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

[Terryb808]

People seem to come to this case convinced of the guilt of the police Prime Suspect based on all the 'overwhelming' evidence'. All the material that is repeated on virtually every tv doc on the Suzy Lamplugh Mystery.

However, a little evaluating of what exactly the presented evidence is and the 'overwhelming' nature of what's presented falls right away.

John Canaan of course, may have abducted and murdered SL, then again it may well have indeed been someone else .....

Yes well put, however, the police have effectively closed the case saying he’s the prime suspect and they’re not looking for anyone else.
RR who was / is in overall charge said on TV that the Met would investigate any new information on the Suzy Lamplugh case.
I bet in the small print in the t’&c’s it says as long as it points towards JC.
DV presented a file which must have had far more circumstantial evidence than ever appeared in his book, and it appears he was ignored.
So what chance does joe public have if they ignore one of their own (be it an ex employee).

 

[WestLondoner]

To be scrupulously fair to the police, it is clearly possible that some of the information they haven't released is persuasive in either incriminating Cannan, or supporting the various witness statements*.

For a specific example, it could be that when they forensicated 37SR, the police found both SJL's and Cannan's fingerprints inside. That would be pretty damning of Cannan, because it would not be hard to establish, from Sturgis and the house owner, that he could never have been inside that house on any other occasion. Thus, the time he was inside was the time he met SJL there - powerfully corroborated by HR having seen him outside. AFAIK we don't know what the forensic search found, hence the default assumption tends to be nothing.

Another example would be Jim Dickie's confidence that Cannan had access to a dark BMW. We don't know why he's so confident, but what if a stolen and recovered BMW had actually been found in the area, with Cannan's fingerprints inside, just after 28/7/86? Cannan might say he was just a passenger in someone else's car and didn't know it was stolen. It might even be true. Either way, JD would clearly be on pretty solid ground in thinking he had access to a BMW.

If there was an abduction, Cannan had to abduct her to somewhere. What if an empty property has been identified in which traces of both were found? It wouldn't be conclusive - she could have gone there at a different time, to show it to some client other than him - but it would fill in one of the gaps about how he carried this out.

Given the public's habit of coming forward with stuff that probably didn't happen, the police wouldn't want to put any of this out there. They'd be likely to get people suddenly remembering they saw Cannan and a blonde going into a flat in west Fulham at 3.18pm on the last Monday in July 36 years ago.

But stuff like this could bridge the gap between "someone was stalking women in Fulham" and "Cannan was stalking SJL". I buy the first statement, but what's out there doesn't sell me the second.

* and the same goes for DV of course

 

[WestLondoner]

double post

 

[Terryb808]

To be scrupulously fair to the police, it is clearly possible that some of the information they haven't released is persuasive in either incriminating Cannan, or supporting the various witness statements*.

For a specific example, it could be that when they forensicated 37SR, the police found both SJL's and Cannan's fingerprints inside. That would be pretty damning of Cannan, because it would not be hard to establish, from Sturgis and the house owner, that he could never have been inside that house on any other occasion. Thus, the time he was inside was the time he met SJL there - powerfully corroborated by HR having seen him outside. AFAIK we don't know what the forensic search found, hence the default assumption tends to be nothing.

Another example would be Jim Dickie's confidence that Cannan had access to a dark BMW. We don't know why he's so confident, but what if a stolen and recovered BMW had actually been found in the area, with Cannan's fingerprints inside, just after 28/7/86? Cannan might say he was just a passenger in someone else's car and didn't know it was stolen. It might even be true. Either way, JD would clearly be on pretty solid ground in thinking he had access to a BMW.

If there was an abduction, Cannan had to abduct her to somewhere. What if an empty property has been identified in which traces of both were found? It wouldn't be conclusive - she could have gone there at a different time, to show it to some client other than him - but it would fill in one of the gaps about how he carried this out.

Given the public's habit of coming forward with stuff that probably didn't happen, the police wouldn't want to put any of this out there. They'd be likely to get people suddenly remembering they saw Cannan and a blonde going into a flat in west Fulham at 3.18pm on the last Monday in July 36 years ago.

But stuff like this could bridge the gap between "someone was stalking women in Fulham" and "Cannan was stalking SJL". I buy the first statement, but what's out there doesn't sell me the second.

