Disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh

A white Ford Fiesta Mk2, similar to Lamplugh's car that was found abandoned.[6]

Lamplugh's boyfriend, a 27-year-old stockbroker, and her male flatmate were both questioned by police, but both had solid alibis with corroborating witnesses.[13] Lamplugh's two-bedroom flat in Putney was searched, but nothing notable or suspicious was found.[10][12][18] It was soon suggested in the press that if Mr. Kipper's first name was Dan, the combined would be an anagram of "kidnapper".[19][12] Lamplugh's office manager revealed that a bunch of red roses had been delivered to the office by a mystery man just days before she had disappeared.[20][7]

Police released a photo of Lamplugh with dark brown hair, but she had tinted her hair blond on the Friday before she vanished.[5] The initial investigation was conducted without computers, using an old-fashioned card-index system in which all leads were filed on approximately 26,000 cards.[5] Because Lamplugh was only considered a missing person, known criminals in the area were not considered as suspects.[5]

Six months after Lamplugh's disappearance, a man informed police that he had discovered that a BMW that had been left abandoned in a road for some months was registered to a Belgian man known sometimes as Mr. Kiper,[12] and detectives believed that this information was significant.[12] However, the car's owner was located in Belgium and had a confirmed alibi for the day of Lamplugh's disappearance, and his BMW had been in a garage in Belgium on that day.[12][21] He was swiftly eliminated as a suspect.[21]

One year after Lamplugh's disappearance, detectives noted that the artist's impression of Mr. Kipper strongly resembled John Cannan, a convicted rapist (and later abductor and murderer) who had been residing in a nearby prison hostel outside HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs around the time of Lamplugh's disappearance.[5] In 1980, he had raped and beaten his girlfriend when she tried to leave him, and he raped a shopkeeper at knifepoint in 1981.[5] Cannan had been on day release from the prison in the months preceding Lamplugh's disappearance and held a job in the area as a porter.[5] He was public school-educated[22] and was known for his ability to attract women. In the weeks before Lamplugh disappeared, Cannan had told inmates and workmates that he was frequenting wine bars in Fulham and had met a new "uptown" girlfriend named Susu.[5][7] Lamplugh had visited some of the wine bars, including one located opposite from her office.[23][18] Cannan also frequented a pub in Putney that Lamplugh visited on 25 July 1986, the same day on which Cannan was released from prison, three days before Lamplugh's disappearance.[7][5] Cannan confirmed in 2021 that he had visited the bars and pubs.[18] He often delivered roses to women as a romantic ploy[21][7] and had told people that he was interested in buying a property in the area.[5]

In June 1987, Lamplugh's mother Diane said that she believed that her daughter was dead.[5]

in October 1987, 15 months after Lamplugh's disappearance, John Cannan abducted and murdered 29-year-old Shirley Banks from Bristol. He attempted to rape two women in a shop three weeks later after driving to the shop in his black BMW.[5][12] He had also tried to abduct a woman the night before he had abducted Banks and had been visiting wine bars in Bristol to search for victims.[14][7] He had held Banks hostage in his flat for 18 hours before killing her and dumping her at a site in the Quantock Hills known as Dead Woman's Ditch.[5] Inside his dark BMW was found an imitation handgun, handcuffs and the tax disc for Banks' car.[12] Soon after Cannan was arrested, Banks' Mini car was found hidden in his garage, with a new, false number plate affixed reading "SLP 386S".[5] Detectives later noted that the letters SLP could stand for Suzy Lamplugh and the number 86 for 1986, the year in which she vanished.[5][6] The media began to note the likeness between Cannan and the photofit in the Lamplugh case, and speculated about a link between the Banks and Lamplugh cases.[5][25] It was also known that Cannan had joined a dating agency in Bristol weeks before he had murdered Banks, providing a false name of John Peterson, and had presented himself in a recorded video as a successful, smartly dressed businessman.[12][5] The video remains publicly available.[12]

