UK UK - Suzy Lamplugh, 25, Fulham, 28 Jul 1986 #8

[Konstantin]

No one apparently recalls Suzy mentioning having lost any belongings over the weekend, but her colleagues do recall her being preoccupied with finding them on the Monday morning. Together with AL’s claim about never having visiting the pub, and the relief landlord’s claim that he found these items outside of the pub on the Sunday night, the evidence suggests they became lost - not stolen - on the Sunday, rather than the Friday.

There was a phone box just outside the pub right nearby the picnic benches where the pub temp landlord says he found SJL's diary, chequebook and postcard. So they could have dropped there if she sat down there to wait to use the call box on the Sunday after she had visited her parents. She may well have wanted to make calls out of the earshot of her flatmate. I think that's a good theory for how her items came to be there.

There are rumours but actually zero evidence that JC ever went to the PoW. It wasn't the sort of place SJL went to, it was a bit of a dingy old man's pub in 1986 by all accounts.

 

[RichardKimble]

There was a phone box just outside the pub right nearby the picnic benches where the pub temp landlord says he found SJL's diary, chequebook and postcard. So they could have dropped there if she sat down there to wait to use the call box on the Sunday after she had visited her parents. She may well have wanted to make calls out of the earshot of her flatmate. I think that's a good theory for how her items came to be there.

There are rumours but actually zero evidence that JC ever went to the PoW. It wasn't the sort of place SJL went to, it was a bit of a dingy old man's pub in 1986 by all accounts.

If the theory of flowers and champagne is JC then that's a place he's unlikely to visit also.

 

[WestLondoner]

I'm not sure it was a dodgy old man's pub in mid-86. MB, the full time landlord, told DV it had been radically done up and was taking good money. It was also used as a training pub, which argues that it was a bit of a model, rather than a dive.

AL said in a documentary around that time that he and SJL went to the pub on the Friday and she lost her stuff then. This cannot be true I'd they never went there, as he now says. Either way it seems clear she did go there, just maybe not with him.

The claim to have spoken to her on Sunday night and not knowing who rang whom is tosh, IMO. First, they'd been at the beach all day so why couldn't whatever needed to be discussed have been discussed then? And secondly, in 1986 you called landline to landline and you could tell the call was from a payphone from the background noise and the pips when money got low. How did either of them know where to reach the other unless both were at home?

For my money AL fibbed about all this to spare DL's feelings. SJL binned him on Friday and ignored him all weekend. If she spoke to him on Sunday it was to tell him to cotton on and stop bl00dy following her around; a call she woukd nit have wanted to make with Roger the Lodger eavesdropping.

DL's understanding of 'boyfriend' was almost certainly 'bloke she knows socially', not the 80s sense of 'sleeps with'.

 

[Konstantin]

I'm not sure it was a dodgy old man's pub in mid-86. MB, the full time landlord, told DV it had been radically done up and was taking good money. It was also used as a training pub, which argues that it was a bit of a model, rather than a dive.

That's very interesting. So SJL might have gone there socially then, perhaps not with AL. Especially as convenient for home.

The claim to have spoken to her on Sunday night and not knowing who rang whom is tosh

I've always thought that was AL bluffing because he was clearly in love with her or strong feelings and she'd seen him on Friday after him being away but apparently they'd not spent the night which tells you a lot about their relationship or lack of. Then she'd cold shouldered him all weekend.

Either there was no phone call and he'd said there was to spare himself the embarrassment of admitting he'd been dumped or to avoid the police thinking he had a motive to off her, or he knows exactly who called who. He couldn't have called her unless she was at home.

 

[SteveH]

Respectfully if people are going to make assertions about other people making false allegations they better get their story straight. Of course this is something that Cannan could never do.

A contributor said earlier: "Respectfully, if people are going to discuss an author’s views, I think it’s reasonable to suggest that they read their work first. Nowhere in DV’s book does he claim to ‘believe’ Cannan’s alibi."

