UK UK - Suzy Lamplugh, 25, Fulham, 28 Jul 1986 #2

[Terryb808]

As I’ve said before within this thread it’s blatantly obvious that there is one place that needs to be searched and that’s the PoW, as others have said SJL went out to complete a small errand.
Again as said no handbag etc, just her purse and car / flat keys, IMO the obvious (and DV’s) choice is the PoW to collect her things. This mystery will not move forward until the PoW and the Network Rail embankment are searched.
As I’ve said before the answers are all in this thread, It’s not in my nature to accept failure and I can’t understand why those within the Met appear happy to do so.

 

[Konstantin]

Question: what time did pubs close on Sunday nights in 1986?

I've been thinking about the timings and possible scenarios around the lost chequebook/diary and there are some things that are interesting here.

1. Like many of you I think it is more plausible that SJL lost these things on the Sunday night rather than the Friday night. The Friday night story seems to have come about because AL initially claimed that he and SJL were in the pub when they went out that Friday night but he has since denied this. Plus also, if she did lose them on the Friday, she would surely have noticed over the weekend, she saw AL on the Sunday, she would have asked him about it, do you know where I might have dropped them sort of thing. And had time to go by Mossops, the pub, etc to search.

2. CV is clear that he found the items by the benches/tables outside the pub. My hypothesis is that SJL was sitting there, put her bag on the floor near her feet under the table, it fell over, stuff fell out and she didn't notice either because she was a bit scatty like that (did she lose stuff often? what sort of bag did she have?) or because she'd had a few by then, and, well it happens.

See, if she called AL from the phone box and lost her stuff then, she'd have surely dropped them in the call box not near the seating area, a place where people sat to drink outside the pub.

If that's the case my suggestion is SJL met someone that Sunday night for a few drinks. She had her bag with her with all this stuff in so she most likely didn't go home, pop out because why take your bag with all your stuff in to sit at your nearby pub and have a couple of glasses? A prearranged date? Or she bumped into someone on her way home from her mum's and had a drink? Either way, she didn't invite them in to her flat or go to their place for the night.

3. Wasn't SJL in the phone book? Chequebooks have the persons name in them and the address of their local bank, if I had found a cheque book back then I'd just look the person up in the phone book and give them a ring myself since most probably they are local. I would not faff around calling a bank, although CV probably called her branch not the bank HQ.

4. If SJL did sit out at the bench and have a glass or two that night, CV might well have seen her. She was a very attractive woman, so he might have remembered her? Not that it matters, because I don't think that CV plotted to lure her to the pub at all. I'm just saying. Her stuff got left on the bench outside the pub near her house and the most logical explanation is she dropped it while she was sitting on the bench outside the pub near her house, we don't need to invent complicated stories to explain this.

So what time might she have been there, since if she was earlyish there you'd think another punter might have found her stuff, and either handed it in or nicked it.

We only have AL's word for it that he talked to her on the phone that night.

He could have met up with her at the pub for all we knew and she told him she's going home on her own after. They could have had a bit of an argument. She was going to dump him as per her friends. DId AL say where he was that evening? Then again, she could have met anyone. Was it relevant? It could be. The chequebook and diary place her at that spot, on Sunday night I reckon.

Oh and a bonus question. When did AL find out about the missing chequebook/diary? SJL did not tell him on Monday as they did not speak that day. Someone from Sturgis told him after she was reported missing? the police asked him about it? From the media? Was he a bit upset about it because he realized that in all likelihood SJL met up with someone else that evening? And he didn't want that to get to the police simply because that woudl give him a motive, if he was jealous/jilted/angry? And he was sensitive about it just because well, you would be, if your girlfriend lost her personal stuff probably on a date with some other bloke.

 

[Kaykedi]

Question: what time did pubs close on Sunday nights in 1986?

I've been thinking about the timings and possible scenarios around the lost chequebook/diary and there are some things that are interesting here.

