UK UK - Suzy Lamplugh, 25, Fulham, 28 Jul 1986 #8

[RichardKimble]

The upshot of it all is , its well documented the CPS said that JC and SJL could not be placed together and with out a body there would not be a prospect of a trial nothing in any podcast yrs down the line will ever alter this, JC may well have done for SJL, but without the definitive answer it may well be/ have been any other. So find the body and work from there.imo

 

[rvlvr]

I could not believe it when Martin Brunt said that about 'lover' in front of her mother! Her name was Jean Bradford. I nearly fell off my chair. Surely these guys would get these facts correct in 2025.

There are several inconsistences also in Part 1 - Martin said she had an appointment at 4pm that she had missed - this is not in the diary and I have not heard of this before.

What I find frustrating is the questions are along the same old same old and so are the responses. Where is the detail and the validation of why - whats backing up these statements? Why aren't they asking different questions?

Why don't they know where JC was staying the Friday Saturday , Sunday before? He wasn't staying on the street.

Why does he actually think she is at Norton Barracks, just because of the conversation with GP in the car? He wasn't known to bury bodies.

Where is the Ford Fiesta today? The red Sierra? Are they still in storage? Are Suzys diaries back with her family or still in police hands?

The BW sighting flabbergasts me - its like it has just been dismissed and means nothing when actually that is massive.

Why weren't the flowers tracked back to which florist delivered them ? What about the phone calls she was receiving

Why wasn't the business venture with the couple investigated?

Why aren't they talking about these details? She had a conversation with an ex boyfriend at a wedding ONE MONTH prior to her disappearing where she actually told him she was seeing someone that was "unobtainable". Who was this person? Was JH (the ex bf from the QE2 ) talked to in more detail about this conversation? I am sure the context of that conversation was not just light hearted banter, it suggests she was in a relationship she wanted but ultimately could not have. That means he was married.

It is because they do not know. MB is saying it himself. They only know three things really - 39 years later.

I really had hoped this podcast might have shed some new light - and yes it had a few tidbits of things but nothing really new.

So many questions.

Indeed. My frustration with this type of content is they have a platform, an opportunity to prod and probe, to elicit information that might fill in some of the very many gaps you’ve pointed out, or to even simply highlight those gaps in the first place (isn’t this stuff journalism 101?), yet they never do.

 

[WestLondoner]

The issue with the Brunt podcast is that as is now typical it goes straight from SJL to JC without passing Go. There is never any attempt to go back to 1986 and relook at the case from scratch. The police themselves, when they reluctantly reinvestigated in 1999-2000, didn't do so either. They took the previously list of people considered, added Cannan, re-eliminated the first lot again and were left with Cannan; QED.

The only person to do this properly since 1986 has been DV. I don't count whack jobs like CMcGH, who deployed his microwave repair skills and love of ferrets to deduce that Mr Kipper was Fred West's brother John because John West = tinned fish and kippers are fish. So DV deserves some credit for going back and questioning everything. Where many of us depart from DV is that in effect, once he had arrived at his own view, he went on to commit in its support many of the same offences against logic that he exposes in the SJL investigation.

They and he were all trained by the Met, so maybe we should not be too surprised by this. But in no particular order he fails to acknowledge the BW sighting, the wealthy yet imminently bankrupt couple, the remarkable personal life of SJL, the unknown person putting pressure on her over a property deal, and - most obviously - the impossibility of his own suggested solution. He does not show the PoW was all but empty, he does not show why anyone would kill her there, he does not show why anyone would cover up an accident, he does not ask himself whether the blowfly infestation he thinks significant might actually be common around pubs and their huge bins, and he doesn't explain how the pub managed to lower the floor in the 1990s without anyone noticing a body underneath.

Probably there is no solution, but this case is no different to any other true crime case in that regard, so I don't see there's anything especially discreditable in being interested in it, or even writing books about it.

What the SJL case does have as an unusual feature is an astonishingly p155p00r original investigation. This lays it wide open to alternative lines of thought; hence these threads. The publicly-made police case against Cannan is based largely on complete and prejuducial tosh compiled 14 years after the fact, and smacks of a fit-up as a result. There is a much better case against Cannan, based on an informant's information in 1999. But you never hear this made because it's clear from it that Cannan could have been arrested within a few weeks had the police been up to their job.

So although the case has probably been solved, the enduring fascination here is that it doesn't feel like it has. That's because we're not hearing the real case, because it's so embarrassing.

 

[tes1984]

Can anyone point me to some info on the Birmingham "House For Sale" rapist? I can't seem to find anything online on this series of cases. I'd like to know exactly why people say it couldn't have been Cannan,. even if it has absolutely no bearing on the SL disappearance.

There's not much information about the House for sale rapist. FWIR he was a very mobile offender and was suspected to have used a motorcycle.

I don't remember there being anything to really rule JC in or out for these attacks.

 

[tes1984]

The HFS rapist was described as aroumd 40 years old, 5ft9 to 6ft tall, with fair hair, clean shaven with a round face, and stockily built.

He bound and gagged his victims, and robbed their houses after he had raped them.

 

[tes1984]

In November 1987, JC is arrested for an attempted kidnapping in Bristol from the day before Shirley Banks disappeared.

Shirley's handbag was found near to JC's flat in Bristol. Avon and Somerset Police interviewed local sex offenders and soon found Shirley's car in JC's garage.

Chief Superintendent Jim Byrne of West Midlands Police said the man in custody was not connected to the house for sale rapes in 1979-80.

Scotland Yard detectives visited Bristol but said there were no plans to interview the man in connection with the disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh.

 

[WestLondoner]

In the late 70s when the HFSR was active Cannan was in his early 20s - 21, 22.

