It's one of the most infamous cases in the UK and one many people still wonder, what did happen to Suzy?
Susanne Jane Lamplugh was born on May 3 1961 in Cheltenham, England to parents Diana and Paul, the second child of four. Her friends described her as a happy, outgoing and conscientious young woman.
Suzy Lamplugh
July 28th 1986 was like any other day for Suzy, she was an estate agent for Sturgis Estate Agents in London and had a day of appointments to keep. In her office diary she made a note of her upcoming appointment at 12.45pm with a Mr. Kipper who she was due to show around a property in Shorrolds Road, Fulham and marked it with an O/S which meant to meet the person outside the property. Suzy left the office at 12.40pm in her white Ford Fiesta and drove to her appointment. Suzy only took her house and car keys and a purse containing £15 and credit cards but left behind her handbag. She was last seen wearing a grey skirt, dark jacket and low stiletto heels.
The Mr Kipper appointment in Suzy's diary
Before Suzy left her office she made a quick phone call to the wife of the landlord of the Prince of Wales pub and arranged that she would come by the pub at 6pm in order to pick up her pocket diary and chequebook that she had lost there the previous Friday. The landlord had found the items on the pubs doorstep at closing up time and had rang Suzy's bank to inform them of his find, he had offered to look after them until they could contact her to come and pick them up. Oddly, later in the afternoon a woman named Sarah had rang the pub and left a message for Suzy to call her when she came in to pick up her belongings, the landlord wrote the number on a piece of paper. Even more bizarrely, sometime later after Sarah's phone call a man who claimed to be a police officer also rang the pub and insisted that the paper with the number on be given to the police, this man called before Suzy had even been reported as missing. This paper was apparently never given to the police and has led to much speculation as to who these mysterious people were.
The Prince of Wales Pub
Ten minutes after leaving the office she was spotted standing outside the empty property on Shorrolds Road which had only been on the market for about a week. At 1.00pm she was joined by a man, presumably, Mr. Kipper, and a few minutes later they walked away from the house. A man who had been walking down the same street as Suzy and the mysterious Mr Kipper came forward as a witness and gave a statement that he believed that the woman he had seen looked exactly like Suzy and the man she was with was well dressed and was carrying flowers and champagne.
Her office grew worried when Suzy failed to come back to the office and called her mother, Diana, to see if she had heard from her, Diana vividly remembered the call from her daughter's manager:
"Do you have any idea where your daughter might be, Mrs Lamplugh? We wondered whether she could have called into home for lunch, I don't want to worry you, Mrs Lamplugh... but Susannah left to show a house to a client just before lunch and she has not returned. We just wanted to check anywhere we could."
Diana said it was so unusual of Suzy to just not return to work as she was one to stick to rules and regulations that she felt that something must have gone very wrong. At 6.45pm, Suzy's manager reported her as missing to the police.
The photofit of Mr Kipper
The police had to break into Suzy's flat to gain entry but discovered nothing of interest and that Suzy had not returned home since she had left that morning.
The first sign of Suzy would be found on the evening of July 28 at 10.00pm when her car was found a mile away from her office on Stevenage Road. No signs of a struggle were found in or around the car, the drivers door was unlocked, the handbrake was off and her purse was in the glove compartment but her keys were missing. Her sun hat had been left on the back shelf. Oddly, the drivers seat was set back to a distance that Suzy wouldn't have been able to drive from.
Diana and Paul appeared on BBC's Breakfast Time and TV-AM's Good Morning Britain to discuss their daughters case and their fears:
"I feel she is shut up somewhere, that she is being held against her will. I feel that because she hasn't contacted us. She is a very strong, very fit lady... so she should be able to cope with most situations."
The police released new information regarding a black, left hand drive BMW which may have been involved in Suzy's disappearance after witnesses came forward and said that they had seen a BMW in the same location as Suzy's car, which had eventually been found on Stevenage Road.
Suzy's car on Stevenage Road
Like many young women, Suzy had a varied dating life and she was known to be in no rush to settle down at the age of 25 so the police had to investigate the men whom Suzy had dated. Friends of hers later stated that Suzy had been dating a man from the Bristol area whom she was seemingly frightened of.
