Forty years after Suzy Lamplugh vanished while meeting a client called 'Mr Kipper', the detective leading the inquiry admits the case still haunts her – and warns time is running out to bring the estate agent home.
On 28 July 1986, the 25-year-old left her Fulham office at around 12.30pm to show a property in Shorrolds Road. She never returned. Her white Ford Fiesta was found abandoned on Stevenage Road later that night, driver's door open, handbrake off, purse still inside but keys missing.
“Detectives are running out of time to find Suzy Lamplugh, missing 40 years, as the case moves to inactive.”
'At the end of that first day, we knew that Suzy had left her office at around 12.40pm, we knew that her car had been found at 10.01pm, and we knew that she hadn't been seen since,' said Mike Barley, a former Met Police detective chief inspector who spent 12 years on the investigation. 'Really, strictly speaking, 40 years on, we still only know those same three things.'
Suzy was legally declared dead in 1993. Her parents, Paul and Diana, died without ever learning what happened to their daughter. Barley, who has just published a book on the case, said he had always hoped to deliver one of two lines to them: 'One we found her, or two, we've got it.' Instead, he recalled sitting with them and saying: 'I'm sorry, there's nothing new.'
The prime suspect, John Cannan, died in prison in November 2024 while serving a sentence for murdering a Bristol newlywed. Police sent a file to prosecutors in 2002 but there was not enough evidence to charge him with Suzy's murder. Forensic tests on adhesive tape from her car's headrest found no mitochondrial DNA profile, and a smudged fingerprint on the rear view mirror has never been identified.
Detective Chief Inspector Teresa Foster, the current senior investigating officer, said the case is the only one in her team still using the old 1980s card index system. 'It haunts myself as the senior investigating officer, and I think that comes down to the fact that Suzy's never been found,' she said. 'With a lot of our cases we do have an answer for the family, we know where they were, we know what happened to them. But with this, Suzy never being found, and it haunts us.'
The inquiry is set to move to an 'inactive phase' in 12 months, meaning no active work unless new information emerges. Foster believes breakthroughs in AI or forensics, or a witness coming forward, could still crack the case.
One positive legacy of Suzy's disappearance was the founding of the charity Missing People by family friends Mary Asprey and Janet Newman. The Independent, which has joined forces with the charity, helped launch SafeCall – a free and confidential helpline for young people – after raising £165,000 with backing from former prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, former footballer Sir David Beckham and Kate McCann, mother of missing Madeleine McCann.
But for Foster and her team, the central question remains unanswered. 'We don't have a case like this within my team,' she said. 'We just want to bring Suzy home.'