Yet the same contributor said on 24 August: "DV says Cannan could account for his movements:" If DV didn't "believe" Cannan's story/alibi what in earth does this sentence mean? Or did the contributor themselves misrepresent DV?

However they kindly provided a link to a piece in which Videcette himself spoke:

"Cannan provided alibi witnesses to the police, which were accepted during the 1980s and through to the mid-nineties. But then in 2000, after these witnesses had passed away, the police decided that these witnesses were no longer suitable and began questioning the evidence that those alibi witnesses would have provided.

“I went right back to the beginning and investigated the case from the bottom up. Because my five-year investigation reaches a completely different conclusion as to what happened to Suzy and where she went on the afternoon she disappeared, along with uncovering a wealth of supporting evidence to this effect, I can say that I do not believe John Cannan was involved in her disappearance."

Suspect in disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh should not have been named - Property Industry Eye

Suspect in disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh should not have been named - Breaking news for estate agents and the residential property industry. Independent, unbiased, and factual reporting. A forum for discussion and debate of topics of the day. Subscribe for our free daily newsletter.

propertyindustryeye.com

Then on 22 September the same contributor wrote:

"From DV’s book (chapter 64):

We were particularly interested in Cannan’s whereabouts around the time Suzy had gone missing. We asked Cannan about his alibi and what he said next was rather interesting:

“My mother and I provided the Met with my simple alibi for 28 July 1986. We were in Birmingham nearly all day on Monday, 28 July. Had the Met acted quicker, my sister and brother-in-law would have provided 100 per cent watertight corroboration. Both, sadly, are now dead. What I do remember well is how frustrated and surprised we felt by the pedestrian pace of the Met to interview us all.”

DV later writes:

Back in the summer of 1990, following renewed media pressure about the case, the police had gone back to Cannan again and interviewed him at length over the summer months. They’d spoken with several people in the Birmingham area who’d confirmed that they had seen Cannan in the West Midlands on the day Suzy went missing. By September 1990, police said that no further questioning was planned, and by October 1990, police were adamant that there was no evidence to support a charge.

To say Cannan had selective amnesia doesn’t really seem fair."

In 2019 Videcette whinged to the Daily Mail:

"'I believe that I know who killed Suzy Lamplugh.

'I've named that person to the police. He is alive well and at large, and has remained at large for the last 30 years.

'Who knows what he's been doing in that time.'...

'They've had this information for over a month and they've dragged their heels.

'The Met's a massive organisation and I don't understand why they've got a live named suspect with all his details and they won't do anything about it.'"

Retired detective says he knows who killed Suzy Lamplugh

Retired Met detective David Videcette conducted a three-year re- investigation and believes prime suspect, convicted killer John Cannan, is innocent of the 1986 murder of Suzy Lamplugh.

www.dailymail.co.uk

They've had his information for over six years now - boy, that's REALLY dragging their heels if there is anything whatsoever to support Videcette's allegations. You know, like evidence. The Met must get crazy theories about this or that incident foisted on them multiple times everyday.

Name me ONE serious researcher who has said anything positive about Videcette's claims.

I am not going to waste my time reading a book by someone who is patently a charlatan. I can remember seeing an interview with David Icke once and he said that if a person hasn't read all his books they can't evaluate or criticize his views. Okay, so I suppose I now have to read his entire canon before I can say that he "believes that an inter-dimensional race of reptilian beings called the Archons have hijacked the earth and are stopping humanity from realising its true potential". Actually I think I'll just take Wikipedia's word for it thanks.

 

[rvlvr]

Yet the same contributor said on 24 August: "DV says Cannan could account for his movements:" If DV didn't "believe" Cannan's story/alibi what in earth does this sentence mean? Or did the contributor themselves misrepresent DV?

No misrepresentation here. An argument was being made that Cannan couldn’t account for his movements on the day of Suzy’s disappearance, but DV said Cannan could. And did. And that this alibi was apparently accepted by police for a number of years.

