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

[lee sumner]

If Suzy can be shown to have never been at the PoW that day then I agree, DV’s *conclusion* will have been conclusively disproven. It wouldn’t alter the reliability of the *evidence* he uncovered prior to reaching that conclusion, though - the two things imo are obviously quite separate. No need to throw the baby out with the bath water, as they say.

This case is as much about Mr Kipper as it is Suzy Lamplugh. DV’s research provides a decent basis for us to conclude that Mr Kipper very possibly didn’t exist - at least not in the form of a murderous cold-calling pseudo-house viewer, anyway. And that conclusion can still be correct even if Suzy isn’t buried at or near the pub.

I wonder which bit of the West Midlands the Met will fruitlessly dig up next year at taxpayers’ expense to mark the 40th anniversary?

i think DV just made the case more complicated. i dont believe SL faked the appointment that day. why would she when her lunch break was at 1PM. she can go anywhere she wants at 1PM with 30 MINS to spare. i also think she took the keys and paperwork to 37 shorrolds rd.

 

[WestLondoner]

The case that could have been made against Cannan goes back to 1986. Had the police looked at what sex offenders had been released, say, that year, from the three local prisons - Wandsworth, Wormwood, Brixton - they'd have had a list of 100 possibles (4,000 rape convictions a year implies 80 jailed and also 80 released per week; those three prisons held about 2% of the prison population; so that year they must have released about 160 of them, so about 80 to 100 by the end of July).

They then get those people to say where they were. Prison authorities would be able identify associates, so JT gets interviewed to see if he can support Cannan's account of what he supposedly did that day. JT can't, JC has not yet concocted an alibi and so Star Road gets forensicated and JC taken in probably that week.

This was all possible off what was knowable in 1986 and the timeline and geography take you straight to JC. No fanciful sightings from 14 years later required. This, of course, is not the case you're going to want to make in 2000 if you're the Met - had they done these quite obvious things, then would would likely have stopped a rape and a murder and solved the SJL case.

 

[lee sumner]

Has anyone ever asked PSS directly about SJL? Given the nature and scope of her work, there mustve been times where the discussive nature of problems/emotions required openess and honesty, which couldve left her in a position where someone would feel possibly able to do so. Her response wouldve been v telling.

iam baffled at why if SL was such a close friend of hers why has she never done a single interview about her. like you said, given the nature of her work you would think she would have talked about SL, but she never has. no media interviews in nearly 4 decades is odd.

 

[Kasparthecat1]

According to Wiki it’s in Christopher Berry-Dee’s book about Cannan, which I confess I’ve not read. If the Met had anything that could link Cannan to Suzy they’d be shouting it from the rooftops imo, it’s also interesting I think that whereas the media are usually happy to repeat the dubious claim that Cannan’s prison nickname was Kipper for instance, they seem very reluctant to regurgitate CBD’s ‘evidence’ regarding the DNA - I get the feeling it’s widely accepted as

Yeah true ....oh Finding suzy got real interesting at the halfway mark...the temp manager at POWs wife refusing to talk to them ......really intriguing .....did LE look into this theory post the book's publication.....

I think the book is an entertaining read (if that's your thing) but DV, to me, is ramping up drama for the sake of it, and disses stuff that doesn't fit his narrative. The books reads more like a novel than serious research, with himself as the avenging crimesolver and his partner as his faithful, dogged sidekick. He ignores BW's "sighting" completely, he undermines WJ - not just to undermine her, but to make her look foolish. He goes out of his way to make CV look dodgy, and his ex-wife too; he makes a drama out of his aborted meeting with AL.

If DV had turned up on my doorstep wanting to discuss a 40 year old unsolved disappearance I think I'd tell him where to stuff his research too. .

I think he makes some interesting points, especially around the behaviour of the Lamplughs and the pursuit of Cannan, but I find his conclusion rather hard to believe, personally.

 

[Kasparthecat1]

Strangulation with minimal force and without beating the victim does not look like something furious Cannan would do. This guy was brutal.