The investigation saw the police test the DNA of 800 unidentified bodies and skeletal remains that matched Suzy's description as police believed the estate agent had been murdered, Suzy would be legally declared dead in 1993. Soon the case went cold with renewed efforts at the investigation in 1998 and later in 2000, but sadly no trace of Suzy were found.
THE PRIME SUSPECT - JOHN CANNON
In November 2002 a fresh lead in the case sparked hope. Convicted rapist and murderer John Cannon could be the culprit. Cannon had been released from a prison hostel only days before Suzy's disappearance and it was claimed his nickname in prison had been Kipper. Scotland Yard held a press conference where they announced they believed that Cannon murdered Suzy to which Cannon denied any involvement. Although police have stated that Cannon is their prime suspect the press also speculated that he was the murderer at the time of her disappearance. Cannon had been given three life sentences for the murder of Shirley Banks in 1987 and also for numerous other offences including two rapes, several other abductions and attempted abductions and other sexual offences.
John Cannon
Cannon has a disturbing track record of violence towards women which started when he was fourteen years old after he was convicted of a sex attack in a phone box. In 1980 he attacked and sexually assaulted his girlfriend after she tried to leave him. In 1981 he robbed a petrol station, threatening the two female assistants with a knife. That same year he robbed a knitwear shop, he threatened two women; who were mother and daughter, with a knife and then tied up the mother whilst he raped her daughter in front of her, at the same time he threatened to stab her young son who was also present in the shop. He was jailed for eight years but as his release date neared, he was moved to a day release hostel at HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs and on the 25th July 1986 he was released, Suzy went missing three days later.
The reasons for Cannon being the prime suspect are as follows:
Cannon bears a striking resemblance to the photofits of the man who was seen talking to Suzy outside the house on the day she vanished.
His nickname in prison was Mr. Kipper due to his fondness for wearing kipper style broad ties.
He kidnapped and murdered 29 year old Shirley Banks 15 months after Suzy disappeared. He was arrested after Shirley's car was discovered hidden and repainted in his garage with a false number plate (SLP 386), police believe this could refer to Suzy, (SLP) Suzy Lamplugh and 1986, the year of her murder. They also think they could be co-ordinates on a map which would be very close to Norton Barracks, a former military base in Worcestershire.
When asked about the number plate he immediately agreed it could be taken as a connection to Suzy but claimed he chose it at random.
He claimed he bought the car off a Bristol businessman who he claimed was responsible for the murders of Shirley Banks, Suzy Lamplugh and another woman. Cannon was known for passing himself off as a Bristol businessman and when asked if this man was in fact him he replied yes it was but then immediately recanted and ended the interview.
Shirley Banks
Circumstantial evidence began to pile up in the early 2000's against Cannon:
Cannon had been released from an open prison three days before Suzy went missing, this prison was three miles away from the estate agents where she worked and with Suzy's desk being placed in front of the window she was a prime target.
Suzy apparently had a new boyfriend from the Bristol area, an area that Cannon later moved to and where his family is from. Suzy apparently confided in a relative that she was concerned about this man and that she was getting scared of him.
Cannon denied ever having been to Fulham despite him being imprisoned in the Hammersmith and Fulham borough. The police disproved his claims as he had been on work experience there while on day release from the prison.
Witnesses came forward to tell the police that a man and a woman who resembled Suzy and Cannon were seen arguing in a dark coloured left hand BMW on the day that she went missing.
Cannon had shown up uninvited to a house that was for sale in Fulham days before Suzy disappeared. He believed the young woman inside was alone and behaved strangely until the woman's husband appeared causing Cannon to quickly leave.
Witnesses stated that they had seen Cannon looking through the estate agents window that Suzy worked at the day before she went missing.
Cannon did not have an alibi for the days after he had left prison despite having an impeccable memory of other events at the time.
Cannon thought of himself as a ladies man, he used old fashioned moves of chocolates, flowers and champagne. Previous girlfriends stated that Cannon didn't like rejection and resorted to violence whenever this happened.
The Crown Prosecution Service agreed that the police had done an excellent and thorough investigation in the early 2000's but stated that they had not provided enough evidence to charge Cannon with Suzy's murder. The police made an unusual move in November 2002 and announced that they believed that Cannon was responsible for Suzy's murder.