DV’s own research established some weak support for Cannan’s alibi. On the contrary, no evidence has been presented to contradict it. Coupled with everything else we know about this case and the absence of any evidence that Suzy was even murdered, never mind by whom/where/how/when, it’s reasonable for someone to say they believe Cannan had nothing to do with her disappearance, imo.

Perhaps one day the Met will surprise us with some kind of smoking gun that puts this case to bed. But I doubt it. I said yesterday that it’s pitiful how little they have to show for their efforts, but it’s probably bordering on the criminal given how much (public) money they’ve spent fruitlessly pursuing a single line of inquiry.

 

[Klclevi]

In Aus ( we have state based police forces) for cold cases rewards are offered . Generally up to $1 mil for information. Does this not happen in the UK?

 

[Klclevi]

I'm not sure it was a dodgy old man's pub in mid-86. MB, the full time landlord, told DV it had been radically done up and was taking good money. It was also used as a training pub, which argues that it was a bit of a model, rather than a dive.

AL said in a documentary around that time that he and SJL went to the pub on the Friday and she lost her stuff then. This cannot be true I'd they never went there, as he now says. Either way it seems clear she did go there, just maybe not with him.

The claim to have spoken to her on Sunday night and not knowing who rang whom is tosh, IMO. First, they'd been at the beach all day so why couldn't whatever needed to be discussed have been discussed then? And secondly, in 1986 you called landline to landline and you could tell the call was from a payphone from the background noise and the pips when money got low. How did either of them know where to reach the other unless both were at home?

For my money AL fibbed about all this to spare DL's feelings. SJL binned him on Friday and ignored him all weekend. If she spoke to him on Sunday it was to tell him to cotton on and stop bl00dy following her around; a call she woukd nit have wanted to make with Roger the Lodger eavesdropping.

DL's understanding of 'boyfriend' was almost certainly 'bloke she knows socially', not the 80s sense of 'sleeps with'.

Agree- its tosh. She kicked him to the curb on the Friday and he was not a happy camper - even 35 years later. I guess she could have called him on the Sunday just to placate him , but if so surely he would remember those details about who called who and so forth.

 

[WestLondoner]

I am not going to waste my time reading a book by someone who is patently a charlatan.

I wouldn't dismiss DV quite as quickly as that. He lays out quite clearly why the plod were so unhelpful. They'd nailed their colours to the Cannan mast and the trigger for the last lot of diggings they did seems to have been conversations he had with them where he raised doubts about Cannan. They then moved to reassert and reinsist on Cannan.

When he delved, with the original SIO, into who else was on the suspect grid, he found they'd never had one.

When he asked how they came to declare Cannan their prime suspect, it turns out there was nobody else.

When he asked how the 2000 investigation proceeded, he found they reinvestigated everyone previously cleared plus Cannan, and cleared them all again minus Cannan, therefore it was Cannan.

The fact they've done nothing about his findings in six years doesn't undermine DV, IMO. Look at how long it took them to admit they'd framed Stefan Kiszko: 15 years or something?

What does undermine DV is that his case doesn't stack up. He does not show the pub was empty and closed, nor does he show why CV or anyone else there would have murdered SJL or concealed any accidental death there. He does not show why anyone would choose a hiding place that would incriminate only one person, or at most two, were her body later to be found. He does not explain how this hiding place under a floor was not discovered a few years later when that floor was lowered during a rebuild. The mysterious calls related by CV could be sinister or he could be remembering what happened when. The name and phone number CV says he gave to the police in 1986, that they denied knowledge of in 1987, could be CV making it up, but they could also be the police being economical with the actualité and denying knowledge of a piece of evidence they had ineptly lost.

What he does show is that SJL may never have gone to 37SR and that the pub should have been searched on 28 or 29 July 1986. It was one of only a few places she might have been headed:

Her flat - searched
37SR - searched
123SR - searched
The PoW - not searched. Why not?

It's a clear procedural oversight from 1986, in other words, but it's not the answer.

