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

[Clairybums]

Great post Claire!

Ah I see, so that would mean that it's almost certain that the timing of what your father saw, was likely to have been circa 2.35pm-2.40pm; ergo, around 5 minutes or so before SL was seen driving up Fulham Palace Road with the suited man in her Fiesta.

So that would mean that SL drove to Dorncliffe Road and waited for the suited man to go into the basement flat of a known drug dealer, and then drive off again after the suited man returned.

Why would SL do that?

It seems almost certain that at this stage, she wasn't under any duress.

So what does this tell us?

Well it certainly opens up a world of possibilities that's for sure.


There was reported to have been a fierce argument overheard by someone who got into a taxi cab just around the corner from Stevenage Road, but I can't recall the timing for that.

Could SL have been arguing with the suited man over his intention to go and see the drug dealer in Dorncliffe Road?

And why would SL drive him to Dorncliffe Road in the first place?

So many more questions have arisen here.


Could the man have payed for drugs? Or did he go there to collect the murder weapon?

Of course, there's no evidence as to whether a murder weapon was used.

It's a wonderfully perplexing riddle to solve for sure.

Thank you Rookie D,

Yes, that sounds right to me. I'm still going to try to verify by finding the article I read.

I am not sure how well known the neighbour would have been outside of his circle or us neighbours. It may be possible that SL wouldn't have been aware of anything related to the basement flat only maybe the man asked if he could stop off there for whatever reason he might give.

The different sightings and timings for Stevenage Road are baffling me. I think I need to make myself a timeline or chart that I can refer to. For some reason, in my head, I'm thinking they started in Shorrolds Road then headed over in a detour to Dorncliffe Road, like... "I just need to pop in to see a friend quickly" or "I need to check on one of my other properties" (if he was indeed trying to make out he was an affluent house buyer).

I thought Dorncliffe Road was before Stevenage Road? The problem is, there has been so much different information over the years it's all kind of melding together. My brain doesn't process as well as it used to, it tends to stick to the things I know or remember.

I think I might see if I can request my father's witness statement. They can only say no. Apparently, from what I've read, they are usually more favourable towards family members than journalists but they can also say no too. All this uncertainty is going to drive me nuts.

I'll contact them when I've had some proper sleep.

 

[Clairybums]

It seems to me that once the police ruled out the 2.45pm sighting by BW of SL driving her Fiesta up Fulham Palace Road, they then dismissed or discounted any other sighting, because they believed the Fiesta had stayed stationary in Stevenage Road the entire time.

And it's precisely this p**s poor policing that tends to lend itself to scores and scores of solvable murder cases becoming cold cases.

Aside from lack of definitive evidence; poor policing procedure is the 2nd biggest reason for many cases becoming cold.

However, as I've said previously; I believe that the Fiesta was MOVED and then driven back and parked up in the SAME spot in Stevenage Road. This occurred sometime between 2pm and 3.30pm; ergo, THIS is the abduction window.

At 2.45pm SL is alive and well.

The sighting in Dorncliffe Road then occurs during the SAME time frame; ergo, between 2pm and 3.30pm.

By the time the car is then parked BACK in Stevenage Road at 3.30pm, SL has been abducted. And the reason why the car is then parked BACK in Stevenage Road?

Because it acts as the perfect distraction and misdirection.

The police spent so much time trying to work around the car being parked in Stevenage Road, they didn't consider that the abduction occurred just AFTER BW saw SL driving up Fulham Palace Road.

BW was the ONLY witness on that day from 12.30pm who actually KNEW SL.

BW's sighting is the most reliable source, and yet the police chose to favour the sightings made by the 3 MEN in Shorrolds Road?

I think that may speak for itself. A hint of misogyny perhaps?

It wouldn't surprise me.

 

[Clairybums]

Absolutely this!!

My father, when he was 100% sure about something, would not budge. That's what angered him so much. You know when you know you've seen something and especially if it is something important and the people around you don't take it seriously. I don't think I helped that much either. I remember the day I went to visit him and not really focusing but I wish I had. Had I not been so young, if I had been say in my 30s I would have probably marched down to the police station myself on his behalf. I just didn't have that backbone or strength when I was 20.

I wish SL parents didn't have to pass not knowing what happened to their child.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

Hi @Clairybums and welcome!

Thank you for such interesting & thoughtful posts & additions to the thread.

I have a personal interest in the case & have been researching for many years.

Below is the last photograph of SL taken on Sat 26th July 1986 at a 21st Birthday in Surrey. Even accounting for bad lighting SL is a subtle blonde at best. It was shown on Crimewatch & verified as the last ever photo.