Yeah he's brutal, in the crimes we know about. But if Sandra was incapacitated through drink, perhaps she was unable to put up a fight. Not much force needed, perhaps. And there was that weird letter to the press - perhaps heavily disguised - which smacks of the kind of thing JC may do. And Sandra was dumped in water (as was SB) so useful evidence may have been washed away.

I think she may have rejected his advances and he killed her in anger.

And, depending what sources you read, the dna found in the Sierra was thought to be Sandra's, not Sjl's (but probably fitting millions of other people too, so pretty useless as evidence).
However one still has to believe that security at the Scrubs Hostel was so lax that it allowed for JC to be out and not missed overnight.

Not sure if anyone else has ever been in the frame.

 

[Konstantin]

I think the book is an entertaining read (if that's your thing) but DV, to me, is ramping up drama for the sake of it, and disses stuff that doesn't fit his narrative. The books reads more like a novel than serious research, with himself as the avenging crimesolver and his partner as his faithful, dogged sidekick. He ignores BW's "sighting" completely, he undermines WJ - not just to undermine her, but to make her look foolish. He goes out of his way to make CV look dodgy, and his ex-wife too; he makes a drama out of his aborted meeting with AL.

I don't think he realises how he comes across, tbh, which is quite narcissistic in my view.

He is unpleasant to both AL and WJ and not very nice either to SF; and also to the landlady of the bloke he thought was the eyewitness who he got off the electoral roll (but went on a bit about his clever detection methods).

Reading his account of his interview with AL, it is clear he upset him and it is not really surprising he walked out.

 

[Konstantin]

I wonder if, even if the Met had managed to make a list of local sex offenders in 1986, they still would not have got to JC because as the CPS pointed out there is nothing to show that he and SJL ever met.

I suppose there might have been some opportunity to explore if they had ever crossed paths back in 1986, but who knows, she was very secretive and none of her friends said they had seen her with a man looking like the efit of Kipper.

It does point to the abductor being someone she knew, somehow, so probably the best place to start looking would be her diary/address book.

 

[Hexe]

Yeah he's brutal, in the crimes we know about. But if Sandra was incapacitated through drink, perhaps she was unable to put up a fight. Not much force needed, perhaps.

[CUT]

I think she may have rejected his advances and he killed her in anger.

Either he was brutal, or he was not. Strangulation with minimal force does not look like an intentonal killing, commited by a brutal angry perpetrator.

 

[Kasparthecat1]

[CUT]


Either he was brutal, or he was not. Strangulation with minimal force does not look like an intentonal killing, commited by a brutal angry

i think DV is a conspiracy nut. the landlord of the POW was filling in, so he was being trained on how to run the pub, yet DV wants us to believe the landlord would use the pub to dispose of SL body. to use the pub as a deposition site

I wonder if she was abducted, or if she willingly gave him a lift back to Clifton.

So many oddities in this case. I suppose we'll never know the answers...I think it's possible that SB and JC may have been known to each other - both lived in/close to Clifton, both frequented the Avon Gorge Hotel. I read somewhere that Richard, SB's husband , recognised JC from there.

I've always assumed, because SB's driver door was broken, that she was carjacked against her will and could not escape. But now I'm not so sure. JC lived in a block of flats. How did he manage to keep SB quiet overnight? How did he get her into his flat without disturbing the neighbours? And out again, the following morning, in daylight? We know she rang her work in the morning. So she was alive at that point. So when did she die, exactly? Was she alive still on the 40 mile journey to Dead Womans Ditch? Once there, how did JC get her out of his car to where she was dumped without being seen?

SB was identified by remnants of the dress she'd bought in Debenhams the night before. At some time she must've changed her clothes. Why?