DV also persuades me that we still haven't bottomed out what really happened at 37SR. HR said he heard a couple leaving, but he can't have done if she did not have the keys to get inside in the first place. The police found no sign anyone had been inside that day, which says she didn't have keys. And if she did have the keys, how did MG get in the same afternoon? The initial reconstruction of 37SR elicited no witnesses, a second one did, but funnily enough, while several people now claimed to have seen Mr Kipper, nobody remembered MG plus colleague's visits to 37SR when they made a lot more fuss - why not?

As I say, I reckon about 70% this was Cannan, not least because he had access to a place she could disappear into a short distance away, but there's no slam-dunk that points only to him.

 

[WestLondoner]

Agree- its tosh. She kicked him to the curb on the Friday and he was not a happy camper - even 35 years later. I guess she could have called him on the Sunday just to placate him , but if so surely he would remember those details about who called who and so forth.

He definitely got the bum's rush all weekend.

What she actually did on Friday is far from clear. AL was away Wednesday to Wednesday so you'd expect a bit of a reunion on Friday given she was not going to be seeing him on Saturday. Maybe they did go to the PoW as he later claimed (but no longer does), and maybe she did lose her stuff there; or maybe it was a very short "date" in which he was told essentially that he was on his way.

I am not sure whether she was invited to that 21st on the Saturday and brought along a different bloke as her +1, or whether she was not personally invited but came as the +1 of someone else, but either way that's the Saturday given over to someone else and not the bloke she's supposedly dating. Then on Sunday she goes to the beach without him, he follows, and then she leaves without him, and he follows again. She then went to her mother's house and home where Roger the Lodger was waiting. If she felt the need that Sunday to emphasise to AL that he really did need to sling his hook, she's going to struggle to do so in private in either of those places, and he needs to be at home first. So conceivably she does so from the pub payphone which, if you look at the map, she drove right past to get from her mother's house to her flat.

AS conceded that things were altered in his book but that they weren't important. Until you've convicted the killer you don't know what's important and what's not, but my guess would be that the little thing altered was that by Friday 25th July AL was no longer among SJL's blokes and she was in fact down to three. I am not convinced this is unimportant.

 

[tes1984]

In Aus ( we have state based police forces) for cold cases rewards are offered . Generally up to $1 mil for information. Does this not happen in the UK?

Sometimes rewards are offered in some UK cold cases. Families of victims, local businesses, crime agencies etc put up the rewards but I can't think of any cases where the amount exceeds £100,000 though.

 

[Konstantin]

He definitely got the bum's rush all weekend.

What she actually did on Friday is far from clear. AL was away Wednesday to Wednesday so you'd expect a bit of a reunion on Friday given she was not going to be seeing him on Saturday. Maybe they did go to the PoW as he later claimed (but no longer does), and maybe she did lose her stuff there; or maybe it was a very short "date" in which he was told essentially that he was on his way.

I am not sure whether she was invited to that 21st on the Saturday and brought along a different bloke as her +1, or whether she was not personally invited but came as the +1 of someone else, but either way that's the Saturday given over to someone else and not the bloke she's supposedly dating. Then on Sunday she goes to the beach without him, he follows, and then she leaves without him, and he follows again. She then went to her mother's house and home where Roger the Lodger was waiting. If she felt the need that Sunday to emphasise to AL that he really did need to sling his hook, she's going to struggle to do so in private in either of those places, and he needs to be at home first. So conceivably she does so from the pub payphone which, if you look at the map, she drove right past to get from her mother's house to her flat.

AS conceded that things were altered in his book but that they weren't important. Until you've convicted the killer you don't know what's important and what's not, but my guess would be that the little thing altered was that by Friday 25th July AL was no longer among SJL's blokes and she was in fact down to three. I am not convinced this is unimportant.

AS did concede that she'd told her mates she was going to dump AL.

Maybe he knew she'd already done so and didn't explicitly state that because AL was busy posing as her boyfriend in the media and him reporting she'd dumped him would be a story.