* and the same goes for DV of course

Good logic, I’d have thought if the police had such good quality forensic evidence they’d have satisfied the CPS and JC would have been charged and put on trial.
IMO they don’t have that level of evidence, and that’s why the CPS wouldn’t proceed, we’re just going to have to wait until what they do have is released.

 

[Crusader21]

Good logic, I’d have thought if the police had such good quality forensic evidence they’d have satisfied the CPS and JC would have been charged and put on trial.

I'd imagine if good quality forensic evidence or something similar that the police are holding back actually existed, that it would have been showcased long before now, in one of the countless tv docs.

If and when JC passes away, I believe the police will reiterate the prime suspect mantra and (sadly) there'll be some press interviews with perhaps Richard Lamplugh, featuring the last chance gone for justice / closure.

 

[WestLondoner]

I'd imagine if good quality forensic evidence or something similar that the police are holding back actually existed, that it would have been showcased long before now, in one of the countless tv docs.

If and when JC passes away, I believe the police will reiterate the prime suspect mantra and (sadly) there'll be some press interviews with perhaps Richard Lamplugh, featuring the last chance gone for justice / closure.

Well, yes, this is my fear. Things like SLP 386S looks a bit like "Suzy Lamplugh", and "Fourteen years ago I've just remembered the exact day and date I saw Cannan in Fulham", maybe really are all they've got. If that really is the quality of the evidence they've assembled, the CPS were being very, very generous when they said the problem with the police case is that there's no evidence SJL and Cannan had ever met. That sort of "evidence" doesn't persuade me he'd ever been to Fulham.

The CPS saying what a jolly thorough job they had done feels like letting them down lightly. The Yorkshire Ripper inquiry can be said to have done a similarly thorough job looking for the Geordie from Wearside who sent them the Ripper tape, and who was therefore the Ripper. Unfortunately, they were never going to catch Sutcliffe that way, given he was actually from Bradford. Doing a thorough job on Cannan won't catch the culprit if it was actually someone else.

Bandying about obvious bits of misdirection, like the completely unrelated house-for-sale rapist in Birmingham, as part of the "case" does give the strong impression of clutching at straws to find reasons to blame Cannan.

The problem for me is that I don't get the sense, from the police contribution to the various TV programmes and articles on this over the years, that they have worked forward from the evidence to identify Cannan as the perp. It feels to me more like the reverse. Chronologically, they got nowhere trying to do this in 1986 to 1987, at which point they closed the inquiry. In 1989, John Cannan steps into the picture as the killer of Shirley Banks. Despite his not having featured as a suspect hitherto, suddenly DL and the press decide it was him, and not long after, so do the police. According to JD when interviewed by DV, the reinvestigation looked at the original suspects from 1986 plus Cannan, re-eliminated the former, and therefore it was Cannan:

‘You had a matrix of suspects?’ Caroline piped up. ‘Who was on it?’
‘The people who came into the inquiry originally, and a few that we thought there’s some intelligence or evidence to put them in the frame. The matrix was basically a load of boxes – why these people fall into it, why they don’t. Basically trace involvement. And we eliminated every single one of them, apart from Cannan. Every way we went came back to him...We looked at everyone that had come into the inquiry beforehand. Erm. And we eliminated the same people, again. Even though they’d been eliminated the first time.’
‘On what basis? How did you eliminate them?’ I asked.
‘On certain criteria. Were they in Fulham at the time? Did they know Suzy? Were they in a relationship or previous relationship with her?’

Videcette, David. FINDING SUZY: The Hunt for Missing Estate Agent Suzy Lamplugh and 'Mr Kipper' (p. 229). DNA Books. Kindle Edition.

 

[RichardKimble]

The last line which you have quoted from DV's book, now turn it around, which of the criteria of elimination did Cannan not meet, where's the evidence he was in Fulham on the day SJL disappeared, did he know Suzi, on whose say so said he did, was she in a relationship with him, where's the evidence which of her friends colleagues positively id'd Cannan as a boyfriend ? doesn't add up to him being the prime suspect does it, I know we shouldn't take these things in isolation but even as a start where does Cannan figure.

‘On certain criteria. Were they in Fulham at the time? Did they know Suzy? Were they in a relationship or previous relationship with her?’

