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

[RichardKimble]

IIRC when Cannan "confessed" to killing SJL, it was in the context of his bull5hit claim that someone else had killed SB, and that same person had also killed SJL. That person was "Hodgeson", the bloke who he claimed had sold him SB's car. That was his account of how he came to have it in his garage. This person was an invention of his, which the police established very easily. Cannan had said he bought the car off "Hodgeson" at an auction site, so the police said OK, describe the layout of the site. He couldn't, of course, never having been there.

So the question is whether in his dim way he thought he could divert police attention to the made-up "Hodgeson" by associating some high profile crime with him. Perhaps he thought if he did that, the police would get all excited and would lose interest in him as they investigated this blind alley.

What actually happened, when he said the man who had killed SB was the also the one who had killed SJL, was the police replied "Was that you?" Obnoxio the Clown reflexively said "Yes", then realised what he'd done and then hastily said "No".

So this doesn't really prove anything, but increasingly I wonder if the stuff that persuades police that JC did it and that is never made public is material that incriminated - maybe even named - him back in 1986 and that was overlooked. If so, the police have an exquisite dilemma of knowing who did it, but being unable to say how they know, without discrediting themselves. After all, if it was Cannan and he could have been nicked back in 1986, that failure cost SB her life.

BIB, but that evidence would never go away.

 

[Terryb808]

IIRC when Cannan "confessed" to killing SJL, it was in the context of his bull5hit claim that someone else had killed SB, and that same person had also killed SJL. That person was "Hodgeson", the bloke who he claimed had sold him SB's car. That was his account of how he came to have it in his garage. This person was an invention of his, which the police established very easily. Cannan had said he bought the car off "Hodgeson" at an auction site, so the police said OK, describe the layout of the site. He couldn't, of course, never having been there.

So the question is whether in his dim way he thought he could divert police attention to the made-up "Hodgeson" by associating some high profile crime with him. Perhaps he thought if he did that, the police would get all excited and would lose interest in him as they investigated this blind alley.

What actually happened, when he said the man who had killed SB was the also the one who had killed SJL, was the police replied "Was that you?" Obnoxio the Clown reflexively said "Yes", then realised what he'd done and then hastily said "No".

So this doesn't really prove anything, but increasingly I wonder if the stuff that persuades police that JC did it and that is never made public is material that incriminated - maybe even named - him back in 1986 and that was overlooked. If so, the police have an exquisite dilemma of knowing who did it, but being unable to say how they know, without discrediting themselves. After all, if it was Cannan and he could have been nicked back in 1986, that failure cost SB her life.

I really think this is the case, the police know they seriously missed vital clues and as you say can prove that to themselves.

In particular the recent posts by LSW contains all the circumstantial links to JC that AFAIK are in the public domain.

Whatever evidence the police have that’s not in the public domain would add to this.
Given that JC is never going to be prosecuted anyway, all that’s happening now appears to be a police face saving exercise.

 

[WestLondoner]

BIB, but that evidence would never go away.

Indeed, but maybe they don't want to use it or put it out there.

My scepticism about JC's involvement comes from the fact that he was accused by newspapers in 1989 and added to the official case in 2000. All the "evidence" presented against him appears to have been gathered 14 years after the fact further to that cold case review, and is largely hearsay. That is clearly a preposterous basis on which to ID him as the only suspect, but it's all we're given. The police arguments that - e.g. - there's no evidence SJL went to the PoW are disingenuous. Of course there isn't - it would have been themselves gathering it. In 1986, no such evidence was sought - the insta-narrative was all around Shorrolds, and since then, JC.

If the stuff linking JC to this really did arise to that extent in 1986, then it's massively more persuasive. It is both soon after the actual time, so less likely to be misremembered, and crucially, long before his name was mentioned, so less likely to be just made up. It's not just the product of bored people and wags watching true crime documentaries.

