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

[Lady Stoddart-West]

If I recall correctly the letter was penned by a right handed person using their left hand.

I personally can’t see JC doing this, he clearly has no empathy with his victims, and this goes against what appear to come naturally to JC.

Again if I’m remembering this correctly an article in the press said that someone else had owned up the the Sandra Court murder.

It’s all very confusing because where she was dumped has JC’s MO all over it.
On other very distant possibility is that JC had an accomplice and it was that person who penned the note.
Just a few ideas on the subject.

I think solving the SC case is key, JC or otherwise, DNA and the letter/stamp if chain of custody etc not disturbed, in theory. Much more evidence here to work with than SL.

As to MO, well, JC had moments of seemingly feeling genuinely contrite [SM rape/attack seemingly snapped out of a murderous trance - Berry Dee - 'Oh my God, he said, what have I done? I'm sorry' and he calls for ambulance for SM. Also NB: his suicide bid, 68 paracetamol tablets swallowed, admitted to hospital as a psychiatric patient. 'I wasn't going to scrounge off the DHSS or...rely or depend or be a burden on anyone'. Pre SB and post AR affair and break-up. Also attends church, contributes to the collection [Down to his last 21p he attends a friendly evening church service. When the collection plate comes around, he puts it all in. and lives off pennies generally trying to go straight]. [NB: Berry-Dee/Odell]. He didn't have support or help.

It's interesting, and seemingly overlooked, that SL cancelled a planned Birthday outing in May with a lover according to press at the time, instead opting to go to Wales with the family. Look at JC's MO around rejection.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

Bear in mind that in the 80s men were clean shaven with short hair. Beards put years on you and were then associated with old men, naff Radio DJs like John Peel and Dave Lee Travis, and 70s throwbacks such as the Bee Gees. Someone who still looked like that was either seriously behind the times, or was of that vintage and hadn't noticed the world changing. Nobody under 30 would be seen dead with a beard. James Galway man would have been conspicuous exactly because of this.

This is true, I remember the 80s clearly and only a bit of 'designer stubble' a la George Michael had become fashionable for some men. However, if you had an office job, most men would be pulled up for not being smart enough for work.

Criminals do grow beards and / or shave off facial hair in order evade identification, goes without saying. In the 80s it would be alarming to see someone wear a balaclava or face mask or hood, so criminals played around with facial hair and other types of disguises.

 

[Salah11]

Do people believe it’s possible she was kidnapped as soon as she left Sturgis?

A quiet side road on a week day and LE looking in the wrong place for the crime scene?

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

Do people believe it’s possible she was kidnapped as soon as she left Sturgis?

A quiet side road on a week day and LE looking in the wrong place for the crime scene?

I'd say it's far easier to lure someone to a location, to ask them to step inside a place, or to coerce them to get in a vehicle, than kidnap them in broad daylight.

So on the balance of it, no - unless you're defining 'kidnap' as the act of luring her into a vehicle. If so, if that was a 'stranger abduction' I suggest that would involve way more than one person as SJL was young, fit, healthy, and likely to put up one heck of a struggle as soon as she realised something was off.

 

[Salah11]

I'd say it's far easier to lure someone to a location, to ask them to step inside a place, or to coerce them to get in a vehicle, than kidnap them in broad daylight.

So on the balance of it, no - unless you're defining 'kidnap' as the act of luring her into a vehicle. If so, if that was a 'stranger abduction' I suggest that would involve way more than one person as SJL was young, fit, healthy, and likely to put up one heck of a struggle as soon as she realised something was off.

I still believe she went to Shorrolds Road that day as there has never been any suggestion she would make up false appointments to skive off work but if they did go though the house at SR it is strange no finger prints were found.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

I still believe she went to Shorrolds Road that day as there has never been any suggestion she would make up false appointments to skive off work but if they did go though the house at SR it is strange no finger prints were found.

I come back to the fact that CV in the pub, if you look at the AS book, or his wife, on the phone, told SL to come at 6pm to the POW to pick up her things. This is overlooked.

She had a 6pm apt in the diary and wouldn't have agreed to the time for this reason. Asking when the apt was made, the 6pm, would have been important.This was later glossed over and become the 'evening' or similar, but someone who turned up early for every apt she'd ever made would not have suggested a time to CV which was when she was expected elsewhere. After a year the pub narrative was effectively altered by CV. AS expounds around this.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

I still believe she went to Shorrolds Road that day as there has never been any suggestion she would make up false appointments to skive off work but if they did go though the house at SR it is strange no finger prints were found.

It seems fairly evident one or two people were outside 37, if so, why weren't they eliminated if not SL and 'Kipper' (?) The very fair blonde, smiling woman and an attractive man, later on.

One of the witnesses, the ex jeweller, I believe, said they looked affluent. He would know, dealing with wealthy people one assumes, and should have a been fairly reliable witness, on the face of it anyway.