Witnesses at Shorrolds Road were puzzled as said the woman they saw was very blonde. Your father’s statement/observation matches theirs. This is very interesting.

There are those that believe 37 Shorrolds was a rendezvous & not a viewing. There are those that think she (SL) was never there at all. What seems not to be in dispute is someone was outside or in the vicinity, likely a man & woman & that woman was blonde enough for the average man to notice.

I haven’t had time to fully absorb all your posts, but will do now. Have you read AS’s ‘The Suzy Lamplugh Story?’ 1988.

 

[Rookie D]

Hi @Clairybums and welcome!

Thank you for such interesting & thoughtful posts & additions to the thread.

I have a personal interest in the case & have been researching for many years.

Below is the last photograph of SL taken on Sat 26th July 1986 at a 21st Birthday in Surrey. Even accounting for bad lighting SL is a subtle blonde at best. It was shown on Crimewatch & verified as the last ever photo.

Witnesses at Shorrolds Road were puzzled as said the woman they saw was very blonde. Your father’s statement/observation matches theirs. This is very interesting.

There are those that believe 37 Shorrolds was a rendezvous & not a viewing. There are those that think she (SL) was never there at all. What seems not to be in dispute is someone was outside or in the vicinity, likely a man & woman & that woman was blonde enough for the average man to notice.

I haven’t had time to fully absorb all your posts, but will do now. Have you read AS’s ‘The Suzy Lamplugh Story?’ 1988.

I do find it odd that even though SL clearly has blonde highlights/lowlights in her hair in this photo, she still looks dark haired.

Her primary hair colour in this photo is dark brown.

 

[Konstantin]

Hi @Clairybums and welcome!

Thank you for such interesting & thoughtful posts & additions to the thread.

I have a personal interest in the case & have been researching for many years.

Below is the last photograph of SL taken on Sat 26th July 1986 at a 21st Birthday in Surrey. Even accounting for bad lighting SL is a subtle blonde at best. It was shown on Crimewatch & verified as the last ever photo.

Witnesses at Shorrolds Road were puzzled as said the woman they saw was very blonde. Your father’s statement/observation matches theirs. This is very interesting.

There are those that believe 37 Shorrolds was a rendezvous & not a viewing. There are those that think she (SL) was never there at all. What seems not to be in dispute is someone was outside or in the vicinity, likely a man & woman & that woman was blonde enough for the average man to notice.

I haven’t had time to fully absorb all your posts, but will do now. Have you read AS’s ‘The Suzy Lamplugh Story?’ 1988.

She's really not blonde at all in that photo. Certainly not very blonde. Maaaaybe dark blonde if the lighting was poor. But I'd say brunette.

It's not unreasonable that the blonde woman seen on Shorrolds was not SL and nothing to do with her at all. People walk up and down streets all day long.

 

[Rookie D]

Claire, may I ask; are you aware that 10 Dorncliffe Road is a Leasehold property?

Interestingly, 10 Dorncliffe Road has been sold at least 5 times since 1995.

It would be interesting to discover who the Freeholder is for that property, and who the estate agent is/was who dealt with those sales.

Being a Leasehold property, it would generally speaking, exchange hands more frequently than a Freehold property of a similar specification.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

She's really not blonde at all in that photo. Certainly not very blonde. Maaaaybe dark blonde if the lighting was poor. But I'd say brunette.

It's not unreasonable that the blonde woman seen on Shorrolds was not SL and nothing to do with her at all. People walk up and down streets all day long.

The BMW struggling couple, witness forward in 2000, (but said earlier in 1986 too) said he was confused at first as the woman he saw was blonde. Then we have AS P.76 “ND & ND - two men, same initials - each added a point that gave their evidence greater plausibility. The girl they had seen, they told the police had lighter hair than the pictures of SL showed”.

Could it be, in reality, her hair looked as attached? IME men not great at noticing subtlety in blonde hair colouring - Marilyn Monroe a ‘blonde’ Lol

If we’re being pedantic about it no sun to enhance either, not a sunny day!

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

@Clairybums something that caught my eye in one of your posts was your father noticed the couple looked too smart or incongruous re: going into the property, compared to the the usual people in vicinity (?)

(ND) "He thought that she and the man..., both looked TOO SMART to be interested in this particular 128k house".

On the hair colour, DL was quick to say that SL had highlights on the Fri and was in fact blonde, possibly in the hope that these sightings were all correct (?) Understandably she wanted the pieces to fit.

The house was shabby and a bit run down so odd to me than Noel D - P.74 AS - stated the opposite to the other ND He noticed no 37 Shorrolds: "he noticed the 'For Sale' sign as he particularly liked the house"

 

[GTB72]

I do find it odd that even though SL clearly has blonde highlights/lowlights in her hair in this photo, she still looks dark haired.