She

 

[rvlvr]

It’s easy to theorise how Cannan, having been caught almost red handed in ‘81 (he was always a fairly sloppy offender), spends his days inside ruminating on his misfortune and hatching a plan to make sure that won’t happen again. Would he have wanted some sort of accomplice? Probably not in my view, but maybe all the pretty yuppie women kicking about London in late spring, early summer ‘86 were too much for him to resist, he needs a property in which he won’t be disturbed and that’s where his pal comes in - WL covers this well. He sees the for sale sign at 37SR - which as WL has explained isn’t far from his pal’s place - and calls Sturgis, arranges a viewing and decides to abduct whatever female agent turns up. And the rest as they say is history. He tries repeating the trick in Bristol in ‘87 with Shirley Banks, but without an accomplice to keep him right his typical sloppiness ultimately proves his undoing.

I’m not so convinced that police could’ve nailed him in ‘86 though. Cannan can say he’s up in Birmingham and his mum will back him up. So now what? It was a simpler time and considerably harder to prove when people were lying about their movements. If they say he’s a rapist ergo he must be a liar then the same must be true for all the other rapists, perverts and weirdos without watertight alibis who would’ve been knocking about Fulham that summer. Tracing all their associates in a bid to corroborate their movements would be an arduous task too, and of course these associates - like Cannan’s pal - would also likely be criminals of some sort, so everything they say must be viewed with skepticism also. It’s easy to see how such an investigation would become bogged down and lose its focus.

 

[rvlvr]

So many oddities in this case. I suppose we'll never know the answers...I think it's possible that SB and JC may have been known to each other - both lived in/close to Clifton, both frequented the Avon Gorge Hotel. I read somewhere that Richard, SB's husband , recognised JC from there.

I've always assumed, because SB's driver door was broken, that she was carjacked against her will and could not escape. But now I'm not so sure. JC lived in a block of flats. How did he manage to keep SB quiet overnight? How did he get her into his flat without disturbing the neighbours? And out again, the following morning, in daylight? We know she rang her work in the morning. So she was alive at that point. So when did she die, exactly? Was she alive still on the 40 mile journey to Dead Womans Ditch? Once there, how did JC get her out of his car to where she was dumped without being seen?

SB was identified by remnants of the dress she'd bought in Debenhams the night before. At some time she must've changed her clothes. Why?

She

Some excellent points here. I’ve always thought Cannan must’ve had other victims and for me the Sandra Court case looks a good fit (better imo than the SL one) though by no means is it a slam dunk, and I’m quite prepared to be wrong about that.

It’s possible to theorise that initially he didn’t intend to kill Shirley, that he didn’t have much of a plan at all - with all the stuff happening re the solicitor he was likely not in a good place mentally (not to mention financially) and perhaps he didn’t really think it through beyond the abduction and rape phase. It’s just as easy to see this, imo, as the work of a serial rapist who finally took things too far, culminating in his only murder, rather than the work of a serial killer.

 

[WestLondoner]

He sees the for sale sign at 37SR - which as WL has explained isn’t far from his pal’s place - and calls Sturgis, arranges a viewing and decides to abduct whatever female agent turns up.

Hadn't thought of this but it strikes me as quite plausible. If the women in the reconstruction are the actual people who were there on 28/7/86, then all of them are young and all of them pleasant-looking. He could have figured yeah, any of them would be fine, and if it's a bloke, try again elsewhere.

I’m not so convinced that police could’ve nailed him in ‘86 though. Cannan can say he’s up in Birmingham and his mum will back him up. ....Tracing all their associates in a bid to corroborate their movements would be an arduous task

All true, but I suggest it essentially because what they actually did was even more arduous while also far less likely to be productive: they tried to identify every male contact who was in Fulham that day. So this was a lot more people, none of whom is a known offender of this type; they're all lawyers and surveyors and accountants and whatnot. If you can't eliminate 50 of them what would make you suspect #17 more than #45? Sure enough, this did not work.

What they could have done is interrogate some of these alibis more thoroughly at the outset, using then-available information to check them. For instance, did the 100 ex-cons draw money from a cashpoint? Did they phone anyone? Did they park a car anywhere? What street? - checkable (if done soon) stuff like that which could put some men further away than others and hence render them less interesting.

