Suzy’s father dies never knowing who killed his missing daughter
THE father of Suzy Lamplugh died yesterday without discovering the fate of his missing daughter.
She vanished 32 years ago – presumed murdered – and her body has never been found.
Her father Paul, 87, campaigned tirelessly to make young people safer after her disappearance.
The 25-year-old estate agent was never seen again after leaving her office on July 28, 1986, to show a man around a house in Fulham, west London. The only clue to her movements was an entry in her work diary suggesting she was showing the home to a ‘Mr Kipper’, who has never been traced.
Her father and mother, Diana – who died in 2011 aged 75 – established the Suzy Lamplugh Trust to improve awareness of personal safety, for which they were made OBEs in 1992.
Yesterday, Mr Lamplugh died in his sleep surrounded by his three surviving children after struggling with Parkinson’s.
In his last interview, in November, the former solicitor spoke movingly of how he imagined Suzy as a mother. She was officially declared dead in 1994.
John Cannan, who is serving three life sentences for the murder of Shirley Anne Banks in 1989, and a series of other sex attacks, was named as the prime suspect in November 2002 but prosecutors decided there was too little evidence to secure a conviction.
In 2008 detectives began investigating whether ‘Suffolk Strangler’ Steve Wright could have been Suzy’s killer, but this was deemed not ‘a strong line of inquiry’.
Yesterday, Mr Lamplugh’s family said: ‘In the end he went very peacefully and will be greatly missed not just by our family, but by his many friends.’
The Suzy Lamplugh Trust’s Sir Ian Johnston said: ‘Paul was a remarkable man with phenomenal energy and perseverance.’