre-release hostel Cannan was held in early in 1986 - I'm not sure whether he was a cook in the hostel, or lived in the hostel and cooked in the prison, or cooked elsewhere. Whatever; Taggart was a lifetime habitual thief and fraudster who by 1999 / 2000 was claiming to have been an associate of Cannan's thirteen years previously.

JT was apparently now giving the police all kinds of stuff on Cannan. For example, the supposed BMW, the supposed cunning use of his prison nickname (with at least three different origins), and Cannan's habit of poncing around fancy Fulham wine bars were all "corroborated" by JT. Yet JT also seems to be the source of the claim that JC frequented the PoW, which wasn't a fancy Fulham wine bar at all, but a scruffy pub in Putney, and somehow JT remembered its name thirteen years later. You also wonder how JC hung around the pub and nicked her diary if she knew him by sight, and why, as a cheque book fraudster, he didn't steal money from her.

Unfortunately, all this seems to have been stuff JT could simply have read about JC in the newspapers ten years before (at which point JT was out). Even more unfortunately, the thing JT didn't seem to be able to remember, even though he was supposedly JC's mate, was JC's movement the day SJL disappeared, or where he had buried her. That is, JT conveniently couldn't remember anything that would lead to any actual evidence against JC.

One is therefore left wondering what JT was up to, and whether all this stuff came out because he needed a deal with the police. They clearly bought his story. The reason the nonsensical tripe about people remembering stuff from 14 years ago is wheeled out by JD et al as part of their case against JC may be because their real case is based wholly on the word of a lifetime felon. He didn't come forward for ten years, gave them nothing that could be verified and is by any measure 0% credible. They can't really say that out loud, so perhaps the appeals for more witnesses came about because they needed others, more plausible than their snitch, to verify JT's account. As a witness or even informant, he was worthless.

For JT to wait ten years, he can't have been acting as an upstanding concerned citizen. He must have needed something from the police. What he had to proffer in return, but carefully, was information about SJL. If he gave them too much accurate stuff on JC, he risked being connected with her fate himself. Too little, and it would look like he had no information at all. What he seems to have given them is what they wanted to hear, but with absolutely no concrete leads to where her body is. The police have been digging in all kinds of random spots with no luck, because JT either didn't know or was not going to tell where she really was.

For my money she's under a floor somewhere in west London; whether JC was involved remains impossible to say.

MOO...etc

The police have nothing on JC because they simply didn’t bother to look. As you’ve pointed out previously they failed to check on recently released sex offender’s.
If they had JC would have immediately become a suspect, by the time they decided JC was a suspect there’s no one who could reliably link him to SJL’s disappearance.
JC is a lazy criminal, burying his victims is too much like hard work. Also he is drawn to water on the basis that it washes away forensic evidence (Sandra Court springs to mind).
On this basis why on earth did the police start digging up seemingly random locations.

 

[WestLondoner]

In particular, the movements of SJL's car make most sense if there were two abductors. Her car was supposedly seen outside 123SR at 12pm and at 12.45, was not noticed by the two Post Office guys who were there until 4pm (who also didn't notice the taxi fare's "right ruck"), but was definitely there at 5pm. However, it was also supposedly outside 37SR at 1pm and was in the FPR at 2.45, being driven by SJL. The seat position doesn't suit someone of Cannan's height, said by various witnesses to his other crimes as 5'6" to 5'10".

JT's council flat was near Shorrolds and had a garage, so if JC took SJL there and murdered her inside, that was the place the car needed to disappear from, PDQ. DV makes this point too but about the PoW, of course. JT's contribution, if this was JC's handiwork, may have been to get rid of the car for him while he was busy murdering SJL. What JT came forward with was nothing that he couldn't have made up or read in the papers. But even if Cannan did do this, JT wasn't going to spill even a fraction of what he knew, because he'd then quite likely link himself to the murder.

If the police are relying on JT as a snitch I'm surprised they've never searched under the floors of his old flat.

 

[Terryb808]

In particular, the movements of SJL's car make most sense if there were two abductors. Her car was supposedly seen outside 123SR at 12pm and at 12.45, was not noticed by the two Post Office guys who were there until 4pm (who also didn't notice the taxi fare's "right ruck"), but was definitely there at 5pm. However, it was also supposedly outside 37SR at 1pm and was in the FPR at 2.45, being driven by SJL. The seat position doesn't suit someone of Cannan's height, said by various witnesses to his other crimes as 5'6" to 5'10".

JT's council flat was near Shorrolds and had a garage, so if JC took SJL there and murdered her inside, that was the place the car needed to disappear from, PDQ. DV makes this point too but about the PoW, of course. JT's contribution, if this was JC's handiwork, may have been to get rid of the car for him while he was busy murdering SJL. What JT came forward with was nothing that he couldn't have made up or read in the papers. But even if Cannan did do this, JT wasn't going to spill even a fraction of what he knew, because he'd then quite likely link himself to the murder.

