Det Ch Insp Teresa Foster said the detective inquiry into Suzy Lamplugh’s disappearance still haunts investigators 40 years after the 25-year-old vanished from Fulham on 28 July 1986. Foster said Lamplugh may have been targeted by a stalker, and the Metropolitan Police investigation is due to be mothballed next year.
Teresa Foster on Suzy Lamplugh
Foster said: "I'm more inclined to believe that stalking side, that someone has seen her, a predator of some type, and then lured her into a false meeting." She also said: "It haunts myself as the senior investigating officer, and I think that comes down to the fact that Suzy's never been found". Those remarks put the focus on a possible method, not a solved motive.
Lamplugh left her Fulham office to meet a client on the afternoon of 28 July 1986 and never returned. Her body has never been found, and she was declared presumed dead in 1993. The case triggered one of the UK's biggest missing persons operations, which is why the 40th anniversary is being marked as the file moves toward mothballing. For readers following other detective work, a separate account looks at John Hannah's TV detectives.
The Lamplugh family photographs
The Lamplugh family released previously unseen photographs to mark the 40th anniversary. The images featured her siblings Lizzie, Tamsin and Richard and her parents Paul and Diana. Her siblings described her as "a truly beautiful person inside and out". The release adds a personal record to a case that has never produced her body or a final answer.
Mr Kipper in Shorrolds Road
Lamplugh's diary listed an appointment with a man named only as Mr Kipper in Shorrolds Road on the day she vanished. Her white Ford Fiesta was later found abandoned nearby. Foster said she was "more inclined to believe that stalking side" and that someone may have seen Lamplugh and lured her into a false meeting. That leaves the case at a practical impasse: the detective theory has sharpened, but the disappearance itself still has no resolved ending. Another recent investigation story examines a different case in North Wales Police detective trial date while a separate feature tracks Billy Campbell and true detective fans.
When the Metropolitan Police mothballs the investigation next year, the unanswered question will still be the same one that has shadowed the file for four decades: what happened to Suzy Lamplugh after she left her Fulham office on 28 July 1986?
