Suzy Lamplugh - 33 years since she went missing

[MarathonMo]

33 years since she went missing and all evidence seemed to point to John Canaan as the man responsible.

David Videcette states he has compelling evidence that Canaan wasn't responsible & claims he now has the proof after a 3 year private investigation.

He believes the 'Mr Kipper' appointment was a red herring and Suzy left the office to go on a personal errand (?). Allegedly, the police missed a lot in their initial investigations.

He claims the police focused on the wrong man as they did in the Rachel Nickell case (Colin Stagg).

Perhaps one day this will be solved and her family will get closure.

new twist?

It was established that Stagg wasn't the sharpest too, in the box though wasn't it? My feeling about him is that he's an odd but basically decent man. He was naive enough to admit he'd sunbathed on the common that morning, naked when questioned about it. That's not what someone with good insight would say. Therefore I'd go out on a limb and say that telling the truth was his natural inclination, even if it didn't get him the things he wanted.

I think at the very least PB should have seen that. He totally distances himself from it by saying that all he did was compose LJ's letters and never once said Stagg WAS the man they wanted.

Not asking leading questions is a basic, not only was she doing that on his advice, she was actively saying totally ridiculous things in the hope he'd admit it.

And they were shocked when the trial was thrown out before it even began. It was pure entrapment 😏

Thing with MOJ is that it's not about guilt or innocence. It's about due process.

Being in prison for a totally different crime does actually mean you got away with the one you were never caught for/charged with.

I kill someone today, in five years I'm sent down for not paying my council tax. I've, until that point at least, got away with murder.

In the last century (1900-2000) - there were around 65 "serial killers" convicted in the UK. A proportion of these were women and some of them were doctors/nurses.

99% of these people were dead or behind bars when Suzy went missing. Of the ones that are free and not in the medical profession, we are talking two or three people amongst the entire population. It is an absolutely miniscule fraction.

Why is it that a serial killer HAS to have murdered her?

If we believe everything we read in the press (who love a good rumour), Suzy was lucky enough to have been friends with two killers in her life.

John Cannan & Steve Wright: (Suffolk Strangler and the Ipswich Ripper who she met whilst they both worked on the QE2.)

Let's assume Cannan and Wright did not murder her together.

If one of them murdered her, it means the other did not.

And if one of them didn't kill her, who's to say neither of them killed her?

And it was someone else.

The vast majority of murders are one offs. Serial killers in this country are so few and far between to be as rare as hens' teeth.

Who's to say she didn't just fall in the Thames following a head injury or drunk, get swept out to sea and her body has never been found?

Suzy's case is high profile because Diana Lamplugh's work made it high profile and because of the supposed narrative about her going missing "at work". But what if she got run over and someone just bundled her into the back of a bin lorry?

We want her case to take on serial killer significance. As people have said before, she was glam, young, attractive and independent. Women identify with her. It could have been any one of us.

But what if there is a really dull explanation for her disappearance? What if it was just an accident that got covered up? What if it was a relationship with someone we don't know about that's gone wrong? Why does Suzy get a "serial killer" label attributed to her case and it is not the same for other cases?

I've listened to a podcast about the case and links to John Canaan and the theory completely fits the 'new facts' that she was using the appointment to cover for meeting someone.

The theory is that she met with John Canaan for a 'date' or that he asked her to pop out to meet him.

I'll see if I can dig out a link to the podcast, it's worth listening to for anyone interested...

Podcast

podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/casefile-true-crime/id998568017?i=1000382188230

Claudia Lawrence is another I think of re: women going missing without a trace in the UK

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisappearanceoffClaudiaLawrence

Who's to say she didn't just fall in the Thames following a head injury or drunk, get swept out to sea and her body has never been found?

If she fell in near Fulham, it's stretching credulity she could have got as far as the sea without being found ...

...and this was in the news just last week - she was missing without a trace for 37 years and just found in a septic tank

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/amp/entry/man-86-arrested-septic-tankukk_5d402202e4b0db8affae2e99/

Young, attractive, middle class, professional woman will always, always get more attention in every capacity than not so attractive, working class girl.

Just because of who she was also made it so high profile.