If the police are relying on JT as a snitch I'm surprised they've never searched under the floors of his old flat.

You’re right on it here, JT’s only involvement would be to get rid of SJL’s car.
However, if BW’s sighting on FPR is correct I’d say JT’s garage isn’t where poor SJL ended up.

 

[WestLondoner]

To compile a list of places she might have been taken, you'd need to know to what places her abductor(s) had access at that time. These would need to be places inside which SJL could be led and attacked unwitnessed. The basement of the PoW fits this description but so would any other nearby vacant house, house occupied by an associate, storage depot, warehouse, lock-up garage, etc.

It is bewildering that the police appealed for sightings of SJL or her car after leaving 37SR, but then discounted the only reliable sighting they received - BW's in the FPR, a person who actually knew SJL.

 

[Terryb808]

To compile a list of places she might have been taken, you'd need to know to what places her abductor(s) had access at that time. These would need to be places inside which SJL could be led and attacked unwitnessed. The basement of the PoW fits this description but so would any other nearby vacant house, house occupied by an associate, storage depot, warehouse, lock-up garage, etc.

It is bewildering that the police appealed for sightings of SJL or her car after leaving 37SR, but then discounted the only reliable sighting they received - BW's in the FPR, a person who actually knew SJL.

As I understand it the police didn’t exactly ignore BW’s sighting. It appears they focused on the wrong locations (pubs & restaurants).

At that time of day logically her abductor would have been luring her to a place he had available for his purposes.

The direction BW said they were travelling fits (maybe) with JC. Having said that it would also fit with other possible suspects.

Speculation has suggested that JC & JT might have been working together stealing from the prop’s company JC was working for.
It’s not unreasonable to think JC might have found a suitable location while working for this prop’s company.

If you listen to the interview with BW on YouTube you’ll pick out that when BW waved at SJL she turned away.
IMO if BW is right, and it was JC beside her, he would have initiated this. Again IMO this sighting resulted in the need to return SJL’s car to the Fulham area.

This action successfully resulted in the police focusing on Fulham and not even looking at any other areas (even Putney).

 

[lee sumner]

We don't really know where or when she lost her chequebook. The complete and total incuriosity about this from everyone - the police, documentary makers, workmates, family - persisted until DV came along.

All we really know is that her chequebook and diary turned up at the pub by Monday 28/7. Someone at the pub rang the bank named on the chequebook. The bank had SJL's office number handy. They rang her and told her where the cheque book was. She rang the pub to arrange to collect it.

Those seem to be the facts. Then there's the conjecture.

Conjecturally, she seems to have rung the pub twice. The obvious time to go fetch it was after work, but a viewing request came in for 6pm, meaning she'd need to rearrange this collection if that had been what was agreed. In theory she could have just shown up late, but you can't be sure that someone you're speaking to at 11 in the morning is still going to be there at work at 7 that night or whenever.

We do not know when she lost her stuff at the PoW. In a TV documentary in the late 80s / early 90s, AL claims they went to the pub on Friday and a lovely evening was marred by the loss of her diary. More recently, he has said they never went to the PoW ever, and were in fact at Mossop's, a fairly smart restaurant next door, and it was Sunday. So at least one of those accounts is misremembered, and leaves us wondering about the movements through time and space of SJL's stuff between Friday and Sunday, or between the pub and the restaurant. CV and the landlord are adamant the diary etc were found on Sunday night.

Complicating this is that AL had clearly been chucked while he was on holiday, and that weekend was when he found out. So we don't know whether either of his accounts is to be believed.

DV's hypothesis about the PoW has legs because none of this was checked at the time.

We should remember that DL was so bat54it crazy she tried to get the libel laws changed to protect the reputation of a dead person. What she found out about SJL after her disappearance persuaded DL that her daughter had been - by her own religious lights, I emphasise, and absolutely nobody else's - a right slapper. She had uncomplicatedly slept with various boyfriends - perhaps three or four, perhaps 103 or 104. Either way she was harming nobody. But DL needed this not to be true, or at least not known, and in fact keeping this quiet was more important to her than finding her daughter's killer. Even though AL had been binned the week before, she therefore enlisted him in the charade of presenting SJL as what DL's generation would have called "a good girl", with one nice steady bloke. AL, maybe out of sympathy for a grief-stricken and bereaved woman, just played along. The police shouldn't have done so, and DL's involvement was disastrous for the prospects of success.

I struggle with the idea of Cannan as some sort of Zelig figure of crime. Supposedly he was an oily lounge lizard who liked to hang around wine bars, but at the same time, he was prepared to drive six miles from the Scrubs hostel to drink in a grotty, old men's pub like the PoW. Really? He was also apparently able to change his appearance - he could go from looking 25 to looking 45, from having a broken nose to not having one, from being pale to being suntanned. He could change a red Sierra into a black BMW. Again, really?