 

[rvlvr]

DL was very determined that the public should see Suzy in a particular way - attractive, fun, vivacious, but also steady and smart, not the kind of girl who’d partake in risky behaviour, never mind the kind of girl who might, say, falsify a diary entry in order to run an errand or catch up with a fella on company time.

Having a regular, cardboard cutout kind of boyfriend was useful in this regard and as mentioned up the page AL would’ve no doubt realised that being a recently dumped partner would place him in quite a vulnerable position (though it sounds like he received plenty of police attention anyway, as it goes), so he wisely played along and played his part.

DV’s gentle probing coupled with the passing of time produced from AL some revealing information, as did most of his encounters with the many other characters connected to Suzy. Why anyone with an interest in her case is hostile to that is quite odd, to me. The oft repeated story (and story is all it is, given the dearth of evidence to support it) about how Suzy’s disappearance played out is a seductive one but it’s also very possible something altogether more prosaic happened to her that day, and it was nice that someone deviated from the script to not only suggest that but also that they attempted to evidence it - even if the conclusion reached was likely wrong.

 

[tes1984]

DV did some good research, but I think he rubbed some people up the wrong way by suggesting his solution with such confidence/certainty.

He also makes it far too easy to identify his suspect. You just can't do that with someone who is still alive and has no criminal record. No publisher will touch a book like that and I'm surprised DV decided to self publish and be damned.

 

[SteveH]

Regarding the Prince of Wales and AL there are some interesting snippets in this 2002 channel 5 doc. You may need to turn on the subtitles - or maybe I'm going deaf!

At 13 mins a "work colleague" from his time in London, Josie Phillips, says that Cannan went to the Prince of Wales and he said it was a "lively pub and like a pub and wine bar", and he also said "I go there quite regular". Don't know why she would lie.

A little later from 16 mins 35 secs Adam Leegood - he's mentioned by name - says that on the day Cannan was released, ie the Friday, he met her at her flat, they went for a meal round the corner and afterwards went next door to the PoW and "we think it was there somebody took some things from her bag...a bad end to a good evening."

If you haven't seen the video it is well worth watching - some disputable points maybe - and I think a lot of it is based on Christopher Berry-Dee and Robin Odell's research, as was the timeline I provided a couple of comments ago. Did Cannan actually claim to his work colleagues while he was on day release that he was dating an "uptown girl called Susu"?

From 23 mins 39 seconds there is an interesting segment on Cannan's stays at the Avon Gorge Hotel in Bristol - I can remember when it was previously called the Grand Spa as I went to a cousin's wedding reception there in the 1970s - which was a 10-15 minute walk from his residence in Leigh Woods. A Sun journalist, who lived in the same block of flats as JC, says that Bristol had a "wine bar culture" at the time and that he thinks Cannan "saw wine bars as a stalking ground...a hunting ground". The Avon Gorge is both a hotel and pub/wine bar with views from the balcony of the Clifton Suspension Bridge. At the end of 1986 Cannan would regularly - at least once a month according to the then Head Receptionist - book an expensive (£90 a night) suite for the weekend and always paid in cash. She says he brought his own champagne in as "part of his image to entice the ladies to go up"! It was there he first saw Gilly Paige - he gave her a bottle of champagne with his room number on a note attached to it.

Another ex-girlfriend mentioned champagne.

Noting that Suzy was seen "with a man who was carrying a bottle of champagne festooned with ribbons" for "Daphne Sargent, an ex-girlfriend of Cannon's [sic], this evidence was enough to convince her. "As soon as I heard about Suzy," she told the press, "I knew it was John. It had all the hallmarks - right down to the champagne."" See:

False hopes that prey on every woman's fear

THE PRETTY face of Suzy Lamplugh twinkles out once again from television screens and newspaper pages. This face, of a 25-year-old who disappeared without trace in the course of her duties as an estate agent during the mid-Eighties property boom, has in its tragic way become iconic. Ms Lamplugh's...

www.independent.co.uk

Incidentally Bryan Saunders of Avon & Somerset Police, who said in a previous video I linked about Shirley Banks that there was no evidence to link JC to SL, seems to have come round to believing Cannan was involved according to the above Independent article:

"The police, too, appear to believe that Cannan was Ms Lamplugh's killer. Former detective chief inspector Bryan Saunders said: "Inquiries showed that he went window-shopping for girls. He would spot an attractive girl in an estate agent's or building society and pursue her.""

