UK UK - Suzy Lamplugh, 25, Fulham, 28 Jul 1986 #4

[RichardKimble]

After finding the body of Shirley Banks was there a wider search of the area ? or have the police been back to that area ?

 

[WestLondoner]

After finding the body of Shirley Banks was there a wider search of the area ? or have the police been back to that area ?

Yes to both. The police thought the fake plate SLP 386P that Cannan put on SB's car was a reference to SJL. They also thought it was a map reference, which is having their cake and eating it and losing weight, but there it is. The map reference was near-ish where SB was found, so they returned, searched it and found nothing.

The thing about this crime that is difficult is the absence of witnesses to anything that looks like an abduction, and the absence of a body. The first suggests that SJL was taken either without a struggle because she knew the abductor, or that it occurred inside a building or otherwise out of view. Assuming the abductor killed her, the next question is how do you hide a body pretty much permanently when you're in the middle of a city. I don't see an easy way unless you can either dispose of her in or close by the same building, or you can hide her in a vehicle and deep-six the body somewhere irretrievable. I'm not sure how irretrievable a 50-foot-deep reservoir is, but at the bottom of a 1,000-foot deep loch would be permanent.

We only know of one body disposed of by JC which was SB, whose body he dumped in a creek but made no attempt to conceal other than by the remoteness of the place. If you think he killed Sandra Court, her body was found the next day also in water. Digging an actual grave on some remote bit of land requires a lot of work and privacy, and unless you go really deep, a drought's possibly going to expose a body. Insofar as JC has an MO off 1/2 murders, this does not fit it.

 

[RichardKimble]

Yes to both. The police thought the fake plate SLP 386P that Cannan put on SB's car was a reference to SJL. They also thought it was a map reference, which is having their cake and eating it and losing weight, but there it is. The map reference was near-ish where SB was found, so they returned, searched it and found nothing.

The thing about this crime that is difficult is the absence of witnesses to anything that looks like an abduction, and the absence of a body. The first suggests that SJL was taken either without a struggle because she knew the abductor, or that it occurred inside a building or otherwise out of view. Assuming the abductor killed her, the next question is how do you hide a body pretty much permanently when you're in the middle of a city. I don't see an easy way unless you can either dispose of her in or close by the same building, or you can hide her in a vehicle and deep-six the body somewhere irretrievable. I'm not sure how irretrievable a 50-foot-deep reservoir is, but at the bottom of a 1,000-foot deep loch would be permanent.

We only know of one body disposed of by JC which was SB, whose body he dumped in a creek but made no attempt to conceal other than by the remoteness of the place. If you think he killed Sandra Court, her body was found the next day also in water. Digging an actual grave on some remote bit of land requires a lot of work and privacy, and unless you go really deep, a drought's possibly going to expose a body. Insofar as JC has an MO off 1/2 murders, this does not fit it.

Thanks WL.

 

[Terryb808]

Thank you for this info. I remember you posted about it before but couldn't recall the detail.

Canals have such a high level of traffic and people who live permanently on boats and barges as well as canoe clubs, local walkers, nearby residents, it's hard to imagine an entire body could be tipped into a canal and never discovered. I live near a canal and often see whats been pulled out and left at the side by dredgers and usually it comprises lots of metal items - shopping trollies, bike parts (or whole bikes!), a strikingly high number of safes, and bits of construction materials mostly. They seem to do that about once a month or so in my area. I don't know if they come back later for the metal things or what they do with the other stuff that's in the canal as there's also lots of other stuff - bottles, beer cans, plastic containers, and fabric items in the canal.

It's hard to imagine a human skeleton or even just a few bones or a skull could be never noticed but maybe?

Personally I don't put any store in the JD witness that turns up 30 plus years after the event, with the account being second-hand and that can't be verified.

 

[Terryb808]

Yes to both. The police thought the fake plate SLP 386P that Cannan put on SB's car was a reference to SJL. They also thought it was a map reference, which is having their cake and eating it and losing weight, but there it is. The map reference was near-ish where SB was found, so they returned, searched it and found nothing.

The thing about this crime that is difficult is the absence of witnesses to anything that looks like an abduction, and the absence of a body. The first suggests that SJL was taken either without a struggle because she knew the abductor, or that it occurred inside a building or otherwise out of view. Assuming the abductor killed her, the next question is how do you hide a body pretty much permanently when you're in the middle of a city. I don't see an easy way unless you can either dispose of her in or close by the same building, or you can hide her in a vehicle and deep-six the body somewhere irretrievable. I'm not sure how irretrievable a 50-foot-deep reservoir is, but at the bottom of a 1,000-foot deep loch would be permanent.

We only know of one body disposed of by JC which was SB, whose body he dumped in a creek but made no attempt to conceal other than by the remoteness of the place. If you think he killed Sandra Court, her body was found the next day also in water. Digging an actual grave on some remote bit of land requires a lot of work and privacy, and unless you go really deep, a drought's possibly going to expose a body. Insofar as JC has an MO off 1/2 murders, this does not fit it.