The plod's case against JC appears to rely on snitch accounts years after the fact. What is bizarre is that it occurred to nobody at the time to wonder what sex criminals had recently been released. Had they done so, they might have got to these witnesses sooner, and in time for the snitching to produce hard evidence. To be fair, we also don't know what else DV knows about the PoW that he's not sharing. What he presents in his book is not a case, just a missed line of inquiry from 37 years ago (this week).

For my money SJL is under a house, or maybe a garage floor, somewhere in west London. The movements of the car also strongly suggest to me that two people were involved.

KH never spoke to SLP that day. it was his wife who spoke to her and arranged for her items to be picked up at 6pm. he tells DV he talked to her on the phone, but that is BS. he was just making up lies.

 

[lee sumner]

There was also Dave Lee Travis. John Peel married a 15-year-old child in America, and then there's Jonathan King and 14- and 15-year-old boys.

The trouble is that it is totally speculative. What is the 386 supposed to mean? I don't really buy that this means "three killings in '86", because as far as we know, Cannan has only killed once.

Another way of looking at it is that he intended to use the car to lay a false trail re SB to a fictitious person. When found and identified with those plates, it would point to SB's abductor having previously killed SJL. He had an alibi for SJL, therefore he'd have an alibi for both. In the conversation with MB, he was trying to tell him he'd bought the car already looking like that from a bloke called Hodgeson.

So yes, he expected the plates to incriminate. But because he's a great big twit, it was still in his own garage when found. Thus, and not at all as planned, it pointed to him

We don't really know where or when she lost her chequebook. The complete and total incuriosity about this from everyone - the police, documentary makers, workmates, family - persisted until DV came along.

All we really know is that her chequebook and diary turned up at the pub by Monday 28/7. Someone at the pub rang the bank named on the chequebook. The bank had SJL's office number handy. They rang her and told her where the cheque book was. She rang the pub to arrange to collect it.

Those seem to be the facts. Then there's the conjecture.

Conjecturally, she seems to have rung the pub twice. The obvious time to go fetch it was after work, but a viewing request came in for 6pm, meaning she'd need to rearrange this collection if that had been what was agreed. In theory she could have just shown up late, but you can't be sure that someone you're speaking to at 11 in the morning is still going to be there at work at 7 that night or whenever.

We do not know when she lost her stuff at the PoW. In a TV documentary in the late 80s / early 90s, AL claims they went to the pub on Friday and a lovely evening was marred by the loss of her diary. More recently, he has said they never went to the PoW ever, and were in fact at Mossop's, a fairly smart restaurant next door, and it was Sunday. So at least one of those accounts is misremembered, and leaves us wondering about the movements through time and space of SJL's stuff between Friday and Sunday, or between the pub and the restaurant. CV and the landlord are adamant the diary etc were found on Sunday night.

Complicating this is that AL had clearly been chucked while he was on holiday, and that weekend was when he found out. So we don't know whether either of his accounts is to be believed.

DV's hypothesis about the PoW has legs because none of this was checked at the time.

We should remember that DL was so bat54it crazy she tried to get the libel laws changed to protect the reputation of a dead person. What she found out about SJL after her disappearance persuaded DL that her daughter had been - by her own religious lights, I emphasise, and absolutely nobody else's - a right slapper. She had uncomplicatedly slept with various boyfriends - perhaps three or four, perhaps 103 or 104. Either way she was harming nobody. But DL needed this not to be true, or at least not known, and in fact keeping this quiet was more important to her than finding her daughter's killer. Even though AL had been binned the week before, she therefore enlisted him in the charade of presenting SJL as what DL's generation would have called "a good girl", with one nice steady bloke. AL, maybe out of sympathy for a grief-stricken and bereaved woman, just played along. The police shouldn't have done so, and DL's involvement was disastrous for the prospects of success.

I struggle with the idea of Cannan as some sort of Zelig figure of crime. Supposedly he was an oily lounge lizard who liked to hang around wine bars, but at the same time, he was prepared to drive six miles from the Scrubs hostel to drink in a grotty, old men's pub like the PoW. Really? He was also apparently able to change his appearance - he could go from looking 25 to looking 45, from having a broken nose to not having one, from being pale to being suntanned. He could change a red Sierra into a black BMW. Again, really?

The plod's case against JC appears to rely on snitch accounts years after the fact. What is bizarre is that it occurred to nobody at the time to wonder what sex criminals had recently been released. Had they done so, they might have got to these witnesses sooner, and in time for the snitching to produce hard evidence. To be fair, we also don't know what else DV knows about the PoW that he's not sharing. What he presents in his book is not a case, just a missed line of inquiry from 37 years ago (this week).

