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

[Lady Stoddart-West]

I think you’re probably right but of course it takes two to tango - one might not want to burn any bridges after a split but if an ex doesn’t want to play ball then to an extent how the post-relationship relationship plays out is out of one’s control.

I think AL’s actions were largely understandable although of course he had good reason for police wanting to believe he and Suzy were on good terms when she disappeared, given they investigate the nearest and dearest first. So there must have been an element of self interest at play. And the problem is that however innocent his actions were, the issue of when the belongings were lost and how they came to be lost matters so much. If stolen on the Friday then was someone stalking her while she enjoyed an innocent night out with her boyfriend? Mislaid on the Sunday, though, and we have to wonder why was she there and for what reason?

Yes, I really think the Sun to Fri change is the odd but inconsequential detail the police asked AS to alter. It puzzled him but he felt it had no bearing on rest of information. Unfortunately quite a bit of that centred on the unreliable testimony of HR. HR went to Belgium & said Kiper looked like the man he saw which looked nothing like his photofit. He also said he saw SL bundled into a van.

If this WAS the change AL could legitimately talk about lost item events taking place on Friday.

Barley has now told us in podcast SL DID effectively see someone post her parents on Sun night & tried to cover her tracks with AL. Did they ever get to bottom of who this was? The expat, especially if her plus one at 21st & his upper class/upper middle social circle, will have definitely overlapped with Birthday lady & they likely knew each other socially anyway, is the obvious choice. I think he was due to legitimately leave the country post a party on the Tues. The police used interpol to question so presumably did so only a bit later on.

Perhaps the person SL DID see on Sun eve was a ‘commercial’ contact though, not so much a love interest. We do know via her uncle this deal to buy the house she couldn’t otherwise afford was troubling her & her business associate was pressurising her. Her unusually good mood on Mon am, pre NH taking commission, she’d assumed was hers, might be because she’d finally adjusted the terms of deal OR pulled out. The police did feel in 86 this house deal was key, vital & they didn’t know about it early on. The last conversation she apparently had with her parents was on this very deal - will post press article.

That last call she took OR made, may have been to tell ‘Kipper’ she couldn’t pay any money owed immediately - no expected commission after all & arranged to meet him briefly & collect items too from pub. Why the urgency to sell her flat? Three failed attempts. Presumably her family knew? She had nowhere to go, did she need the cash fairly urgently?

Conjecture is one thing but we DO know the police asked AS to change what he saw as a meaningless detail poss on timeline. Like the butterfly effect if so, proved to be anything but. Can they check what this was? Will it be noted anywhere?

JD has now computerised all those cards on case. Fantastic. Can someone with good, detailed knowledge of case sit & cross reference with contact book etc? In AS time they had looked at only a fraction of contacts he said. NOT ALL. The police didn’t know about the house deal in golden hour & at time & HR was at least in part spinning yarns by his own admission & the police were under resourced. No one can blame them if they missed a vital lead. Barley said they’d looked at boyfriends where they could - did they go back here though & finish what they’d started with a fine tooth comb? Is SW from QE2 in her contact book?

JD said the BMW jogger witness came forward AT time & reinvestigating all this told police that. He went to a pop up police station in Stevenage Rd. It was missed at time.

‘Sarah’ calling pub & leaving number & message for SL - the message was also ‘lost’ & as JD sees it due to errors & overwhelm this was also possibly legitmately ‘lost’. Is there a clue in contact book? - not necessarily under ‘Sarah’ a wife or girlfriend of the pressurising deal maker perhaps?

The police also presumably know if the contact book was salacious or otherwise. This is important too. It all helps build a better ‘Kipper’ picture. Was there a thread that bound & connected most of the contacts together.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

Fascinating last few pages of thread. You guys know the case far more thoroughly than I do (I read AS book, Threads, various articles etc).

For me, certainly as to the 'How', any narrative must have at it's core the SJL car on St Rd. The driver's seat pushed back, the Handbrake off, the purse in the Passenger Side Door.