As for Cannan's alibi, in this video Christopher Berry-Dee - who is absolutely full of himself - says that "the night" that JC killed SL he drove straight back to Sutton Coldfield and his mother "gave him a dinner" (from 6 mins 5 secs). Perhaps Cannan confused (deliberately?) his lunch with his dinner.

Maybe the Lenny the Lizard CBD mentions is one of David Icke's archons.

Unfortunately the cops in the original investigation never challenged Cannan's "alibi" according to a report by DCS Barry Webb. I have quoted from this article before:

"THE cop who led the first Suzy Lamplugh inquiry refused to view John Cannan as her possible killer because he fell out with her mum.

An official review said Det Supt Malcolm Hackett's view of "Mr Kipper" suspect Cannan was prejudiced by his belief Diana Lamplugh was behind media stories linking the murderer with Suzy...

The Sun today reveals how a damning official review of the initial police inquiry said Det Supt Malcolm Hackett fell out with Diana Lamplugh because he believed she was behind media reports linking Cannan to Suzy.

It prejudiced his view of Cannan to such an extent he failed to properly interview him, put him in ID lines ups or check his alibi for the day Suzy vanished. Instead, Hackett told his team to try to eliminate Cannan as a suspect.

Diana and Paul Lamplugh raised questions about Cannan after he was arrested in October 1987 for the murder of Shirley Banks.

The report tells how the Lamplugh’s initially had a good rapport with the police team investigating Suzy’s disappearance.

But this changed when the previous lead officer retired and Det Supt Hackett took over...

The Met Police review report, written 14 years ago but kept under wraps until now, said that deteriorating relationship became a “significant issue.”

Det Supt Hackett was convinced that Press reports linking Cannan to Suzy came from the Lamplughs.

The report said: “This appears to have influenced Mr Hackett into never seriously considering Cannan as a person who could have abducted and murdered Suzy.”

“This influenced Mr Hackett when he made a number of key decisions concerning John Cannan.”...

When Cannan was finally questioned about Suzy — four months after his arrest for Shirley’s murder — Det Supt Hackett told detectives to deal with the interview as an elimination process and not to treat him as a suspect.

In March 1989 he wrote that there was “no evidence that Cannan committed any offence against Suzy Lamplugh".

There was “no evidence of any connection” between the Banks and Lamplugh cases.

Yet the Operation Phoebus review judged that by late 1987 there was enough information to treat Cannan as a “prime suspect."

The report by Det Chief Supt Barry Webb noted: “A more positive approach from the senior investigating officer regarding Cannan’s status as a genuine suspect could have resolved whether he was responsible for Suzy’s murder.

“Unfortunately the SIO appears to have been prejudiced against this course of action primarily because he believed Cannan had come into the MIR(murder incident room) as a suspect from Diana Lamplugh.

“This resulted in the SIO specifically stating that Cannan was not to be treated as a suspect.

“As a result only limited actions were undertaken and a non-challenging interview strategy adopted.”

One of the key issues was a failure to properly evaluate Cannan’s alibi that he was chatting up a sales assistant in Birmingham on the day Suzy disappeared. When approached more than a year [later] she confirmed Cannan’s account. But doubts were later raised over whether she got the day right.

Despite detailed descriptions of Mr Kipper, Cannan was never placed on an ID parade.

When police did finally question him regarding Suzy in February 1988 it was not under caution.

The report said: “No pressure is put on Cannan. The Review Team finds the strategy strange.”

Cannan was interviewed on two further occasions, in 1989 and 1990, and maintained his innocence.