Metropolitan Police detectives travelled to Bristol to interview Cannan about the Lamplugh disappearance.[5] When he was asked by detectives if he understood the significance of the number plate, he replied that it could be seen as a reference to Suzy Lamplugh, whom the detectives had not yet mentioned.[12] However, Cannan claimed that he had chosen the letters for the plate at random.[5][26] He claimed that he had bought the car from a "Bristol businessman" who was responsible for "the murders of Shirley Banks, Suzy Lamplugh and another girl" and that the man was in a great deal of trouble.[5] Cannan was known for masquerading as a Bristol businessman.[27][5][14] When asked if the man was himself, Cannan provided an affirmative response but immediately recanted and ended the interview because he was overcome with emotion.[5][12]

Cannan was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Banks and for several other rapes, abductions and attempted abductions.[5][25] He was also convicted of the rape of a woman in Reading on the train line between London and Bristol, six weeks after his release from Wormwood Scrubs prison.[5][25] The sentencing judge told Cannan "you should never again be at liberty outside of prison walls."[5] Further interviews were conducted with Cannan regarding Lamplugh's disappearance in 1988, 1989 and 1990.[28] However, he was not placed on an identity parade.[12]

In 1990, a woman named Gilly Paige, with whom Cannan had been in a relationship after Lamplugh's disappearance, informed police that Cannan had spoken about the Lamplugh case and told her that Lamplugh was buried at Norton Barracks.[5][29] Another former girlfriend of Cannan, Daphne Sargent, also believed Cannan to be responsible, saying: "As soon as I heard about Suzy, I knew it was John. It had all the hallmarks - right down to the champagne."[30]

In the years after Lamplugh's disappearance, police tested the DNA of 800 unidentified bodies and skeletal remains that matched her description.[31] Lamplugh was officially declared dead at her parents' behest, exactly seven years after her 1986 disappearance, on 27 July 1993.[4][32] She was presumed to have been murdered.

The photofit of the man seen outside 37 Shorrolds Road with Lamplugh in July 1986, compared to John Cannan's arrest photo in October 1987.

In 1999, an internal report by the Metropolitan Police criticised the handling of the original investigation and failure to further investigate John Cannan.[12] A new reinvestigation was launched in the early 2000s with a new team whose detectives were directed to determine whether Cannan could be eliminated as a suspect or implicated in Lamplugh's murder.[5] The reinvestigations established that Cannan could not be eliminated and discovered more evidence that implicated him.[5][7]

The paper index cards used in the original investigation were computerised, and investigators learned that several estate agents in Fulham had been visited at the time by a man calling himself Mr. Kipper.[5] Detectives believed that this had been Cannan seeking potential victims for abduction and murder.[5] In the late 1970s and into 1980, during the final years of Cannan's troubled marriage to his wife June Vale, there had been a series of mysterious rapes in homes for sale in the West Midlands, where Cannan was living.[7][5] The unidentified rapist specifically targeted homes on the market for sale by estate agents and became known as the "house for sale rapist".[7] Twenty women were assaulted and raped in properties in the area, and no one was ever arrested for the crimes.[7] Police suspect that Cannan was responsible for the crimes, which began as his marriage was failing.[7] The rapes stopped in early 1980 when Cannan began a new relationship with a woman named Sharon Major.[7] Detectives would later note that the offences bore all of the hallmarks of Cannan's later crimes and also noted the similarities to the Lamplugh case.[7] Cannan had appeared uninvited at a house that was for sale in Shorrolds Road days before Lamplugh was last seen, believing that the young female occupant was alone in the house.[14][27] He acted strangely until the woman's husband appeared, causing him to quickly leave.[14][27]

After new reconstructions were shown on Crimewatch in 2000, including correct pictures of Lamplugh with blond hair, new witnesses emerged.[5][14] The witnesses included a man who said that he had seen a man resembling Cannan looking into the window of Lamplugh's estate agency on the day on which she had disappeared.[5] Lamplugh had worked at a desk near the window, in part because the office believed that positioning an attractive woman by the window would attract customers.[12] Some witnesses also emerged after police showed Cannan's 1987 dating video who positively identified him as a man whom they had seen in Fulham that day.[12]

