UK UK - Suzy Lamplugh, 25, Fulham, 28 Jul 1986 #7

[lee sumner]

I think it is now apparent what happened in this case.
The office junior took SL's car out that morning and it was left out of public view near to where it was eventually found.
When SL left the office at lunchtime she was told it was parked in the road running behind the Crocodile Tears wine bar and it was from here that she was abducted.
The Mr Kipper diary entry was done by the apparently untraceable temporary secretary sending the police to Shorrolds Road.
If the car was indeed originally parked inside the gate outside of which it was later found it would therefore have been rolled out onto the street later that day thereby sending the police to Stevenage Road.
SL's belongings would have been lifted during her Sunday trip to Worthing and then placed outside the POW pub for the temporary landlord to discover thus creating the narrative around the pub.
If the Shorrolds, Stevenage and POW pub narratives had never existed where would police have looked for SL? The last definitive sighting of her would have been leaving Sturgis that lunchtime. These 3 narratives meant that the immediate vicinity of Sturgis would never have been seriously considered as from where SL was abducted.
MOO / JMO

the secretary was kathleen reidy. she is not untraceable. it was SL who written the diary entry.

 

[lee sumner]

I don't think the police would have portrayed Sjl as a woman of many lovers unless it was necessary to put this kind of information into the public domain. However the Lamplughs had form for trying to control the press narrative too. If the papers had got hold of something salacious about sjl's life and printed it, it would have been disastrous for the image of sjl and the members of the Lamplugh family. They were strict Methodists, after all. They complained about AS's book and the portrayal of sjl, even though they'd originally endorsed it. They obtained the advice of the solicitor-to-the stars of the time, David Napley, within a couple of days of sjl's disappearance. Why? To keep the police on their toes, probably, but likely to ensure that any uncensored information about sjl and her life did not enter the public domain.

I've just re-read both AS's and DV's books and it's tempting to wonder whether the investigation WAS in fact carried out without influence from the Lamplughs. I also understand that it was DL herself who was instrumental in creating the JC narrative, either by accident or design. JMO of course.

JC himself also made himself the prime suspect by toying with the detectives on the case, and by placing the SLP initials on SB car after he abducted her. he wanted everyone to think he was the mysterious mr kipper, but there is nothing to tie him to SL, and that is why he was never charged.

 

[lee sumner]

I don't think the police would have portrayed Sjl as a woman of many lovers unless it was necessary to put this kind of information into the public domain. However the Lamplughs had form for trying to control the press narrative too. If the papers had got hold of something salacious about sjl's life and printed it, it would have been disastrous for the image of sjl and the members of the Lamplugh family. They were strict Methodists, after all. They complained about AS's book and the portrayal of sjl, even though they'd originally endorsed it. They obtained the advice of the solicitor-to-the stars of the time, David Napley, within a couple of days of sjl's disappearance. Why? To keep the police on their toes, probably, but likely to ensure that any uncensored information about sjl and her life did not enter the public domain.

I've just re-read both AS's and DV's books and it's tempting to wonder whether the investigation WAS in fact carried out without influence from the Lamplughs. I also understand that it was DL herself who was instrumental in creating the JC narrative, either by accident or design. JMO of course.

SL did have many lovers. its there in AS book on the case. I think SL told her parents little about the men in her life.

 

[Spy Versus Spy]

Still to begin the A.S book.

Have any of the original investigating Officers ever made comments in retrospect?

 

[WestLondoner]

Still to begin the A.S book.

Have any of the original investigating Officers ever made comments in retrospect?

Jim Dickie has said he's personally confident it was JC. How persuasive this is is a matter of taste.

 

[Cherwell]

Jim Dickie has said he's personally confident it was JC. How persuasive this is is a matter of taste.

To me it shows a lack of imagination. Especially considering the lines of enquiry that were left uncompleted.

 

[Eastend Eagle]

I’ve also been confused by the events in the office at the time of SJL’s departure that morning.

In the Ch 5 documentary -The vanishing of Suzy Lamplugh. It Has her colleague JC remembering SJL asking him to get her the keys to Shorrolds road. She said she was off to do a quick showing and may go for lunch.

