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

[Lady Stoddart-West]

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.

AS states that CV said 6pm specifically, not after 6pm, if so, it's interesting. Maybe. He's working from case notes and police files. CV explains 'SL had arranged to pick up her things at six o clock the day she went missing, he recalled'. It seems highly unlikely she'd flag exactly 6pm to him as she had an apt in the diary and she was meticulous about apts.

Later, this changes to a more vague after work, etc, It's a lost detail, it's overlooked and may be irrelevant, I agree. The odds are CV was confused by quite a lot, latterly especially.

Just as there are 'no coincidences' according to Wilson, maybe the devil is also (sometimes) in the detail. Johnstone said, at the time. . this is going to be a 'timings' enquiry'. Everything seemed to hinge on the times' [AS}

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

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

I feel that it could be coincidental on the plate, people say that JC had form for cryptic stunts, but the evidence for this I feel is tenuous. E.g. Dead Woman's Ditch and SB, in the Quantocks, I assumed a 'clever' grid reference etc but it has a National Trust plaque and is known to all locally. Still possibly it does point to a sick, black humour, but it's not subtle or clever in itself.

Three things I haven't ever fathomed on SB by the way, 1. Why her prints were on the licence doc in the monk's chest in JC's flat - how did she manage to have a rifle through docs quite intensively? Likely restrained. 2. She was wearing the dress when found and the bag was in his car, she wasn't abducted in the dress. Did he force her to change? Why, if so. 3. The elderly couple that seem to have seen JC in a copse close to his flat, beating the life out of some unfortunate soul, with bones cracking etc. IF correct how did he get her to Dead Woman's ditch.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

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.

Good question, there is an interview with JC where he allegedly says 'she's got company' poss alluding to SL and he talks about 'another girl' in terms of a crime he's got away with but this might be SC. IF too, he was showboating to police surely he'd headline with SB and not SLP, SB being the most recent victim, unfortunately.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

SL Doc last night and JD mentioning intel that JC had access to a BMW at time in the hostel. Brought to mind:

1. Car buff (RT) said that the BMW he saw outside 37s Shorrolds was likely early to mid 70s - similar to 4 door 518 . He saw the BMW between 12:30 and 1pm. Navy blue. Older BMWs, said police at time, like this one were distinctive and relatively unusual.

2. Jogger witness who came forward AT THE TIME, said JD, to a pop up, temporary police station in Stevenage and gave evidence that was later lost or not passed on. RE: BMW.

He said he saw a BMW with someone pressing a hand on the horn, poss latterly realised left hand drive, and woman passenger was under duress, fighting, laughing or screaming. Poss he realised this by position of man and woman in car and 'fight' taking place? Near Stevenage Road.

The police were checking ALL owners re: relevant BMWs but abandoned this project half way through, apparently. It strikes me that as BOTH BMWs were relatively unusual, one older model that the police said was rear and one (LHD), could they have been one and the same?

3. IF you add in the man that saw a 'right ruck' and another that saw a row around the barrier on Stevenage Road, possibly a picture emerges. A woman in trouble at least. We know the BMW WAS there, (older one in Shorrolds) did police appeal for owner to come forward? Couple in the van that had to avoid an earlier swerving fiesta too, if credible evidence and witness. Makes for a pattern.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

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.

Agree with all of this but also to add, the mid 80s was peak Margaret Thatcher and her version of capitalism / feminism telling women they could go out and work the same as a man.

So there was a version of so called female empowerment that was 'women can have it all' which actually meant 'you too can wear a suit and do a so-called man's job in finance or management or something in the city wheeling and dealing'. It was also the cocaine and champagne years for high earners.

I wonder if SJL had fully adopted this new found aspiration for women and simply wanted to make a chunk of money on her own terms in a traditionally male dominated world? Estate agency has always been a dodgy sector and IMO even still is for various reasons not least of which money laundering, mortgage frauds, fake valuation statements in favour of one client or another, and in London the most cut-throat city in London.