During the reinvestigation of the Lamplugh case, a mass of circumstantial evidence was uncovered that pointed to Cannan.[14] It was discovered that Lamplugh had disclosed to relatives shortly before she disappeared that she had a new boyfriend from the Bristol area, where Cannan had moved days after the disappearance and from where his family originated. Lamplugh also told a relative shortly before she vanished that she was concerned about the man and was becoming scared of him.[14][7] Despite being in prison in the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham before the disappearance, Cannan denied ever having been to Fulham.[14] Police disproved this claim, as Cannan was known to have had worked as a porter in the area at the time while on day release from the open prison.[14] The witness sightings of a dark, left-hand-drive BMW parked near Lamplugh and in which she was seen struggling were afforded added significance when it emerged that Cannan owned such a car at the time, which he had used to commit crimes with a fellow inmate.[14] Cannan did not have an alibi for the days after leaving prison and claims to not recall where he was at the time, despite having an impeccable memory of other events at the time.[14][39] Cannan's nickname in prison was Mr. Kipper because he wore kipper-style broad ties.[23][40][41]

In December 2000, Cannan was arrested on suspicion of Lamplugh's abduction and murder and interviewed at Hammersmith police station.[5] Video footage of parts of the interview were later leaked publicly and are still available[lower-alpha 1] for public viewing.[18][12] In the footage, Cannan says that there are "one or two things I haven't been caught for".[18] Over five days of interviews,[42] Cannan did not provide interviewers with any information that could eliminate him from the inquiry and did not provide an alibi for his movements between 25 and 28 July 1986.[5][14] In September 2001, Cannan was arrested again and questioned at a London police station, but he again provided no information that could eliminate him from the inquiry.[43][5]

Investigators believe that Lamplugh placed a mysterious phone call during the afternoon in which she disappeared.[44][7] Three days before she disappeared, on the same day on which Cannan was released from the open prison nearby, Lamplugh had visited the Prince of Wales pub in Putney, which was also frequented by Cannan.[7] While she was there, the contents of her handbag went missing, and after she left they were found by the landlord of the pub.[45][7] The landlord telephoned Lamplugh to inform her and she arranged to collect her belongings at 6 p.m. on Monday 28 July, the day on which she disappeared.[45] Several hours after Lamplugh vanished, a woman identifying herself as Sarah phoned the pub saying that she had a message for Lamplugh, and she left her number.[46] A man then phoned the pub claiming to be a policeman and asking if the pub had Lamplugh's diary and chequebook.[46][7] The police confirmed the man was not a policeman, and it was not known who Sarah was.[46][7] The landlord said that he gave the paper upon which he had written the phone number to police, although it was later lost.[47]

The first call was placed well before Lamplugh's disappearance had even been reported, and it may have been Lamplugh making a plea for help or calling under duress.[46] The man identifying as a policeman may have been Cannan.[48][7] When Shirley Banks had been abducted by Cannan and held hostage in his flat in 1987, she placed a call under duress to her workplace the next morning, stating that was sick and would not be reporting to work that day.[49] It is believed that she placed the call because Cannan had convinced her that he would release her unharmed.[49] The call was the last message received from her before she was found murdered.[49]

Detectives on the reinvestigation team also believed that Cannan could have been responsible for taking the contents of her handbag in the pub, and stated the events were a clear indicator of stalking.[7]

Norton Barracks, the location Cannan's former girlfriend recounted Cannan as saying was the location Lamplugh was buried, has been heavily built upon in the intervening years, with only the main keep building remaining (pictured in second image). This has prevented any extensive digs being made at the site.[14]

Based on the evidence, the police began a search for Lamplugh's body.[14] Investigators wanted to dig at Norton Barracks, the location that Cannan had allegedly told former girlfriend Gilly Paige was the burial site and which was identified by an anonymous informant in 1999.[41][14] However, the area had been significantly redeveloped in the intervening years, the army having left the site in 1979,[50] and investigators were not able to dig in the area because of the houses now standing at the site.[14]

