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

[Lady Stoddart-West]

Very odd, especially as he saw the hat on the parcel shelf, a man in a suit and woman not to treat this information as important?

He also said the man was smart in a suit & woman smart which was why they stood out.

 

[lee sumner]

Hi Claire, and welcome to the boards!

What a fascinating post indeed.

What's interesting about that address, is that it's less than 150 yards away from SL's 6pm appointment at 43 Waldemar Avenue, which is just around the corner and is the street than runs parallel to Dorncliffe Road.

Here's the Google Street view link to the house; 10 Dorncliffe Road.

As you mention, the basement flat is accessible via the pathway to the left hand side of the building (as you look at it.)

Street View · Google Maps

Explore a place in a more immersive way in Google Maps.

maps.app.goo.gl

The Wormwood Scrubs connection is also particularly fascinating.

It does make me wonder if SL had at some point got out of her car to go and join the suited Mr Kipper via that side pathway?

If the sighting at Dorncliffe Road took place earlier, then it may be less relevant to her demise, but IF the sighting was later on in the day, then could SL have been attacked, drugged, and then murdered in that basement?

The killer could then have driven the Fiesta away from Dorncliffe Road and driven the car back to Stevenage Road to park it opposite the Sturgis property at 123 Stevenage Road.

I believe that if this sighting is indeed correct, that it may be a crucial piece of the puzzle.

Do you know roughly what time of the day the sighting occurred?

I also wonder whether the drugs connection may have been another aspect of the case that has been overlooked.

Recreational drug use at that time was popular amongst the "yuppies" in London; those who worked a 9 to 5 during the week, and then got high on hard drugs at the weekends.

Was SL somehow involved in all of that stuff?

What an absolutely fascinating post indeed!

i have just got clean. i recently come off heroin, and can tell you its not a recreational drug. it is a opiate. very addictive.

 

[kes1972]

i believe the plan was to ditch the car on stevenage rd across the road from the large yellow sturgis for sale sign. that cant be a coincidence. that location was chosen in advance.

Agree , if pow involved this location is the perfect choice opposite side ot the river at furthest point away with s nice quiet walk back most likely unnoticed,

the WHY is not as important as, WHEN and HOW.

if we believe both then sl never was in her car, there can be no other answer than she was not at 37sr, it is one or the other if sl was at s7 sr then not in her car.

 

[lee sumner]

It seems to me that once the police ruled out the 2.45pm sighting by BW of SL driving her Fiesta up Fulham Palace Road, they then dismissed or discounted any other sighting, because they believed the Fiesta had stayed stationary in Stevenage Road the entire time.

And it's precisely this p**s poor policing that tends to lend itself to scores and scores of solvable murder cases becoming cold cases.

Aside from lack of definitive evidence; poor policing procedure is the 2nd biggest reason for many cases becoming cold.

However, as I've said previously; I believe that the Fiesta was MOVED and then driven back and parked up in the SAME spot in Stevenage Road. This occurred sometime between 2pm and 3.30pm; ergo, THIS is the abduction window.

At 2.45pm SL is alive and well.

The sighting in Dorncliffe Road then occurs during the SAME time frame; ergo, between 2pm and 3.30pm.

By the time the car is then parked BACK in Stevenage Road at 3.30pm, SL has been abducted. And the reason why the car is then parked BACK in Stevenage Road?

Because it acts as the perfect distraction and misdirection.

The police spent so much time trying to work around the car being parked in Stevenage Road, they didn't consider that the abduction occurred just AFTER BW saw SL driving up Fulham Palace Road.

BW was the ONLY witness on that day from 12.30pm who actually KNEW SL.

BW's sighting is the most reliable source, and yet the police chose to favour the sightings made by the 3 MEN in Shorrolds Road?

I think that may speak for itself. A hint of misogyny perhaps?

It wouldn't surprise me.

it cant be misogyny because they took WJ statement as nothing but the truth.

 

[lee sumner]

Agree , if pow involved this location is the perfect choice opposite side ot the river at furthest point away with s nice quiet walk back most likely unnoticed,

if we believe both then sl never was in her car, there can be no other answer than she was not at 37sr, it is one or the other if sl was at s7 sr then not in her car.

or WJ is mistaken about the car being on stevenage rd at 1240PM, and i believe she was mistaken. i think SL went to 37SR.

 

[Rookie D]

This is the e-fit of the Thames Towpath sex attacker, who committed multiple attacks on women.

On July 7th 1986, he threatened a woman jogger with a cut-throat razor close to Barnes Common, which is located directly opposite Stevenage road on the opposite side of the river.