Same with kids, a pretty child will make for a far more tragic tale than average looking kid from council estate.

she was missing without a trace for 37 years and just found in a septic tank

Interesting to speculate whether it will trigger a murder investigation and charge ...

Someone somewhere has that bit of information needed to crack the case.They might not even know they have it.

Or it is possible she just disappeared off her own bat.Maybe shes with Mr Kipper and it was planned.

"...and this was in the news just last week - she was missing without a trace for 37 years and just found in a septic tank."

And nobody has ever suggested that the above case was related to a serial killer. Mainly because it was a very, very low profile missing persons case in a more remote area, in a potentially less glam profession and in a part of the country with far less media interest.

Again, the police missed any and all forms of evidence at the time on that case. It's only because of maintenance work that that poor woman was found 37 years later - just by pure chance.

Who's to say that the same hasn't happened to Suzy because the police have again focussed on the wrong person and the wrong things?

Kipper is so distinctive, bordering on comical too. Obviously whatever name was used would have been publicized but nobody is ever going to say "ohhh, what was the name of the person she had the appointment with? Oh, tip of my tongue!"?

They're not, it's almost a deliberately memorable name.

Again, the police missed any and all forms of evidence at the time on that case.

If there was any evidence to be found ?

It's only because of maintenance work that that poor woman was found 37 years later - just by pure chance.

She may have slipped fell in, and sunk ? With no idea about the background, I can think of several ways to explain the evidence without any inference of foul play.

Even if the police at the time suspected foul play, where do you start looking in a farm that covers acres in a remote countryside setting that itself covers hundreds if not thousands of acres ?

Kipper is so distinctive, bordering on comical too.

I don't recall that view at the time ... there's an element of hindsight here ... "kipper" has entered newsspeak in a variety of ways - in the past fortnight alone.

I'm still very curious as to how that entry came to be made.

Another one who thinks John Cannan did it

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/criminologist-speaks-out-on-details-linking-248973.amp

I’m on the fence about him.

@DGRossetti

"She may have slipped fell in, and sunk?"

I'm not conclusively stating there was foul play at work for the woman found in the septic tank in Worcestershire from 1982, but it has been reported by the broadsheets that her body parts were found in a bag.

Police have confirmed that her 86 year-old husband has been arrested and released "under investigation". That does suggests to me that the police may believe there could have been some foul play at work there, especially as he is still under investigation.

So if her husband could have killed her, and didn't kill again, we may have another example demonstrating that people can kill once, and remain undetected for 37 years. Rather than the Hollywood 'Mr Kipper' serial killer that we all want to associate with Suzy.

Somebody killing for the first time and getting away with it,would be incredibly rare

Source? How do we know this isn't the case for all missing persons cases?

@lyralalala if you’re still around, I'd be interested in the thread you mentioned yesterday, reference the keys to the sale property. Thanks.

@BlamesFartsOnTheNeighbour i dont have a source.Its just to me,im a normal person.If i was to murder somebody,i wouldnt get away with it.I dont have the know how,skill or gumption.And im a terrible liar.

Now im not saying thats the case always but if a normal everyday person killed someone.Wouldnt their conscience give them away at some point.

I'm not conclusively stating there was foul play at work for the woman found in the septic tank in Worcestershire from 1982, but it has been reported by the broadsheets that her body parts were found in a bag.

Ah, well things start to look a bit different then (although there's a world of difference between murder and disposing of a body .....)

Police have confirmed that her 86 year-old husband has been arrested and released "under investigation". That does suggests to me that the police may believe there could have been some foul play at work there, especially as he is still under investigation.

This is all procedural as far as I know ...

So if her husband could have killed her, and didn't kill again, we may have another example demonstrating that people can kill once, and remain undetected for 37 years. Rather than the Hollywood 'Mr Kipper' serial killer that we all want to associate with Suzy.

Well yes. But in this case we have a victim known to the person being investigated for the killing. And vice versa.