 

[WestLondoner]

I think the answer may be a few lines above Richard:

there’s some intelligence or evidence to put them in the frame

When I've worked with the police (CoLP not the Met, but still), and admittedly on organised financial crime in capital markets not murder, they have used the above two terms in quite specific ways - terms of art, if you like.

Intelligence always meant stuff that told them about the villains: where their money is, how they operate, and so on. Evidence was stuff actually usable in court. For example, someone chucks a brick through a jeweller's window, steals the Pink Panther diamond and speeds off in a red car. The red car detail is intelligence; you aren't going to do anyone for the crime on the basis they have a red car. But you know they're in a red car, and were seen speeding away, so you stop red cars and you find the one with the Pink Panther in it. That is then actual evidence to which the intelligence led you.

If my guess is correct, JD is using these words as terms of art in the same way. What he has surfaced may IMO have been mostly intelligence. When someone says, fourteen years ex post, that they saw JC in a BMW that day, or nearly crashed into a white Fiesta driven erratically by a blonde, that's intelligence. It proves nothing, but it may lead you to something that does; a body, for example.

A good example of this is the idea that his prison nickname was supposedly Kipper. This sounds like he might indeed be our man, but the trouble is, having dug into it the only source appears to be his ex, GP. She made but later retracted a statement that Cannan told her this! Cannan also now says that it's what prison wags have been calling him since he was publicly connected to SJL. AFAIK, no lag has ever confirmed the use of this name before. That does actually sound possible. So the intelligence about the nickname could have produced a bit of evidence, but AFAIK has never credibly done so.

All the points you raise about JC, SJL and Fulham are valid, and so far as we know in the public domain, there's no evidence for any of it. The constant pleas for information on JC has produced a lot of poor quality intelligence, but nothing that the CPS calls evidence.

 

[Cluesleuth]

If you're a Cannan-sceptic, I think in general you start from much further back in terms of what you assume to be known or true. Considered critically, the entire HR sighting looks so questionable as to be worthless for a number of reasons.

First, he said he saw a woman and a man, but he never said he thought he saw SJL. That assumption originated with the police and was stated as a fact at the Tuesday press conference, but it was not based on what HR said he saw.

Second, he said he saw them coming out of a house, but there is no eg. fingerprint evidence I've ever heard that SJL ever went in that house. DV indicates (p99 of his book) that it was forensicated on 29 July. If so, when have the police ever said they have forensic evidence she was inside? I believe the answer is 'never'. It follows that if SJL never went inside, HR did not see SJL.

Third, the man he describes cannot have been the man who drove SJL's car because HR thought he was about 5'8". Someone of that height wouldn't have needed to move a seat positioned to suit a 5'6" woman. It was not moved to that position by a Sturgis colleague either, because per AS' book, the last driver before SJL was James Calvert, who he says is "a small man".

Fourth, elements of HR's account were exaggerated either by HR himself or by MG on his behalf, and then retracted. In either case, it was clearly suggested to him right away that he had witnessed part of an abduction, either by MG saying his colleague was missing or by the police later wanting more details. So he's been coached.

Fifth, the routinely-cited, supposedly corroborating sightings are IMO cherrypicked, actually do not corroborate HR, and exclude those that contradict him. One by ND1 was reported fairly soon, but described a 6' man with a broken nose, and he wasn't sure when he saw the couple between 12 and 4. Another, a Spanish schoolteacher, reported a man in his 40s with a suntan. All these accounts are mutually contradictory. Another, from ND2, came in 2 weeks after the initial publicity and simply repeated the whole police account word for word without adding anything new at all. The only two sightings TV documentaries ever mention are ND1 and ND2; the others, who undermine them, are simply ignored.

Sixth, the HR sighting does not identify anyone in enough detail to be useful. It's not enough to point at the pencil sketch and say, That proves Mr Kipper was Cannan. The sketch could be argued to be practically anybody: Uri Geller, Shakin' Stevens, Nicolas Cage, or of course MG, which is IMO who it actually was.

I know we think differently on the HR's sighting WL
Personally I havent found anything as yet that leads me to think its suspicious.
The possible reason that some witness sightings appear 2 weeks later could be due to when police appeals were made or the police had them earlier and made a choice at what stage they would release them.
A lot of care appears to have gone into compiling the photofits 1 & 2 its only my opinion but I think they will prove be very close to the people police seek.
The discription of the a male with jowel face, a broken nose like an east end or rugby player, a suntanned man, these are things I wouldnt dismiss police must have thought these to be important.
I have given some serious thought To HR's positive id of the International Belguim Diamond dealer who had links to the abandoned BMW which looked so promising but after questioning by UK police he was cleared of any involvement.