If she had lots of male contacts it's because she was dealing with and maybe schmoozing male contacts, potential investors, vendors, lenders, etc? Maybe she really wanted to make a big chunk of money. Maybe she was greedy? Maybe she was deceiving or betraying her boss? Or at least double crossing people or playing people? Greed can be corrupting and also lead to poor insight. Not victim blaming here, just wondering how she was thinking of herself and her position in her 'industry'.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

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.

Most pubs in the UK were open all day on weekdays 11am to 11pm was the hours back then.

The trade drifts from 11am opening = morning drinkers / regulars (aka alcoholics or loners). By noon you're getting early lunch people, by 3pm lunch is done, you've closed the kitchen if there is one, regardless people with jobs have gone back to work, then there's a bit of a lull where there's just the regular day drinkers until people start drifting after work - as early as 4pm if they're tradesmen they pack up early because they start early to avoid rush hour traffic - then you get office workers who knock off at 5pm and come for a drink on their way home, following which it'd be people who've gone home, had their dinner, then come out for a drink. And that's your day.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

Agree with all of this but also to add, the mid 80s was peak Margaret Thatcher and her version of capitalism / feminism telling women they could go out and work the same as a man.

So there was a version of so called female empowerment that was 'women can have it all' which actually meant 'you too can wear a suit and do a so-called man's job in finance or management or something in the city wheeling and dealing'. It was also the cocaine and champagne years for high earners.

I wonder if SJL had fully adopted this new found aspiration for women and simply wanted to make a chunk of money on her own terms in a traditionally male dominated world? Estate agency has always been a dodgy sector and IMO even still is for various reasons not least of which money laundering, mortgage frauds, fake valuation statements in favour of one client or another, and in London the most cut-throat city in London.

If she had lots of male contacts it's because she was dealing with and maybe schmoozing male contacts, potential investors, vendors, lenders, etc? Maybe she really wanted to make a big chunk of money. Maybe she was greedy? Maybe she was deceiving or betraying her boss? Or at least double crossing people or playing people? Greed can be corrupting and also lead to poor insight. Not victim blaming here, just wondering how she was thinking of herself and her position in her 'industry'.

The back history around the 'book' was that it might have contained sensitive or personal info about the 'men' allegedly, [If so it might have been taken out of context] and then I think of DL's comment, 'she didn't not live as I would have done' and what AS kept back that was so sensitive. I am not sure that would have been commercially driven, but who knows. I don't think pointing to escorting sideline. She was looking to open a gym, health business apparently (with a friend) so this may have been connected. Especially since at least one of the men seemingly within this 'book' knew her precisely in that 'gym' context. If there were asides and comments possibly just as to whether she thought they'd be keen to commit to a health/fitness venture and 'join'. A potential sign up list for an expensive and glossy venture, if you like.

 

[Terryb808]

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?

Essentially pro criminals will steal a car and as you say put plates on that match another car of the same make and colour.
This happens today as it did back in the 80’s, it’s a lot easier today because we no longer have tax discs in the front window.
I don’t know what JC was planning to do with the mini, false plates, to sell it you’d need a log book, too much trouble given it’s poor condition and value.
But as has been said, JC isn’t a master criminal.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

He’d said, I believe, he planned to set it on fire as he believed it incriminated him. The man he’d bought it from being the culprit. Originally, he’d put in garage, as he said no room outside the flats.

 

[Terryb808]

He’d said, I believe, he planned to set it on fire as he believed it incriminated him. The man he’d bought it from being the culprit. Originally, he’d put in garage, as he said no room outside the flats.

Well we assume he killed SB, so there is no man who sold him the car. If he planned to set fire to it, why repaint and put faults plates on it.
Seems to the action of a very inept criminal, and given how he was arrested that fits JC perfectly.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

Well we assume he killed SB, so there is no man who sold him the car. If he planned to set fire to it, why repaint and put faults plates on it.
Seems to the action of a very inept criminal, and given how he was arrested that fits JC perfectly.

