Is missing Suzy Lamplugh buried beneath this field?
‘After all this time’
POLICE investigating the disappearance of estate agent Suzy Lamplugh 33 years ago began searching a farmer’s field yesterday.
A mini digger and a police dog unit were escorted on to land at Drakes Broughton, Worcestershire, a few miles from the scene of a previous search for her 18 years ago.
Miss Lamplugh, 25, left her west London office in 1986 – apparently to meet a potential buyer known as Mr Kipper at a property in Shorrolds Road, Fulham – and was never seen again.
Her car was found that evening parked in a Fulham street a mile from the house, with its handbrake off but with her purse still in the door pocket.
Six years later, the Metropolitan Police revealed its prime suspect in the case to be serial rapist and convicted killer John Cannan – but the Crown Prosecution Service ruled there was insufficient evidence to prosecute.
Yesterday the London force said the new search – more than 120miles from where Miss Lamplugh vanished – was the result of fresh information received after a twoweek search last autumn of the garden and garage at a home which once belonged to Cannan’s mother in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands.
A Met spokesman said: ‘The decision was taken to make further enquiries.
‘Miss Lamplugh’s family have been notified. The investigation into Miss Lamplugh’s disappearance is being led by the Met’s Central Specialist Crime Command.’
The Met said West Mercia Police were assisting it with the search at the village near the riverside market town of Pershore. It added that the landowner was ‘in no way connected’ to the new Drakes Broughton search or its investigation.
But a spokesman declined to say whether the ‘new information’ concerned a theory advanced in the Daily Telegraph last week by retired Scotland Yard detective David Videcette.
Mr Videcette believes the record of an appointment with Mr Kipper in her diary was a red herring designed to cover up Miss Lamplugh’s personal errand during work hours. The freelance investigator and author has spent three years looking into the Lamplugh mystery and met Scotland Yard detectives last week to present new evidence which casts doubt on the identity of the main suspect in her disappearance.
Miss Lamplugh was officially declared dead, presumed murdered, in 1994. Last night her brother Richard, 59, confirmed that he had been notified of the fresh police activity. But Mr Lamplugh, of Aberdeen, said he had no idea what the information was that had led to the search.
‘We are keeping our fingers crossed that the new search leads somewhere,’ he said, but added: ‘After all this time and still not knowing, we try very hard not to let ourselves get carried away when there is a new development in the case.’ Miss Lamplugh’s parents Paul and Diana both died without finding out what happened to their daughter.
The estate agent’s disappearance is one of the most puzzling cases of the 20th century.
Witnesses reported seeing a woman meeting her description arguing with a man outside a property in Shorrolds Road at about 1pm on July 28, 1986.
Cannan, now 64, was jailed for life in 1989 for the rape and murder of Shirley Banks, a newlywed from Bristol. He has denied involvement in the Lamplugh case.
In August 2010, police began searching a field off the B4084 between Pershore and Drakes Broughton, about three miles from the former Norton Barracks in Worcestershire, where a search had previously been carried out in December 2000 and February 2001. In December 2000, police had also searched a nearby brickworks, which had been mentioned in several of the original witness statements.