Anyway, I don't need persuading that it's possible a one-off killer managed to pick on SL and then disappeared back into the daily grind of London life for 33 years. Where humans are involved - particularly in criminal activities - anything is possible. The real question is could it be a possibility in this case ?????? Especially when it's possible to connect the victim - albeit circumstantially - with someone who is a known killer

It's rare - if not unknown - for armchair enthusiasts to crack a cold case that the police have been all over for years. However, it does provide a good froth of varied and insightful questions that put the police to the test.

I still think the diary entry hasn't been explained properly. If it was 100% genuine, then where is the person that she did show around the house ? There has always been an assumption that the failure of anyone to come forward is the starting point for premeditated foul play rather than a one-off opportunistic killer.

So if the entry is connected to he disappearance, then how did it get in the diary ? Was she duped into making it - which if she was seeing JC and would have known his voice suggests someone else made the call ? Or - as is only now being (publicly) imagined, did she deliberately make a false entry because she had something or someone to hide ?

I'll admit I'm not steeped in the case (now love lives of the Pre-Raphaelites and I'm on mastermind) so maybe these questions have been asked and answered. But in general most cold case successes come about because assumptions are discounted, and everything has to be verified, validated and proved.

A forensic handwriting expert would probably have looked at the diary entry, compared it to Suzy's handwriting and matched it to her. It looks the same as the other entries that presumably, she wrote.

Re Kipper being a distinctive name, maybe it's just me. I find it an odd name. You want to blend in and not stand out as particularly conspicuous there are hundreds of other names you could choose. To me, the name stands out.

I don't know how Suzy's diary entry got in there.

Who put it in her diary and when?

But as others have suggested on here, many of us have stuck something in the diary or come back late from an appointment, just in order to free us up to do other innocent things.

E.g. Grab something to eat/go shopping/hair/nails/gynaecologist's appointment etc.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/06/23/suzy-lamplugh-may-have-used-mr-kipper-cover-story/

"Former Scotland Yard detective and private investigator, David Videcette, who has spent three years investigating the disappearance, has suggested the entire inquiry was flawed from day one, because Miss Lamplugh never actually visited Shorrolds Road."

"He is now convinced the estate agent invented the appointment to cover her tracks with her bosses while she left the office unattended to go on a personal errand in lunch time."

“I have spent three years tracing key witnesses from the time and there is compelling evidence that has convinced me, the infamous appointment at Shorrolds Road at 12.45pm on July 28 1986, never took place.

“It is my firm view that Suzy put the Mr Kipper entry in her diary because she had to nip out and she wasn't supposed to leave the office unattended.

“I believe the answer to this mystery lies in another appointment that Suzy did keep, but that has never been explored.”

A forensic handwriting expert would probably have looked at the diary entry, compared it to Suzy's handwriting and matched it to her. It looks the same as the other entries that presumably, she wrote.

I'm not suggesting she didn't make it. But since we are all thinking that it was connected to her disappearance (and evidence of premeditation) then it is surely key as to how it got there. Because to accept the JC theory with SL unwitting means that he must have somehow arranged for it to be made without her suspecting. Which suggests whoever did phone and make the appointment (or visited the estate agents office ) was not JC.

If she made it herself using "Mr. Kipper" as a code it suggests she knew the person she was going to meet. Which does change a few assumptions.

Another possibility is that a colleague took the call which eventually got entered into the diary. (There may not have been Facebook in 1986, but we did have post-its). However if that was what happened, I don't recall it being mentioned. If JC is as cunning as he thinks he is and wanted to dupe SL into a meeting without involving an accomplice then it wouldn't have been too hard to call the office when SL was out, and leave a message which got transferred into an appointment on SLs return. However, as I say, I am certain that in the initial investigation that wasn't mentioned. (It could of course be one of the "little details" that the police withheld ).

It's the diary entry which marks the case out. If there really had been a Mr. Kipper. and the viewing was totally innocent then the only explanation was a completely random abduction in broad daylight, or some sort of moment of madness which led to her disappearance.

As soon as you realise that "Mr. Kipper" appears to have never existed, things become horribly more sinister, leading us to where we are today ...

Well yeah because if he was a genuine prospective buyer he'd surely have called the office to ask where the EA was at the appointed time.

I can't tell you how many times we waited for EAs who just didn't show up for arranged appointments, first thing we did was call the office and point out we were standing around waiting for them.