Also JC in a permanent state of being skint would have needed wheels surely and therefore repainted to disguise either to keep it for his own mobility or sell it to raise some much needed cash.

 

[lee sumner]

It seems fairly clear that the police seriously bungled the investigation, initially by putting out an account of events that they had not remotely verified, then by doing little further work for the next week, because they were busy with the cement factory fraud arrests.

They then failed to consider whether any recently-released criminals might have been in the area. So Cannan appears only to have come into the frame three years later, when the press and others started speculating about him and SJL. No actual evidence against Cannan at all seems to have been gathered at that point.

Family and press speculation egged the police towards a reinvestigation in 2000, which according to JD consisted of all the original possible perps, plus Cannan. The former were all eliminated again, leaving Cannan. The primary intelligence against Cannan appears to have been laid by this Taggart character, a lifelong criminal with a string of prison terms for dishonesty, who seems to have informed on Cannan for some sort of personal advantage.

Taggart's information would be evidentially worthless for two clear reasons. One would be his lifelong dishonesty. The other would be that it beggars belief to begin with that Taggart could know enough about Cannan's movements, mode of transport and activities to put him into the frame as Mr Kipper, without himself having assisted with or known about his abductions and murders.

Fundamentally the problem then is that all Taggart gave them - years later - was an account of Cannan's activities edited to exclude himself. This means he gave them nothing proceedable at all.

So we can be sure his account would be dishonest. As a witness, a defence counsel would destroy him in seconds. To implicate Cannan in 2000, the police would have to treat Taggart's information merely as intelligence and seek other, less-compromised witness accounts to corroborate it that could be marshalled against him. The reason we now hear about someone remembering they saw Cannan looking in a shop window fourteen years ago, or the Birmingham house-for-sale rapist, is because as ludicrous as this quality of evidence is as grounds for police suspicion, it's still less ludicrous than admitting they are relying on the word of Taggart.

If Cannan was involved so was Taggart, IMO, and rather than digging up Cannan's mother's old house they should have been searching locations linked to Taggart - such as the council flat he had that was a short walk from Shorrolds.

that is what i like about AS book. there is no JC mentioned because he was not in the frame then. he got out of scrubs on the 25th july, and SLP goes missing on the 28th. there is no way he would be able to set up a kidnapping/abduction plan in 3 days.

 

[lee sumner]

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

yes, that does add up to a lot. i wonder what the actual number was.

 

[WestLondoner]

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.

Yes - although there are more innocent possible explanations of what went on at the PoW, there is also this rather dark one. On the morning of 28 July CV speaks to SJL and it's arranged that she come to the pub at 6. A buyer then asks SJL for an appointment at 6, and this takes priority because £££. So SJL reschedules the pub visit for right now. She goes to the PoW and dies there.

Next morning the police turn up at the pub seeking the lost property. CV simply says Yes, she was supposed to come at 6pm, but she never turned up. At this stage he does not know what the police know, so he does not know of the 6pm appointment elsewhere, so he does not know she can't possibly have intended to go there at 6.

A year later, when he's reinterviewed, the disappearance has been all over the press. He would certainly have seen the diary and its 6pm viewing that proves she never, as he had claimed, arranged with him to come over at that time. So that claim can't stand up and he needs to change last year's story. He now says that she just said 'later', that there were calls to the pub for her which 'prove' that others knew she was headed there (so he wasn't the only one who knew), and that he told the police all this at the time. If the police have lost the details, well, that's just silly old PC Plod for you.

When you layer in the detail that the missing stuff was discovered on the Sunday, and was not lost on Friday at either the PoW or at Mossop's (per AL's two different accounts), you do get the impression of some mysterious meeting going on there.

We've previously discussed the fact that in 1986 all phones were landline and tethered to the hallway or living room wall. If SJL wanted to have a private conversation without the lodger eavesdropping she couldn't use the landline unless he was out. On her way back from the beach on Sunday, she had a phone call to make (which AL claims was with him) but had no way of knowing if Roger the Lodger would be out when she got home. If he were in she'd have to go out again to make that call from a box, which would look odd - so she stops en route at the PoW and loses her stuff there.