1. Like many of you I think it is more plausible that SJL lost these things on the Sunday night rather than the Friday night. The Friday night story seems to have come about because AL initially claimed that he and SJL were in the pub when they went out that Friday night but he has since denied this. Plus also, if she did lose them on the Friday, she would surely have noticed over the weekend, she saw AL on the Sunday, she would have asked him about it, do you know where I might have dropped them sort of thing. And had time to go by Mossops, the pub, etc to search.

2. CV is clear that he found the items by the benches/tables outside the pub. My hypothesis is that SJL was sitting there, put her bag on the floor near her feet under the table, it fell over, stuff fell out and she didn't notice either because she was a bit scatty like that (did she lose stuff often? what sort of bag did she have?) or because she'd had a few by then, and, well it happens.

See, if she called AL from the phone box and lost her stuff then, she'd have surely dropped them in the call box not near the seating area, a place where people sat to drink outside the pub.

If that's the case my suggestion is SJL met someone that Sunday night for a few drinks. She had her bag with her with all this stuff in so she most likely didn't go home, pop out because why take your bag with all your stuff in to sit at your nearby pub and have a couple of glasses? A prearranged date? Or she bumped into someone on her way home from her mum's and had a drink? Either way, she didn't invite them in to her flat or go to their place for the night.

3. Wasn't SJL in the phone book? Chequebooks have the persons name in them and the address of their local bank, if I had found a cheque book back then I'd just look the person up in the phone book and give them a ring myself since most probably they are local. I would not faff around calling a bank, although CV probably called her branch not the bank HQ.

4. If SJL did sit out at the bench and have a glass or two that night, CV might well have seen her. She was a very attractive woman, so he might have remembered her? Not that it matters, because I don't think that CV plotted to lure her to the pub at all. I'm just saying. Her stuff got left on the bench outside the pub near her house and the most logical explanation is she dropped it while she was sitting on the bench outside the pub near her house, we don't need to invent complicated stories to explain this.

So what time might she have been there, since if she was earlyish there you'd think another punter might have found her stuff, and either handed it in or nicked it.

We only have AL's word for it that he talked to her on the phone that night.

He could have met up with her at the pub for all we knew and she told him she's going home on her own after. They could have had a bit of an argument. She was going to dump him as per her friends. DId AL say where he was that evening? Then again, she could have met anyone. Was it relevant? It could be. The chequebook and diary place her at that spot, on Sunday night I reckon.

Oh and a bonus question. When did AL find out about the missing chequebook/diary? SJL did not tell him on Monday as they did not speak that day. Someone from Sturgis told him after she was reported missing? the police asked him about it? From the media? Was he a bit upset about it because he realized that in all likelihood SJL met up with someone else that evening? And he didn't want that to get to the police simply because that woudl give him a motive, if he was jealous/jilted/angry? And he was sensitive about it just because well, you would be, if your girlfriend lost her personal stuff probably on a date with some other bloke.

Last orders was 10.30 pm. Kicking out time was 22.55

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

As I’ve said before within this thread it’s blatantly obvious that there is one place that needs to be searched and that’s the PoW, as others have said SJL went out to complete a small errand.
Again as said no handbag etc, just her purse and car / flat keys, IMO the obvious (and DV’s) choice is the PoW to collect her things. This mystery will not move forward until the PoW and the Network Rail embankment are searched.
As I’ve said before the answers are all in this thread, It’s not in my nature to accept failure and I can’t understand why those within the Met appear happy to do so.

There must be some people still in their jobs who need this to be covered up -or- there are higher political forces interfering and blocking for their own agendas.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

Last orders was 10.30 pm. Kicking out time was 22.55

Yes and also during the daytimes on Sundays, pubs used to close after lunch. IIRC it was from 3pm to 7pm.

 

[WestLondoner]

Given that many of us here suppose SJL died when she went to retrieve her stuff from the pub, it's a very good call to consider exactly how it ever came to be lost there in the first place.