So when JD says he's personally confident that JC had access to a black BMW, what that possibly unpacks into is

"I am personally confident - because a known associate of JC told me - that he had the use of a black LHD 3-series BMW. This associate lent it to JC and remembers JC using that day because he annoyingly disappeared with it for hours. Because we abandoned attempts at tracing LHD BMWs in 1986, we never located the owner, or realised its owner was a criminal, or found the car, or did the forensics that would have put JC and SJL in it on that day. So that's how we never established 37 years ago that JC had access to a black BMW".

The only bit JD can bring himself to say out loud is the bit in bold: I am personally confident that JC had access to a black BMW. Well, yes you are, but obviously you can't say why.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

If JC enjoys playing games and getting attention as much as people speculate, then since he's not ever going to be released, would he not now start playing cat and mouse or drip feeding clues as to the whereabouts of SJL *if* he was involved with her disappearance / murder? He strikes me as the sort of person who would try to negotiate for improved conditions or such if he confesses to unsolved crimes.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

JC had a criminal associate ‘friend’ with access to a red sierra in May 86 approx, in fact he apparently picked up the HP payments on it when this friend couldn’t afford to do so.

The BMW outside Shorrolds wasn’t proven LHD as far as I know, was blue, from memory, & extremely well kept, showroom/collector standard. Noticeable & relatively rare. Older type.

The jogger who saw the arguing couple in the car, couldn’t work out how the woman could be raging so much, arms moving about, etc & in driving seat, as he says in a doc, it never occurred to him it was a LHD!

He apparently DID report the sighting at time to a pop up police station in Stevenage Rd. Presumably not though that it was a LHD. JD rightly points out it’s possible this wasn’t escalated or reported accurately at time.

They digitised all the cards with evidence at time around 2000 I believe, did anyone with granular knowledge from earliest days look & take note within that context? Without the hyper focus on Shorrolds & Stevenage & what might link to JC?

Much of the later circumstantial evidence I think came from DL flagging & recalling a Bristol connection.

I am not sure there is a lot of evidence pointing to JC out of public domain, beyond 2000 later memories etc. Phoebus was only about ruling JC IN or OUT l believe. That would support SA, a very respected officer, being very doubtful about -
any clear evidence pointing to JC, however, in the end even he had to agree with those convinced of JC’s guilt.

To my mind what JC actually has said on SL is the most compelling evidence & his behaviour when questioned around this subject.

JD is convinced, I think, JC dumped SL into canal on early hours, Thurs 1st Aug, so where was he/she between Mon & Thurs? & where was the black LHD BMW? When was JC’s alibi re: being at his mother’s house, more solid & provable If he couldn’t clearly account for Monday, what about rest of week?

 

[Terryb808]

Indeed, but maybe they don't want to use it or put it out there.

My scepticism about JC's involvement comes from the fact that he was accused by newspapers in 1989 and added to the official case in 2000. All the "evidence" presented against him appears to have been gathered 14 years after the fact further to that cold case review, and is largely hearsay. That is clearly a preposterous basis on which to ID him as the only suspect, but it's all we're given. The police arguments that - e.g. - there's no evidence SJL went to the PoW are disingenuous. Of course there isn't - it would have been themselves gathering it. In 1986, no such evidence was sought - the insta-narrative was all around Shorrolds, and since then, JC.

If the stuff linking JC to this really did arise to that extent in 1986, then it's massively more persuasive. It is both soon after the actual time, so less likely to be misremembered, and crucially, long before his name was mentioned, so less likely to be just made up. It's not just the product of bored people and wags watching true crime documentaries.

So when JD says he's personally confident that JC had access to a black BMW, what that possibly unpacks into is

"I am personally confident - because a known associate of JC told me - that he had the use of a black LHD 3-series BMW. This associate lent it to JC and remembers JC using that day because he annoyingly disappeared with it for hours. Because we abandoned attempts at tracing LHD BMWs in 1986, we never located the owner, or realised its owner was a criminal, or found the car, or did the forensics that would have put JC and SJL in it on that day. So that's how we never established 37 years ago that JC had access to a black BMW".