I am not sure there was such a thing as an innocent escort service even in the 80s. As far as I am aware 'escort' has always been a euphemism for 'up market hooker whom you book for the night'. It's completely conceivable that SJL was doing this and in effect making a side job out of her hobby. But if so, the money would surely have left a trace?

 

[lee sumner]

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.

where does that info come from about cancelled Birthday in may. it is not mentioned in AS BOOK.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

Well we assume he killed SB, so there is no man who sold him the car. If he planned to set fire to it, why repaint and put faults plates on it.
Seems to the action of a very inept criminal, and given how he was arrested that fits JC perfectly.

Well, quite.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

where does that info come from about cancelled Birthday in may. it is not mentioned in AS BOOK.

The press. Will find article & quote/post. Interesting isn’t it. Shows her in Wales for her May Birthday. Tragic.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

that is what i like about AS book. there is no JC mentioned because he was not in the frame then. he got out of scrubs on the 25th july, and SLP goes missing on the 28th. there is no way he would be able to set up a kidnapping/abduction plan in 3 days.

I suppose he might not have planned it so much as just done it. But that would rely on him making the Mr Kipper appt immediately upon release and how would he have her in his sights?

 

[lee sumner]

Yes - although there are more innocent possible explanations of what went on at the PoW, there is also this rather dark one. On the morning of 28 July CV speaks to SJL and it's arranged that she come to the pub at 6. A buyer then asks SJL for an appointment at 6, and this takes priority because £££. So SJL reschedules the pub visit for right now. She goes to the PoW and dies there.

Next morning the police turn up at the pub seeking the lost property. CV simply says Yes, she was supposed to come at 6pm, but she never turned up. At this stage he does not know what the police know, so he does not know of the 6pm appointment elsewhere, so he does not know she can't possibly have intended to go there at 6.

A year later, when he's reinterviewed, the disappearance has been all over the press. He would certainly have seen the diary and its 6pm viewing that proves she never, as he had claimed, arranged with him to come over at that time. So that claim can't stand up and he needs to change last year's story. He now says that she just said 'later', that there were calls to the pub for her which 'prove' that others knew she was headed there (so he wasn't the only one who knew), and that he told the police all this at the time. If the police have lost the details, well, that's just silly old PC Plod for you.

When you layer in the detail that the missing stuff was discovered on the Sunday, and was not lost on Friday at either the PoW or at Mossop's (per AL's two different accounts), you do get the impression of some mysterious meeting going on there.

We've previously discussed the fact that in 1986 all phones were landline and tethered to the hallway or living room wall. If SJL wanted to have a private conversation without the lodger eavesdropping she couldn't use the landline unless he was out. On her way back from the beach on Sunday, she had a phone call to make (which AL claims was with him) but had no way of knowing if Roger the Lodger would be out when she got home. If he were in she'd have to go out again to make that call from a box, which would look odd - so she stops en route at the PoW and loses her stuff there.

I am not sure there was such a thing as an innocent escort service even in the 80s. As far as I am aware 'escort' has always been a euphemism for 'up market hooker whom you book for the night'. It's completely conceivable that SJL was doing this and in effect making a side job out of her hobby. But if so, the money would surely have left a trace?

YES, in AS book SLP talked to the landlords wife on the phone, then arranged to pick up her missing belongings that night after work, but clive tells DV he talked to SLP. DV does try to contact the wife, but she blows him out, and wont even verify if she talked to SLP that day.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

If JC did come straight out of prison and just do this, maybe it was a carjacking, ie he just wanted a car. Make an appointment with estate agent who will turn up in their car, do something to them, take the keys and voila he has a bog standard car, the same make and model that hundreds of thousands of people are driving. However, if that were the grand plan they why would he dump the car?