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

[Konstantin]

No one apparently recalls Suzy mentioning having lost any belongings over the weekend, but her colleagues do recall her being preoccupied with finding them on the Monday morning. Together with AL’s claim about never having visiting the pub, and the relief landlord’s claim that he found these items outside of the pub on the Sunday night, the evidence suggests they became lost - not stolen - on the Sunday, rather than the Friday.

There was a phone box just outside the pub right nearby the picnic benches where the pub temp landlord says he found SJL's diary, chequebook and postcard. So they could have dropped there if she sat down there to wait to use the call box on the Sunday after she had visited her parents. She may well have wanted to make calls out of the earshot of her flatmate. I think that's a good theory for how her items came to be there.

There are rumours but actually zero evidence that JC ever went to the PoW. It wasn't the sort of place SJL went to, it was a bit of a dingy old man's pub in 1986 by all accounts.

 

[RichardKimble]

There was a phone box just outside the pub right nearby the picnic benches where the pub temp landlord says he found SJL's diary, chequebook and postcard. So they could have dropped there if she sat down there to wait to use the call box on the Sunday after she had visited her parents. She may well have wanted to make calls out of the earshot of her flatmate. I think that's a good theory for how her items came to be there.

There are rumours but actually zero evidence that JC ever went to the PoW. It wasn't the sort of place SJL went to, it was a bit of a dingy old man's pub in 1986 by all accounts.

If the theory of flowers and champagne is JC then that's a place he's unlikely to visit also.

 

[WestLondoner]

I'm not sure it was a dodgy old man's pub in mid-86. MB, the full time landlord, told DV it had been radically done up and was taking good money. It was also used as a training pub, which argues that it was a bit of a model, rather than a dive.

AL said in a documentary around that time that he and SJL went to the pub on the Friday and she lost her stuff then. This cannot be true I'd they never went there, as he now says. Either way it seems clear she did go there, just maybe not with him.

The claim to have spoken to her on Sunday night and not knowing who rang whom is tosh, IMO. First, they'd been at the beach all day so why couldn't whatever needed to be discussed have been discussed then? And secondly, in 1986 you called landline to landline and you could tell the call was from a payphone from the background noise and the pips when money got low. How did either of them know where to reach the other unless both were at home?

For my money AL fibbed about all this to spare DL's feelings. SJL binned him on Friday and ignored him all weekend. If she spoke to him on Sunday it was to tell him to cotton on and stop bl00dy following her around; a call she woukd nit have wanted to make with Roger the Lodger eavesdropping.

DL's understanding of 'boyfriend' was almost certainly 'bloke she knows socially', not the 80s sense of 'sleeps with'.

 

[Konstantin]

I'm not sure it was a dodgy old man's pub in mid-86. MB, the full time landlord, told DV it had been radically done up and was taking good money. It was also used as a training pub, which argues that it was a bit of a model, rather than a dive.

That's very interesting. So SJL might have gone there socially then, perhaps not with AL. Especially as convenient for home.

The claim to have spoken to her on Sunday night and not knowing who rang whom is tosh

I've always thought that was AL bluffing because he was clearly in love with her or strong feelings and she'd seen him on Friday after him being away but apparently they'd not spent the night which tells you a lot about their relationship or lack of. Then she'd cold shouldered him all weekend.

Either there was no phone call and he'd said there was to spare himself the embarrassment of admitting he'd been dumped or to avoid the police thinking he had a motive to off her, or he knows exactly who called who. He couldn't have called her unless she was at home.

 

[SteveH]

Respectfully if people are going to make assertions about other people making false allegations they better get their story straight. Of course this is something that Cannan could never do.

A contributor said earlier: "Respectfully, if people are going to discuss an author’s views, I think it’s reasonable to suggest that they read their work first. Nowhere in DV’s book does he claim to ‘believe’ Cannan’s alibi."

Yet the same contributor said on 24 August: "DV says Cannan could account for his movements:" If DV didn't "believe" Cannan's story/alibi what in earth does this sentence mean? Or did the contributor themselves misrepresent DV?

However they kindly provided a link to a piece in which Videcette himself spoke:

"Cannan provided alibi witnesses to the police, which were accepted during the 1980s and through to the mid-nineties. But then in 2000, after these witnesses had passed away, the police decided that these witnesses were no longer suitable and began questioning the evidence that those alibi witnesses would have provided.

“I went right back to the beginning and investigated the case from the bottom up. Because my five-year investigation reaches a completely different conclusion as to what happened to Suzy and where she went on the afternoon she disappeared, along with uncovering a wealth of supporting evidence to this effect, I can say that I do not believe John Cannan was involved in her disappearance."

Suspect in disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh should not have been named - Property Industry Eye

Suspect in disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh should not have been named - Breaking news for estate agents and the residential property industry. Independent, unbiased, and factual reporting. A forum for discussion and debate of topics of the day. Subscribe for our free daily newsletter.

propertyindustryeye.com

Then on 22 September the same contributor wrote:

"From DV’s book (chapter 64):

We were particularly interested in Cannan’s whereabouts around the time Suzy had gone missing. We asked Cannan about his alibi and what he said next was rather interesting:

“My mother and I provided the Met with my simple alibi for 28 July 1986. We were in Birmingham nearly all day on Monday, 28 July. Had the Met acted quicker, my sister and brother-in-law would have provided 100 per cent watertight corroboration. Both, sadly, are now dead. What I do remember well is how frustrated and surprised we felt by the pedestrian pace of the Met to interview us all.”

DV later writes:

Back in the summer of 1990, following renewed media pressure about the case, the police had gone back to Cannan again and interviewed him at length over the summer months. They’d spoken with several people in the Birmingham area who’d confirmed that they had seen Cannan in the West Midlands on the day Suzy went missing. By September 1990, police said that no further questioning was planned, and by October 1990, police were adamant that there was no evidence to support a charge.

To say Cannan had selective amnesia doesn’t really seem fair."

In 2019 Videcette whinged to the Daily Mail:

"'I believe that I know who killed Suzy Lamplugh.

'I've named that person to the police. He is alive well and at large, and has remained at large for the last 30 years.

'Who knows what he's been doing in that time.'...

'They've had this information for over a month and they've dragged their heels.

'The Met's a massive organisation and I don't understand why they've got a live named suspect with all his details and they won't do anything about it.'"

Retired detective says he knows who killed Suzy Lamplugh

Retired Met detective David Videcette conducted a three-year re- investigation and believes prime suspect, convicted killer John Cannan, is innocent of the 1986 murder of Suzy Lamplugh.

www.dailymail.co.uk

They've had his information for over six years now - boy, that's REALLY dragging their heels if there is anything whatsoever to support Videcette's allegations. You know, like evidence. The Met must get crazy theories about this or that incident foisted on them multiple times everyday.

Name me ONE serious researcher who has said anything positive about Videcette's claims.

I am not going to waste my time reading a book by someone who is patently a charlatan. I can remember seeing an interview with David Icke once and he said that if a person hasn't read all his books they can't evaluate or criticize his views. Okay, so I suppose I now have to read his entire canon before I can say that he "believes that an inter-dimensional race of reptilian beings called the Archons have hijacked the earth and are stopping humanity from realising its true potential". Actually I think I'll just take Wikipedia's word for it thanks.