Here is the article relating to him...

What's interesting here, is the similar descriptions...

Considering the Mr Kipper was similar in appearance to the Thames Towpath attacker, did the police alter the various e-fits to tie in with their beliefs?

A form of confirmation bias?

Was the Thames Towpath attacker caught?

Could he have been Mr Kipper?

 

[kes1972]

Very odd, especially as he saw the hat on the parcel shelf, a man in a suit and woman not to treat this information as important?

Angry??

 

[kes1972]

or WJ is mistaken about the car being on stevenage rd at 1240PM, and i believe she was mistaken. i think SL went to 37SR.

Again a possible as her bank timing did not really allow enough time to be correct.

 

[Clairybums]

i think your father seen a couple who were scoring drugs, heroin. this would explain why his info was not given top priority by detective carter and his team. if people were in and out of there all the time, it was probably drug addicts scoring off the dealer that lived there.

Definitely this was not the case. The people who came to the basement flat were not well dressed and were obvious drug users. They would hang about outside waiting for the neighbour to get their fix. This 'couple' were different which was what caught my father's attention in the first place and I use the word 'couple' because I imagine that for all my father would have known at this time, they might possibly be a couple. I have just got off the phone with my brother after over an hour of picking his brains. He was living at our father's house at the time and had to listen to him going over and over what he had seen so was able to fill in more accurate detail, which I will explain. Firstly, my father recognised the woman shown as the same woman he had seen when the news broke about SL being a missing person. He was 100 percent sure of this fact. What my brother relayed to me was that our father had described seeing the white car parked up on the opposite side of the road from number 10 in front of the black garage gates facing the direction of Hestercombe Avenue. Almost directly opposite my father's house was a house where an old polish man lived. To the left of the polish man's house as you look at it, there was a private garage which I think was blue gates, this belonged to the polish man. To the left of the blue garage was another older looking set of gates to another private garage which were black and I believe belonged to the end house or the first house as you turn right onto Hestercombe Avenue. I am going from my own memory of how it it looked back then. My father also described the straw looking hat on the parcel shelf of the hatchback car. He wasn't able to name the make of car. He also wouldn't have been able to see the hat on the back shelf if the car had been facing towards Fulham Road. My brother was not able to remember whether our father mentioned SL getting out of the car but I have to assume she did get out as he wouldn't have been able to get a good enough look at her had she not got out. There was no mention of her seeming distressed at this point and I'm sure my father would've said so if he thought she had been. This was all told to my brother at the time when he saw her picture appear on the news as a missing person as well as the fact that the dark haired man wearing a suit had got out of the car and gone down the alley in the direction of the basement flat. This was before the car was recovered too. When the news showed the photos (by the way, I have to add that I had previously thought it was camera film footage but my brother thinks in the first instance that he remembers photos being shown). At the point when my father saw the car being recovered he jumped out of his chair and shouted "thats the car!" It's at this time that my brother actually started to really take notice of what our father was telling him. My father was what I would describe as a type A personality. When something was important to him and when he knew he was right about something, he was like a dog with a bone. This haunted him and angered him for the rest of his life because he had tried to help.

My brother and I discussed the possible scenarios like how come she didn't just drive off after the man got out of the car? Perhaps he took the car key out of the ignition so she couldn't. What if she thought she was in over her head with this guy? Could she have just run off? Maybe she didn't feel in danger at this time or maybe she considered leaving the car there but reconsidered at it was a company car. So many possibilities.

With the clarification of the position of the car, I now believe that it's more probable that they turned onto Dorncliffe Road from Fulham Road and then departed by turning either left or right and then back up either Waldemar Avenue or Durrell Road, both of which were accessible and then right turn onto Fulham Road in the direction of FPRoad.

Let me just reiterate that I 100% trust my father's sighting was that of SL and have tried to explain things as best I can from mine and my brother's recollection. As I previously said, my brother lived at our father's house and had heard the story repeated over and over to him. No doubt it would be more vivid and more detailed than what I gathered from my visits. My father didn’t constantly bang on about it every minute but whenever he did talk about it, he was so angry. Justice was not done for SL, she is still missing, I just hope and pray that her family that's left will get closure and that I'm alive to witness that.

 

[GTB72]

or WJ is mistaken about the car being on stevenage rd at 1240PM, and i believe she was mistaken. i think SL went to 37SR.

Is it not possible for both to be correct? Ergo, SJL could have driven to Stevenage Road and then been picked up there and driven to 37 Shorrolds Road? In the original Crimewatch reconstruction they said that there were no sightings of Suzy's car in Shorrolds Road whereas there are 3 potential physical sightings of her and Kipper there.

