The Suzy Lamplugh Puzzle
Estate agent Suzy Lamplugh was just 25 years old when she vanished after leaving her office to do a house viewing with a client who was named in her diary as “Mr Kipper”
Over the coming weeks I will be bringing articles on this case as I dig deeper and progress with related work, so I thought I would kick-off with an overview with a few random thoughts.
I am going to start a few days before the disappearance in order to build the bigger picture, I hope that this helps.
On Friday 25th July 1986, twenty-five-year-old Susannah Lamplugh, known to friends as Suzy, spent some of that evening at a local public house/bar, The Prince of Wales in Upper Richmond Road, Putney, London. During the course of the evening, a few personal items vanished from her handbag, quite how that happened is not really clear. The items that went from the handbag included her cheque book, her personal diary and a postcard.
I am not certain as to exactly when Susannah (Suzy) realised that the items were missing but, the acting landlord of the pub said that he “found” the items on the doorstep of the pub late on Friday night. Let’s remember that Suzy was a regular visitor to the pub, but it seems that there was no attempt made to contact her.
Moving forward to Monday, July 28th 1986; Suzy Lamplugh went to work at her office at Sturgis Estate Agents in Fulham, where she had worked for just over a year, as normal. She had discovered that items were missing from her bag and spent quite a bit of the morning involved in telephoning her bank and the Prince of Wales Pub. She made an arrangement to collect her possessions at 6pm that evening.
At around 12.40pm Suzy left her office and headed out to supposedly show a client a house at 37 Shorrolds Road, Fulham. She had logged the client’s name in her work diary as “Mr Kipper”. There is a lack of clarity as to whether Suzy actually took the keys to the house with her or not, but it is worthy of note that the police used keys to enter the house in their search for the missing estate agent and there is no record of the locks having been changed.
Suzy travelled from her office to Shorrolds Road in her company car, a white Ford Fiesta, registration B396 GAN and according to her colleagues she was carrying her purse, the key to her car, the details and keys to the house.
When the 25-year-old failed to return to the office other staff naturally became concerned, but initially thought that she may have called at her parent’s house for some lunch and somehow been delayed. At around 6pm the manager of the estate agent made a telephone call to Suzy’s mother Diana and was somewhat shocked when he was told that Suzy had not been seen.
The obvious next step was to call the police and report the estate agent missing, whilst Diana began to make calls to friends and relatives in search for her daughter.
A full-scale hunt ensued with police searching several properties, including Suzy’s flat but nothing untoward was discovered. Many hundreds of people were spoken to by police with statements taken but to date, this serious case remains unsolved. I am of the opinion that there have been far too many mistakes made by the police including ignoring vital evidence and clues.
In future articles I will discuss the case in detail and look at the various intricacies as I see them. I won’t disclose too much at this stage but, I will say that:
- I do not believe the common theory that convicted killer, John Cannan had any connection to the disappearance or assumed murder
- I do not accept that Mr Kipper was the real name of the person that Suzy went out to meet
- I do not support the story that she visited 37 Shorrolds Road, on the day that she vanished.
Want to know why? Follow me and I promise “All will be revealed” in future articles