In the October 1986 Crimewatch episode. The SJL lookalike is seen leaving the estate agents with the narrator remarking that SJL left with the keys and documents relating to 37 Shorrolds road. As was often the case with SJL, she didn’t say where she was going.

The book ‘The Suzy Lamplugh Story’ by Andrew Stephen, states that she went to pick up the keys to 37 Shorrolds road from the keyboard behind MG desk and then took the details from a drawer. She was carrying her purse too, and a ring holding the keys of her car, the office and her flat. NH recalled that as she went out the door she asked JC ‘Where did you say my car was?’ And then she was gone. There seems to have been no record of where he said the car was.
JC had been out earlier in SJL’s car taking pictures of houses for sale. Did that mean that SJL had given him the whole key ring, including the car, her house and the office keys? Or was it the case that the car keys could easily be removed from the ring.

Is it known which houses JC had been out photographing?

 

[Klclevi]

Hi Everyone hope you are well tonight . I am a newbie! I have been following this case for many years from Aus (YT etc and online but the docos are pretty old now but have read all about the death of JC ) and only just came across this website tonight . I was able to find the A.S publishing online to loan after reading the DV and CBD books . Even though that was written in 87-88 it really opens your eyes to a different side of the life of SJL. That with all the hundreds of people posts I have read today it would seem so unlikely JC was the person who did this . It just doesn’t stack up .
Thankyou everyone your posts on so many different variables of this case and info we would never hear about in Aus , to read this has been amazing and it’s 2025 this case still endures . For Suzy - its nearly 40 years missing,the answer is absolutely out there and so many of us want to bring you home to your beloved family

 

[tes1984]

Jim Dickie has said he's personally confident it was JC. How persuasive this is is a matter of taste.

That with all the hundreds of people posts I have read today it would seem so unlikely JC was the person who did this . It just doesn’t stack up

I'm certainly no fan of the initial investigation, but I'm fairly confident it was JC.

JMO though and I might be wrong, and if the Met looked at eight major suspects, then I'm curious who the other seven were

 

[Tombel]

Is it known which houses JC had been out photographing?

According to the Andrew Stephen book. JC left the office at 0945 to visit a house on Foskett road. When he returned 20 mins later, he parked SJLs car on Whittingstall road.

 

[tes1984]

According to the Andrew Stephen book. JC left the office at 0945 to visit a house on Foskett road. When he returned 20 mins later, he parked SJLs car on Whittingstall road.

Good information but I think as far as this thread is concerned, references to JC should mean John Cannan. Maybe call the other guy OJ (office junior) or something similar...

 

[Klclevi]

Just putting it out there but is it possible she may have been having an affair with MG? It certainly isn't inconceivable. Are his whereabouts fully accounted for from lunchtime to when he went to Shorrolds road? I am also assuming the details in her pocket diary or any other personal diary have never come to light anywhere?

 

[Eastend Eagle]

I’ve also been confused by the events in the office at the time of SJL’s departure that morning.

In the Ch 5 documentary -The vanishing of Suzy Lamplugh. It Has her colleague JC remembering SJL asking him to get her the keys to Shorrolds road. She said she was off to do a quick showing and may go for lunch.

In the October 1986 Crimewatch episode. The SJL lookalike is seen leaving the estate agents with the narrator remarking that SJL left with the keys and documents relating to 37 Shorrolds road. As was often the case with SJL, she didn’t say where she was going.

The book ‘The Suzy Lamplugh Story’ by Andrew Stephen, states that she went to pick up the keys to 37 Shorrolds road from the keyboard behind MG desk and then took the details from a drawer. She was carrying her purse too, and a ring holding the keys of her car, the office and her flat. NH recalled that as she went out the door she asked JC ‘Where did you say my car was?’ And then she was gone. There seems to have been no record of where he said the car was.
JC had been out earlier in SJL’s car taking pictures of houses for sale. Did that mean that SJL had given him the whole key ring, including the car, her house and the office keys? Or was it the case that the car keys could easily be removed from the ring.

There is also mention from another source (which I can’t remember) where MG recalls SJL collecting the keys to Shorrolds from the keyboard. This MG memory is also strange if he was at Crocodile Tears for lunch at the time as per the DV book.