If I have understood correctly, we have it only from AL that the PoW wasn't one of SJL's regular haunts (and therefore, goes the inference, why would she have been there?). This may only mean that it wasn't one of her regular haunts when she was with him. We know from AS, however, that SJL was actually four-timing an unwitting AL with three other men when she disappeared. Some of these were apparently "FWB" arrangements, with no mutual expectations of exclusivity, but others including AL were not aware she was doing this. In the spirit of the old Royal Navy toast - "to our wives and girlfriends: may they never meet", if SJL wanted to keep matters in hand, she would have needed to keep each of these men away from one another.

It would take quite dextrous management to get away with this. There would be places it was not safe to go for a drink with AL in case she ran into any of the others there. Equally there would be places it was safe to go, because she was not going to run into any of the others. So conceivably, the PoW was one of the latter. It was her local pub and not one of which AL had a high opinion, so he was never likely to rock up there. This would make this place a safe one to visit with her various other men.

So is this what CV noticed - a good-looking regular, in the company of different men in constant succession? You can often tell from couples' body language if they were sleeping together. Did he notice her during his 12-week training stint, then notice her again on the Sunday night, then decide he needed some of what everyone else was apparently getting? So he lifts the stuff when she goes to make a phone call, so as to bring her back the next day when the pub's going to be empty?

The reason why CV's involvement is so mysterious is that if he killed her:

1/ he did so spontaneously in the course of a visit that SJL arranged with other people at the pub. He didn't organise this and can have had no expectation of cornering her alone, so when that situation materialised, on minutes' notice, he turns into an attacker then back into a relief barman without giving himself away.
2/ or, he reads the diary, decides she's a bit of goer, and demands sexual favours from her.
3/ or, he reads the diary, thinks "rich yuppie slag", and decides to demand money for its return; in which case, his partner could be complicit. No woman would turn a blind eye to her partner carrying out a sex attack on another woman, but if she herself was dumpy, plain and poor, she might be envious enough of SJL - who was none of those things - to acquiesce in CV's ripping her off.

In the first two cases, how was he planning to get away with that without killing her? It's impossible. The third seems possible, and could explain his partner's present-day hysteria on being approached (and CV's own, when he hears she has been).

The above also fits with some elements of what we already know. DL was aghast to learn of how SJL lived her life and we know she wanted it suppressed. AS indicates that at the family's request he removed the "News of the World" type of material from his book - but he still leaves in the four-timing, so the mind boggles a bit. Perhaps he suppressed how SJL's pocket diary tracks her meticulous and methodical management of her social and sex life to allow her to meet and sleep with up to four different men at a time, using specific venues to ensure their paths never crossed. The police rather awkwardly explained that SJL was "a modern young woman"; is that what they meant?

I'd always assumed that she simply stopped off to make a phone call on the way home to her mother's, but as Konstantin notes we've only got that from AL; and how that results in her losing her stuff under pub table several metres away is not clear. It seems possible that she was there with another of the fan club, or that her stuff was lifted, or both.

 

[Terryb808]

Question: what time did pubs close on Sunday nights in 1986?

I've been thinking about the timings and possible scenarios around the lost chequebook/diary and there are some things that are interesting here.

1. Like many of you I think it is more plausible that SJL lost these things on the Sunday night rather than the Friday night. The Friday night story seems to have come about because AL initially claimed that he and SJL were in the pub when they went out that Friday night but he has since denied this. Plus also, if she did lose them on the Friday, she would surely have noticed over the weekend, she saw AL on the Sunday, she would have asked him about it, do you know where I might have dropped them sort of thing. And had time to go by Mossops, the pub, etc to search.

2. CV is clear that he found the items by the benches/tables outside the pub. My hypothesis is that SJL was sitting there, put her bag on the floor near her feet under the table, it fell over, stuff fell out and she didn't notice either because she was a bit scatty like that (did she lose stuff often? what sort of bag did she have?) or because she'd had a few by then, and, well it happens.

See, if she called AL from the phone box and lost her stuff then, she'd have surely dropped them in the call box not near the seating area, a place where people sat to drink outside the pub.

If that's the case my suggestion is SJL met someone that Sunday night for a few drinks. She had her bag with her with all this stuff in so she most likely didn't go home, pop out because why take your bag with all your stuff in to sit at your nearby pub and have a couple of glasses? A prearranged date? Or she bumped into someone on her way home from her mum's and had a drink? Either way, she didn't invite them in to her flat or go to their place for the night.