Handbrake: Was it left off due to the driver being more familiar with Automatic Transmission Foot Brakes? A routine that wouldnt involve manually applying Handbrake as second nature?

Was it left off after before exiting the car, or was it deployed but taken off after someone had entered the car as a precursor to moving away?

Was the handbrake off the cause of the car infringing on the Garage entrance, had it been parked more routinely/correctly and rolled back slightly?

Or the position of car and handbrake the results of a hurried exiting of the car?

The Purse in the PS of the car, to me, indicates that it's owner was seated in the PS at some point. The owner if driving would surely place it in the Driver's Door?

Was the DS back to facilitate a taller person than SJL driving? Or just to allow easier exit?

There is a fairly reasonable timeframe by witness of the car being in situ there on St Rd but why and pre or post any visit to Sh Rd, if visited at all?

Why no forensic evidence in car of other people outside of Sturgis Staff?

You can see how far behind I am Just really thinking aloud. Keep up the good work you guys

I thought the purse was in driver’s door? Will check.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

The 6pm at the pub could simply be SJL stating 'after 6pm' when calling. I.e, after last viewing.

It was relayed as specifically 6pm to liaise with publican/collect. She was very punctual & it has always jarred a bit for me as I don’t feel she’d have said 6pm. You may well be right however, I noted especially as there are many inconsistencies & anomalies around the pub. NB: note from ‘Sarah’ which AS says left police with an ‘uneasy feeling’.

 

[Klclevi]

AS was deeply hurt by what happened leading up to the publication and afterwards.

I agree re reinvestigation, this is completely warranted given the current media regarding SW , but I would say that most of us here would say the SW angle is off the table

If you research AS articles (post the articles from the book excerpts) , he comes across as almost a broken man over the book.

I reference an article from 1991 - nearly 3 years from when the book was published in Oct 88.

The Independent Monday 8.4.1991

 

[Klclevi]

My other comment to this was around AL. He appears in alot of news articles in 86 -87. He even windsurfed the EC for her for Charity (which I am sure alot of you probably already know)
He does make some odd comments though. Alot of the news articles in 86 say they had been together for a year and nearly headed for the altar?

He makes an interesting comment in the Evening Standard 1.5.87

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

AS was deeply hurt by what happened leading up to the publication and afterwards.

I agree re reinvestigation, this is completely warranted given the current media regarding SW , but I would say that most of us here would say thats off the table?

If you research his articles (post the articles from the book excerpts) , he comes across as almost a broken man over the book.

I reference an article from 1991 - nearly 3 years from when the book was published in Oct 88.

The Independent Monday 8.4.1991

Yes, I’ve looked into him. Very sad. Thank you for posting. He had ironically kept back what was most salacious as not in public interest/strictly relevant (as any sound investigative journalist will). The legal proceedings meant he had to reveal in end to parents. His hand was forced.

The book really isn’t hugely salacious IMO or muck raking. Especially by today’s standards! NB: Lownie/Bowers etc.

As AS said, those who said it was sensational etc so often hadn’t read the book. So often the way.

I think much of his good evidence might be dismissed now as conjecture but he was very professional & diligent with his sources. Some of these themselves may have been flawed but he himself was accurate. He recorded interviews etc, where they were granted.

DL was quite a writer & found it therapeutic. I think the Lamplughs really wanted a different sort of book commissioned & wires were unfortunately crossed. DL thought AS an excellent writer & journo pre book. Handing over SL’s personal diaries etc potentially problematic.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

AS was deeply hurt by what happened leading up to the publication and afterwards.

I agree re reinvestigation, this is completely warranted given the current media regarding SW , but I would say that most of us here would say thats off the table?

If you research his articles (post the articles from the book excerpts) , he comes across as almost a broken man over the book.

I reference an article from 1991 - nearly 3 years from when the book was published in Oct 88.

The Independent Monday 8.4.1991

Yes, I’ve looked into him. Very sad. Thank you for posting. He had ironically kept back what was most salacious as not in public interest/strictly relevant (as any sound investigative journalist will). The legal proceedings meant he had to reveal in end to parents. His hand was forced.