If Cannan did this his alibi would likely have collapsed quite quickly, as would the later lies about never having been to Fulham. It's also been reported that in 1986 other EAs said they too had been contacted by a Mr Kipper - if so, had they ever met him? I.e. Cannan could have been put on an ID parade in August 1986. If a POI, then the police could look at known associates. An inquiry at the prison would have told them about Taggart, as indeed might the Southampton car park stub Cannan still had the following year. An inquiry at Superhire would have surfaced the co-workers who later turned up on TV. And so on. Yes, it's a lot of work, but is it more work than what they actually did instead?

 

[lee sumner]

So many oddities in this case. I suppose we'll never know the answers...I think it's possible that SB and JC may have been known to each other - both lived in/close to Clifton, both frequented the Avon Gorge Hotel. I read somewhere that Richard, SB's husband , recognised JC from there.

I've always assumed, because SB's driver door was broken, that she was carjacked against her will and could not escape. But now I'm not so sure. JC lived in a block of flats. How did he manage to keep SB quiet overnight? How did he get her into his flat without disturbing the neighbours? And out again, the following morning, in daylight? We know she rang her work in the morning. So she was alive at that point. So when did she die, exactly? Was she alive still on the 40 mile journey to Dead Womans Ditch? Once there, how did JC get her out of his car to where she was dumped without being seen?

SB was identified by remnants of the dress she'd bought in Debenhams the night before. At some time she must've changed her clothes. Why?

She

JC forced her to wear the dress she purchased from debenhams. he wanted to sex assault her in the dress.

 

[lee sumner]

It’s easy to theorise how Cannan, having been caught almost red handed in ‘81 (he was always a fairly sloppy offender), spends his days inside ruminating on his misfortune and hatching a plan to make sure that won’t happen again. Would he have wanted some sort of accomplice? Probably not in my view, but maybe all the pretty yuppie women kicking about London in late spring, early summer ‘86 were too much for him to resist, he needs a property in which he won’t be disturbed and that’s where his pal comes in - WL covers this well. He sees the for sale sign at 37SR - which as WL has explained isn’t far from his pal’s place - and calls Sturgis, arranges a viewing and decides to abduct whatever female agent turns up. And the rest as they say is history. He tries repeating the trick in Bristol in ‘87 with Shirley Banks, but without an accomplice to keep him right his typical sloppiness ultimately proves his undoing.

I’m not so convinced that police could’ve nailed him in ‘86 though. Cannan can say he’s up in Birmingham and his mum will back him up. So now what? It was a simpler time and considerably harder to prove when people were lying about their movements. If they say he’s a rapist ergo he must be a liar then the same must be true for all the other rapists, perverts and weirdos without watertight alibis who would’ve been knocking about Fulham that summer. Tracing all their associates in a bid to corroborate their movements would be an arduous task too, and of course these associates - like Cannan’s pal - would also likely be criminals of some sort, so everything they say must be viewed with skepticism also. It’s easy to see how such an investigation would become bogged down and lose its focus.

its interesting. JC was placed in the scrubs release hostel in jan 86 because the parole board put him there. JC wanted to go to a release hostel in the midlands near his mother, but his request was refused because the woman he raped in 1981 lived close by. so he was not planning on being in london. he had no choice but to accept the placement. this makes me think he did not abduct SL.

 

[WestLondoner]

BTW, for good order's sake I should mention that Taggart's flat was on the corner of Sun Road and Star Road. I occasionally use the wrong road because I am not sure which is the right road.

Here's the link if anyone's interested.

10 Star Rd to 37 Shorrolds Rd

www.google.co.uk

It's described as a 15-minute walk but I walk at a fairly average pace and do most Google Maps' walks in 2/3rds of the time they say. So 10 minutes, really.

Here's the walk between Star Road and 123SR; again, for most this would be a walk of about 20 mins or less.