The BMW and its make and model, recorded by a 'car expert', would appear to have been very clearly there in the road at about the right time. The car buff was very specific indeed. A little like the Vermillion mini metro in the Stephanie Slater case, recognised by a car sprayer. He knew his colours and cars, and it helped to lead to Samms.

Unfortunately the police didn't continue the search re: BMW and ownership, getting about halfway through (AS). A bit like the Ripper case...

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

The police said they gave up trying to trace them all and had to concentrate on a restricted number.
This adds up to a lot of suspects. In

I don't think the 'little black book' no one was allegedly familiar with necessarily pointed to 'lots of lovers' these were contacts. It was not prurient to see what the commonality was IMO. It seems they were exclusively male, we know who two were, these were identified and written about. One a latterly well known man who said he knew her from an exclusive gym in Chiswick, one SL allegedly belonged to, (expensive?) the other, said she was considering buying a car from him. When? Where? Did this ring true, I imagine so or surely it would have raised a red flag? The first account can be found in press at time, the latter in AS.

Then there were the non 'Putney Set' 'friends' who routinely rang her flat, so said, the previous female flatmate. Did SL move any sideline to her phone box outside the POW? Where no one could listen in? And one day simply left her belongings there, or whilst waiting? Simple to do so.

Escorting and hostessing, for example, was becoming common then and NOT immoral or shady, someone to show an American tourist Stonehenge or a foreigner the sites and eateries of London etc, to accompany a man to a business meeting. To impress with social 'British' grace, class elegance and panache. Something came out later to make DL say 'she did not live her life as I would have done'. Possibly even hostessing wasn't something that met with approval, times were changing and SL was 'thoroughly modern'. Many young women were going off to Japan to do just this in gap years, etc. All above board, until the terrible tragedy re: Lucie Blackman, anyway, Lucie Blackman: The Missing Woman Who Exposed Tokyo's Seedy Underbelly

Eager to pay off debts, she took a job as a “hostess” in the party-heavy Roppongi district of Tokyo, known for wealthy foreigners and nightclubs where pretty women are paid to drink and socialize (but not sleep with) free-spending clientele. Lucie disappeared from her job, at the club Casablanca, on July 1, 2000, provoking a frantic search within and outside of the naked city.

Anyone who has read AS will know that there are possible hints as to exactly 'this'. Shocking it wasn't, possibly even on an informal basis.

I investigated Brenda Page's murder, I never expected where it would lead me

THE killing of brilliant scientist Dr Brenda Page in Aberdeen remained a mystery for more than 40 years – becoming one of Britain’s longest-running unsolved murders. Award-winning Scottish Sun jour…

www.thescottishsun.co.uk

From the article above. Brenda routinely had dinner with businessmen and was undoubtedly good company, academic, quick witted etc. A way to supplement her income and maybe even added colour and glamour to her life, not seedy:

Days after the killing, it was revealed Brenda had a part-time job as an escort and the men she’d met before her murder had been clients. How did this bombshell affect the original police investigation, especially with the sexist attitudes at the time?

Aberdeen was teeming with businessmen, many of them Americans, who were going to functions and were happy to pay for a female companion as their guest.

 

[Bluebear15]

This is true, I remember the 80s clearly and only a bit of 'designer stubble' a la George Michael had become fashionable for some men. However, if you had an office job, most men would be pulled up for not being smart enough for work.

Criminals do grow beards and / or shave off facial hair in order evade identification, goes without saying. In the 80s it would be alarming to see someone wear a balaclava or face mask or hood, so criminals played around with facial hair and other types of disguises.

My father had a beard throughout the 80s, and worked in a high level scientific professional job (gave presentations abroad to rooms of hundreds of people). He was never asked to shave off his beard. Nor were any of his colleagues with beards.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

My father had a beard throughout the 80s, and worked in a high level scientific professional job (gave presentions abroad to rooms of hundreds of people). He was never asked to shave off his beard. Nor were any of his colleagues with beards.

James Galway is also below average height and stocky. This man was wearing a rugby type shirt and carried a bag. He also sounded like he might have had a London accent, or turn of phrase? 'Just saw a couple having a right ruck' 'Thank God you came along when you did'. To paraphrase. He went on a very (unusually?) short trip to Macdonalds up the road. Would people like him typically take a taxi for a short hop effectively His evidence might add credence to the swerving fiesta and under duress type accounts that came later so doubt was cast (?) The left hand drive BMW and hand on the horn, high pitched squeal etc.

 

[Salah11]

Just watching The Suzy Lamplugh mystery on Sky and the number plate is definitely interesting.

Having the initials and 86 year she was kidnapped what are the odds?

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

For me, the fact JC said a businessman sold him the mini & this man killed SL, SB & ‘another girl’ is also pretty compelling. Why invent the murderer of SL if no skin in game?

 

[Terryb808]

James Galway is also below average height and stocky. This man was wearing a rugby type shirt and carried a bag. He also sounded like he might have had a London accent, or turn of phrase? 'Just saw a couple having a right ruck' 'Thank God you came along when you did'. To paraphrase. He went on a very (unusually?) short trip to Macdonalds up the road. Would people like him typically take a taxi for a short hop effectively His evidence might add credence to the swerving fiesta and under duress type accounts that came later so doubt was cast (?) The left hand drive BMW and hand on the horn, high pitched squeal etc.