For my money SJL is under a house, or maybe a garage floor, somewhere in west London. The movements of the car also strongly suggest to me that two people were involved.

we dont know the dynamics of the relationship between suzy and AL. maybe suzy made it clear to AL that it was just a summer fling, and she was not getting serious.

 

[lee sumner]

Unlikely as the car was probably parked there as early as 12.40 and as late as 5pm.
As it was not discovered until 10pm there’d have been so much footfall poor dog would have no chance.
I still think the use of dogs on the railway embankment behind the PoW pub is the best chance DV has of proving his book is correct.

dogs were used by DI johnstone at around 10pm , and i wonder if they picked up any scent on shorrolds rd or stevenage rd.

 

[lee sumner]

Agree (and welcome to the discussion BTW). However, as DV points out, you really would think someone would have asked MG and colleague how they had got into the property to look for SJL if she really had gone there taking the keys. There is not a single contemporary mention of there being multiple sets, it wasn't normal practice to have more than one, and if there were still a set in the office, who was it who asserted that this was the extra set out of two that they had for that property? Who swore to that off the top of their head?

The next problem is that HR did not say he saw SJL; he said he saw a blonde and a man who was about 5'8" or 9" emerging from the house. It was the police who said this was SJL. How were they emerging if she didn't have the keys? If she did, well, did she leave any prints? The perp could have walked around not touching anything, but someone had to open doors, and if it wasn't him, it was her. Yet we never hear that there was fingerprint evidence proving a visit by her. If there are no prints then she was never inside, which means HR cannot have seen her emerging.

The other witness usually cited, ND, said he saw a couple but it could have been 4pm. HR identified a 44-year-old Belgian as Mr Kipper. Taken together it looks IMO like HR has no idea what he saw or when he saw it, and that ND probably saw the search party, MG and colleague, not SJL herself.

Another strike against the involvement of the 5'8" man supposedly seen outside is that the Fiesta's seat was found pushed all the way back. A man of that height would not need to do this IMO. If he did, then given that this is the average male height, it would mean that 50% of males would find the front seat of a Fiesta cramped. From what I recall of small cars, the front seats fit anyone and it's the occasional seats in the back where space is saved. So the driver of the car probably wasn't anyone of the height of the man supposedly seen outside 37SR.

Cannan was never put on an ID parade and the case against him (that the CPS does not buy) consists of insinuation and perfect recall decades after the fact. The only bit of "evidence" that he was involved is the opinion of some police officers that one of the artists' sketches looks like him.

DV needs to take his own advice. he only asked certain people about the keys to shorrolds rd. why did he not ask DI johnstone about the keys, and did the investigation team get into shorrolds rd, and if so, how. he also does not mention the paperwork, the house details that were also missing.

 

[lee sumner]

The frustrating thing is we have four places SJL may have meant to go: home (if, big if, it is true she planned tennis), the pub (for the diary), Shorrolds (if viewing was real), and apparently 123 Stevenage (if she really did drive straight there).

There are issues with all of them. DL is the source for the tennis thing and she's not reliable; no evidence was sought to establish if she ever turned up at the pub; nobody ID'd her at 37SR until after the police said that was her, and there's no evidence she went inside; and it doesn't look like she was at the wheel of her car when it was abandoned outside 123 SR, even though at the time sighted, she must have been.

The BW sighting is the tough one. The timing undermines all the others. As described, BW does indeed make it look like SJL was driving around at the behest of the unidentified passenger. But if this was under duress, why couldn't she just have just abandoned the car and bolted for it at the first red traffic light?

The evidence that there even was a crime is her friends' and family's conviction that she would never just disappear. That aside, she just vanished unwitnessed; there's no known crime scene except maybe her car, which has not been properly preserved as such.

We really are no further forward than at 10pm on 28/7/86.

HR seen SLP outside 37 shorrolds rd with mr kipper. this sighting lines up with her diary entry. this is the evidence, yet DV chooses to dismiss the evidence. HR is the most important witness because he gave his statement the same day, even though later he did add things in.

 

[lee sumner]

This could possibly fit with the BW sighting at approximately 2.45pm, SJL gave that person a lift from which she never returned.

In this narrative WJ is wrong and the general view that SJL’s car appeared in Stevenage Road between 3.00 & 5.00pm then comes into play.

I accept that the police located her car at 10.03pm, but the garage owner returned at 5.15pm and I can’t see him mis-identifying SJL’s car.

So she left the office at approximately 12.40pm and her car appeared in Stevenage Road anytime between 12.45 & 5.00pm.

IMO the later her car appears, the more difficult it is to theorise on where she went.

i think her car could have been dumped on stevenage rd that night around 9pm. the garage owner would not notice unless car was blocking his way, which it was not. it was overlapping the entrance by 13 inches i think. 13 or 18.