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

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  • #361
Okay, i can’t do this..,
 
  • #362
  • #363
Okay, i can’t do this..,
Whats the problem?
Sorry Pinkizzy, no problem, just attempting to navigate the site and failing! Must have hit ‘post’ prematurely. Sorry to derail the thread. Such a mystery and so sad for those who knew Suzy.
 
  • #364
Okay, i can’t do this..,

Sorry Pinkizzy, no problem, just attempting to navigate the site and failing! Must have hit ‘post’ prematurely. Sorry to derail the thread. Such a mystery and so sad for those who knew Suzy.
Its impossible to derail the thread coz were in a stalemate situation - police won't search a site until there is more evidence...
 
  • #365
Its impossible to derail the thread coz were in a stalemate situation - police won't search a site until there is more evidence...
Beginning to wonder if DV got this all wrong, it’s all very quiet and if he honestly believes he’s right why no serious effort to get across the line?
I can see why the Met won’t act, the Fred West cafe job cost over £80k and they found nothing.
While I’d like to see someone take a quick look to confirm that DV is right, it would most likely hamper any subsequent forensics.
 
  • #366
Beginning to wonder if DV got this all wrong, it’s all very quiet and if he honestly believes he’s right why no serious effort to get across the line?
I can see why the Met won’t act, the Fred West cafe job cost over £80k and they found nothing.
While I’d like to see someone take a quick look to confirm that DV is right, it would most likely hamper any subsequent forensics.
She may have died in an accident so forensic detail isn't that important, is it? If it was murder, how can they prove it after 35 years? It will probably be reduced to manslaughter by a smart barrister.
 
  • #367
Hello all

New to this place but interested in this case from the outset. I had workmates who had bought property in the Fulham / Putney area and who hence possibly had met SJL; plus I had female colleagues (we were sales reps) and the nature of our work and this story made people rather nervous.

I read the 1988 book a long time ago; IIRC it didn't go down well with the family who thought it portrayed SJL as a bit of of a trollop. I've just read DV's book.

What comes over between the lines is that SJL's mother appears to have derailed the inquiry badly from the outset. She was the one who found "witness" WJ, before the police did, but WJ's account is contradicted by that of SJL's acquaintance BW, and also by the BT workers who were in that road until 4pm and saw no Fiesta. WJ's reliability is also undermined by her inability to recall the colour or make of a car she'd seen half an hour before.

It was also DL who released out of date photos of SJL as a brunette directly to the newspapers, and DL who insisted that Cannan had done it. There seems to be no hard evidence whatsoever of Cannan's involvement at all although nothing that clearly rules him out.

I am not persuaded by DV's thesis though. Essentially he seems to be saying that she came to grief when she returned to the pub. The evidence for this is that she needed to go there, and that there was a later blowfly infestation. I have real trouble with this. Either:

Someone at the pub planned this by stealing her stuff so as to lure her back there. But in broad daylight? Makes no sense. Or:

The loss of her stuff was genuine but she was killed by accident or mistake. Why would the inadvertent killer have hidden an accident, and hoe?

The loss of her stuff was genuine but she was killed opportunistically. But how? In a busy pub at lunchtime? And how was he so successful at improvising a hiding place? If she was killed there, why would the killer hide her on the premises? Wouldn't he just chuck her onto that convenient railway embankment?

It feels to me more like she was simply car jacked by someone unknown (this was of course Cannan's MO, although still doesn't make it him), which accommodates the BW sighting and the BT engineers. The Riglin supposed sighting is a problem with this theory, but many have noted that "Mr Kipper" looked a lot like SJL's boss. All it needs is for Riglin to have got the time wrong for his "sighting" to have been of MG and SF at Shorrolds at 430 rather than 1pm. I tend to discount all claims that Mr Kipper was Cannan because they all originate after he was named and don;t describe him accurately for 1986 (no BMW, not then from Bristol, etc).

Thoughts?

Right?
 