Time will obviously distort recollections, however, the AS book and Crimewatch episodes were quite close to the event and even they have variations.
JMO

Maybe the reason for the discrepancies could be that some of SL's colleagues fed false / misleading information JMO

 

[su5ie]

I decided to step away from suzys thread as it was consuming so much of my headspace to the point I was dreaming about it and waking up to nightmares regarding her demise .

Over the last couple of months I rid myself mentally of the noise and speculated hypothesis surrounding the case.

The past week I've caught up on posts and picked up from where I left off . And I'm now back at my original thoughts which are :

There is absolutely no evidence that suzy physically left the Sturgis premises. We only have a diary entry that could be a real client or a fake alias created by suzy . We have a sighting of suzy at around 2.30 by her friend but this is called into questionable debate when we look at other possible evidence such as parking of her car and the timings of other witness accounts . And we have a mother (DL) who for whatever reason went to extreme lengths to protect either her own or suzys reputation and quite possibly muddied and misled the investigation. We also have a bungled or harangued first investigation .

Which leads me to conclude that the only bona-fide evidence that exists of that morning is that .
Suzy went to work ,we know she was there as she rang the ɓank from the office .
We know a diary entry was made to meet a Mr Kipper at 12.40 .we do not know beyond reasonable doubt this was acted upon .

We know her car was being used that morning and that it was found on Stevenage and conveniently parked outside a property that was also on sturgis books and our star witness Wendy happened to live in that house

We know suzys purse was in the car but many women leave their purse in a side pocket of a car thinking it will be safe or forgetting its there .

So we have bona-fide evidence suzys belongings were sighted but for me it's strange not one person on a busy street approaching peak lunchtime seen an allegedly really attractive suzy cross the road to Whittingstall for her car .

Through my research of sturgis staff many of the employees stayed in the property business. Some moved abroad and continued as property agents there .one person I can't trace is the office junior jc . I suspect I found the others in France ,Australia and UK.

The female staff including allegedly suzy were various shades of blonde .we know that MG and a colleague ( its not stated which gender ) went to Shorrolds Road twice to try look for suzy .MG rang DL around 4pm .we also know he was at lunch at the time suzy allegedly left the office . The clock on the wall in the office was not working so how did they know the time suzy left .imo the staff came to the conclusion due to the time in the diary .

I don't know by who or why suzy was killed .I do know she had a tangled love life and was secretive. I do know she had pulled out of a property deal and that person went bankrupt eight days after she disappeared. ( I previously posted court references)

complicated lives often end in complicated ways and I mean no disrespect in that statement. When you engage in many affairs ,human emotions such as jealousy, anger and feelings of being done up like a kipper ( pardon the pun )sometimes turns deadly as we still witness today . You cannot have your finger in that many pies without it coming to some sort of confrontation.

I feel this and this alone contributed to her demise and I feel her remains will be found by accident while building works are being carried out somewhere in the Greater London area. And I don't feel the investigation will give up any new leads unless the fingerprint on the rear view mirror is positively identified as John Cannan or someone other than the employees whom also drove her car .

Suspects for me who need more looking into are AL and sturgis staff and the man whom had suzy on his lap in that last picture of suzy . AL took nine witness statements to eliminate him from the inquiry and his main alibi was a woman friend he was having lunch with at the time He did have access to suzys missing belongings and we only have his word on the goings on between him and suzy on the Friday. We also know he did not attend the party in which suzy was last pictured sitting on another man's lap but he did know other people who attended . We do know she didn't return to London with him after the surfing trip with mutual friends.
Did party goers tell AL of her flirtation with this man at the party?. Who is the guy she is pictured with ?.Has he ever come forward ? Has he ever been named publicly ? Apparently lots of guests were at the party but surely someone invited him . It was held in a privately owned home . He hardly walked in off the street . There is also allegations of an argument happening in the sturgis offices between suzy and NH over a property. Which property was this argument over ,has this ever been established?

I don't believe the tennis date was real otherwise the police would have been told of a booking by one of the tennis clubs . club members of any sort must book a time slot so as not to be disappointed by unavailable courts ,pitches ,rooms etc . I think DL wanted police to look for her daughter by providing accounts of her supposedly having to be somewhere and prehaps to show suzy wasn't contemplating suicide as she had made plans .