There are many threads that run through this case and at times we find ourselves in a either or situation when things dont fit the given timeline but moving further away from what was known 'at the time' in my opinion could prove to be a mistake.

these are just my opinions

 

[ChocolateChip]

It would be nice to put initials to names to faces. I know we can’t name people here but we can send direct private messages.

 

[WestLondoner]

I know we think differently on the HR's sighting WL
Personally I havent found anything as yet that leads me to think its suspicious.
The possible reason that some witness sightings appear 2 weeks later could be due to when police appeals were made or the police had them earlier and made a choice at what stage they would release them.
A lot of care appears to have gone into compiling the photofits 1 & 2 its only my opinion but I think they will prove be very close to the people police seek.
The discription of the a male with jowel face, a broken nose like an east end or rugby player, a suntanned man, these are things I wouldnt dismiss police must have thought these to be important.
I have given some serious thought To HR's positive id of the International Belguim Diamond dealer who had links to the abandoned BMW which looked so promising but after questioning by UK police he was cleared of any involvement.

There are many threads that run through this case and at times we find ourselves in a either or situation when things dont fit the given timeline but moving further away from what was known 'at the time' in my opinion could prove to be a mistake.

these are just my opinions

Which is fair enough. On balance I doubt the police have anything to confirm the HR sighting or indeed any better evidence than has been made public. I say this because there is no crime scene, no body, and no reliable witnesses after 37SR, so it's hard to see what other evidence they could have, besides more of the same anecdotes.

 

[lee sumner]

Yes, which loops you back round to the supposition that she must have gone into a building and never come out again. That building has never been identified.

Cannan must have been a busy boy that July. As well as holding down a job humping props about and observing the pre-release hostel curfew, he also acquired a smart suit, a sun tan to hide the prison pallor, two cars, and a hideaway, all on prison time and prison trusty money. He then got rid of the cars, hideaway and body without one single person noticing (well, until fourteen years later obviously).

Or of course he didn't.

i think JC wants to be known as the mysterious mr kipper. that is why he put the SLP number plate on shirley banks car. years ago i was convinced he was, but not anymore. JC appears to be a very reckless and impulsive offender.

 

[lee sumner]

To be scrupulously fair to the police, it is clearly possible that some of the information they haven't released is persuasive in either incriminating Cannan, or supporting the various witness statements*.

For a specific example, it could be that when they forensicated 37SR, the police found both SJL's and Cannan's fingerprints inside. That would be pretty damning of Cannan, because it would not be hard to establish, from Sturgis and the house owner, that he could never have been inside that house on any other occasion. Thus, the time he was inside was the time he met SJL there - powerfully corroborated by HR having seen him outside. AFAIK we don't know what the forensic search found, hence the default assumption tends to be nothing.

Another example would be Jim Dickie's confidence that Cannan had access to a dark BMW. We don't know why he's so confident, but what if a stolen and recovered BMW had actually been found in the area, with Cannan's fingerprints inside, just after 28/7/86? Cannan might say he was just a passenger in someone else's car and didn't know it was stolen. It might even be true. Either way, JD would clearly be on pretty solid ground in thinking he had access to a BMW.

If there was an abduction, Cannan had to abduct her to somewhere. What if an empty property has been identified in which traces of both were found? It wouldn't be conclusive - she could have gone there at a different time, to show it to some client other than him - but it would fill in one of the gaps about how he carried this out.

Given the public's habit of coming forward with stuff that probably didn't happen, the police wouldn't want to put any of this out there. They'd be likely to get people suddenly remembering they saw Cannan and a blonde going into a flat in west Fulham at 3.18pm on the last Monday in July 36 years ago.

But stuff like this could bridge the gap between "someone was stalking women in Fulham" and "Cannan was stalking SJL". I buy the first statement, but what's out there doesn't sell me the second.

* and the same goes for DV of course

i dont believe they found any hard evidence at 37SR, but they are convinced JC is mr kipper.

