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

[lee sumner]

I’ve got an open mind on it & my thoughts about lost belongings very much there from my AS reading & I’d noted this.

She was doing a deal & the contact book is today’s mobile phone. Would you be happy for it to sit at a pub all day? I’d be there fairly fast to collect it & I’d not want any landlord looking at my stuff & personal correspondence. It’s an iphone without a passcode. She’d likely need a number too. If anything personal & private, we know SL had form for the personal - I’d want it sooner rather than later! Damn any big boss & office understaffing. It was a diary with ‘crucial names & personal appointments’ (AS) even the police prioritised it & rushed it to the investigating team.

I knew DV was going to be focused on this ‘errand’ in his book before I knew the contents. Although not his theories on cellar obviously .

Look 6pm may well have meant a generic ‘ in the evening’ - you may well be right & I am pedantic here - but when I read AS I thought ‘aha’ prompt SL wouldn’t have volunteered a specific ‘6pm’ as the pick up time to KH or wife as reported by them as her viewing then!

There’s still the unease of call to pub never resolved (AS & press) so this might be influencing me too. This isn’t entirely a red herring I believe but we don’t have clear facts on it.

 

[lee sumner]

there is no evidence she changed the pick up time. she was happy to collect items at 6pm. this info is part of the original case file. SL changing her mind about pick up time is not info in the case file.

 

[WestLondoner]

SL was in a hurry to sell her flat. it made more sense business wise to keep hold of it and charge rent like she was doing with NB.

You couldn't do that in 1986 - the Assured Shorthold Tenancy, which guaranteed that you could get your property back, was passed only in 1988. If you let your flat out and didn't live there, you were subject to the Landlord and Tenant Act of (I think) 1959, which said you could only get it back to reoccupy it yourself or sell it, and you had to prove it.

This meant nobody could rent anything except a bedsit in someone else's house. Man About The House and Rising Damp depicted this quite accurately. We're in the process legally of returning to this regime.

SL was not allowed to attend her mother DL 50th birthday celebration because it was during the working day, and sturgis were not going to allow her time off to attend any birthday party.

They allowed her time off to get her hair done and she was going for lunch that Monday with PSS until the latter cancelled. So this does not follow. It could simply be what she told her mother to avoid having lunch with her.

there is no evidence she changed the pick up time. she was happy to collect items at 6pm. this info is part of the original case file. SL changing her mind about pick up time is not info in the case file.

The original case file is not in the public domain so we don't know this.

She had a pre-existing appointment at 6. The pub may have said "after 6" and understood "at 6", but it was never going to happen.

 

[lee sumner]

The male witnesses were immediately believed, that’s interesting.

Perhaps though, as they said on the Crimewatch programme, this was a case where the main focus on ‘what is known’ & much of these known ‘facts’ were surmised preconceptions. At least they included BW’s sighting here.

1st august 1986 BW came forward. she said she didnt realise straight away. you dont expect these things to happen. i would have thought she would have realised within 2 days she had seen SL.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

there is no evidence she changed the pick up time. she was happy to collect items at 6pm. this info is part of the original case file. SL changing her mind about pick up time is not info in the case file.

there is no evidence she changed the pick up time. she was happy to collect items at 6pm. this info is part of the original case file. SL changing her mind about pick up time is not info in the case file.

This is what was reported via pub - from KH’s wife. Yes. Correct.

SL is likely to have wanted to leave & get them earlier for good reasons upthread, IMO, she was ‘preoccupied’ by them & spent some time on a back & forth between bank & pub on the matter that morning. If any salacious content in diary then this might make the desire re: getting them even faster more probable. I’d have gone as soon as I was able as it’s like your freely accessible Iphone sitting in a pub!

There was at least one contact in it who was known for various kinks & attempted murder. Cleared but another odd charge too. Something or nothing? He’s in the press talking on it & being interviewed re: SL’s contact book, but as still alive won’t flag him here.

With the above partly in mind I do wonder if these contacts had any common theme. Was one of them really selling a car to her?

DV made point this book was entirely unknown & unseen by others before - contact book. Something or nothing?

As an aside, AL says in ‘The Man Who Killed S L’ doc there were other ‘some other bits & pieces too’ if anyone else picked that up. Not just diary/contacts & postcard & chequebook?

