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

[tes1984]

re, BW. she did not come forward until 5 days into the enquiry, and why would mr kipper be driving around with SL at 2.45PM which is 2 hours after viewing shorrolds rd. mr kipper would probably have SL held captive by this time. he is not going to e driving around with SL all day. i dont buy it.

I tend to agree, although there are plenty of examples of 80s abductors driving victims around for hours, or even days.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

I think BW sighting likely real as she’s never doubted it at all & she’s a very smart woman, even though stakes very high & others needed to prove her wrong. Anyone can be mistaken ofc, but my gut says she saw her due to her lack of doubt.

It might be the new sighting at Doneraile potentially ties to this.

 

[Kasparthecat1]

How did MG get in without the keys, as AS said he did?

I think this is the perplexing part, and to be fair DV picks this up...so MG went to property, looked, or perhaps searched, "inside and out" and iirc went back to DL and assured her that Sjl was not inside. How could he be so confident, if he hadn't been able to get in? The Crimewatch prog has him (and a male colleague, if memory serves, visiting the property but they are not shown going inside).

I don't buy DV's "key" scenario but...this part is indeed a mystery.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

Well - police did consider it was a ruse to leave office, in other words not a bona fide straight appointment in 1986 (before DV) & investigated to this end. Evidence looked to support fact it was a legitimate viewing but still a consideration for the team.

‘Kipper’ wasn’t a registered Sturgis client, all evidence points to something private ‘off the books’ with a man she knew to some degree. AS & police all thought/agreed in end almost certainly she knew him.

For me the answer to why she went missing lies in the below If the police knew ‘WHO’ re: below we’d all be a long way to solving this.

This gets lost & ignored but it’s important & IMO key & is still unsolved to this day:

P.79 AS

She was working on a deal, she confided to a fellow guest, that if successful would mean she was due a large commission…possibly as much as 3K” She was also hopeful to be buying a property with someone in a joint deal. She talked about 3 unsuccessful attempts to sell her flat and how she hoped to clinch a sale soon.

This wasn’t linked to Sturgis to a Sturgis sale or estate agent.

To her parents she said on last Sunday “Don’t ask me about the deal I’ll tell you more when I can” but had confided it involved a joint purchase on a property she couldn’t afford alone & there were dubious ‘strings’ attached as earlier article I posted showed.

She was anxious about the flat sale Mum said in run up to abduction and uncle said ‘almost angry’ about someone leaning on her.

There must surely be a clue in a diary or contact book & for a secretive person she did sometimes share & confide. ‘Guess where I spent Saturday night!’ to Sturgis colleagues, to her uncle, etc.

I really feels it’s possible her cautious, sensible father (with a law background) seeded doubt & despite her gung ho ‘life is for living’ comment she took advice to heart. It was a risky venture she was contemplating.

He said “My daughter would never do anything illegal”. Does the hole in the timeline on Sunday eve, where she lied to AL about who she really saw, point to a flustered visit (hence losing belongings) to mystery man to bail on deal? If there is a cover up on Sunday & police know who she saw in reality & it’s not in public domain, did they consider this possibility? Whoever she did see needs close scrutiny.

Why go out again late on Sun night - after 9pm - if visibly tired after a crazy weekend & not necessary?

Was the ‘Kipper’ apt about him persuading her to see him briefly on Mon to reconsider & things went south from there? There was someone, business related, SL seemed to see more as a real annoyance, “she was almost angry” (Uncle) than a threat. Did she wildly underestimate someone’s malevolence?

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

I think this is the perplexing part, and to be fair DV picks this up...so MG went to property, looked, or perhaps searched, "inside and out" and iirc went back to DL and assured her that Sjl was not inside. How could he be so confident, if he hadn't been able to get in? The Crimewatch prog has him (and a male colleague, if memory serves, visiting the property but they are not shown going inside).

I don't buy DV's "key" scenario but...this part is indeed a mystery.

Could SL have picked up keys for 37 from board & in a rush left on a filing cabinet or elsewhere in office. She was absent minded at times…& she was rushing. IF just a rendezvous or a faux viewing she didn’t need anyway.

Then someone finds & assumes a spare set & doesn’t immediately realise significance as all think keys disappeared with her, enters 37 Shorrolds later in normal way? There WERE a set in office after all…so…How else?

Anyone familiar with keys & estate agencies & rushed chaos could perhaps appreciate possible. The keys will prob have had a number allocated to the specific address eg: number 8, not linked to house number. Only when you look at index book for keys would you twig keys for 37 Shorrolds, if so. It was a new instruction so staff unlikely to know from memory.

All spare sets, protocol dictated, on same ring so odd they mistook for spare set for 37 if so, but maybe thought an anomaly or the grave relevance of it all simply missed?

 

[Kasparthecat1]

Could SL have picked up keys for 37 from board & in a rush left on a filing cabinet or elsewhere in office. She was absent minded at times…& she was rushing. IF just a rendezvous or a faux viewing she didn’t need anyway.