The only bit JD can bring himself to say out loud is the bit in bold: I am personally confident that JC had access to a black BMW. Well, yes you are, but obviously you can't say why.

The police have given up tracing the entries in SJL’s diary, JC may have been one under one of his preferred other names.
They also never look at recent released sex offender from prisons within the London area.
No wonder they missed any evidence in 1986 that would have link JC to SJL.
Maybe JD knows all this and that’s the main reason he’s “personally confident”. Old loyalty I think on his part.

 

[Terryb808]

JC had a criminal associate ‘friend’ with access to a red sierra in May 86 approx, in fact he apparently picked up the HP payments on it when this friend couldn’t afford to do so.

The BMW outside Shorrolds wasn’t proven LHD as far as I know, was blue, from memory, & extremely well kept, showroom/collector standard. Noticeable & relatively rare. Older type.

The jogger who saw the arguing couple in the car, couldn’t work out how the woman could be raging so much, arms moving about, etc & in driving seat, as he says in a doc, it never occurred to him it was a LHD!

He apparently DID report the sighting at time to a pop up police station in Stevenage Rd. Presumably not though that it was a LHD. JD rightly points out it’s possible this wasn’t escalated or reported accurately at time.

They digitised all the cards with evidence at time around 2000 I believe, did anyone with granular knowledge from earliest days look & take note within that context? Without the hyper focus on Shorrolds & Stevenage & what might link to JC?

Much of the later circumstantial evidence I think came from DL flagging & recalling a Bristol connection.

I am not sure there is a lot of evidence pointing to JC out of public domain, beyond 2000 later memories etc. Phoebus was only about ruling JC IN or OUT l believe. That would support SA, a very respected officer, being very doubtful about -
any clear evidence pointing to JC, however, in the end even he had to agree with those convinced of JC’s guilt.

To my mind what JC actually has said on SL is the most compelling evidence & his behaviour when questioned around this subject.

JD is convinced, I think, JC dumped SL into canal on early hours, Thurs 1st Aug, so where was he/she between Mon & Thurs? & where was the black LHD BMW? When was JC’s alibi re: being at his mother’s house, more solid & provable If he couldn’t clearly account for Monday, what about rest of week?

If JC was the mysterious man witnessed by the lorry driver on that Thursday morning and it was SJL in the suitcase, nothing will remain for the police to find.

The police said they searched the canal as part of another enquiry, however, that part of the canal is the Brent river.
It’s deeper than a normal canal would be, so it’s possible that debris would not foul on passing boat traffic.

On this basis JC has nothing to bargain with, after over 30 years IMO the police would find no trace.
Also, given his record for telling stories they’re not going to believe him.
If they don’t take a former colleague (DV) seriously, what chance has JC with yet another story to try and get parole.

 

[WestLondoner]

I'm not an expert on psychopaths, although I am sure the wife's sister is one. But it does seem clear Cannan is one, and as such, what he probably enjoys is a feeling of knowing something others don't, that he has got away with something, and is being talked about. When you're spending your life in prison, eating prison food, wearing prison clothes and not having any visitors, that's probably as good as it gets.

He could possibly, like Ian Brady, try to trade information for an improvement in conditions but is surely unlikely to be able to get out of prison thereby. The law isn't going to say, We let out X because he showed how he murdered someone. If X murdered someone, that's going to ensure he stays inside.

 

[RichardKimble]

I'm not an expert on psychopaths, although I am sure the wife's sister is one. But it does seem clear Cannan is one, and as such, what he probably enjoys is a feeling of knowing something others don't, that he has got away with something, and is being talked about. When you're spending your life in prison, eating prison food, wearing prison clothes and not having any visitors, that's probably as good as it gets.