If the perpetrator was in the building trade no ones going to question him digging in the grounds of a property or in the cellar for that matter.
Then as you say if SJL went into said property and wasn't noticed, didn't come out, then that's where she remains.
It's another one of the many possibilities that SJL's lifestyle presents as possible solutions.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

If the perpetrator was in the building trade no ones going to question him digging in the grounds of a property or in the cellar for that matter.
Then as you say if SJL went into said property and wasn't noticed, didn't come out, then that's where she remains.
It's another one of the many possibilities that SJL's lifestyle presents as possible solutions.

This is why I always wondered about the pipes being laid at the same time in the street where her car was found.

It sounds like a silly mafia movie trope but really anywhere that's being dug up by heavy duty machinery and filled in with concrete or rubble and tarmac could be a final resting place that isn't discovered.

 

[RichardKimble]

Perhaps disposal isnt quite so hard, Muriel McKay was said possibly at the time to have been disposed of by feeding her remains to pigs but I'll put the caveat in that one of her killers after more than 50 yrs later said she was buried at the farm where she was held, police searched earlier this year without success.
I think we've touched on the recent case of the guy disposing of his then wife in plain site in a sceptic tank and carried on living on the premises for 30+ yrs.
Then we get back to SL, why should JC be held in suspicion of successfully disposing of SL when his one killing we know of that he did , the body was found in not a remote spot it would seem.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

Perhaps disposal isnt quite so hard, Muriel McKay was said possibly at the time to have been disposed of by feeding her remains to pigs but I'll put the caveat in that one of her killers after more than 50 yrs later said she was buried at the farm where she was held, police searched earlier this year without success.
I think we've touched on the recent case of the guy disposing of his then wife in plain site in a sceptic tank and carried on living on the premises for 30+ yrs.
Then we get back to SL, why should JC be held in suspicion of successfully disposing of SL when his one killing we know of that he did , the body was found in not a remote spot it would seem.

I would imagine if no-one thinks you murdered someone, then it's pretty easy to get away with it one way or another. Dennis Nilsen was a very mindless murderer - he was driven by a compulsion to do what he did but was then landed with the serious problem of what to do with the poor person he'd murdered being inside his small flat. Despite his disorganisation and messiness which is a bit too gruesome to detail, even he would never have been discovered had he not accidentally blocked a drain AND the plumber correctly identified a piece of human scalp with hair attached AND notified authorities AND the authorities took it seriously. There's so many chances he could have never been detected.

 

[Terryb808]

I would imagine if no-one thinks you murdered someone, then it's pretty easy to get away with it one way or another. Dennis Nilsen was a very mindless murderer - he was driven by a compulsion to do what he did but was then landed with the serious problem of what to do with the poor person he'd murdered being inside his small flat. Despite his disorganisation and messiness which is a bit too gruesome to detail, even he would never have been discovered had he not accidentally blocked a drain AND the plumber correctly identified a piece of human scalp with hair attached AND notified authorities AND the authorities took it seriously. There's so many chances he could have never been detected.

That’s exactly it, if SJL’s disappearance is down to someone who has no link to her, or just a tenuous one they’re going to be overlooked.

 

[WestLondoner]

One of the Cannan-related sites the police have dug up was a barracks that's now been built on. If you've hidden a body on a bit of land, I would think developers buying it would be your worst nightmare. If they put flats on it, the foundations are going to be seven or eight feet deep, plus there are going to be services to it - gas, water, etc. Digging a grave deeper than that by hand is not a minor task. Depending on what you were digging into, it could take you days. But if you don't, the chances of discovery would be quite high.

The thought experiment for me was where would I hide a body with least effort so it would be neither discovered nor linked to me. In a suitcase in a five-foot-deep canal would not be at the top of my list for the reasons others have given, and if anyone saw me lugging such a suitcase I'd give serious thought to finding somewhere better. At the bottom of a lake or reservoir might thus be the best bet, although I don't know if putting a body into a reservoir would go undetected. They must test water quality, and this might change it.

The mystifying bit about SJL is that you have a fit, healthy and eye-catching young woman taken in broad daylight. She has somehow been lured into a building, killed there, transferred to a vehicle, dumped elsewhere, and nobody saw a thing. Other than their personal confidence that someone had a place to do this (that's never been found), a suitable vehicle (that's never been found), and an unwitnessed opportunity to do this, we have never heard from the police how this might have been done.

Nilsen's victims went willingly back to his flat, were not even missed and nobody was aware of a serial killer of young men being at large. That made it possible. But AFAIK, for all the repetition of claims about Cannan, the police have never actually outlined how he solved these problems with his 3 O-Levels and 5 CSEs. He took no special care to ensure SB would not be discovered, only that when she was her body would be in poor condition with no forensic links to him. If you think he murdered SC, she was dumped so carelessly she was found next day (this actually points towards JC - he hadn't the time to hide her better). What hiding place did he hit on for SJL that he took her to completely undetected and that's never been discovered in 36 years?