  • #368
WiseOwl wrote:
I have always believed (and still do) that it was someone Suzy knew that had something to do with her disappearance. I believe this person met her at her car that lunchtime, most probably unannounced. Because Suzy knew them she was ok with them getting in her car, but after that of course we can only speculate as to what happened.

Couldn't agree more. It does look that way. As I see it:

She mislaid her stuff at the pub on the Sunday;
She puts a false appointment into her work diary to cover fetching it;
En route she let someone she knew into her car and told him where she was going;
He demands to be taken somewhere else;
She's seen driving in the wrong direction by BW;
He takes her somewhere fairly nearby;
He calls the pub, posing as a policeman, to say she's not coming;
Wherever she is taken, she is killed there;
Her car now has to be moved, otherwise it discloses the crime scene;
Killer moves the seat, drives off and hastily dumps the car sometime after 4pm - the haste because she may be noticed as missing at any minute, and he needs to be nowhere near her car;
He makes his escape;
MG and SF turn up at Shorrolds but there's no sign of her. Harry Riglin notices them;
Police are notified and assume she's killed herself so search her flat, but not Shorrolds because MG and SF have already been there;
Police next day assume the Kipper appointment was real and search the house;
Harry Riglin describes SF and MG to the police;
Artist's impression goes viral.

The bit that baffles me is the "Sarah" phone call, the fact and the content alike. That and the carjacking are consistent with Cannan's MO, but those aside nothing else places him there.

As with Madeleine McCann, someone somewhere knows something.
 
  • #369
I guess DL may have made the 'Sarah' call, Suzannah sounds like Sarah when you say it quickly and with a twang.
 
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  • #370
Hello all

New to this place but interested in this case from the outset. I had workmates who had bought property in the Fulham / Putney area and who hence possibly had met SJL; plus I had female colleagues (we were sales reps) and the nature of our work and this story made people rather nervous.

I read the 1988 book a long time ago; IIRC it didn't go down well with the family who thought it portrayed SJL as a bit of of a trollop. I've just read DV's book.

What comes over between the lines is that SJL's mother appears to have derailed the inquiry badly from the outset. She was the one who found "witness" WJ, before the police did, but WJ's account is contradicted by that of SJL's acquaintance BW, and also by the BT workers who were in that road until 4pm and saw no Fiesta. WJ's reliability is also undermined by her inability to recall the colour or make of a car she'd seen half an hour before.

It was also DL who released out of date photos of SJL as a brunette directly to the newspapers, and DL who insisted that Cannan had done it. There seems to be no hard evidence whatsoever of Cannan's involvement at all although nothing that clearly rules him out.

I am not persuaded by DV's thesis though. Essentially he seems to be saying that she came to grief when she returned to the pub. The evidence for this is that she needed to go there, and that there was a later blowfly infestation. I have real trouble with this. Either:

Someone at the pub planned this by stealing her stuff so as to lure her back there. But in broad daylight? Makes no sense. Or:

The loss of her stuff was genuine but she was killed by accident or mistake. Why would the inadvertent killer have hidden an accident, and hoe?

The loss of her stuff was genuine but she was killed opportunistically. But how? In a busy pub at lunchtime? And how was he so successful at improvising a hiding place? If she was killed there, why would the killer hide her on the premises? Wouldn't he just chuck her onto that convenient railway embankment?

It feels to me more like she was simply car jacked by someone unknown (this was of course Cannan's MO, although still doesn't make it him), which accommodates the BW sighting and the BT engineers. The Riglin supposed sighting is a problem with this theory, but many have noted that "Mr Kipper" looked a lot like SJL's boss. All it needs is for Riglin to have got the time wrong for his "sighting" to have been of MG and SF at Shorrolds at 430 rather than 1pm. I tend to discount all claims that Mr Kipper was Cannan because they all originate after he was named and don;t describe him accurately for 1986 (no BMW, not then from Bristol, etc).

Thoughts?