The book really isn’t hugely salacious IMO or muck raking. Especially by today’s standards! NB: Lownie/Bowers etc.

As AS said, those who said it was sensational etc so often hadn’t read the book. So often the way.

I think much of his good evidence might be dismissed now as conjecture but he was very professional & diligent with his sources. Some of these themselves may have been flawed but he himself was accurate. He recorded interviews etc, where they were granted.

DL was quite a writer & found it therapeutic. I think the Lamplughs really wanted a different sort of book commissioned & wires were unfortunately crossed. DL thought AS an excellent writer & journo pre book. Handing over SL’s personal diaries etc potentially problematicj.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

My other comment to this was around AL. He appears in alot of news articles in 86 -87. He even windsurfed the EC for her for Charity (which I am sure alot of you probably already know)
He does make some odd comments though. Alot of the news articles in 86 say they had been together for a year and nearly headed for the altar?

He makes an interesting comment in the Evening Standard 1.5.87

View attachment 644488

He’d known SL longer than he’d dated her and I think that’s where confusion arose. He was really stepping up in 80s as family & SL ambassador & safeguarding her reputation I feel.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

On the deal…DL says ‘She was very excited the night before she went missing. The last thing she said to me was “don’t ask me about the flat. I will tell you when it’s all settled”.

 

[Konstantin]

About the lunchtime appointment being a romantic liaison - I think there's a feeling it wasn't because she didn't take her handbag with her, which would have had her hairbrush and makeup and probably a compact with a mirror. Going to meet a romantic interest without those seems unlikely. SJL cared about her appearance.

My feeling is that it was an errand and probably a business meeting but probably not for Sturgis. It had become urgent and she made up a cover story.

No one dumps a boyfriend or lover face to face in a rushed lunch hour - then have to go back to work in a rush after a potentially messy personal scene. SJL was professional.

 

[Konstantin]

On the deal…DL says ‘She was very excited the night before she went missing. The last thing she said to me was “don’t ask me about the flat. I will tell you when it’s all settled”.

Her being excited when she met her parents could track with her good mood in the morning on Monday. Despite being preoccupied with her diary and chequebook.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

Her being excited when she met her parents could track with her good mood in the morning on Monday. Despite being preoccupied with her diary and chequebook.

What the police missed, as they weren’t told, was that ‘excitement’ might be linked to the new purchase & deal… DL glossed over this in other earlier interviews. ‘Oh she was having such a good time, life is for living’.

It’s interesting DL says she wishes she’d taken this deal more ‘seriously’ at the time.

 

[WestLondoner]

Was it a pocket diary or an A5 sort of thing? Either way not much room for description but she could have plenty of space for writing numbers and details of men she met. Police thought she was "tomming" so maybe that was based on her diary as well as her lifestyle. Not in the seedy parlour sense obviously but more going on dates with wealthy men.

If the diary was mislaid with a cheque book and postcard, they must all have been about the same size, I suppose. There's not a lot of room in a pocket diary for salacious entries - you typically got three days per page and a separate page for the weekend. The most salacious thing I can imagine the space stretching to would be a mark against male names or appointments only. The mark could imply she had slept with, or was perhaps rating them, the inference arising if no similar mark appeared alongside female contacts.

You would think the plod would have been highly focused on bottoming this out. If they had ever got anyone into court, an obvious defence counsel's strategy would be to ask the police, OK, so how did you eliminate everybody else? All the defence has to show is that this could have been someone else. They don't have to prove that it was. They just have to create the reasonable doubt that it could have been, and the jury would probably then acquit. So it seems to me that putting anyone in the dock on the grounds that they were in the diary and might have done it would require a lot of work.

I agree. There’s no conclusive proof she was going to the pub at 6pm

There is actually quite a good reason to think she was not, which was the pre-existing appointment elsewhere at 6pm. This was a second viewing of a property - which to an EA is a buying signal. Having missed one commission that day, she would not have lightly passed up another. If the 6pm resulted in a firm bid for the house, and it was the only one so far, no question of "whose buyer should we recommend to the vendor" arises. The vendor would be told and might bite.

