00:00A cold case that still haunts detectives.
00:02It haunts myself as the senior investigating officer.
00:05One of the largest missing persons investigations in British history.
00:09In fact, the stories about what happened to Susie are so many and varied
00:13that the facts have become somewhat obscured by rumour and gossip.
00:16And a race to get to the bottom of London's most notorious unsolved mystery.
00:21This is the story of the disappearance of Susie Lamplew, 40 years on.
00:30Susie Lamplew was born in Cheltenham in 1961.
00:34Her father, Paul, worked as a solicitor and her mother, Diana, co-authored a book on fitness.
00:39She later moved to South London where she grew up with her three siblings.
00:43She was described by her father as outgoing, someone who knew how to live life fully
00:48and someone who touched everyone with her kindness and her empathy.
00:52In 1986, the year of her disappearance, 25-year-old Susie Lamplew lived in Putney
00:58and was an estate agent for Sturgis and Sons in Fulham.
01:04When Susie Lamplew left her office around midday on the 28th of July, 1986,
01:10she was never seen by her co-workers again.
01:13In her diary, she had an appointment with a mysterious Mr Kipper
01:17at a property in Shoralds Road, Fulham.
01:20At 1pm, she was joined by a man believed to be looking round the property
01:24and a few minutes later, they were seen walking away from the house by a neighbour.
01:28A close friend of Susie's insisted she later saw her driving with the man up Fulham Palace Road.
01:33When she didn't return to the office by the evening
01:35and upon finding she wasn't at the property,
01:38her manager reported her disappearance to the police.
01:41Nobody knew for six hours that she wasn't where she was supposed to be at work
01:44and so that is still something that we very much look at now.
01:47And an investigation, soon to be one of Britain's largest missing person cases in history, got underway.
01:57Currently, it's an open murder investigation for the MPS and it's been open since 1986.
02:05It is one of the largest murder investigations that the Met currently holds,
02:11probably, you know, and that the United Kingdom has as well.
02:14Later that evening, Susie's company car, a white Ford Fiesta,
02:18was discovered by police about a mile from her office.
02:21The driver's door was unlocked, the handbrake was off,
02:24her purse was still in the glove compartment.
02:26The car seemed to have been parked hastily and her keys were missing.
02:30Evidence gathered from the headrest of a seat in her car was analysed for DNA in the USA,
02:35but no profile could be found,
02:37while a smudged fingerprint on the rearview mirror of the car was also analysed to no success.
02:42The vehicle itself, Susie's company car, that was left in Stevenage Road,
02:49we do have, you know, we have forensic material from the car,
02:56from seat tapings, from the headrest, marks on the rearview mirror.
03:02They, you know, remain unidentified.
03:05So, as I said, you know, any changes in forensic advancements,
03:11you know, we can look at, you know, putting them forward again.
03:14So, that is probably one of our main hopes.
03:18In the years following, police tested the DNA of hundreds of unidentified bodies
03:22and remains that matched Susie's description, but hers was never uncovered.
03:27What we are currently doing is going through that review,
03:31looking at the recommendations,
03:34going back to the 1986 inquiry
03:37and just seeing if there was any witnesses that were missed
03:41that could, you know, give us any further information
03:44or any sort of incomplete inquiries from that time.
03:48If no lines of inquiry have come out,
03:52we will probably look at making it an inactive investigation.
03:56She was officially declared dead in 1993,
03:59exactly seven years after her disappearance.
04:02Her mother, Diana, later wrote,
04:04there has not been a single trace of her, nothing,
04:07just as though she has been erased by a rubber.
04:10I think, yeah, I think it does haunt.
04:11It haunts myself as the senior investigating officer
04:15and I think that comes down to the fact that Susie's never been found.
04:18With a lot of our cases, you know, we do have an answer for the family.
04:24We know where they were, we know what happened to them.
04:28But with this, you know, Susie's never been found and it haunts us.
04:32We haven't had a case, we don't have a case like this within my team.