3. Wasn't SJL in the phone book? Chequebooks have the persons name in them and the address of their local bank, if I had found a cheque book back then I'd just look the person up in the phone book and give them a ring myself since most probably they are local. I would not faff around calling a bank, although CV probably called her branch not the bank HQ.

4. If SJL did sit out at the bench and have a glass or two that night, CV might well have seen her. She was a very attractive woman, so he might have remembered her? Not that it matters, because I don't think that CV plotted to lure her to the pub at all. I'm just saying. Her stuff got left on the bench outside the pub near her house and the most logical explanation is she dropped it while she was sitting on the bench outside the pub near her house, we don't need to invent complicated stories to explain this.

So what time might she have been there, since if she was earlyish there you'd think another punter might have found her stuff, and either handed it in or nicked it.

We only have AL's word for it that he talked to her on the phone that night.

He could have met up with her at the pub for all we knew and she told him she's going home on her own after. They could have had a bit of an argument. She was going to dump him as per her friends. DId AL say where he was that evening? Then again, she could have met anyone. Was it relevant? It could be. The chequebook and diary place her at that spot, on Sunday night I reckon.

Oh and a bonus question. When did AL find out about the missing chequebook/diary? SJL did not tell him on Monday as they did not speak that day. Someone from Sturgis told him after she was reported missing? the police asked him about it? From the media? Was he a bit upset about it because he realized that in all likelihood SJL met up with someone else that evening? And he didn't want that to get to the police simply because that woudl give him a motive, if he was jealous/jilted/angry? And he was sensitive about it just because well, you would be, if your girlfriend lost her personal stuff probably on a date with some other bloke.

It could be that AL took SJL’s diary and invented the Friday night story to cover this up. Against this is where her things were found, if AL took them he could just destroy them. No real need to plant them at the PoW for CV to find.
So why did AL change his story so drastically when interviewed by DV?

 

[Terryb808]

Given that many of us here suppose SJL died when she went to retrieve her stuff from the pub, it's a very good call to consider exactly how it ever came to be lost there in the first place.

If I have understood correctly, we have it only from AL that the PoW wasn't one of SJL's regular haunts (and therefore, goes the inference, why would she have been there?). This may only mean that it wasn't one of her regular haunts when she was with him. We know from AS, however, that SJL was actually four-timing an unwitting AL with three other men when she disappeared. Some of these were apparently "FWB" arrangements, with no mutual expectations of exclusivity, but others including AL were not aware she was doing this. In the spirit of the old Royal Navy toast - "to our wives and girlfriends: may they never meet", if SJL wanted to keep matters in hand, she would have needed to keep each of these men away from one another.

It would take quite dextrous management to get away with this. There would be places it was not safe to go for a drink with AL in case she ran into any of the others there. Equally there would be places it was safe to go, because she was not going to run into any of the others. So conceivably, the PoW was one of the latter. It was her local pub and not one of which AL had a high opinion, so he was never likely to rock up there. This would make this place a safe one to visit with her various other men.

So is this what CV noticed - a good-looking regular, in the company of different men in constant succession? You can often tell from couples' body language if they were sleeping together. Did he notice her during his 12-week training stint, then notice her again on the Sunday night, then decide he needed some of what everyone else was apparently getting? So he lifts the stuff when she goes to make a phone call, so as to bring her back the next day when the pub's going to be empty?

The reason why CV's involvement is so mysterious is that if he killed her:

1/ he did so spontaneously in the course of a visit that SJL arranged with other people at the pub. He didn't organise this and can have had no expectation of cornering her alone, so when that situation materialised, on minutes' notice, he turns into an attacker then back into a relief barman without giving himself away.
2/ or, he reads the diary, decides she's a bit of goer, and demands sexual favours from her.
3/ or, he reads the diary, thinks "rich yuppie slag", and decides to demand money for its return; in which case, his partner could be complicit. No woman would turn a blind eye to her partner carrying out a sex attack on another woman, but if she herself was dumpy, plain and poor, she might be envious enough of SJL - who was none of those things - to acquiesce in CV's ripping her off.