Right?
There’s always a problem with the accuracy of witness statements and the length of time between the incident and the statement being taken is a factor.
As an example, my wife and I had cause to be stuck in a narrow lane (while out walking) there was no room for the large white van that was behind us to pass. So we walked up to the next passing place. At this moment a very large motor home appeared in the opposite direction. Again we couldn’t pass either vehicle, and as you might imagine the motor home was not going to reverse.
The white van reversed and the motor home passed us, as we walked on my wife said to me “why was the motor home towing a trailer with no car on it”.
I said it did have a car, it was a small red one, point of all this is that it you can get this wrong minutes later, what can you get wrong days later, and in the DV book interviews 30 plus years later?
This is the biggest issue with DV’s book, no real references to the excellent account available in the Andrew Stephen book, I don’t think you can rely on accounts recalled 30 plus years later.
 
  • #371
MG explaining the office politics and why SL left the office at lunchtime was interesting. However, why didn't DV interview the woman who threatened Caroline with a handset?
 
  • #372
Maybe he interviewed more people than he included in the book. However, I agree it’s a bit strange that he doesn’t appear to have followed this up.
She is key to his narrative.
 
  • #373
Well, between the lines, I think we're meant to infer that the temp landlord had something to do with it, and when his partner found out, they split up. This is why he was so shocked when DV went to see him and told him his ex "knew all about this"; and it's why she became so aggressive when he went to see her.

I think DV has done a good job in a number of areas. He has exposed the whole "Mr Kipper" narrative as almost certainly total fiction. He's further exposed the ineptitude of the police inquiry, which assumed instantly they needed to be looking for Mr Kipper and which focused fruitlessly thereafter on that.

He has exposed the non-existence of any case against John Cannan, against whom there is literally no evidence. He has an alibi, he did not drive a BMW in 1986, he wasn't from Bristol in 1986, the "sightings" of him were supposedly 15 years later by people who could apparently remember the exact date things happened 15 years before, and so on.

He's also exposed the disastrous effect on the whole inquiry of DL's contribution. As well as coaching "witnesses" to remember things they didn't see, she also distributed inaccurate photographs to the press, and invited Doris Stokes, Uri Geller and other supposed mediums to get involved. When a previously-discredited eccentric told her Cannan did it, she got the police to adopt and then publicize this theory.

I just don't buy DV's thesis that she went to the pub and was killed and hidden there. Who at the pub wanted to kill her? If he planned this, why lure her there of all places? If he didn't plan this, why would he suddenly decide to kill her and then incriminate himself by hiding the body on the premises?

It seems much, much likelier to me that she met someone she already knew, with whom she went somewhere by consent but who then killed her. It's usually the boyfriend, but as she seems to have had a pretty exciting personal life, it's presumably one of those boyfriends we never heard about.

One thing that does occur to me is that she was perhaps taken somewhere but, talking for her life, told her abductor she was expected somewhere. If she is missed she will be looked for so he would be at risk. He checks this story by phoning the pub, claiming to be the police. They confirm the lost property story but he proceeds with killing her anyway.

It is frustrating though. Compared to the futile searches of Norton Barracks and whatnot, all based on a supposed connection to Cannan that's so weak the CPS told them not to bother, the effort involved in looking for her under a pub floor and on a railway cutting seem minimal, yet the police won't make it.
 
  • #374
I couldn’t agree more, the Police could search the cellar and the railway embankment at relatively small cost. This would prove or disprove DV’s narrative, he’s certainly knocked a big whole in the Mr Kipper police line of enquiry.
On this basis it’s got to be in the police’s interests to prove DV is wrong, especially if they still believe JC is responsible, so why not, it can’t be just money.
One thing that keeps popping into my thoughts is Adams reaction to DV’s interview, so much emotion after 30 plus years, then there’s his closing comments “ you’ll never find her, no one will”.
This makes me think he knows what happened to Suzy and he’s not telling, why, is it guilt or fear of the consequences of opening up?
I know Adam has an alibi, but what if he knows who killed Suzy and he’s kept quiet all these years?
 