Then someone finds & assumes a spare set & doesn’t immediately realise significance as all think keys disappeared with her, enters 37 Shorrolds later in normal way? There WERE a set in office after all…so…How else?

Anyone familiar with keys & estate agencies & rushed chaos could perhaps appreciate possible. The keys will prob have had a number allocated to the specific address eg: number 8, not linked to house number. Only when you look at index book for keys would you twig keys for 37 Shorrolds, if so.

All spare sets, protocol dictated, on same ring so odd they mistook for spare set for 37 if so, but maybe thought an anomaly or the grave relevance of it all simply missed?

Perhaps a long shot, but a viewing of the outside only - no key required? So perhaps O/S means outside, literally?

 

[rvlvr]

DV’s book is very useful in a number of ways. Firstly, from his interview with Adam Leegood it’s pretty clear Suzy didn’t go to the Prince of Wales pub on the Friday. Or if she did then it wasn’t with him. A visit to the pub - or at least somewhere in the vicinity - on the Sunday seems much more likely, but why, and with whom (if anyone)? What does this tell us about Suzy’s state of mind, her finances, her plans? It’s interesting stuff that @Lady Stoddart-West has discussed very, very well.

Secondly, DV does some excellent research exposing the thinness of the Gilly Paige/Norton Barracks stuff and in particular how Diana cynically utilised GMH’s research to add much needed weight to the case against Cannan. This nonsense underpins much of the discussion re JC’s possible involvement in Suzy’s disappearance.

There are plenty of good reasons to suspect the Kipper/37SR appointment wasn’t legit. The keys are one interesting angle to ponder but even if she took them there’s no guarantee it was a bona fide house viewing. Similarly (though perhaps less likely) it could’ve been bona fide, but perhaps in a rush she simply forgot them. From plod to family, everyone seems unsure re the appointment’s legitimacy.

The pub does seem to have been rather overlooked in the telling of Suzy’s story. I don’t think anyone believes she was murdered there. An accidental death and cover up? That seems unlikely to me too but given there are so few confirmed facts in this case I’ve no idea how anyone can rule anything in or out with any great certainty, to be honest.

 

[Lady Stoddart-West]

@rvlvr, thank you for your kind words. Have you seen what AL says on The Man Who Killed S L, doc about Fri night at PoW?

It’s true, IMO, when he says to DV Mossops was his bag & PoW - no way he’d go/never went. As I said on here, long before DV interview & book, there were far nicer pubs on river everyone went to. He said this too, independently.

DV is confused by his interview with AL, but IMO the answer is simple, AL likely/possibly been given licence to legitimately ‘pad out’ on JC on this doc, possibly by the producer, & he’s simply forgotten the details he gave. This can be how it works. The police had said JC effectively ‘did it’ after all, he’s the ‘only suspect’ - that’s unprecedented! So AL not shady at all or demonstrating less than upright behaviour. IF AL also asked by police etc to gloss sensitive details of late Sun night/replace Sun for Fri re: lost things, then more licence too. We do know the police asked for some change like this but not what it was.

This doc, IMO, was spliced together in a way that was misleading. I thought the Superhire worker, admirer of JC, was the barmaid at the PoW at first! The ‘uptown girl called Su Su’ mentioned by SuperHire colleague, the police knew not SL but ‘Sue’ from the Peabody Estate. And so on…

It’s a shame the better circumstantial evidence that ‘JC did it’ isn’t ever put together more cohesively. The interview on SL/SB & exactly what he says & how he responds, the flimsy, dishonest, alibis, the aborted house purchase with ‘Sue’ around Fulham, etc. There is material I find hard to dispute. There is much more here that is worth focusing on.

On KH, unless DV is a charlatan or a fool (I don’t think so) he must surely have had more on KH than he could tell? He had a dossier & exhibits also I think? He may have had nothing of note of course. He suggested, I think on ‘X’ he expected or thought possible arrest or arrests. I have no idea on threshold for that but hope fairly high (?). Surely he’d know?

There are/were anomalies around the pub, the calls long before SL reported missing, etc. I am not pointing any finger at KH but it’s easy to forget he’d been there Jan-March 86 also approx so knew the locale a bit. If the calls legit why to pub?

DV left a lot of important SL detail out, IMO, not least BW sighting I think (?) Galway-a-like ‘right ruck’ witness, etc, but chose to include a neighbour poss trying to warn SL on phone, via pub, from Disraeli Rd. DV even trying to track the journo down who reported on it at time (found he was deceased). I think that’s possibly important.

 

[Kasparthecat1]

Secondly, DV does some excellent research exposing the thinness of the Gilly Paige/Norton Barracks stuff and in particular how Diana cynically utilised GMH’s research to add much needed weight to the case against Cannan. This nonsense underpins much of the discussion re JC’s possible involvement in Suzy’s disappearance.

Much as I don't buy a good deal of what DV says, the book (JMO) is worth reading just for this (regardless of whether one believes JC's possible involvement).