In the first two cases, how was he planning to get away with that without killing her? It's impossible. The third seems possible, and could explain his partner's present-day hysteria on being approached (and CV's own, when he hears she has been).

The above also fits with some elements of what we already know. DL was aghast to learn of how SJL lived her life and we know she wanted it suppressed. AS indicates that at the family's request he removed the "News of the World" type of material from his book - but he still leaves in the four-timing, so the mind boggles a bit. Perhaps he suppressed how SJL's pocket diary tracks her meticulous and methodical management of her social and sex life to allow her to meet and sleep with up to four different men at a time, using specific venues to ensure their paths never crossed. The police rather awkwardly explained that SJL was "a modern young woman"; is that what they meant?

I'd always assumed that she simply stopped off to make a phone call on the way home to her mother's, but as Konstantin notes we've only got that from AL; and how that results in her losing her stuff under pub table several metres away is not clear. It seems possible that she was there with another of the fan club, or that her stuff was lifted, or both.

Your narrative makes perfect sense and effectively provides CV & partner with the motive the Met say they don’t have.
It’s truly unbelievable that experienced detectives within the Met haven’t thought of this, yet still refuse to follow it up.

 

[Konstantin]

It would take quite dextrous management to get away with this. There would be places it was not safe to go for a drink with AL in case she ran into any of the others there. Equally there would be places it was safe to go, because she was not going to run into any of the others. So conceivably, the PoW was one of the latter. It was her local pub and not one of which AL had a high opinion, so he was never likely to rock up there. This would make this place a safe one to visit with her various other men.

Well if you read the AS book which as you point out was edited / censored to try not to upset her family, SJL was in fact used to having a complex private life.

Look none of us are judging her, but this is something that really could be pertinent to how she died (of course it might not if this was just a random stranger abduction). And I do not think that acknowledging this is victim blaming. SJL had the right to live her life exactly how she wanted.

I honestly think the most likely explanation for her stuff being found at a bench at the pub was that she was at the pub on that bench, i.e. having a drink. If SJL's friends knew she was planning to dump AL then I am sure AL was aware of it, and it seems that this was most likely not something he wanted to happen. The phone call that allegedly happened between them -- we only have that info from him and according to him he can't recall who called who which I have a hard time believing because he would have been grilled on that phone call the very next day by the police, who would have tried to establish whether they had a row and if there was any motive for him to wish her harm, and when she was last seen or heard from by everyone she knew.

This really reminds me of the situation with Claudia Lawrence, whose family especially her mum just could not handle the fact that they did not know everything about their adult daughter's life. It's really desperately sad.

I'd always assumed that she simply stopped off to make a phone call on the way home to her mother's, but as Konstantin notes we've only got that from AL; and how that results in her losing her stuff under pub table several metres away is not clear. It seems possible that she was there with another of the fan club, or that her stuff was lifted, or both.

Yes, this.

If someone wanted to steal her diary out of her bag they would just steal the diary, not a postcard and a chequebook, plus if SJL went into a call box to make the call (the idea that she did comes from AL saying they spoke on the phone and we don't have any info from SJL's flat mate that she was heard on the phone that night. Personally I have a hard time believing that SJL called AL since she was clearly giving him the cold shoulder a bit that weekend, why call him late Sunday? Maybe she did...) then she'd take her bag in there with her and put it on the shelf, or risk having the whole thing pinched, I woudl not leave valuables on a pub bench unattended.

I reckon since we know her stuff was found at the pub that the most likely explanation for that is that she was at the pub and stuff tipped out of her bag.

AL at the time wanted to give the impression he was SJL's steady boyfriend even if he was not. Pride, feelings for her, etc. He found out about a missing chequebook found at the pub, maybe assumed it might have been lost the Friday when they were in the vicinity, maybe didn't want to admit to himself or to the public that SJL might have been at the pub with someone else (back then young ladies didn't really go to pubs on their own did they?)