You make a good point about the formality or otherwise re: time keeping & lunch breaks in office. AS makes Sturgis sound fairly formal & strict. They were ‘funny about that sort if thing’. AS. MG in conversation to DV says he was relaxed & turned a blind eye to shopping at lunchtime. Which was it? She did bend the rules a bit when she left earlier than officially should have on Sat afternoon before missing. Prob not busy, most of us would.

@WestLondoner yes poss SL said Sturgis said ‘no’ to avoid her mother’s lunch. I thought so too but she was fam orientated (?) If a mid week with Mum’s friends etc you can imagine.

It seems Monday was an unusual day & this has to be factored in. They were short staffed & from memory a fee earner had to be in situ. She couldn’t have easily gone to pub. The big boss was lurking & this will have had an impact on staff.

 

[lee sumner]

SL made her way home with SH her friend. AL just back off holiday, you would think they would travel back to london together.

There’s a mugshot of him online and he’s not a bad ringer for Kipper, allowing for the passing of time and him having a goatee. Would be interesting to know what he was up to back in the ‘80s, can’t imagine the kidnap of the estate agent circa 1990 (when he’d have been late 40s) was his first offence.

did DS barley say on recent PCAST interview mr kipper was middle aged. not 25/30 yrs old.

 

[lee sumner]

This is what was reported via pub - from KH’s wife. Yes. Correct.

SL is likely to have wanted to leave & get them earlier for good reasons upthread, IMO, she was ‘preoccupied’ by them & spent some time on a back & forth between bank & pub on the matter that morning. If any salacious content in diary then this might make the desire re: getting them even faster more probable. I’d have gone as soon as I was able as it’s like your freely accessible Iphone sitting in a pub!

There was at least one contact in it who was known for various kinks & attempted murder. Cleared but another odd charge too. Something or nothing? He’s in the press talking on it & being interviewed re: SL’s contact book, but as still alive won’t flag him here.

DV made point this book was entirely unknown & unseen by others before - contact book. Something or nothing?

As an aside, AL says in ‘The Man Who Killed S L’ doc there were other ‘some other bits & pieces too’ if anyone else picked that up. Not just diary/contacts & postcard & chequebook?

You make a good point about the formality or otherwise re: time keeping & lunch breaks in office. AS makes Sturgis sound fairly formal & strict. They were ‘funny about that sort if thing’. AS. MG in conversation to DV says he was relaxed & turned a blind eye to shopping at lunchtime. Which was it? She did bend the rules a bit when she left earlier than officially should have on Sat afternoon before missing. Prob not busy, most of us would.

@WestLondoner yes poss SL said Sturgis said ‘no’ to avoid her mother’s lunch. I thought so too but she was fam orientated (?) If a mid week with Mum’s friends etc you can imagine.

It seems Monday was an unusual day & this has to be factored in. They were short staffed & from memory a fee earner had to be in situ. She couldn’t have easily gone to pub. The big boss was lurking & this will have had an impact on staff.

after 30 yrs its hard to get a straight answer from anyone, no matter how educated or level headed they appear to be. MG is a classic example.

 

[lee sumner]

But why would she be known for faking appointments? If she was, she probably wouldn’t have a job? Also, there’s a first time for everything.

Not saying you’re wrong, btw, but I don’t think it can be ruled out that it was a fake appointment. Even if she did actually take the keys, the appointment could still be fake.

witness HR seen couple outside 37SR.

 

[kes1972]

there is no evidence she changed the pick up time. she was happy to collect items at 6pm. this info is part of the original case file. SL changing her mind about pick up time is not info in the case file.

She had an appointment at 6pm so no way she would arrange to pick up at 6pm the diary does not lie so the pow does or someone has made a mistake with the pick up time

 

[kes1972]

Article suggests JC employed by the hire company (!)

In same article a comment wondering how JC could have such a beyond means ££ lifestyle. I do think he could have set up a rented flat paying cash around Fulham etc esp if he had access to his father’s inheritance which he very possibly did by July 86.

Another comment I recalled JC made which pointed potentially to his guilt around SL. Hs said he didn’t know & had never been to Fulham. Really vehement about it. Too vehement perhaps.

He could have met and befriended vv who knows, it eould not surprise me.

 

[kes1972]

Dv should have prioritised the rear of the pow and the embankment and the disused viaduct which is where i would put my money