  • #375
I think there is a prosaic explanation of AL's reaction to DV, which is that ever since July 1986 he has, out of regard for the feelings of SJL's family, been keeping quiet that actually it had ended that weekend.

Whenever I was separated from a good-looking girlfriend by holidays in my mid-20s, my main agenda item was, frankly, getting together with her again ASAP for an extended exchange of mutual esteem. Nothing of the kind happened with AL who had just got back from holiday. She may have met AL on Friday; back then he said she did, now he says not. She went to work on Saturday morning, then to a do without him that evening, at which (per the last-ever photo) she copped off with someone else. AL was there on the Sunday at the beach, but not with her, and she left without him. We don't know where she was on Sunday evening but it wasn't with AL, although she apparently phoned him.

This doesn't sound like a lovers' reunion weekend TBH, it sounds like she had decided while he was away to dump him and over that weekend did so.

He was paraded as SJL's boyfriend because he was DL's type, but he was actually her ex, and may have been only one of several boyfriends with whom she was two- or even three-timing him. While he was away, things moved ahead with one of the others, so she figured she'd end it. She gave him the good news about this over that weekend, either explicitly or by being very offhand so he has to work it out. Then the next day she disappears. Suddenly he's trotted out as the nice steady current chap by her mother. What on earth would you do in his position? He can't say "Actually Mrs Lamplugh I'm livid with your daughter because she cheated on me while I was on holiday and there appear to be multiple candidates", because he's then a suspect.

She presumably went to the pub on Sunday and lost her stuff there. She mentioned this loss to others on Monday but not before, so it seems unlikely she lost her stuff there on Friday. We don't know who she was with at that pub. She made a phone call to AL, presumably from its payphone next to the outdoor benches. She did not see her lodger that evening. Next day she leaves the office to collect something from that pub and is never seen again.

It feels to me like there was someone else in the picture who's simply never come to light. He edges AL aside while he's on holiday, he avoids her friends but meets her on Sunday....and he intercepts her on Monday. I assume the bloke whose knee she was sitting on in the Saturday photo was eliminated, but it seems that as well as AL who she finished with, she may have had two others on the go.
 
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  • #376
I think there is a prosaic explanation of AL's reaction to DV, which is that ever since July 1986 he has, out of regard for the feelings of SJL's family, been keeping quiet that actually it had ended that weekend.

Whenever I was separated from a good-looking girlfriend by holidays in my mid-20s, my main agenda item was, frankly, getting together with her again ASAP for an extended exchange of mutual esteem. Nothing of the kind happened with AL who had just got back from holiday. She may have met AL on Friday; back then he said she did, now he says not. She went to work on Saturday morning, then to a do without him that evening, at which (per the last-ever photo) she copped off with someone else. AL was there on the Sunday at the beach, but not with her, and she left without him. We don't know where she was on Sunday evening but it wasn't with AL, although she apparently phoned him.

This doesn't sound like a lovers' reunion weekend TBH, it sounds like she had decided while he was away to dump him and over that weekend did so.

He was paraded as SJL's boyfriend because he was DL's type, but he was actually her ex, and may have been only one of several boyfriends with whom she was two- or even three-timing him. While he was away, things moved ahead with one of the others, so she figured she'd end it. She gave him the good news about this over that weekend, either explicitly or by being very offhand so he has to work it out. Then the next day she disappears. Suddenly he's trotted out as the nice steady current chap by her mother. What on earth would you do in his position? He can't say "Actually Mrs Lamplugh I'm livid with your daughter because she cheated on me while I was on holiday and there appear to be multiple candidates", because he's then a suspect.

She presumably went to the pub on Sunday and lost her stuff there. She mentioned this loss to others on Monday but not before, so it seems unlikely she lost her stuff there on Friday. We don't know who she was with at that pub. She made a phone call to AL, presumably from its payphone next to the outdoor benches. She did not see her lodger that evening. Next day she leaves the office to collect something from that pub and is never seen again.