ANd yes if CV was the trainee landlord there for 12 weeks, and was behind the bar, buzzing around the place a lot, if SJL did pop in and out of there he must have clocked her, she was extremely pretty, she would have been noticed by men there, that's just how life is.

 

[Konstantin]

Your narrative makes perfect sense and effectively provides CV & partner with the motive the Met say they don’t have.
It’s truly unbelievable that experienced detectives within the Met haven’t thought of this, yet still refuse to follow it up.

You know what, I don't even think we need a motive. There doesn't need to be a motive for murder. Her diary, which she was desperate to have returned to her, was in the basement. CV says that himself. He admits they read the diary, we don't know what was in it and the police seemed to suggest to DV it might have been salacious. Someone who read it could easily have made a comment to her, she gets upset, even slips and falls down the stairs. Women get catcalled and harassed all the time without any need for any salacious diary reading. We potentially have some blokes-- CV and the missing cellar man-- in a pub in an enclosed space with a pretty young woman wanting her sexy diary back.

We have a missing person and a place she was plausibly going to go based on her literally arranging that before she left her office and disappeared, checking it out makes absolute sense even if just to rule it out. The same way as they checked out Shorrolds road as a place she said she was attending.

 

[Terryb808]

You know what, I don't even think we need a motive. There doesn't need to be a motive for murder. Her diary, which she was desperate to have returned to her, was in the basement. CV says that himself. He admits they read the diary, we don't know what was in it and the police seemed to suggest to DV it might have been salacious. Someone who read it could easily have made a comment to her, she gets upset, even slips and falls down the stairs. Women get catcalled and harassed all the time without any need for any salacious diary reading. We potentially have some blokes-- CV and the missing cellar man-- in a pub in an enclosed space with a pretty young woman wanting her sexy diary back.

We have a missing person and a place she was plausibly going to go based on her literally arranging that before she left her office and disappeared, checking it out makes absolute sense even if just to rule it out. The same way as they checked out Shorrolds road as a place she said she was attending.

Agree, the Met said to DV that he needs to provide a motive and golden thread. To everyone who doesn’t have a hidden agenda there’s no need to have either of these two things.
As you say it’s one place she was planning to go and it’s routine to check them out and eliminate them.
Just because they didn’t 36 years ago, doesn’t mean it’s not needed now. IMO they have their heads firmly in the sand because they don’t want to know the truth.

 

[asyousay]

Agree, the Met said to DV that he needs to provide a motive and golden thread. To everyone who doesn’t have a hidden agenda there’s no need to have either of these two things.
As you say it’s one place she was planning to go and it’s routine to check them out and eliminate them.
Just because they didn’t 36 years ago, doesn’t mean it’s not needed now. IMO they have their heads firmly in the sand because they don’t want to know the truth.

I couldn’t disagree more with a post. Anybody can walk into a police station and make up false claims. He has not shown one bit of proof and it’s a theory he has and nothing more.


The police have every right to ignore him until he can back up what he claims and so far he hasn’t done that. The ball is firmly in his court and yet he won’t do anything because he is only interested in selling copies of his book and not in proving his theory is correct.

IMO

 

[lee sumner]

that is because the met are convinced it was cannan.

 

[lee sumner]

My theory’s


I believe Suzy met a boyfriend or a ex that afternoon. Things escalated into a argument and she was killed IMO.



2) she had obtained a stalker from the estate agents who had been following her for awhile and she went to a viewing that afternoon and was murdered.



The POW pub makes no sense unless it was spur of the moment as CV had called the bank hadn’t he? He drew attention to the diary and missing items so if he was involved that doesn’t add up.

i agree. i dont think CV is the man. why would he draw attention to himself 1 year after suzy goes missing. he was never a suspect. it does not add up.

 

[Terryb808]

I couldn’t disagree more with a post. Anybody can walk into a police station and make up false claims. He has not shown one bit of proof and it’s a theory he has and nothing more.