Suicide is sometimes naively ruled out by families when a loved one goes missing because the loved one was in good mood or had made future plans . Sometimes a depressed person masks the feeling of despair and sometimes in hindsight it is said the person was too jolly and too enthusiastic. This can be down to the suicidal person knowing they have a plan in place to end all their suffering unfortunately.

Suicide is a sensitive subject and for those feeling despair . Please contact a professional who specialises in helping with those thoughts or confide in a friend . Your life is worth living and you are a loveable and worthwhile person . Someone is willing to help you and listen. Reach out ,it's never too late , every precieved problem is fixable and love will come your way .

 

[Eastend Eagle]

I decided to step away from suzys thread as it was consuming so much of my headspace to the point I was dreaming about it and waking up to nightmares regarding her demise .

Over the last couple of months I rid myself mentally of the noise and speculated hypothesis surrounding the case.

The past week I've caught up on posts and picked up from where I left off . And I'm now back at my original thoughts which are :

There is absolutely no evidence that suzy physically left the Sturgis premises. We only have a diary entry that could be a real client or a fake alias created by suzy . We have a sighting of suzy at around 2.30 by her friend but this is called into questionable debate when we look at other possible evidence such as parking of her car and the timings of other witness accounts . And we have a mother (DL) who for whatever reason went to extreme lengths to protect either her own or suzys reputation and quite possibly muddied and misled the investigation. We also have a bungled or harangued first investigation .

Which leads me to conclude that the only bona-fide evidence that exists of that morning is that .
Suzy went to work ,we know she was there as she rang the ɓank from the office .
We know a diary entry was made to meet a Mr Kipper at 12.40 .we do not know beyond reasonable doubt this was acted upon .

We know her car was being used that morning and that it was found on Stevenage and conveniently parked outside a property that was also on sturgis books and our star witness Wendy happened to live in that house

We know suzys purse was in the car but many women leave their purse in a side pocket of a car thinking it will be safe or forgetting its there .

So we have bona-fide evidence suzys belongings were sighted but for me it's strange not one person on a busy street approaching peak lunchtime seen an allegedly really attractive suzy cross the road to Whittingstall for her car .

Through my research of sturgis staff many of the employees stayed in the property business. Some moved abroad and continued as property agents there .one person I can't trace is the office junior jc . I suspect I found the others in France ,Australia and UK.

The female staff including allegedly suzy were various shades of blonde .we know that MG and a colleague ( its not stated which gender ) went to Shorrolds Road twice to try look for suzy .MG rang DL around 4pm .we also know he was at lunch at the time suzy allegedly left the office . The clock on the wall in the office was not working so how did they know the time suzy left .imo the staff came to the conclusion due to the time in the diary .

I don't know by who or why suzy was killed .I do know she had a tangled love life and was secretive. I do know she had pulled out of a property deal and that person went bankrupt eight days after she disappeared. ( I previously posted court references)

complicated lives often end in complicated ways and I mean no disrespect in that statement. When you engage in many affairs ,human emotions such as jealousy, anger and feelings of being done up like a kipper ( pardon the pun )sometimes turns deadly as we still witness today . You cannot have your finger in that many pies without it coming to some sort of confrontation.

I feel this and this alone contributed to her demise and I feel her remains will be found by accident while building works are being carried out somewhere in the Greater London area. And I don't feel the investigation will give up any new leads unless the fingerprint on the rear view mirror is positively identified as John Cannan or someone other than the employees whom also drove her car .

Suspects for me who need more looking into are AL and sturgis staff and the man whom had suzy on his lap in that last picture of suzy . AL took nine witness statements to eliminate him from the inquiry and his main alibi was a woman friend he was having lunch with at the time He did have access to suzys missing belongings and we only have his word on the goings on between him and suzy on the Friday. We also know he did not attend the party in which suzy was last pictured sitting on another man's lap but he did know other people who attended . We do know she didn't return to London with him after the surfing trip with mutual friends.
Did party goers tell AL of her flirtation with this man at the party?. Who is the guy she is pictured with ?.Has he ever come forward ? Has he ever been named publicly ? Apparently lots of guests were at the party but surely someone invited him . It was held in a privately owned home . He hardly walked in off the street . There is also allegations of an argument happening in the sturgis offices between suzy and NH over a property. Which property was this argument over ,has this ever been established?

