Suzy Lamplugh

Case background and investigation

Susannah 'Suzy' Lamplugh was a 25-year-old estate agent working in Fulham, west London. On the afternoon of July 28, 1986 she left her office to show a client a property on Shorrolds Road. According to the BBC, her diary recorded the appointment under the name 'Mr Kipper'. She did not come back, and the client has never been traced. Her white Ford Fiesta was found abandoned elsewhere in Fulham later that day; Wikipedia's account, drawn from police appeals at the time, places it on Stevenage Road, about a mile from the property.

The disappearance led to one of the largest missing person inquiries in the United Kingdom, the BBC reports, but no trace of her was found. Seven years later, on July 27-28, 1993, her father signed the papers for a legal presumption of death, as The Independent reported at the time. Some later reports give 1994 as the year. Within months of her disappearance her parents, Paul and Diana Lamplugh, had founded the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, a personal safety charity that now also runs the National Stalking Helpline.

Attention later turned to John Cannan, who was jailed for life in 1989 for the abduction and murder of Shirley Banks in Bristol and for other sexual offences. According to The Guardian, the Metropolitan Police named him in 2002 as the prime suspect in Lamplugh's presumed murder and questioned him several times. The BBC reports that a file was sent to prosecutors in 2002 but that there was never enough evidence to charge him, and that no forensic evidence has linked him to her. Cannan always denied any involvement.

Several searches for a body have been made, at sites in Worcestershire and Somerset and, in late 2018, at a house in Sutton Coldfield that had belonged to Cannan's mother. The Guardian reported that the two-week excavation there ended on November 12, 2018 without any evidence being recovered.

Cannan died at HMP Full Sutton on November 6, 2024, aged 70. An inquest found that he died of natural causes, according to the BBC. The Metropolitan Police said afterwards that the investigation remained open.

On the 40th anniversary, in July 2026, the Met issued what was described as a final appeal for witnesses. The senior investigating officer, Detective Chief Inspector Teresa Foster, told the BBC she thought Lamplugh may have been targeted by a stalker who lured her to a false appointment. The trade publication The Negotiator reported that officers planned to follow up about 30 potential witness leads over the following year. If nothing comes of them, the inquiry will move to an inactive phase in 2027, in which new information is still assessed but the case is no longer actively worked.