The police have every right to ignore him until he can back up what he claims and so far he hasn’t done that. The ball is firmly in his court and yet he won’t do anything because he is only interested in selling copies of his book and not in proving his theory is correct.

IMO

The point is that the PoW was a possible location SJL could have gone to in the short time she planned to be away.
It’s also one location the police did not search back then or since. Normally in cases like this the police will search locations regardless to eliminate them.
IMO this has nothing to do with DV, he’s no longer a police officer and it’s not up to him to provide the Met with anything.
The Met went on National TV saying that the SJL disappearance was a live case and they would “leave no stone unturned”. Well this is one stone they left back in 1986 and are still doing so now.
The Met said on National TV way back that JC did it and we’re not looking for anyone else.
That’s the reason they’re not turning over this stone and looking at the possibility that SJL went to the PoW and never left.

 

[WestLondoner]

I think it's just that to DV the PoW is clearly another place SJL might have gone. If it looked like she went to the chemist to pick up a prescription, and the chemist has and always has had just a shop floor onto the pavement and a staff washroom, that's not very interesting. What's interesting about the PoW is that it's a large premises that could that day have been empty, and inside there is a potential place of concealment that could well be undisturbed since 1986.

When you factor in that nothing the people who were there that day have said is any way reassuring, it reinforces the point. Likewise, everything the police think they know about the PoW that day comes from one person, i.e. CV (they interviewed nobody else). If he's not reliable, then they don't know anything at all about what went on at the PoW.

Therefore this is an obvious line of inquiry, if only to eliminate it - how do the police know that SJL did not go there? They don't, so they should search it. They should have done so in 1986 but they still could now.

That the police can't think of a motive doesn't mean there wasn't one. It just means that the police can't think what it might be. Accidents don't require a motive anyway. They just need somewhere to happen.

It's not up to DV to make a search happen. He's a private individual with no funding to pay for a proper forensic search, which is what's required to preserve any evidence. Even if he crowdsourced a search, he doesn't have the police's powers to demand the required access to private property to carry it out, anyway. The present owners stand to gain nothing from being voluntarily helpful, but they could lose a great deal. Nobody but ghouls is going to want to visit a pub where, for 36 years, people ate shepherd's pie with a dead body under the floor beneath their table.

The police ought to be interested in making this happen, because if she is not found, they've seen off DV and their 100% unevidenced JC theory still rules. It is very hard to avoid the feeling that they won't search the pub not because they think SJL is not there, but because they think she is.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

Question: what time did pubs close on Sunday nights in 1986?

I've been thinking about the timings and possible scenarios around the lost chequebook/diary and there are some things that are interesting here.

1. Like many of you I think it is more plausible that SJL lost these things on the Sunday night rather than the Friday night. The Friday night story seems to have come about because AL initially claimed that he and SJL were in the pub when they went out that Friday night but he has since denied this. Plus also, if she did lose them on the Friday, she would surely have noticed over the weekend, she saw AL on the Sunday, she would have asked him about it, do you know where I might have dropped them sort of thing. And had time to go by Mossops, the pub, etc to search.

2. CV is clear that he found the items by the benches/tables outside the pub. My hypothesis is that SJL was sitting there, put her bag on the floor near her feet under the table, it fell over, stuff fell out and she didn't notice either because she was a bit scatty like that (did she lose stuff often? what sort of bag did she have?) or because she'd had a few by then, and, well it happens.

See, if she called AL from the phone box and lost her stuff then, she'd have surely dropped them in the call box not near the seating area, a place where people sat to drink outside the pub.

If that's the case my suggestion is SJL met someone that Sunday night for a few drinks. She had her bag with her with all this stuff in so she most likely didn't go home, pop out because why take your bag with all your stuff in to sit at your nearby pub and have a couple of glasses? A prearranged date? Or she bumped into someone on her way home from her mum's and had a drink? Either way, she didn't invite them in to her flat or go to their place for the night.

3. Wasn't SJL in the phone book? Chequebooks have the persons name in them and the address of their local bank, if I had found a cheque book back then I'd just look the person up in the phone book and give them a ring myself since most probably they are local. I would not faff around calling a bank, although CV probably called her branch not the bank HQ.