Detectives considered the possibility that the SLP 386S number plate that Cannan had attached to Banks' car could be an ordnance survey grid reference, as this would provide a location very close to Dead Women's Ditch, where Banks was found dumped.[5] Cannan was known to play such tricks with investigators, and it was believed that if his decision to dump Banks' body in Dead Women's Ditch was intentional, the letters and numbers on the plate could have been as well.[12][14] As a result, investigators searched the area,[14] but Lamplugh's body was not found.[14]

In December 2000, police searched a brickworks near Norton Barracks[51] that had been mentioned in several of the original witness statements.[31] A year later, another search was conducted in Somerset at a location by a river that Cannan was said to have frequented.[14] However, no remains were found.[14]

The Lamplugh case team concluded that there was significant evidence against Cannan to apply for a prosecution.[5] The Crown Prosecution Service agreed that the police reinvestigation had been excellent and thorough, but ultimately decided after four months of deliberations[52] that there was insufficient evidence to charge Cannan with the murder.[14][5] The police so strongly felt that Cannan was responsible that they proclaimed such during a press conference in November 2002.[14][53] They also announced that all other possible suspects had been eliminated and that Cannan was the only suspect.[54] The lead detective in the reinvestigations, Jim Dickie, stated that he was as certain as possible without conducting a formal judicial process that Cannan was responsible.[5]

The investigation was summarised in an ITV Real Crime programme in 2002.[55]

In 2007, a criminologist who had corresponded with Cannan revealed that the police reinvestigations of 2000–2002 had discovered DNA evidence in a car previously owned by Cannan that showed that Lamplugh had been inside the vehicle.[56] The criminologist informed police that Cannan said that he had access to a red Ford Sierra at the time when Lamplugh disappeared, a fact about which police were previously unaware.[56] Detectives attempted to find the car and discovered it in a north London scrapyard, allowing them to conduct DNA analysis upon it.[56][7] Although these tests indicated that both Lamplugh and Cannan had been in the car, the Crown Prosecution Service felt that there was insufficient evidence to prove that both had been in the vehicle at the same time, meaning charges could not be brought against Cannan.[56] Although he previously had said he drove the car often, Cannan has since changed his story and now denies ever having used the vehicle,[56] but the man who had lent it to him has confirmed that Cannan had access to the car at the time and said that Cannan may have had used it on the day on which Lamplugh disappeared.[57]

When interviewed about the disappearance of Lamplugh in 1988, Cannan had said that he knew a "Bristol businessman" who was responsible for "the murders of Shirley Banks, Suzy Lamplugh and another girl. Investigators believe that he was talking about himself, as he was convicted of Banks' murder.[27] The other girl that he mentioned is believed to be Sandra Court, a 27-year-old office worker who was abducted and killed in Bournemouth in May 1986.[12] In November 2001, police interviewed Cannan at a police station in York regarding Court's murder.[58] He had been in the prison hostel at Wormwood Scrubs at the time but was allowed to leave the facility at weekends and had access to a red Ford Sierra, the same car that was tested in the Lamplugh case.[12] A pay-and-display ticket proves that Cannan was in Bournemouth on the day that Court was killed.[59][60] Court had been dropped off by a taxi driver in Throop, Dorset near her sister's house after a night out, but her sister was not at home.[61] She was last seen walking barefoot, appearing slightly drunk, at around 2:45 a.m.[62] Court's body was found the next day in a water-filled ditch several miles away.[58][62] When interviewed, Cannan denied having been in Bournemouth on the day in question but was proved to be lying because of the parking tickets discovered by police.[59]

When the Ford Sierra was discovered at the north London scrapyard during the Lamplugh reinvestigations of the early 2000s, two hairs were found inside that matched Court's DNA.[12][7] However, the DNA evidence was not strong enough to bring a prosecution against Cannan for her murder.[12]