The James Galway man is very interesting, making much of a couple arguing and incinerating he felt threatened.
Then going a short distance by cab (don’t know how short), I would always walk in preference to taking public transport or a cab.
If I recall correctly JC carries a bag when out and up to no good. If the James Galway man is in anyway linked to JC he’d probably do the same.
On the SB car number plate, the initials and 86 are very coincidental and then as you say bringing SJL into it when he didn’t need to is another coincidence.
You can see why the Met have JC as a prime suspect, they must have more circumstantial evidence (I’d hope) then we know about, and JC has given them so much more.
It certainly takes any focus off DV’s prime suspect.

 

[Salah11]

The James Galway man is very interesting, making much of a couple arguing and incinerating he felt threatened.
Then going a short distance by cab (don’t know how short), I would always walk in preference to taking public transport or a cab.
If I recall correctly JC carries a bag when out and up to no good. If the James Galway man is in anyway linked to JC he’d probably do the same.
On the SB car number plate, the initials and 86 are very coincidental and then as you say bringing SJL into it when he didn’t need to is another coincidence.
You can see why the Met have JC as a prime suspect, they must have more circumstantial evidence (I’d hope) then we know about, and JC has given them so much more.
It certainly takes any focus off DV’s prime suspect.

The number plate feels like something sick and twisted you would do as a little inside joke that nobody would take note of until you get arrested and suddenly it’s not so funny as it points directly to you imo

 

[Terryb808]

The number plate feels like something sick and twisted you would do as a little inside joke that nobody would take note of until you get arrested and suddenly it’s not so funny as it points directly to you imo

I couldn’t agree more, fits perfectly with JC’s total lack of empathy for his victims and their families.
It’s been pointed out many times on this thread that JC is no master criminal and his arrest for the SB murder demonstrates this perfectly.
The number plate looks to be his way of putting two fingers up to the Met.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

I am personally unconvinced by plate but there is other fairly compelling circumstantial evidence.

 

[Cherwell]

I come back to the fact that CV in the pub, if you look at the AS book, or his wife, on the phone, told SL to come at 6pm to the POW to pick up her things. This is overlooked.

She had a 6pm apt in the diary and wouldn't have agreed to the time for this reason. Asking when the apt was made, the 6pm, would have been important.This was later glossed over and become the 'evening' or similar, but someone who turned up early for every apt she'd ever made would not have suggested a time to CV which was when she was expected elsewhere. After a year the pub narrative was effectively altered by CV. AS expounds around this.

My take on this is that she was told to come after 6pm as that was when the pub opened for the evening session.

There would have been no need to make a specific "appointment", it would just be a matter of dropping into the pub during opening times when convenient. She lived only a short distance away, so could easily have called in on the way home or popped round there during the evening.

 

[Salah11]

The fact it was a fake plate and had her initials and year seems way to coincidental and then add in the fact the same car also linked him to Shirley Banks with the tax disc it seems like he liked playing games and the car was a link to the crimes he committed.

Add in the fact he could easily put on a Suit and was very posh and charming when he needed to be I could see Suzy turning up to SR and him getting her to show him another property elsewhere.

I am not sold on any one suspect but I can see why he is the only named suspect.

IMO

 

[Terryb808]

The fact it was a fake plate and had her initials and year seems way to coincidental and then add in the fact the same car also linked him to Shirley Banks with the tax disc it seems like he liked playing games and the car was a link to the crimes he committed.

Add in the fact he could easily put on a Suit and was very posh and charming when he needed to be I could see Suzy turning up to SR and him getting her to show him another property elsewhere.

I am not sold on any one suspect but I can see why he is the only named suspect.

IMO

David Wilson the criminologist said that when it comes to crime he doesn’t believe in coincidences.
Now I know you can read the number plate a few ways, but the way most people read it is:
SLP - Suzy Lamplugh
386 - 3 victims in 1986
S - All with a first name beginning with S

Firstly who are the 3 victims from 1986, Suzy Lamplugh & Sandra Court?, who is the other one.
SB was a year later, if the number plate is supposed to mean something like above we’re missing a victim.
I understand that SLP is not an uncommon set of letters for the Bristol area (correct me if I’m wrong), so it could just be a coincidence.
So if JC hadn’t been caught and he’d sold the car, what would this cryptic number plate have gained him.
It would have gone totally unnoticed.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

Can someone explain me the fake number plate please?

I know in the old days people used to 'ring' cars or steal a car then use an already existing number plate of the same year / model (ie there would be the real car and a duplicate car in circulation) -or- they would simply have the plate made up using the format of a UK licence plate which in order to get away with would need to be convincing in terms of the year.

What was the fake plate JC was using? He just made it up and had the plates constructed to order and fitted them? If so, he designed and specifically chose the letters and numbers is the suggestion right?