He could possibly, like Ian Brady, try to trade information for an improvement in conditions but is surely unlikely to be able to get out of prison thereby. The law isn't going to say, We let out X because he showed how he murdered someone. If X murdered someone, that's going to ensure he stays inside.

Brady always played with Winnie Johnson never revealing where K Bennett was buried, maybe if JC did for SJL he'll play the case, the same.Come what may he's the one according to the MET ,so his name is forever linked.

 

[lee sumner]

He’s not exactly being clever is he. Why bring two other crimes into the equation.
The old saying applies “when in a hole, stop digging “
It does make you think DD Mike Barley was on the money when he said JC was responsible, all the circumstantial evidence supports his conclusion.

what this story JC told some kind of confession. did he know it would not be enough to charge him with SL abduction/murder. DS barley thinks it is, me not so sure.

 

[lee sumner]

what this story JC told some kind of confession. did he know it would not be enough to charge him with SL abduction/murder. DS barley thinks it is, me not so sure.

the SLP initials on SB car, and the story he told to DS mike barley. did JC want people to know he had abducted and killed SL. he knew the CPS would never charge him.

 

[lee sumner]

He’s not exactly being clever is he. Why bring two other crimes into the equation.
The old saying applies “when in a hole, stop digging “
It does make you think DD Mike Barley was on the money when he said JC was responsible, all the circumstantial evidence supports his conclusion.

did JC know the CPS would never charge him.

 

[Terryb808]

did JC know the CPS would never charge him.

I think that very much depends on the standard of his legal advice, assuming he had a lawyer present at the time.

 

[WestLondoner]

It's important to remember how very very dim JC is.

His account of himself in the SB investigation was that he'd bought her car off a bloke and that bloke was their man. In fact, that man was probably the one who did in SJL too, see?

So the crafty plod says Was that man you, then? And JC, wrongfooted by the brilliance of this unexpected question, says Yes. Er, I mean No.

Clown.

The issue for JC in admitting to killing SJL is that if he did so, he'd be tried, would get a new life sentence, and would start that sentence beginning now - 34 years into the existing one. It would not be backdated to 1989 so that he could get out early from both. He'd be in for a further minimum tariff starting now. This is why, if you're charged with something and you did it, your best bet is to admit to everything else immediately. That way, even if you get another sentence, they're at least all running at the same time. If you chance not doing so and hope to get away with the other crimes, you risk being convicted later and starting new sentences.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

It's important to remember how very very dim JC is.

His account of himself in the SB investigation was that he'd bought her car off a bloke and that bloke was their man. In fact, that man was probably the one who did in SJL too, see?

So the crafty plod says Was that man you, then? And JC, wrongfooted by the brilliance of this unexpected question, says Yes. Er, I mean No.

Clown.

The issue for JC in admitting to killing SJL is that if he did so, he'd be tried, would get a new life sentence, and would start that sentence beginning now - 34 years into the existing one. It would not be backdated to 1989 so that he could get out early from both. He'd be in for a further minimum tariff starting now. This is why, if you're charged with something and you did it, your best bet is to admit to everything else immediately. That way, even if you get another sentence, they're at least all running at the same time. If you chance not doing so and hope to get away with the other crimes, you risk being convicted later and starting new sentences.

Since JC isn't going anywhere now, *if* he did this to SJL - surely it wouldn't take much for a forensic psychologist / psychiatrist to coax it out of him, if he's as dim as people suggest. He's got nothing to lose. Also he seems to have been quite the negative attention seeker, possibly he may revel in being all 'current'.

For someone like him, a lifer, for murders and rapes of women, would there be negative consequences for him in prison if he did suddenly speak up? From other prisoners?

Also if the police are really really going with JC being the murderer, then what did he do with SJL's body? I'm not wholly convinced by the canal theory as I honestly don't believe a body in a suitcase would just melt away into a canal never to be seen again and no body parts or skeleton. Maybe if the canal is dredged and all the detritus was taken to a crusher or incinerator en masse there'd be nothing to ever find. But wow wouldn't that mean he got a bit lucky and wouldn't some people have seen him acting oddly moving things around? It's not like he lived in a vacuum.