.

 

[Clairybums]

iam working class. did not take any exams because i played truant all the time. education is important, i just did not realise this at the time. i was very immature.

Like many of us back then, I'm sure.

 

[Rookie D]

Outside 123 Stevenage Road after SL has disappeared...

Outside 123 Stevenage Road on Monday 4th August 1986. One week to the day after SL disappeared...

So, where's the Sturgis sign gone?


Note that the cream and maroon red coloured sign is there in Both shots, but the bright yellow Sturgis sign has gone.

Did MG sell it within a week of SL's disappearance?


It makes one wonder whether he was in a rush to sell it, and if so, who bought it from WJ?

Whomever the buyer, they must have visited 123 Stevenage Road at some point close to SL's disappearance, and MG must have also been in Stevenage Road to meet his client for the sale of the property at the same time.

Regardless of when this viewing occurred, the Sturgis sign outside the property had been taken down within a week of the disappearance of SL.

Intriguing.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

@Clairybums, great detail. You think between 2pm-3pm for cars arrival (?) & as Dad didn’t see it leave, no sense of how long there? Thanks.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

SL was buying a house with a man, who never came forward, in a deal with strings attached that may have involved address fraud. Her parents kept this from the police initially.

She spoke to her father ‘about it’ (the deal) “at some length” - he is hardly going to have encouraged what, frankly, sounded shady. He may well have made her reconsider.

It formed part of the last conversation with her parents. I think their caution may have meant she withdrew completely on the Monday. If she owed money, she’d cancelled her chequebook.

Her Uncle too spoke of someone putting her under pressure.

Could this tie in to this visit @Clairybums describes? Was this ‘deal with strings’ more criminal than she realised? She needed to tell someone she was ‘out’?

 

[Clairybums]

Hi @Clairybums and welcome!

Thank you for such interesting & thoughtful posts & additions to the thread.

I have a personal interest in the case & have been researching for many years.

Below is the last photograph of SL taken on Sat 26th July 1986 at a 21st Birthday in Surrey. Even accounting for bad lighting SL is a subtle blonde at best. It was shown on Crimewatch & verified as the last ever photo.

Witnesses at Shorrolds Road were puzzled as said the woman they saw was very blonde. Your father’s statement/observation matches theirs. This is very interesting.

There are those that believe 37 Shorrolds was a rendezvous & not a viewing. There are those that think she (SL) was never there at all. What seems not to be in dispute is someone was outside or in the vicinity, likely a man & woman & that woman was blonde enough for the average man to notice.

I haven’t had time to fully absorb all your posts, but will do now. Have you read AS’s ‘The Suzy Lamplugh Story?’ 1988.

Thank you LSW!

I thought I messaged your dm and now I cant see the message. Either theres a glitch and it will appear or I've managed to somehow not press the send. If it's the latter I will have to sleep before doing another as I have been awake 2 days now. I became so engrossed in reading I couldnt put my phone down.

I guess everyone would have their own thoughts as to how they would describe hair colour. I don't have any insight to share at to my father's interpretation of what he saw. Myself and my siblings were all varying shades of what I would call dark or darkish brown, my sister being the lightest shade and me being the darkest (almost black looking). Our mother and father were also dark. Maybe his thinking was based on that. I don't even think he was phased by the hair colour in the photo that was initially shown as he recognised her face. He could have easily been thrown by that photo and said brown hair but he stuck to his truth of what he remembered. I don't remember any extra detail or description from him as to how blonde, I.e. light blonde or dark blonde.

I have to admit that I have not read any books, only what I have read online and documentaries I have watched. I will have to remedy that as soon as I can. I will get onto that ASAP. I have a few birthdays coming up in the next week or so (2 granddaughters and my 60th). Actually, I may request this book as a present. Please feel free to recommend any others that would be worth a read. I'm currently playing catchup with everyone here who have mountains of knowledge on the subject. I might also see what, if anything I can find (info and/or old newspaper articles) with my FMP and ancestry subscriptions. But I will sleep first and start fresh.

 

[kes1972]

Outside 123 Stevenage Road after SL has disappeared...


View attachment 652090



Outside 123 Stevenage Road on Monday 4th August 1986. One week to the day after SL disappeared...


View attachment 652093


So, where's the Sturgis sign gone?


Note that the cream and maroon red coloured sign is there in Both shots, but the bright yellow Sturgis sign has gone.

Did MG sell it within a week of SL's disappearance?


It makes one wonder whether he was in a rush to sell it, and if so, who bought it from WJ?