4. If SJL did sit out at the bench and have a glass or two that night, CV might well have seen her. She was a very attractive woman, so he might have remembered her? Not that it matters, because I don't think that CV plotted to lure her to the pub at all. I'm just saying. Her stuff got left on the bench outside the pub near her house and the most logical explanation is she dropped it while she was sitting on the bench outside the pub near her house, we don't need to invent complicated stories to explain this.

So what time might she have been there, since if she was earlyish there you'd think another punter might have found her stuff, and either handed it in or nicked it.

We only have AL's word for it that he talked to her on the phone that night.

He could have met up with her at the pub for all we knew and she told him she's going home on her own after. They could have had a bit of an argument. She was going to dump him as per her friends. DId AL say where he was that evening? Then again, she could have met anyone. Was it relevant? It could be. The chequebook and diary place her at that spot, on Sunday night I reckon.

Oh and a bonus question. When did AL find out about the missing chequebook/diary? SJL did not tell him on Monday as they did not speak that day. Someone from Sturgis told him after she was reported missing? the police asked him about it? From the media? Was he a bit upset about it because he realized that in all likelihood SJL met up with someone else that evening? And he didn't want that to get to the police simply because that woudl give him a motive, if he was jealous/jilted/angry? And he was sensitive about it just because well, you would be, if your girlfriend lost her personal stuff probably on a date with some other bloke.

Re CV's possible motivations - pure speculation on my behalf - but indeed he may have formed an opinion she was either a high class hooker or 'easy' or a drunken lush there for the taking. Times have changed such a lot now but it wasn't long since that many London pubs had regular strippers performing and a woman on her own in a bar stood out. SOME men had very distorted views about what their rights to access to a pretty woman were and some felt both entitled and predatory.

Maybe, upon getting a call that SJL was going to arrive to collect her diary etc, CV had an idea that he could offer her a drink or two and get her loose? Maybe CV had a few drinks himself to pluck up 'dutch courage' to chat her up? Who knows what may have unfolded but he is surely the strongest lead.

 

[Terryb808]

Re CV's possible motivations - pure speculation on my behalf - but indeed he may have formed an opinion she was either a high class hooker or 'easy' or a drunken lush there for the taking. Times have changed such a lot now but it wasn't long since that many London pubs had regular strippers performing and a woman on her own in a bar stood out. SOME men had very distorted views about what their rights to access to a pretty woman were and some felt both entitled and predatory.

Maybe, upon getting a call that SJL was going to arrive to collect her diary etc, CV had an idea that he could offer her a drink or two and get her loose? Maybe CV had a few drinks himself to pluck up 'dutch courage' to chat her up? Who knows what may have unfolded but he is surely the strongest lead.

I can only speak from my own personal experience in London back in the 80’s and as you say stripper nights were a common occurrence.
Also some women were very into experimenting and had many lovers. I personally didn’t see anything wrong in this, it’s their life and they should live it as they see fit. It was a case of no attachments being formed by either person.
We’re all assuming that SJL kept her lovers in the dark about each other. However, we don’t have anything to show this was the case.
She may have been more open about it with them and very secretive with her own family.
The truth is that DL suppressed anything that might have been viewed as unsavoury and put her own PR on it.
This means we have very little idea what SJL was like within her own circle of friends. We don’t even know for sure that the PoW was a regular drinking spot or not.

 

[lee sumner]

yes, DL wanted people to see suzy as the perfect daughter who could do no wrong, but suzy only told her mother what she wanted to hear.

 

[lee sumner]

As I’ve said before within this thread it’s blatantly obvious that there is one place that needs to be searched and that’s the PoW, as others have said SJL went out to complete a small errand.
Again as said no handbag etc, just her purse and car / flat keys, IMO the obvious (and DV’s) choice is the PoW to collect her things. This mystery will not move forward until the PoW and the Network Rail embankment are searched.
As I’ve said before the answers are all in this thread, It’s not in my nature to accept failure and I can’t understand why those within the Met appear happy