Chief Superintendent Jim Byrne of West Midlands Police said the man in custody was not connected to the house for sale rapes in 1979-80.

Which has not stopped the Met insinuating otherwise for 25 years.

 

[tes1984]

JC was put on an identity parade and picked out by his Bristol victim, but perhaps the Birmingham victims failed to pick him out as the Houses For Sale rapist.

 

[WestLondoner]

JC was put on an identity parade and picked out by his Bristol victim, but perhaps the Birmingham victims failed to pick him out as the Houses For Sale rapist.

They'd struggle to do so given that he was 20 years younger, dark rather than blond, slim rather than stocky and definitely not 6' tall.

If they'd got HR onto it he would probably have agreed the HFSR was a dead ringer for Mr Kipper.

 

[tes1984]

In the late 70s when the HFSR was active Cannan was in his early 20s - 21, 22.

Chief Superintendent Jim Byrne of West Midlands Police said the man in custody was not connected to the house for sale rapes in 1979-80.

Which has not stopped the Met insinuating otherwise for 25 years.

I wonder why anyone suggested a link in 1987 in the first place.

 

[rvlvr]

It’s strange how little has been written over the years about the HFS rapes, the only time I think I’ve read anything about them is in the context of Cannan. The Bristol rapes (‘Batman rapist’) seem oddly unknown generally, but this series feels almost completely forgotten, they seem to exist only to act as a footnote to another crime (which, imo, I doubt they’re even related to).

It’d be interesting to know where exactly in Birmingham these attacks took place. I don’t think rape kits were a thing back in the 70s? But I wonder if any sort of forensic evidence exists today. I’d imagine many of the victims are now deceased, sadly.

 

[tes1984]

In one July 1980 newspaper article he is described as in his 30s, dressed in distinctive motorcycle gear, with victims in Kenilworth, Aldridge, Tamworth and Brambling.

 

[rvlvr]

Interesting, he covered a pretty wide area then, these are more Warwickshire and Staffordshire way, than Birmingham. I guess the motorbike came in handy. Michael Sams was a bike guy wasn’t he?

 

[SteveH]

This 2002 C5 doc seems to be one of the main sources for later media reports linking Cannan to the House For Sale rapist:

(from 7 mins 2 secs)

It is certainly the source for the section on the House For Sale rapist on John Cannan's Wikipedia page - "Detectives would later note that the offences of the House for Sale Rapist bore all the hallmarks of Cannan's later crimes and also noted the similarities to the disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh, who herself was an estate agent."

 

[tes1984]

Some offenders are very versatile, but I'm not really seeing how the HFS rapes are particularly similar to JC's known crimes.

The documentary suggests that the rapes stopped when JC started a new relationship. That's possible, but a simpler explanation might be that the rapist stopped once the attacks were linked and his sketch and description appeared in the papers.

 

[tes1984]

It’s strange how little has been written over the years about the HFS rapes, the only time I think I’ve read anything about them is in the context of Cannan. The Bristol rapes (‘Batman rapist’) seem oddly unknown generally, but this series feels almost completely forgotten, they seem to exist only to act as a footnote to another crime (which, imo, I doubt they’re even related to).

The HFS rapes have definitely been ignored. A bit like the Green Chain rapes, with Robert Napper in the JC role of prime and only suspect.

The Batman rapist had 16 victims, yet as you say is relatively unknown.
The House For Sale rapist is linked in the documentary with over 20 victims.
IIRC with the Green Chain rapist they were talking about way, way more than 20 victims.

 

[WestLondoner]

It is certainly the source for the section on the House For Sale rapist on John Cannan's Wikipedia page - "Detectives would later note that the offences of the House for Sale Rapist bore all the hallmarks of Cannan's later crimes and also noted the similarities to the disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh, who herself was an estate agent."

Cannan's later crimes were an assault on his girlfriend, two rapes and a murder. There weren't any shared hallmarks that I can see. One occurred inside his house, one rape was in a shop and another in a car, and we don't know the circumstances of SB's death or whether she was raped. The HFSR's victims were female homeowners who were alone when he turned up unannounced and attacked them. SJL was not the homeowner and someone booked a meeting with her.

It would be an interesting thriller plot if someone used a time machine to escape justice. I'm sure it's been done though.

 

[WestLondoner]

In one July 1980 newspaper article he is described as in his 30s, dressed in distinctive motorcycle gear, with victims in Kenilworth, Aldridge, Tamworth and Brambling.

These are distributed in a wide arc around Birmingham, but aside from Aldridge, none of these places is really in Birmingham proper. Kenilworth is Warwickshire, Aldridge is north on the way to Lichfield, Tamworth is off north-east. I've no idea where Brambling is. They're not exactly handy for Sutton Coldfield, where Cannan's mother lived.

 

[RichardKimble]

JCs DNA would be on file,was there not one piece of DNA evidence left at the crime scenes or on the rape victims?

 

[rvlvr]

Some offenders are very versatile, but I'm not really seeing how the HFS rapes are particularly similar to JC's known crimes.

The documentary suggests that the rapes stopped when JC started a new relationship. That's possible, but a simpler explanation might be that the rapist stopped once the attacks were linked and his sketch and description appeared in the papers.

Sams, on the surface, seems a much better fit for these crimes, imo. Would’ve been about the right age, used a motorbike, travelled far and wide (kidnapped Julie Dart in Leeds, dumped her body near Grantham, kidnapped Stephanie Slater in Birmingham, had attempted a kidnap in similar circumstances in Crewe), his hair appears very dark when he was caught in 1991 though it looks dyed to me, perhaps it was lighter in his youth. But even then I’m far from convinced.

I suppose if pressed on the issue police would tell us it was Cannan because he once visited the national motorcycle museum or had a Harley Davidson calendar in his cell. Slam dunk!