Her primary hair colour in this photo is dark brown.

View attachment 651987

I am 60 years of age. Back in the day at Primary school you would get your photo taken every year to catalogue your development.

The only problem being was that the lighting was so poor it always looked as if you had red hair in the finished photo. And I wasn't the only one.

Could that be the case here? Poor lighting or maybe taken on a Polaroid camera? Those cameras weren't the best in my recollection. SJL certainly doesn't look blonde here.

 

[WestLondoner]

Pretty jawdropping to think we don't really know what she looked like. She was described immediately as a blonde, but then you look at the 12-week Crimewatch reconstruction and she's depicted as a full-on brunette.

 

[kes1972]

Unless you can provide some evidential connection between the parties then no credible line of enquiry exists. You are simply flying a kite and adding to the general obfuscation surrounding this case.

.

 

[Clairybums]

You hit the "+quote" button at the bottom, go to the reply box and click on "Insert quotes" and then "Quote messages". You can separate out the bits you're replying to with the "carriage return" / "enter" key.

There was - BW, a business contact of SJL, saw her driving the white Fiesta north in FPR at around 2.45. The police dismissed this and decided BW must have been thinking of a different day. If your dad saw her in Dorncliffe at around the same time, we would have two sightings mutually corroborating each other. You'd hope that they'd then reconsider whether they'd been right to dismiss BW. If I had to guess, I'd say that having convinced themselves the BW sighting was wrong, they instead dismissed all others that tallied with it as wrong too.


That's a pretty interesting "soft" point. With some of the other witnesses you wonder why they remembered or took any special notice of what they saw. In this case the reason is that the people looked notably out of place.

Which again is interesting because he need not have gone inside. He went into the side alley, did something, came back out. Retrieved a weapon? Went away because nobody was home? Went away because somebody was? SJL must have been taken into a building. Did our man make her drive around a selection that he had available, looking for one he could use?

Interesting considering that that's not the perception. Google "Suzy Lamplugh" and you get the brunette headshots. Everyone now assumes brunette - yet he was sure he saw a blonde, which she indeed somewhat was.

Hereafter "EM" I suggest (we use initials to avoid naming real people, unless they're known felons). The police files are not public. As nobody was ever charged technically it's probably a live inquiry, meaning it can't be FOIAed.

Hi WL,

Just noticed this post. Thank you for the instructions. I may try it out at some point. It would certainly make everything make sense.

Yes, I think the same. The officer who cane round and spoke to myself and my brother said that he believed it was SL that my father had seen but with so much time passing that it wouldn't really help with finding SL. I guess they're not too bothered by the series of events and timeline but more interested in anything concrete that might point to where she ended up.

It could well be dependent on how the light was hitting her hair .

Noted about the initials. I was trying to be as transparent as possible and just in case anyone was able to get access. I did look up whether it's possible to request a statement for a cold case but as you say it's still active so I guess I will have to rely on what memory I have.

P.s. I found the person who knew SL and it is indeed the person I had read about years ago that I felt matched up with what my father saw with timing and location. I feel better now as I know I'm not going mad.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

I am 60 years of age. Back in the day at Primary school you would get your photo taken every year to catalogue your development.

The only problem being was that the lighting was so poor it always looked as if you had red hair in the finished photo. And I wasn't the only one.

Could that be the case here? Poor lighting or maybe taken on a Polaroid camera? Those cameras weren't the best in my recollection. SJL certainly doesn't look blonde here.

Even accounting for poor lighting- & we can make out other colours in photo - she’s no bottle blonde or natural, very fair blonde. An obvious blonde, at a glance to the average man in street in 80s, before balayage blonde techniques etc, is IMO akin to Agnetha from Abba.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

Pretty jawdropping to think we don't really know what she looked like. She was described immediately as a blonde, but then you look at the 12-week Crimewatch reconstruction and she's depicted as a full-on brunette.

Was this what DL objected to when she said 'the wrong photos were used'? I thought that was in earlier days. You'd think by Crimewatch they'd have got the representation right - originally 2-3 weeks later off top of head?

 

[kes1972]

What's also interesting is that the Fiesta was found with the passenger door locked.

And yet, here we have the suited man getting out of the car.

This means that at some point the passenger door was manually locked by either SL or the abductor himself.

As things stand, we have a time period between 2pm and 3.30pm when there are seemingly no witnesses to the car being parked in Stevenage Road.