His name was first mentioned to Det Supt Hacket as a suspect in June 1987, 11 months after Suzy’s abduction and four months before Shirley’s murder. A detective investigating a rape committed by Cannan in Reading in October 1986 spoke to Det Supt Hackett about him.

But the report said the information was “not given much credence” and no further action was taken...

The first links between the Banks and Lamplugh cases were made in the media the day after his arrest...

The review report led to a new homicide investigation led by Det Supt Jim Dickie.

Mr Dickie, now retired, said of the original 1986 probe: “There were glaring errors.”"

Cop lost chance to nail Suzy Lamplugh's 'killer' John Cannan over rows with mum (my bold lettering)

I mentioned my aunt in a previous comment in connection with her best friend's son-in-law who says he met Cannan in a pub and JC offered to bump off his wife. There is another connection to my aunt, as the elderly witness who saw a person she thinks was Cannan acting suspiciously and threateningly near his flat in Leigh Woods at the time of Shirley Banks' disappearance lived in Cairns Road, Westbury Park. I know it very well as I used to spend a lot of time at my aunt and uncle's house in the same road, although this was long before Cannan ever lived in Bristol. See:

The Glasgow Herald - Google News Archive Search

An interesting article as it mentions Annabel Rose who Cannan claimed to have "made love" to in the open air in Ashton Court, thus explaining the red mud marks on his coat found after Shirley Banks' murder. She says they just "walked and talked", although they did make love at Cannan's flat and a hotel (presumably the Avon Gorge!). Later Rose broke down sobbing and collapsed to her seat some time after Cannan had ranted from the dock.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - apart from his eyebrows the young Cannan did look spookily like my younger self.

I even had a hat like that when I spent a couple of years in Australia in the early '80s roughing it in the Outback with Crocodile Dundee types in the Northern Territory and the Kimberley area of Western Australia. Note Cannan's small mouth and curly hair. Ditto! PS That's not me in my "avatar" photo. (I'll buy anyone a drink if they can tell me who it is)

The above pic of JC comes from this article about a claim from a woman who now lives in Brisbane, Australia, that Cannan raped her in 1981, when she was nine, in Erdington, Birmingham.

https://londondailys.co.uk/i-was-raped-aged-9-by-suzy-lamplugh-killer-after-being-dragged-to-abandoned-launderette-he-left-me-begging-for-death/

"Speaking exclusively to Birmingham Live, from Australia where she now lives, the married mum claimed the assault happened 42 years ago when she was walking towards her family home in Goosemoor Lane, Erdington.

Records show Cannan lived in Ley Hill Road at the time - only a 12 minute drive from where Melanie alleges he assaulted her. In the same year, he was found guilty at Birmingham Crown Court of raping a pregnant woman in front of her son."

Mum claims she was raped in Birmingham aged 9 by killer John Cannan

Exclusive: Melanie Gregory, diagnosed with PTSD and FND, is speaking about the alleged assault for the first time after police dropped her case

www.birminghammail.co.uk

 

[lee sumner]

I don't think he's been ruled out. Isn't the fingerprint from the letter sent ten days after Sandra's murder?

yes, it was written by a woman who was covering for her child, who was the one who killed sandra court. it was posted from southampton, which is about 80 miles from london. i cant see JC driving from the prison hostel in london to southampton to post that letter.

 

[lee sumner]

Respectfully, if people are going to discuss an author’s views, I think it’s reasonable to suggest that they read their work first. Nowhere in DV’s book does he claim to ‘believe’ Cannan’s alibi. The issue is that those who ‘believe’ in Cannan’s guilt need to disprove it - the Met have spent much of the past 25 years trying to do just that, amongst other things, and have failed. Such a meagre return on their investment (all paid for by the public, of course) seems quite pitiful, imo.

The yarn about Suzy’s lost property is a good one but the issue is that even if these items were lost on the Friday night there’s no evidence that they were stolen, never mind by Cannan. Also, Adam Leegood claims in DV’s book that he and Suzy “never, ever” went to the Prince of Wales pub, so if they were stolen from Suzy on the Friday the theft must’ve happened at the restaurant next door, which seems fanciful, or somewhere else after they left - in which case, how and why did they end up outside the pub?