Whomever the buyer, they must have visited 123 Stevenage Road at some point close to SL's disappearance, and MG must have also been in Stevenage Road to meet his client for the sale of the property at the same time.

Regardless of when this viewing occurred, the Sturgis sign outside the property had been taken down within a week of the disappearance of SL.

Intriguing.

Very good point there, was this address ever forensically checked as being so close to sl car and for sale at the time?

 

[Rookie D]

Definitely this was not the case. The people who came to the basement flat were not well dressed and were obvious drug users. They would hang about outside waiting for the neighbour to get their fix. This 'couple' were different which was what caught my father's attention in the first place and I use the word 'couple' because I imagine that for all my father would have known at this time, they might possibly be a couple. I have just got off the phone with my brother after over an hour of picking his brains. He was living at our father's house at the time and had to listen to him going over and over what he had seen so was able to fill in more accurate detail, which I will explain. Firstly, my father recognised the woman shown as the same woman he had seen when the news broke about SL being a missing person. He was 100 percent sure of this fact. What my brother relayed to me was that our father had described seeing the white car parked up on the opposite side of the road from number 10 in front of the black garage gates facing the direction of Hestercombe Avenue. Almost directly opposite my father's house was a house where an old polish man lived. To the left of the polish man's house as you look at it, there was a private garage which I think was blue gates, this belonged to the polish man. To the left of the blue garage was another older looking set of gates to another private garage which were black and I believe belonged to the end house or the first house as you turn right onto Hestercombe Avenue. I am going from my own memory of how it it looked back then. My father also described the straw looking hat on the parcel shelf of the hatchback car. He wasn't able to name the make of car. He also wouldn't have been able to see the hat on the back shelf if the car had been facing towards Fulham Road. My brother was not able to remember whether our father mentioned SL getting out of the car but I have to assume she did get out as he wouldn't have been able to get a good enough look at her had she not got out. There was no mention of her seeming distressed at this point and I'm sure my father would've said so if he thought she had been. This was all told to my brother at the time when he saw her picture appear on the news as a missing person as well as the fact that the dark haired man wearing a suit had got out of the car and gone down the alley in the direction of the basement flat. This was before the car was recovered too. When the news showed the photos (by the way, I have to add that I had previously thought it was camera film footage but my brother thinks in the first instance that he remembers photos being shown). At the point when my father saw the car being recovered he jumped out of his chair and shouted "thats the car!" It's at this time that my brother actually started to really take notice of what our father was telling him. My father was what I would describe as a type A personality. When something was important to him and when he knew he was right about something, he was like a dog with a bone. This haunted him and angered him for the rest of his life because he had tried to help.

My brother and I discussed the possible scenarios like how come she didn't just drive off after the man got out of the car? Perhaps he took the car key out of the ignition so she couldn't. What if she thought she was in over her head with this guy? Could she have just run off? Maybe she didn't feel in danger at this time or maybe she considered leaving the car there but reconsidered at it was a company car. So many possibilities.

With the clarification of the position of the car, I now believe that it's more probable that they turned onto Dorncliffe Road from Fulham Road and then departed by turning either left or right and then back up either Waldemar Avenue or Durrell Road, both of which were accessible and then right turn onto Fulham Road in the direction of FPRoad.

Let me just reiterate that I 100% trust my father's sighting was that of SL and have tried to explain things as best I can from mine and my brother's recollection. As I previously said, my brother lived at our father's house and had heard the story repeated over and over to him. No doubt it would be more vivid and more detailed than what I gathered from my visits. My father didn’t constantly bang on about it every minute but whenever he did talk about it, he was so angry. Justice was not done for SL, she is still missing, I just hope and pray that her family that's left will get closure and that I'm alive to witness that.

What an excellent post!

Some intriguing insights there that warrant acknowledgement.


May I ask one query that I do have; are you certain that the car was seen facing away from Fulham Road?

I say this because SL's hat was placed on the right side of the shelf at the rear of the car, and would therefore be significantly more difficult to observe from your Father's vantage point from the first floor flat window, than it would have been if the car was facing the other way; ergo, towards Fulham Road.

Also, if the car is facing Fulham Road, then SL never needs to get out of the car, as she could be seen sitting in the driver's seat. I say this because being able to see a passenger from the flat window and the car facing away from the main road, it then means that the driver would be located on the far side of the road, and be far more difficult to recognise.

Of course, if you are certain that the car was indeed facing away from Fulham Road and parked up on the other side of the road, then I guess that SL must have got out of the car in order for your father to be able to identify her correctly.


Lots more to discuss here I think.