New ‘bag in canal’ clue in hunt for Lamplugh murderer
FRESH evidence has emerged that could connect the prime suspect in the disappearance of estate agent Suzy Lamplugh to her murder.
Convicted killer John Cannan, 66, is the only suspect in the case but has never been charged. Now, more than three decades on, a documentary reveals that a man looking like him was seen dumping a large piece of luggage into a canal in West London at 5am three days after Suzy went missing.
Cannan is currently serving a minimum 35 years in jail following the murder of Shirley Banks in Bristol in 1987, along with an attempted kidnapping and the rape of a woman in Reading the previous year.
Suzy was last seen on July 28, 1986, when she left the Fulham office of the Sturgis estate agency in her company Ford Fiesta. Her diary said she had an appointment at 12.45pm to meet a prospective buyer called Mr Kipper. The car was later found abandoned outside another house on the Sturgis books. The ignition key was missing and her purse was in the glove box. No further trace of her was ever found. One of the most dangerous men in Britain, Cannan had been living at a West London bail hostel after serving five years of an eight-year sentence for rape at knifepoint. He has always denied any involvement in the case and the absence of a body or forensic evidence means there has been little chance of linking him to Suzy.
But t he Channel 5 documentary – The Vanishing Of Suzy Lamplugh, to be screened on Wednesday – points to intriguing evidence that was originally ignored by police.
A lorry driver called Dave had seen someone looking like Cannan on the towpath of the Grand Union Canal in Brentford, West London, carrying ‘a very heavy bag on wheels’. Moments later, the witness – who has since died – heard a loud splash and saw the man running away emptyhanded. ‘Dave went to the police three times about what he saw back in 1986 but felt he was never listened to and no action was taken,’ a friend told The Mail on Sunday. ‘It troubled Dave for the rest of his life until he died six years ago. Why would someone be dumping a suitcase in the canal at that time of the morning?’
Retired Detective Superintendent Jim Dickie, who worked on the case, called for the claims to be investigated. ‘If I still had conduct of this investigation as I did in 2000 to 2006, I certainly would have called for extensive inquiries to be made around that area of the Grand Union Canal,’ he says in the documentary.
Scotland Yard says it remains committed to securing justice in the case.