It feels to me like there was someone else in the picture who's simply never come to light. He edges AL aside while he's on holiday, he avoids her friends but meets her on Sunday....and he intercepts her on Monday. I assume the bloke whose knee she was sitting on in the Saturday photo was eliminated, but it seems that as well as AL who she finished with, she may have had two others on the go.
Again I wholeheartedly agree, however, while a breakup then would be pretty upsetting, 30 plus years later (I personally would have got over it), which is why the emotional outburst was so strange.
That Monday SL was supposed to have been in a good mood and upbeat. This was presumably because she was getting her £3k bonus (which no one knows where from).
Is it not possible that the Mr Kipper ruse was to allow SL to collect her money and going to the pub for her lost items was a secondary part of the errand?
I say this on the basis that the diary contained nothing of importance, the police didn’t make an issue of its content.
I feel SL is more likely to have made up the Mr Kipper ruse to get her money than just to retrieve her lost things.
This doesn’t mean DV is wrong, she could still have gone to the PoW and was unfortunately killed. But, equally she may have never reached the PoW and the £3k benefactor was the last person she saw.
As you say this would account for the phone calls to the PoW and effectively put the landlord in the clear.
SL was very secretive, however, do you not think AL would not have known where the £3k was coming from?
 
  • #377
I think there is a prosaic explanation of AL's reaction to DV, which is that ever since July 1986 he has, out of regard for the feelings of SJL's family, been keeping quiet that actually it had ended that weekend.

Whenever I was separated from a good-looking girlfriend by holidays in my mid-20s, my main agenda item was, frankly, getting together with her again ASAP for an extended exchange of mutual esteem. Nothing of the kind happened with AL who had just got back from holiday. She may have met AL on Friday; back then he said she did, now he says not. She went to work on Saturday morning, then to a do without him that evening, at which (per the last-ever photo) she copped off with someone else. AL was there on the Sunday at the beach, but not with her, and she left without him. We don't know where she was on Sunday evening but it wasn't with AL, although she apparently phoned him.

This doesn't sound like a lovers' reunion weekend TBH, it sounds like she had decided while he was away to dump him and over that weekend did so.

He was paraded as SJL's boyfriend because he was DL's type, but he was actually her ex, and may have been only one of several boyfriends with whom she was two- or even three-timing him. While he was away, things moved ahead with one of the others, so she figured she'd end it. She gave him the good news about this over that weekend, either explicitly or by being very offhand so he has to work it out. Then the next day she disappears. Suddenly he's trotted out as the nice steady current chap by her mother. What on earth would you do in his position? He can't say "Actually Mrs Lamplugh I'm livid with your daughter because she cheated on me while I was on holiday and there appear to be multiple candidates", because he's then a suspect.

She presumably went to the pub on Sunday and lost her stuff there. She mentioned this loss to others on Monday but not before, so it seems unlikely she lost her stuff there on Friday. We don't know who she was with at that pub. She made a phone call to AL, presumably from its payphone next to the outdoor benches. She did not see her lodger that evening. Next day she leaves the office to collect something from that pub and is never seen again.

It feels to me like there was someone else in the picture who's simply never come to light. He edges AL aside while he's on holiday, he avoids her friends but meets her on Sunday....and he intercepts her on Monday. I assume the bloke whose knee she was sitting on in the Saturday photo was eliminated, but it seems that as well as AL who she finished with, she may have had two others on the go.
Has this picture of Suzy sitting on other mans lap ever been posted in the press? I myself have never seen a picture.
 
  • #378
  • #379
Remind me again what the £3k commission was about?

I agree that it does seem she was lured out of the office for something. The least plausible possibility to me is that she was lured back to the pub in broad daylight by a member of staff to be killed there (how would he have known she hadn't told 10 people where she was going?)
 
  • #380
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