If we then take into consideration the sighting by BW at 2.45pm and NOW the sighting of SL and the suited man outside 10 Dorncliffe Road, then it seems to me potentially very significant indeed that the IF the Dorncliffe Road sighting occurred AFTER the BW sighting at 2.45pm in Fulham Palace Road, then the basement flat at 10 Dorncliffe Road may just have been the flat in which SL was murdered.

The suited man then gets into the car in Dorncliffe Road and then drives south into Fulham Road, then turns right at the roundabout into Fulham Palace Road and then essentially REPEATS the earlier journey taken by SL. The abductor then drives into Stevenage Road and parks the car back in the exact same spot opposite 123 Stevenage Road, and then casually walks BACK to the basement flat at 10 Dorncliffe Road.

This would then make the alleged sighting of the dark BMW a complete red herring.

But why?

Well if for example there was a potential link between the drug dealer in Dorncliffe Road, and the man who said he witnessed a BMW speeding off, then perhaps that was a story that was fabricated to throw everyone off the scent?

Was the witness who saw the BMW a credible witness, or someone who perhaps used recreational drugs?

If he was, then it does make one wonder who supplied him.

Conjecture of course from my part.

Is the man who resided in the basement flat at 10 Dorncliffe Road, the man who acted as an accomplice for the suited man, and did SL get herself recklessly involved with the world of narcotics?

Totally agree, this is a high probability scenario, given that waldemar is in close proximity i would also question that viewing as authentic and any connection to the occupier/leaseholder of 10c and the viewer of waldemar.

 

[WestLondoner]

Looking at this video of CW from 1986 and 2000, SJL is brunette with faint highlights in the 12-week reconstruction but super-blonde in the brief clip from the 2-week reconstruction.

The HR sighting and the first ND sighting are identified as having been at the same time, but it's remarkable that nobody ever questioned why the two Kipper descriptions were so different.

In the 2000 recap, a van driver had come forward 14 years later remembering he swerved to avoid a white Fiesta in Kelvedon Road. This is a good example of a rubbish later "sighting". It's not clear if in the reconstruction of this shown, his own D-reg vehicle is supposed to be accurately depicted. If he remembered being in this vehicle when this happened, then he's mistaken as to the day - D-plates came in from August 1986 so he can't have been driving one the day SJL disappeared. Despite the car being driven erratically, it then indicated right into Fulham Road. Really? And it would then have had to drive right past Sturgis. Again, really?

The jogger, who does not sound like the sharpest tool in the shed, claims "it was a very hot day". It was not; at Heathrow ten miles west it was 21 degrees cooling to 19 degrees between 1pm and 1.20.

 

[tes1984]

I'm not sure why people are naming clean skin POIs, and posting addresses of interest on the public boards.

These sorts of things should be discussed via PM or private group chat.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

Looking at this video of CW from 1986 and 2000, SJL is brunette with faint highlights in the 12-week reconstruction but super-blonde in the brief clip from the 2-week reconstruction.

The HR sighting and the first ND sighting are identified as having been at the same time, but it's remarkable that nobody ever questioned why the two Kipper descriptions were so different.

In the 2000 recap, a van driver had come forward 14 years later remembering he swerved to avoid a white Fiesta in Kelvedon Road. This is a good example of a rubbish later "sighting". It's not clear if in the reconstruction of this shown, his own D-reg vehicle is supposed to be accurately depicted. If he remembered being in this vehicle when this happened, then he's mistaken as to the day - D-plates came in from August 1986 so he can't have been driving one the day SJL disappeared. Despite the car being driven erratically, it then indicated right into Fulham Road. Really? And it would then have had to drive right past Sturgis. Again, really?

The jogger, who does not sound like the sharpest tool in the shed, claims "it was a very hot day". It was not; at Heathrow ten miles west it was 21 degrees cooling to 19 degrees between 1pm and 1.20.

And so light so poor cricket was stopped...

To be fair the BMW driver did come forward at the time to the pop up police station in Stevenage Road - apparently. This detail was 'lost' as JD says so many details and reports were at the time. Where did the jogger get the idea was the BMW was perhaps LHD from by the way? To paraphrase "it didn't occur to me the BMW as LHD".

So are we saying this second sighting by C's father was around 2-2:45pm?

 

[WestLondoner]

Was this what DL objected to when she said 'the wrong photos were used'? I thought that was in earlier days. You'd think by Crimewatch they'd have got the representation right - originally 2-3 weeks later off top of head?

It was actually DL who handed out the brunette photos. The police said blonde from the outset - which to me does indeed suggest Agnetha - and were pretty frustrated that DL had muddied the waters. The 2-week Crimewatch featured a full-on blonde. The 12-week one had a slightly streaked brunette, closer to the party photo. It's hard to avoid the feeling that the 12-week reconstruction was itself influenced by the brunette photos.