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

[Konstantin]

In 1982, 26 year old Stephen Morris from Bolton was convicted of three 1981 'house for sale' rapes - in Heywood, Rochdale and Manchester. In one attack he threatened to harm young children.

Morris seems to have been a mobile offender, travelling 10-20 miles to commit his rapes. I can't find any mention of motorbikes though, and he seems a bit on the young side to be the offender from a year or two earlier.

The 1981 rapes are also around 80-95 miles from the 1979-80 series, and I haven't been able to link Morris to the Birmingham area.

Did any of the victims mention the offender's accent? A Bolton accent is very different from a Birmingham accent.

 

[Konstantin]

‘Bike contract’ means contract couriered by motorcycle. Usual process for Sturgis & other London E agents at that point in sale process in 80s & 90s.

Yes. Bike here is used as a verb in the imperative. Bike contract means send the contract over by motorbike courier.

 

[tes1984]

Did any of the victims mention the offender's accent? A Bolton accent is very different from a Birmingham accent.

The police said he was softly spoken with no identifiable accent.

 

[Konstantin]

The police said he was softly spoken with no identifiable accent.

Interesting. I doubt Morris is the B'ham rapist because of his age seeming different and his pattern of travelling. Heywood, Rochdale and Manchester would have been easily reachable from Bolton (Manchester is a big place, do we know which bit of Manchester he operated in?) by public transport if he didn't have a car. Birmingham is quite a drive away. But who knows.

If these assaults were reported in the news, they could have inspired other predators to use the house for sale method to get inside premises where there were potential victims. Call up and pretend to be a potential buyer, suss out who is in the house etc.

The SJL case is different, though, because Kipper arranged to meet her outside the Shorrolds Road property, and didn't rape her inside that house even though it was empty and had several floors. Was that his plan? He could easily have found out the property was empty. She'd have seen his face and been easily able to describe him, so it seems risky. Did the nosey neighbour next door put him off? Whatever happened to SJL, it didn't happen at Shorrolds. So the plan either was not a plan to rape or harm her at first, but a meeting for some other reason, and matters unfolded and escalated after the meeting somehow - fits with various sightings - or the arrangement to meet at Shorrolds was a fictional appointment and she went somewhere else, or it was a plan to meet her there and then get her to go elsewhere.

 

[Klclevi]

I've long suspected she's under a house in west London. There are two ways of getting under a house. One is to own or rent the ground floor flat. The other is to redevelop a house into flats or vice versa and have access to the ground floor. You then take up the floorboards and enter the crawlspace between the floor and the dirt. After hiding your body you reseal the floor and the person will not be found until the house is demolished.

The rich couple (who weren't) were involved in development. So yes.

Another interesting one is that the house opposite her flat in Disraeli Road was being redeveloped. Hmm.

Agree 100%

Killing someone inside a house/flat is one thing, but removing the body , transporting it and burying it in another location is a whole other ball game if you think about the actual practicalities of doing that.

If you had an internal access garage, I guess you could go undetected to some degree, but then theres the matter of rigor mortis setting in and all that goes with that (body fluids , whatever else). Aside from wrapping the body , you also have to have the necessary tools , a spade, a shovel, whatever else. And dig a BIG hole somewhere - that would take a couple of hours at least I would have thought.

JC or not JC that is a big risk to take for anyone. If she was actually killed outside of London surely there would be other witnesses somehow - that scenario seems very unlikely IMO.

You also have to consider, Suzys clothes, shoes, jewellery, underwear, keys. Where did they all go?

I would pretty much say they are still in the house with her. IMO

 

[StillDiggin]

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2163444/suzy-lamplugh-breakthrough-reconstruction-shows

 

[Konstantin]

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2163444/suzy-lamplugh-breakthrough-reconstruction-shows

Sadly I think an aged photo of SJL is useless as she is certainly dead, probably the day she went missing. It's hardly a breakthrough. A breakthrough would be finding her remains but as discussed above they're probably under a house in West London.

 

[WestLondoner]

The "right ruck" in 123SR notwithstanding, the best way to make someone disappear is surely to take them inside a building that they do not leave alive, or at all. Ideally you have no connection to the building, so if ever a body is found, it does not point back to you.

DV's theory - or rather insinuation - against KH appears to suggest the former, without considering the latter rather crucial detail. As soon as somebody reconfigures the pub or its dining area, the body's likely to be found and there's really almost nobody but KH it could have been.

As the relevant area actually has been reconfigured, this rules out KH which logically also rules out the PoW (unless we allow the railway embankment possibility). So we're looking for a different building.

One wonders about the house in Disraeli Road, any property the couple were involved in, Taggart's garage and Superhire's premises.

 

[Konstantin]

One wonders about the house in Disraeli Road, any property the couple were involved in, Taggart's garage and Superhire's premises.

If it was JC then these make sense, but it is a departure from what he did with SB. However, maybe with SB, things went down differently and he didn't have another premises to stash her in.

The fact that SJL has not been found after all these years is what puts me off believing it was JC. He seemed to incompetent and chaotic to pull something like that off. She was mixing with lots of men, some wealthy, plenty in her diary that were not bottomed out. Involved in some deal. A lot going on in her life that she compartmentalised and kept secret.

 

[WestLondoner]

If it was JC then these make sense, but it is a departure from what he did with SB. However, maybe with SB, things went down differently and he didn't have another premises to stash her in.

The fact that SJL has not been found after all these years is what puts me off believing it was JC. He seemed to incompetent and chaotic to pull something like that off. She was mixing with lots of men, some wealthy, plenty in her diary that were not bottomed out. Involved in some deal. A lot going on in her life that she compartmentalised and kept secret.

One of the things that unfailingly ticks me off about documentaries, articles and talking heads is how often they follow the official police line, that the SJL case was Cannan, because it "fits his MO". As you've noted, here and previously, er, what MO?

Pre-1986 he assaulted a woman in a phone box, he raped his wife, and he raped a woman in her shop;
Post-1986 he raped a woman in her car and attempted to force his way into another woman's car, presumably intending the same;
In 1988 he murdered SB, having previously scratched acquaintance with her (her widower recognised Cannan from hotel bars) and perhaps after a volitional extramarital fling, and dumped her body in a lonely place not far from a road.

Where's the MO in that?

Sometimes he is linked circumstantially to the Sandra Court case. If you buy that one for argument's sake, then his MO for disposing of bodies was to dump them in water, and when they're found, they're found.

Making an appointment, making her disappear without trace off the street and no evidence of his prior knowledge of her are all unseen in his only other known murder.

The only commonality I can see is around victim selection. DT was raped by Cannan in her car after she went out alone in the night following a row with her husband. SB was getting on badly with her husband whom she'd finally married after years together (you hear of people doing so because it was either that or split up, and they then wish they'd split up). SJL was in the process of splitting up with AL (whether he realised it or not).

The trouble with citing this as part of any MO is how did Cannan know this about his victims? He can't have; being in emotional upset, they may have inadvertently made themselves vulnerable to him, but he can't have planned around this.