 

[RichardKimble]

I think that very much depends on the standard of his legal advice, assuming he had a lawyer present at the time.

Wasn't there an interview where JC wasn't cautioned .

 

[RichardKimble]

Since JC isn't going anywhere now, *if* he did this to SJL - surely it wouldn't take much for a forensic psychologist / psychiatrist to coax it out of him, if he's as dim as people suggest. He's got nothing to lose. Also he seems to have been quite the negative attention seeker, possibly he may revel in being all 'current'.

For someone like him, a lifer, for murders and rapes of women, would there be negative consequences for him in prison if he did suddenly speak up? From other prisoners?

Also if the police are really really going with JC being the murderer, then what did he do with SJL's body? I'm not wholly convinced by the canal theory as I honestly don't believe a body in a suitcase would just melt away into a canal never to be seen again and no body parts or skeleton. Maybe if the canal is dredged and all the detritus was taken to a crusher or incinerator en masse there'd be nothing to ever find. But wow wouldn't that mean he got a bit lucky and wouldn't some people have seen him acting oddly moving things around? It's not like he lived in a vacuum.

Just watched Killer at the crime scene, Libby Squires murder CH5, they pretty much knew who killed her, but with no body the prosecution wouldn't go to the cps, the body turned up by a stroke of luck , it was discovered on the Humber estuary, one more tide it would have been lost forever.Just a thought that the Thames is/was close by.

 

[lee sumner]

Since JC isn't going anywhere now, *if* he did this to SJL - surely it wouldn't take much for a forensic psychologist / psychiatrist to coax it out of him, if he's as dim as people suggest. He's got nothing to lose. Also he seems to have been quite the negative attention seeker, possibly he may revel in being all 'current'.

For someone like him, a lifer, for murders and rapes of women, would there be negative consequences for him in prison if he did suddenly speak up? From other prisoners?

Also if the police are really really going with JC being the murderer, then what did he do with SJL's body? I'm not wholly convinced by the canal theory as I honestly don't believe a body in a suitcase would just melt away into a canal never to be seen again and no body parts or skeleton. Maybe if the canal is dredged and all the detritus was taken to a crusher or incinerator en masse there'd be nothing to ever find. But wow wouldn't that mean he got a bit lucky and wouldn't some people have seen him acting oddly moving things around? It's not like he lived in a vacuum.

canal theory is total BS.

 

[Terryb808]

canal theory is total BS.

You’re basically saying the Mets JD & Professor DW were totally taken in by an unsubstantiated second hand account.
JD did say that he could find no evidence that the lorry driver reported it back in the 80’s, or even at all.
Apart from that we have no idea what the mystery person was supposedly wheeling in the shopping trolly, case or hold-all. What material it was made from (which will dictate how quickly it degrades in water).
The canal (at the time) was dredged approximately every 5 years, and the contents dumped at a convenient point somewhere along the canal (this changed later).
The supposed deposition site is most likely the river Brent and not the canal, this is deeper than the canal and probably wouldn’t have caused any issue with passing boat traffic.
As was pointed in an earlier post if this was JC, then he was just very lucky in his choice of site.
The location is fairly local to where he may have had a site to hold SJL. The day that was picked by the lorry driver is the day after a key press conference and would have made SJL (if being held) too hot to handle.
Like most things in this case there’s no actual evidence to support any of it.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

A completely reckless murderer with zero 'underworld' life contacts manages to dispose of an entire body that is never found? I'm not buying it.

IMO either she really is on the railway banking or something happened at the PoW vicinity -or- someone knew exactly how to ensure she will never be found and had the time, resources, and access to whatever / however to make sure of that. Whether she's buried in the foundations of a building site or six foot under in someone's back garden, they had capacity to think about it not act rashly.