Who killed Suzy Lamplugh? John Cannan and the Suffolk Strangler

On the 28th of July 1986, 25 year old Suzy Lamplugh disappeared from Fulham, South London, where she worked as a real estate agent. She had previously been employed as a beautician on the Queen Elizabeth II cruise ship, but had decided to take a new direction.

Following clues found in her work planner, police discovered that she had left her office at Sturges estate agents on Fullham road around lunch time in order to meet a client who was interested in a £130,000 property on Shorrolds road.

“37 Shorrolds road o/s” the note said. “12:45, Mr. Kipper”.

“o/s” is believed to stand for “outside”.

According to Google maps, it’s only a six minute drive from the office to the property. Suzy climbed into her white Ford Fiesta company car, registration number B396GAN and presumably made her way to the appointment.

Mr. Kipper was unknown to Suzy’s co-workers. They had no record of him on file at the office and it wasn’t a name any of them recognized.

When the 25 year old failed to return to the office, her family was contacted, and in turn, they contacted the police to report her missing. The police search was thorough. Officers employed the use of dogs and searched Sharrolds road, the surrounding area including Brompton cemetery and made a trip to the missing woman’s flat in Putney- just less than 3 miles from her workplace. 

There was nothing out of the ordinary at Suzy’s flat. No sign of a struggle. No evidence that she planned to walk away voluntarily. Everything seemed to be in order. 

Police utilized helicopters to scan parks and cemeteries but found nothing.

The first worrying sign in the case came when the woman’s car was found at around 10pm that night parked on Stevenage road. The vehicle is described as being hastily parked, blocking off part of a residents garage and the doors were unlocked. The seat had been adjusted in such a way that investigators believe someone other than Suzy was driving.  The keys were missing but her purse was in the vehicle.

As we can see from the map, Stevenage road is just over a mile away, around a 7 minute drive, nearby Fullham football ground and bishops park which stretches north of the Thames river. 

Divers searched the Thames, but came up empty handed.

I found this article, which states Sturges estate agency also had a property at Stevenage road on their books.

 When police reached out to the public for information they received a couple of accounts from witnesses passing through the area who recalled seeing a young woman arguing with a man. This article states that Suzy was seen exiting the property on Shorrolds road with the client at around 1pm.

Despite massive media coverage and hundreds upon hundreds of phone calls from the public, Suzy Lamplugh was nowhere to be found. A search of her company car found no signs of a struggle. Investigators entertained the notion that she initially went voluntarily with whoever was driving her Ford fiesta that day, but were at a loss when attempting to fill in the blanks of what happened afterwards.

Although 800 unidentified bodies were tested, none of them turned out to be Suzy.

 With no leads in the case, it simply went cold.

Mr. Kipper

An artist came up with this composite sketch using descriptions given by witnesses who saw Suzy and the man arguing

The artist’s rendition of Mr. Kipper turned out to resemble a later suspect in the case, a Mr. John Cannan.

(source)

Cannan was responsible for the rape of a woman in the Reading area in 1986. 

He was on a train from Bristol to London and got off at Reading where he committed the crime. Although he provided an alibi his DNA was present on the victim which eventually led to his arrest.

Cannan then attempted to kidnap a businesswoman from Bristol, Julia Holman, in the autumn of 1987. Although he threatened her to comply at gunpoint, she refused to go down without a fight and escaped.

He later murdered a woman named Shirley Banks whom he killed in Bristol. Banks was the manager of a local factory and a married woman who was quickly missed by her husband who searched for her when she did not turn up to a bar they planned to meet at after her shopping trip. 

Strangely, she called into work the following day and said she wouldn’t be able to come in due to sickness.  It’s thought that Shirley Banks was kept overnight at John Cannan’s residence at Foye House, Leigh Woods, Bristol, and that he most likely threatened to hurt her if she didn’t call in to work. He would have needed her to do this so it would appear as though she had gone missing voluntarily to give him more time to do whatever he was going to do. 

After Banks’ husband reported her missing a massive search was underway. Her picture, name, description and last known whereabouts were broadcasted on TV and printed in the media.

John Cannon committed crimes so compulsively that it was no surprise that he was eventually caught in the act and chased down by civilians who alerted the authorities. Police finally apprehended him on the 29^th of October, 1987, after an attempted robbery at a dress shop in Lemmington Spa. 