No one apparently recalls Suzy mentioning having lost any belongings over the weekend, but her colleagues do recall her being preoccupied with finding them on the Monday morning. Together with AL’s claim about never having visiting the pub, and the relief landlord’s claim that he found these items outside of the pub on the Sunday night, the evidence suggests they became lost - not stolen - on the Sunday, rather than the Friday.

yes, i agree. SL lost items could have just been lost by accident. they were obviously not stolen, or they would not have been found. its all just nonsense.

 

[lee sumner]

I have to agree. So begs the question. Why was she there (at POW) on the Sunday night so late? If she got back to London at say 8ish , spends an hour with her parents , dumps her washing etc and goes back to Putney it probably puts her back there somewhere between 9-9.30pm. Then makes a call from the phone box - how her belongings come to be left outside who knows. For her to be there it can only be to make a call she did not want heard by NB her flatmate before she went home and proceeded to call AL . Surely shes not going to nip in for a pint on the way home by herself.

I would think in 1986 you would be able to tell if a call was made from a phone box not a home phone? But - who knows the call at 10.15pm with AL (if its true could have been all of 1 minute if that) She could have very well have blown him off again for the umpteenth time that weekend. What AL says about meeting up for a party etc in the next day or so seems very unlikely also. I think this is probably untrue.

I am Gen X (born 72) so I am not up with the current slang regarding blowing someone off and all that . Ghosting I guess you call it?
But you only have to look at her behaviour on the weekend prior to say she was not in love with AL. She was on the way out of that big time. No one who is barely 3 mths into a relationship and is really interested in the person does that unless you are dumping them. Otherwise you would be busting your butt to get them to come to the party on the Saturday night ( I understand he may have not been invited but then , you would be just so excited to hang out with them Sunday and probably going home to visit your M&D on the way home Sunday night and bringing them along. That scenario in itself is weird to me , especially if he was DL and PL's 'type'. Either way he must have met them at some point ?

I guess what I also find interesting is that DL in many interviews said that SJL had 'lots of boyfriends'. Does that mean she thought SJL was exclusive with these many boyfriends (to me I would think so, otherwise why would she bring AL into the picture, and more so, why wouldn't he be truthful after all these years - if she messed him around it still does not mean he did it. So why not just tell it as it was? )

we dont know the dynamics of the relationship between SL and AL. leegood might have been happy with a summer fling. maybe he was not in love in SL, and was quite happy to have a fling with her.

 

[lee sumner]

It's not patronising. The minimal force in question is the minimal force required to strangle the victim to death.

yes, but it ended her life. to me that is max force.

 

[lee sumner]

I'm not sure it was a dodgy old man's pub in mid-86. MB, the full time landlord, told DV it had been radically done up and was taking good money. It was also used as a training pub, which argues that it was a bit of a model, rather than a dive.

AL said in a documentary around that time that he and SJL went to the pub on the Friday and she lost her stuff then. This cannot be true I'd they never went there, as he now says. Either way it seems clear she did go there, just maybe not with him.

The claim to have spoken to her on Sunday night and not knowing who rang whom is tosh, IMO. First, they'd been at the beach all day so why couldn't whatever needed to be discussed have been discussed then? And secondly, in 1986 you called landline to landline and you could tell the call was from a payphone from the background noise and the pips when money got low. How did either of them know where to reach the other unless both were at home?

For my money AL fibbed about all this to spare DL's feelings. SJL binned him on Friday and ignored him all weekend. If she spoke to him on Sunday it was to tell him to cotton on and stop bl00dy following her around; a call she woukd nit have wanted to make with Roger the Lodger eavesdropping.

DL's understanding of 'boyfriend' was almost certainly 'bloke she knows socially', not the 80s sense of 'sleeps with'.

AL was also a founding member of the putney set, so he might still hang around SL because of the putney set. social events, etc.