 

[lee sumner]

Which is fair enough. On balance I doubt the police have anything to confirm the HR sighting or indeed any better evidence than has been made public. I say this because there is no crime scene, no body, and no reliable witnesses after 37SR, so it's hard to see what other evidence they could have, besides more of the same anecdotes.

i think HR was the best witness. he did see a couple outside 37SR, and i believe that was suzy and mr kipper. he gave his statement on the same day, 28/july/86 suzy vanished into thin air, and that is why i believe he is the key witness,

 

[Terryb808]

I agree with WestLondoner on this, HR never actually identified the woman as SJL, and only really took any notice of the man.
Also, the police (as far as we know) never found any trace of SJL having entered 37 Shorrolds Road.
This is despite HR saying the couple left the property hearing the front door close.
There’s no doubt that a couple was outside 37 SR, but I don’t believe was SJL and Mr Kipper.
The Mets own MB goes along with WJ sighting of SJL’s car in Stevenage Road at approximately 12.50pm. He’s a good detective and I feel he got this right.
I don’t believe SJL drove it there, it was left there after she was either abducted or had met with her unfortunate end.

 

[RichardKimble]

IMO it'll never be known what happened, just watching In the footsteps of killers ,presented by Prof David Wilson and Emilia Fox, in it John Dickie says in 2003 a file was presented to the CPS, he said in order for a prosecution to proceed they needed to convince a judge there had been no abuse of process on two counts.The judge felt that Cannan had been tried and convicted by the media,the second was that police had ignored, mislaid or did not use clues that they had in the original investigation in 1986. Fox went onto ask Dickie if he thought Cannan abducted and killed Suzi, he never answered yes to that only that in his opinion Cannan is the only and prime suspect.

 

[Eastend Eagle]

I think it's fairly apparent that Suzy Lamplugh must have been abducted in Rostrevor Mews, no doubt into the back of a property backing on to it, with the fake diary entry sending police in the wrong direction.

 

[Cherwell]

I think it's fairly apparent that Suzy Lamplugh must have been abducted in Rostrevor Mews, no doubt into the back of a property backing on to it, with the fake diary entry sending police in the wrong direction.

Why would she have gone there? It doesn't look as though the car could have been parked there, and the colleague who used it earlier knew where he'd left it.

 

[Terryb808]

IMO it'll never be known what happened, just watching In the footsteps of killers ,presented by Prof David Wilson and Emilia Fox, in it John Dickie says in 2003 a file was presented to the CPS, he said in order for a prosecution to proceed they needed to convince a judge there had been no abuse of process on two counts.The judge felt that Cannan had been tried and convicted by the media,the second was that police had ignored, mislaid or did not use clues that they had in the original investigation in 1986. Fox went onto ask Dickie if he thought Cannan abducted and killed Suzi, he never answered yes to that only that in his opinion Cannan is the only and prime suspect.

I agree with you on your point that we’ll never really know what happen to SJL.

In the 4 years plus I’ve been seriously looking at this case your point about the police not following other clues became obvious to me.

DV (and I know not everyone is behind him) did look at an alternative and had this been followed up back in the day, who knows what might have happened.

When you “just follow the timeline” as DV says it goes straight to the PoW pub.

However, IMO that’s not where SJL went, it’s far more likely that she met with someone in a private house and never left. The way her car was abandoned points to someone other than SJL leaving it in Stevenage Road.

Again IMO the time her car appears in Stevenage Road is very very important. If as the Mets MB believed it was as WJ said 12.45pm and SJL didn’t drive it there, then her disappearance was the work of at least two perpetrators.
On the other hand (as is generally thought) SJL’s car appears in Stevenage Road between 3.00 & 5.00pm it could be down to a single perpetrator and that’s the reason DV puts a lot of emphasis on WJ being wrong.

I did watch the “In the Footsteps of Killers” and appreciate the work David Wilson does as a criminologist, however, I thought the SJL episode tended to follow the police line and didn’t explore any new lines of enquiry.

By contrast his previous TV documentaries have done so and with impeccable logic.

In conclusion, there are other lines of enquiry which the police and no other TV documentary have ever looked at.

They all follow the JC did it narrative, which is disappointing.

 

[Eastend Eagle]

Why would she have gone there? It doesn't look as though the car could have been parked there, and the colleague who used it earlier knew where he'd left it.

My guess is that the car wasn't parked there but Suzy was told that it was. I think this case has the hallmarks of an inside job.