A search of his vehicle, a black BMW parked a stone’s throw away, turned up a fake plastic pistol (likely the one he threatened Julia Holman with) and a length of rope. A bag and the knife he used to threaten various victims were found discarded nearby.

The investigation continued and as time passed more damning evidence turned up. The tax disc from Banks’ missing orange Mini Clubman car was found in the glove box of Cannan’s BMW.

When the Mini was eventually located in a garage near Cannan’s flat, police discovered the once orange vehicle had been painted blue in an attempt to disguise the once distinctive car.

A thumb print in Cannan’s flat matched that of Shirley. 

Her remains were found at “Dead woman’s ditch” in Somerset, England on the Quantock Hills. She had been raped and bludgeoned with a rock.

Keep these details in mind as we continue on.

Cannan had been committing crimes against women since he was just 14 years old. Back in 1968 when he was a teenager living in Erdington, Warwickshire, he assaulted a woman in a phone box.

He was actually married from 1978 – 1980 to a woman named June Vale. The couple had a daughter together. Cannon eventually left his wife for another woman named Daphne Sargent. When Sargent tried to leave him, he attempted to stop her using violence. 

From there he began to rob stores and rape women at knifepoint, resulting in his incarceration at Her Majesties Prison in Bristol where he was serving eight years. He was transferred to Wormwood Scrubs prison in London, eventually.

Here’s an interesting piece of information concerning his whereabouts on the day that Suzy went missing- Cannan was on day release from wormwood scrubs. The distance between Wormwood scrubs and Fullham road is just over 4 miles away, an average of 18 minutes by car.

Those who were unaware of his criminal history would describe him as good looking and charming. He had a way with women and claimed that he’d had around 100 one night stands. John Cannan was fond of middle class professional woman. He had a shtick of his own that involved playing the role of a business man and wooing his targets with bouquets of flowers, boxes of candy, champagne and trinkets. If things went well, he would date them, if they rejected his advances, he would most likely attack them.

An episode of crimewatch UK about Suzy’s disappearance featured a dating tape Cannan had made at an agency seeking women. 

In it, he comes across as thoughtful and charming. Listen closely and he may not be as eloquent as he tried so hard to seem, often using words incorrectly in sentences.

One of Cannan’s ex-girlfriends came forward to police to share some disturbing information. She revealed to investigators that John Cannan had some kind of fascination with Suzy’s case. At one point while they were driving past Norton Barracks, a military site in Worcestershire, Cannan said to her “Suzy Lamplugh is buried there”. Police searched the area extensively but found nothing.

A couple of years later police entertained the idea that the ex-girlfriend was possibly referring to Norton Manor Royal Marines barracks, located just 8 miles away from where the body of Shirley Banks was discovered in Somerset. Still, a search turned up nothing.

Years later a car linked to Cannan was recovered. It had a fake license plate that said: SLP 386 (possibly Suzy Lamplough, 3rd victim, 1986?)

The Suffolk Strangler

(Source)

Various articles online question whether or not Steve “the Suffolk stranger” Wright could be responsible for the murder of Suzy Lamplugh.

Apparently this suspicion came up following a documentary about the serial killer who was active in Ipswich in the mid 2000’s.

The murders spanned 10 days in which Wright claimed 5 victims. If we look at the Stranglers M.O Suzy doesn’t appear to fit his victim type, however police found a photograph amongst the serial killers personal possessions that feature himself and Suzy. 

He too worked on the Queen Elizabeth II cruise ship at the same time as Suzy. He was ruled out as a suspect and denied any role.

I personally can’t escape the idea that Cannan is responsible. Suzy fits his victim type (“Posh” professional women, 20 something etc.) We also know that he was near Fulham on the day of her disappearance. We know he talked about Suzy on many occasions to his girlfriend at the time, making his morbid jokes about knowing where she was buried. Plus the license plate with what could be an abbreviation for her name, the year and victim number. 

Lastly, this article states that Suzy was being harassed by a man from Bristol (Cannan was born there) who drove around in a black BMW. Witnesses who saw Suzy with “Mr. Kipper” that day said the man drove the same kind of car.

Suzy Lamplugh's remains were never found. 

UPDATE: Cannan still denies the killing. Police are in the process of searching his mother's home.
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