I don't believe the tennis date was real otherwise the police would have been told of a booking by one of the tennis clubs . club members of any sort must book a time slot so as not to be disappointed by unavailable courts ,pitches ,rooms etc . I think DL wanted police to look for her daughter by providing accounts of her supposedly having to be somewhere and prehaps to show suzy wasn't contemplating suicide as she had made plans .

Suicide is sometimes naively ruled out by families when a loved one goes missing because the loved one was in good mood or had made future plans . Sometimes a depressed person masks the feeling of despair and sometimes in hindsight it is said the person was too jolly and too enthusiastic. This can be down to the suicidal person knowing they have a plan in place to end all their suffering unfortunately.

Suicide is a sensitive subject and for those feeling despair . Please contact a professional who specialises in helping with those thoughts or confide in a friend . Your life is worth living and you are a loveable and worthwhile person . Someone is willing to help you and listen. Reach out ,it's never too late , every precieved problem is fixable and love will come your way .

IMO SL never went to Whittingstall Road because IMO the office junior never told her the car was parked there JMO

 

[su5ie]

Has this man ever been identified publicly. It is the last known photo of suzy at the party on the Saturday

 

[WestLondoner]

Yes, he was a mate of AL's and was eliminated.

 

[Eastend Eagle]

Yes, he was a mate of AL's and was eliminated.

Do we have a name for him?

 

[su5ie]

Yes, he was a mate of AL's and was eliminated.

Do you know where the info came from ,I couldn't find a link anywhere and nothing I've read has delved into this man's identity or the fact he was eliminated thank you

It would make you wonder about the personality of AL , suzy was four timing him and in general not treating him as the steady boyfriend he portrayed in the aftermath. And in all honesty he was treated like a piece dirt if we are to believe these allegations of infidelity DL had her reasons for pushing him forward in the media as suzys boyfriend in order to give a certain image of her daughter but what we're his , bit weird!! . I think AL "borrowed " the diary tbh . I think he had a motive and the nickname Mr kipper would suit him if suzy thought he was oblivious to her other boyfriends. His dna in the car would also be disregarded .

Often when historical cases are solved it turns out it was someone who was too quickly eliminated early on in the investigation

 

[WestLondoner]

It's in AS I think. He was a wealthy expat and was rapidly eliminated. AL likewise was laboriously eliminated as an obvious step - if the police then charged anyone else, the simplest way for the defence to raise reasonable doubt would be to argue that the obvious suspect had never been properly eliminated, therefore it might have been AL.

AL would have had an awful time over this. He goes away on holiday and behaves himself, comes back looking forward to the resumption of thoroughly agreeable rolls in the hay with his babe girlfriend, and is instead unceremoniously dumped and ghosted. She goes off to a party without him on Saturday where she cops off with his mate, she goes to the coast without him on Sunday without him, and when he follows her she ignores him, and she then leaves without him.

On Monday she disappears, he's immediately roped in to account for himself (in case he murdered her) until 3am and then PL and DL manoeuvre him into posing as SJL's happily-attached significant other even though the 4-timing minx has literally just binned him. Because it's almost always the boyfriend, people he knew would have looked a bit askance at him over this and the only way to defend himself publicly would be to mention that actually he wasn't "the" boyfriend, he was just Cuck #1 of at least four. Again, not a great look. Meantime he's probably now heard from members of the clique that SJL had been planning to "de-emphasise" him, as they say in the City, for quite some time.

He's also been given a few tactical fibs to repeat, such as what a nice time he and SJL had on the Friday night at the PoW, which he later forgets so that when DV attempted to interview he denied they'd ever been to the dump. He could be forgiven if instead he had shrugged, put SJL's fate down to karma and moved decisively on. As it is, if you Google him, to this day half the links are about his work in insurance but half are about SJL. That's a lot to carry around for having been caught up in someone's life 40 years ago.