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

I think the point remains the same for whomsoever perpetrated this crime - what hiding place has the perpetrator found that has remained either undisturbed, untouched, undiscovered in all these years.

I guess the railway banking could be such a sort of place? Someone's private garden who has never been a suspect? I'm never quite clear what happens to bodies tipped into the sea and it seems quite difficult unless one knows of accessible cliff tops.

Or someone did really gruesome stuff that doesn't bear thinking about but meant there wasn't much left to discover - in that case they would have needed a private space to do that undisturbed.

 

[Cherwell]

There was a case local to me where the body was buried in a churchyard in a very recent grave. This could work in a rural churchyard or cemetery, but I imagine most such places in London are securely closed after dark. Not easy to gain entrance with a body.

 

[Terryb808]

There was a case local to me where the body was buried in a churchyard in a very recent grave. This could work in a rural churchyard or cemetery, but I imagine most such places in London are securely closed after dark. Not easy to gain entrance with a body.

One suspect that popped up was an undertaker, one extra body in a coffin to the crematorium and there’s no evidence left.

 

[Pinkizzy]

I guess SJL is buried in someone's garden

 

[ruby925]

Reading posts about concealing bodies reminded me of this case ..

Airline pilot Peter Hogg, who strangled his wife and... - UPI Archives

Airline pilot Peter Hogg, who strangled his wife and dumped her body in Britain's deepest lake, was jailed for four years Friday for a near-perfect crime...

www.upi.com

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

This Ford Cortina car was found at the bottom of a fairly shallow 'boating pond' on Hampstead Heath. Nobody knew it was there until the pond was dredged for re-modelling of the pond and pathways. The story ended up being that a woman aggrieved with the owner had deliberately taken the handbrake off and rolled it down the slope into the pond. I guess the owner must have missed it at the time!? And there'd be tyre marks down the grass banking.

Bearing in mind this is in central London and a hugely popular park with many loyal and local walkers, dog walkers, nature lovers, fishermen, ground workers, and there are rows of houses nearby, it defies belief no-one noticed or subsequently noticed - it was there all these decades but it came as a shock to everyone.

The point I'm trying to make I guess is something can be hidden somewhere undisturbed even if it seems unlikely. I don't mean the canal theory here, that doesn't work for me, but a lake or a pond or a bog?
.

Mystery over vintage car found dumped at bottom of Hampstead Heath pond

It emerged from the muddy depths of a Hampstead Heath pond like something out of a classic detective novel: the rotten shell of a vintage car, lying…

www.hamhigh.co.uk

 

[WestLondoner]

Reading posts about concealing bodies reminded me of this case ..

Airline pilot Peter Hogg, who strangled his wife and... - UPI Archives

Airline pilot Peter Hogg, who strangled his wife and dumped her body in Britain's deepest lake, was jailed for four years Friday for a near-perfect crime...

www.upi.com

According to Google, Wast Water is only 79m deep - maybe they meant England's deepest lake. Loch Morar is nearly four times deeper. If you "hide" a body in 100 feet of water, there's a non-zero chance it will be found.

As with the Cortina, although in sort-of-plain-sight, it did get found eventually.

As Pinkizzy suggests, maybe she's on private land that's not going to be disturbed. There are 6,000 missing people in the UK so presumably there are 6,000+ hiding places.

 

[RichardKimble]

Reading posts about concealing bodies reminded me of this case ..

Airline pilot Peter Hogg, who strangled his wife and... - UPI Archives

Airline pilot Peter Hogg, who strangled his wife and dumped her body in Britain's deepest lake, was jailed for four years Friday for a near-perfect crime...

www.upi.com

He only got four years !

 

[RichardKimble]

Melanie Hall's remains were found by workmen on the side of the M5 junction some 13 yrs after her disappearance, various arrest's but no charges , Cannan although in prison was some how linked, maybe he has a doppelganger or Mr Kipper is still free.

Caution its a wiki article.

Inexplicably, although Cannan was in prison at the time of Hall's abduction and murder, some witnesses came forward to say they were certain that Cannan was the man they had seen abducting Hall that night.

Murder of Melanie Hall - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

Melanie Hall's remains were found by workmen on the side of the M5 junction some 13 yrs after her disappearance, various arrest's but no charges , Cannan although in prison was some how linked, maybe he has a doppelganger or Mr Kipper is still free.

Caution its a wiki article.

Inexplicably, although Cannan was in prison at the time of Hall's abduction and murder, some witnesses came forward to say they were certain that Cannan was the man they had seen abducting Hall that night.

Murder of Melanie Hall - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Goes to show people can feel certain of a theory if it's suggested to them. Or JC has the keys to prison.