04:37And, yeah, it does haunt.
04:42Thanks to witness testimony,
04:44police produced a sketch of the man they believe to be Mr Kipper.
04:48One year after she vanished,
04:49detectives noted that the artist's impression strongly resembled John Cannon,
04:54a convicted rapist who had been residing in a nearby prison hostel
04:57outside Wormwood Scrubs around the time of her disappearance.
05:01In 2002, after multiple interviews,
05:04police named Cannon, who was jailed for life in 1989
05:07for the rape and murder of Shirley Banks in Bristol,
05:10as their prime suspect.
05:12Yes, I have a dislike of inflated egos.
05:17People who are, they look at me, I'm great type.
05:22I don't like that.
05:23Though he has always denied any involvement.
05:26Despite circumstantial evidence linking him to the crime,
05:29such as reports that his nickname in prison was Mr Kipper
05:33because he wore Kipper-style broad ties,
05:36the Crown Prosecution Service ultimately decided
05:38that there was insufficient evidence to link him to her murder.
05:41He remains a good suspect
05:43and one of the prime suspects in this investigation.
05:46However, I'm keeping an open mind.
05:49We have had other names come forward
05:51and we will always investigate them,
05:54implicate or eliminate anybody that comes forward.
05:56Cannon died in prison in November 2024.
06:00Financially and career-wise,
06:02I've achieved what I've wanted to achieve.
06:04I'm just now looking for what the next thing to achieve.
06:12Susie's parents, Paul and Diana,
06:14set up the Susie Lamplew Trust
06:16out of their home in the wake of her disappearance
06:18to champion women's safety
06:20and create a world where everyone can live
06:22free from violence, aggression and fear.
06:24It's something that is actually a really sad fact
06:28that 40 years on from Susie's disappearance,
06:31we are still having to do the work that we do
06:32around campaigning and supporting victims.
06:36Ideally, I think we'd all have hoped that by now,
06:38perhaps some of these issues might have gone away,
06:40but for us, the cause is still very much there.
06:45Now the charity is acknowledged
06:46as the leading resource for British women
06:49who are harassed or stalked
06:50and they also lead the UK's national stalking helpline.
06:54Over the last couple of years,
06:55stalking's increased.
06:58That's partly due to the methodologies
07:00that people are using.
07:01There's more technology involved in stalking now
07:03and also the confidence that members of the public
07:06are having to come forward and report it.
07:07That case had a profound impact on the community.
07:11The methodology back then, as you identify,
07:13is completely different now
07:14because of the technology that's available.
07:16We're seeing people tracked through online fitness apps,
07:21through social media
07:22and through a number of methodologies
07:25that weren't even in existence back then.
07:27In terms of an escalatory behaviour,
07:29we can see that stalking can lead
07:32to significant events and physical harm.
07:35Her case remains as one of the most notorious
07:37unsolved disappearances in history
07:40and police hope, with the advancement of DNA
07:42and with the potential for new witnesses
07:45or accomplices to come forward,
07:47that one day they may be able to get to the bottom
07:49of what happened to 25-year-old Susie Lampleau.
07:53I think bringing somebody to justice
07:55is always going to be difficult when it's 40 years.
07:59We will rely on forensics,
08:02but for us, the most important thing
08:04is finding Susie
08:05and bringing Susie home.
08:09We will be able to get to the bottom of what happened.
08:10We will be able to get to the bottom of what happened.
08:12We will be able to get to the bottom of what happened.
08:16We will be able to get to the bottom of what happened.
08:23We will be able to get to the bottom of what happened.
08:25We will be able to get to the bottom of what happened.
08:26We will be able to get to the bottom of what happened.
08:27We will be able to get to the bottom of what happened.
08:27We will be able to get to the bottom of what happened.
08:27We will be able to get to the bottom of what happened.
08:28We will be able to get to the bottom of what happened.
08:29We will be able to get to the bottom of what happened.
08:30We will be able to get to the bottom of what happened.
08:34You