While in prison, Cannon told a psychiatrist that he might as well reveal all about Suzy when his mother died. He was eligible for parole in 2022.
Shirley Banks' car
A previous girlfriend of Cannon's, Gilly Paige, had told police in April 2001 that he had suggested Suzy's body had been buried at Norton Barracks, which is a former military base in Worcestershire (she later withdrew this statement) but a cellmate of Cannon's had told police in December 2002 that Cannon had buried Suzy under the patio of his mother's home in Sutton Coldfield in the West Midlands.
In August 2010, police searched a field off the B4084 between Pershore and Drakes Broughton which was about three miles away from Norton Barracks in Worcestershire. The area had already been searched in December 2000 and February 2001 and had included a nearby brickworks but once again the search did not turn up any sign of Suzy.
Missing Persons poster
In late October 2018, the police searched the home of John Cannon's mother in Sutton Coldfield, they had already searched there in 2002. They dismantled the garage and began to remove the concrete floor while also searching the back garden but announced that they had found no new evidence. In July 2019 the police searched some land in Pershore but they failed to find anything of note.
Cannon becomes annoyed whenever he is asked about Suzy claiming the police will use her disappearance to ruin his chances of parole. Cannon was apparently receiving end of life care in 2022, leaving people to hope that he may finally reveal what happened to Suzy, we could not find any updates on Cannon's condition at this time.
ANOTHER SUSPECT - STEVE WRIGHT
Steve Wright was also investigated after being convicted in February 2008 for the murder of five women in Ipswich. It turned out that Wright and Suzy both worked on the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth II in 1982, where Suzy had been working as a beautician. In 2008, the Metropolitan Police investigated there being any link between the murderer and Suzy but it was not considered a strong line of enquiry and doesn't seem to have amounted to anything.
Steve Wright
A BOTCHED INVESTIGATION
A Channel 5 documentary The Vanishing of Suzy Lamplugh pointed to a new theory in the case. This new theory came from a man called Dave who while he had been walking along the Grand Union Canal in Brentford, West London at around 5.00am came across another man who had a heavy bag with wheels and he seemed to be struggling with it. This man seemed startled by Dave almost as if he expected to be alone at that time in the morning and quickly put his head down.
The witness passed the man and soon after he heard a splash and when he turned around, he saw the man was running away and the bag was gone. After seeing Cannon's face in the newspaper during the murder trial of Shirley Banks, Dave was certain that the man he had seen that morning had been Cannon. He apparently made efforts to tell the police at the time but there is no record of the police actually following this lead or even writing it down, sadly Dave died in 2008.
The Suzy Lamplugh Trust
Suzy's parents Diana and Paul set up The Suzy Lamplugh Trust in December 1986 as a charitable foundation with its aim to raise awareness of personal safety, help people avoid becoming victims of harassment and to offer support to the loved ones of missing people. The Trust runs the UK's National Stalking Helpline and organises the annual National Person Safety Day, for all their hard work the pair were awarded OBE's. Sadly, Diana died in August 2011, aged 75 with Paul passing away in 2018 at the age of 87 without ever getting an answer as to where their beloved Suzy was.
In 2021, during a Sky documentary the Metropolitan Police announced that the investigation was still open stating "The passage of time has not weakened our determination to seek justice and get the answers that the Lamplugh family continue to wait for."
Suzy at her desk
OUR CONCLUSION
At Apollo's Raven we find the case of Suzy Lamplugh chilling as it is another case of a young woman seemingly disappearing into thin air without a single trace. We agree with the theory that John Cannon is the likely culprit, his background of violence against women that escalated into murder cannot be ignored and the fact Shirley Banks' murder is very similar is too much of a coincidence. It is frustrating that there doesn't seem to be any hard evidence in the case leaving much of the mystery of the events that led to Suzy's death up to speculation, sadly we believe the only true answers will come with a confession.
If you would like to look at the amazing work The Suzy Lamplugh Trust has done please visit their website here.
If you need help or have been the victim of stalking then please get in touch with the National Stalking Helpline on 0808 802 0300
The Lamplugh's