Of course, we don't really know whether the PoW arrangement was at 6pm, or any time from 6pm.

But as you say, with the office short staffed she’d want to cover herself, in case anyone questioned where she was/had been.

I think this detail is under-parsed. It seems quite probable to me that the @r5e she was covering here was as much MG's as her own. If he and the big cheese come back after lunch and it's a sales negotiator desert, said cheese is quite likely to say, Er, Gurdon, where is everyone? Does anyone work here? MG can then look in her diary and say Well, Lamplugh at least is at a viewing.

An additional implication of all this is that she may have expected MG to get back from his lunch before she got back from her viewing. That's got to be quite some viewing. Unless it wasn't a viewing; or there was always going to be more than one; or she wasn't going straight there and back, or at all.

Any reinvestigation needed to look again at this book. I am not confident that Phoebus in 2000 did anything other than rule JC in or out.

JD told Dickie that the reinvestigation consisted of adding JC to the list of suspects and re-eliminating them all again. This left only JC; QED.

It's not easy offhand to think of a more prejudicial and obvious stacking of the deck.

there are many inconsistencies & anomalies around the pub. NB: note from ‘Sarah’ which AS says left police with an ‘uneasy feeling’.

It's quite odd that the stuff about 'Sarah' came from KH and gave them an uneasy feeling, but KH is described also an honest and straightforward person. So, one of those honest and straightforward people who gives police officers an uneasy feeling. Right. Got it.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

If the diary was mislaid with a cheque book and postcard, they must all have been about the same size, I suppose. There's not a lot of room in a pocket diary for salacious entries - you typically got three days per page and a separate page for the weekend. The most salacious thing I can imagine the space stretching to would be a mark against male names or appointments only. The mark could imply she had slept with, or was perhaps rating them, the inference arising if no similar mark appeared alongside female contacts.

You would think the plod would have been highly focused on bottoming this out. If they had ever got anyone into court, an obvious defence counsel's strategy would be to ask the police, OK, so how did you eliminate everybody else? All the defence has to show is that this could have been someone else. They don't have to prove that it was. They just have to create the reasonable doubt that it could have been, and the jury would probably then acquit. So it seems to me that putting anyone in the dock on the grounds that they were in the diary and might have done it would require a lot of work.

There is actually quite a good reason to think she was not, which was the pre-existing appointment elsewhere at 6pm. This was a second viewing of a property - which to an EA is a buying signal. Having missed one commission that day, she would not have lightly passed up another. If the 6pm resulted in a firm bid for the house, and it was the only one so far, no question of "whose buyer should we recommend to the vendor" arises. The vendor would be told and might bite.

Of course, we don't really know whether the PoW arrangement was at 6pm, or any time from 6pm.

I think this detail is under-parsed. It seems quite probable to me that the @r5e she was covering here was as much MG's as her own. If he and the big cheese come back after lunch and it's a sales negotiator desert, said cheese is quite likely to say, Er, Gurdon, where is everyone? Does anyone work here? MG can then look in her diary and say Well, Lamplugh at least is at a viewing.

An additional implication of all this is that she may have expected MG to get back from his lunch before she got back from her viewing. That's got to be quite some viewing. Unless it wasn't a viewing; or there was always going to be more than one; or she wasn't going straight there and back, or at all.

JD told Dickie that the reinvestigation consisted of adding JC to the list of suspects and re-eliminating them all again. This left only JC; QED.

It's not easy offhand to think of a more prejudicial and obvious stacking of the deck.

It's quite odd that the stuff about 'Sarah' came from KH and gave them an uneasy feeling, but KH is described also an honest and straightforward person. So, one of those honest and straightforward people who gives police officers an uneasy feeling. Right. Got it.

On KH I got from text AS didn’t necessarily feel KH was ‘honest’ or ‘straightforward’ but needed this commentary to balance the rather damning ‘uneasy feeling’ left behind, who knows though.

Most agree the pub escaped obvious, needed investigative focus in 1986.