10 Star Rd to 123 Stevenage Rd

www.google.co.uk

 

[WestLondoner]

its interesting. JC was placed in the scrubs release hostel in jan 86 because the parole board put him there. JC wanted to go to a release hostel in the midlands near his mother, but his request was refused because the woman he raped in 1981 lived close by. so he was not planning on being in london. he had no choice but to accept the placement. this makes me think he did not abduct SL.

Not sure I follow your logic. JC was an opportunist; he'd offend anywhere he could, wouldn't he?

I rate JC as 70% likely to be the perp here, but I am sure SJL had met her attacker before and I still don't know where SJL and Cannan had met. She does not* strike me as the sort who picked up blokes out of wine bars and even if she did she was surely with a mate when she "pulled"; yet none of her mates knew of JC then or now, and even since he's been accused, not one of her contacts has come forward to say "JC had some sort of prior business dealings with SJL". If he knew her, he arrived and left without trace.

* edit: not

 

[RichardKimble]

Not sure I follow your logic. JC was an opportunist; he'd offend anywhere he could, wouldn't he?

I rate JC as 70% likely to be the perp here and but I am sure SJL had met her attacker before and I still don't know where SJL and Cannan had met. She does strike me as the sort who picked up blokes out of wine bars and even if she did she was surely with a mate when she "pulled"; yet none of her mates knew of JC then or now, and even since he's been accused, not one of her contacts has come forward to say "JC had some sort of prior business dealings with SJL". If he knew her, he arrived and left without trace.

That's a problem imo with the JC did it, with SB even it didn't lead to him initially her husband said he was known to them or at least seen in the pub if I recall, no one has come forward to say they saw JC and SJL together.

 

[lee sumner]

Not sure I follow your logic. JC was an opportunist; he'd offend anywhere he could, wouldn't he?

I rate JC as 70% likely to be the perp here, but I am sure SJL had met her attacker before and I still don't know where SJL and Cannan had met. She does not* strike me as the sort who picked up blokes out of wine bars and even if she did she was surely with a mate when she "pulled"; yet none of her mates knew of JC then or now, and even since he's been accused, not one of her contacts has come forward to say "JC had some sort of prior business dealings with SJL". If he knew her, he arrived and left without trace.

* edit: not

what i mean is he was not planning on hanging around london looking for an woman to abduct. he wanted to go straight home to his mothers, which makes me wonder did he do that.

 

[lee sumner]

Not sure I follow your logic. JC was an opportunist; he'd offend anywhere he could, wouldn't he?

I rate JC as 70% likely to be the perp here, but I am sure SJL had met her attacker before and I still don't know where SJL and Cannan had met. She does not* strike me as the sort who picked up blokes out of wine bars and even if she did she was surely with a mate when she "pulled"; yet none of her mates knew of JC then or now, and even since he's been accused, not one of her contacts has come forward to say "JC had some sort of prior business dealings with SJL". If he knew her, he arrived and left without trace.

* edit: not

JC was opportunist offender, but looking at the logistics of SL disappearance. it looks to me to have been well planned. maybe SL was not the target, any female estate agent was.

 

[lee sumner]

So many oddities in this case. I suppose we'll never know the answers...I think it's possible that SB and JC may have been known to each other - both lived in/close to Clifton, both frequented the Avon Gorge Hotel. I read somewhere that Richard, SB's husband , recognised JC from there.

I've always assumed, because SB's driver door was broken, that she was carjacked against her will and could not escape. But now I'm not so sure. JC lived in a block of flats. How did he manage to keep SB quiet overnight? How did he get her into his flat without disturbing the neighbours? And out again, the following morning, in daylight? We know she rang her work in the morning. So she was alive at that point. So when did she die, exactly? Was she alive still on the 40 mile journey to Dead Womans Ditch? Once there, how did JC get her out of his car to where she was dumped without being seen?

SB was identified by remnants of the dress she'd bought in Debenhams the night before. At some time she must've changed her clothes. Why?

She

SB was probably scared to death. compliant. that is how he got her back to foye house.