Unsolved: The mysterious disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh and Mr Kipper (man in a kipper tie)

 l job roles seen as women's like secretarial and nursing. Not to say that there is anything wrong with those jobs. 

Despite the progressiveness, I remember one of my teachers - a technical education teacher - who used to smack all the girl pupils on the bottom. These days you would be charged with sexual assault but in days gone by behavior like that was ignored. 

In the 1980s there was one other thing other thing from 70s that remained. Men often wore kipper ties.

What is a kipper tie?

Kipper ties are broad ties known for having horrendously garish patterns and colours. When I think of used car salesmen I think of kipper ties. 

The police at the time did consider the possibility that Mr Kipper wasn't the man's name at all - or even an alias - but did her killer definitely use that name? Or was it that he told Suzy he would be wearing a kipper tie so she would recognise him when they met? Hence, she wrote down Mr Kipper not bacuse it was his name but because he told her that's how she could recognise him? 

Shirley Banks - murdered by a psychopath

Convicted killer John Cannan, the coward who abducted and murdered newlywed Shirley Banks has been constantly linked to the Suzy Lamplugh case. In prison, he'd gained the name Mr Kipper because of the big ties he wore but what if he wasn't the Mr Kipper Suzy wrote about at all, which is possible? 

Cannan's MO doesn't match the Lamplugh crime 

Arrogant Cannan is hardly a criminal mastermind. He doesn't come across as a planner. Instead, his attacks were more opportunistic. He seems to have crossed paths with his victims rather than have planned his vile crimes and arranging to meet the estate agent at a house would have taken some planning. 

Consider his previous known crimes. 

1. He used a knife on a shop assistant at a dress shop. Thankfully, passers-by intervened. 

2. He tried to abduct a woman at gunpoint in a car park the night before he targeted tragic Shirley. 

3. When he abducted Shirley Banks, she was out shopping. He took her back to his own flat and held her hostage before he killed her. Then, he stupidly put the tax disc from her car in his glove compartment where it was later found. 

Dumb criminal 

It seems inconceivable that he could have abducted and killed Suzy without leaving any trace. He just doesn't come across as smart enough. 

In short, he's too stupid to have killed Suzy and gotten away with it without leaving a trace. 

I pray that I'm wrong because if he didn't kill Suzy that means someone else did and unlike Cannan they're still out there. Have they killed again? Once killer's escalate they don't tend to de-escalate to lesser crimes. 

Hopefully, one day Suzy's body will be found, and she can finally be laid to rest. 

Attributions 
- Lamplugh with her hair tinted blonde, as it was on the day she disappeared

Original publication: Distributed nationwide in the media, July 1986 onwardsImmediate source: https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/suzy-lamplugh-suspect-john-cannan-7178859, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71314872

6 of the Most Important Things I've learnt in 30 years of getting published

He has it all figured out - it took me years.

Thirty years ago my first piece was published in Jackie magazine about superstitions. I've learnt so many lessons along the way.

Some of them took me too long to learn and have cost me.  

There's a lot to recommend old fashioned pen and paper

1. Never edit on screen. 
You miss too much and sometimes your mind sees what it wants to see and not what's really there.

There's nothing more time consuming than forgetting what you put in each chapter and spending hours searching through your work to check something was or wasn't included.

Print out your work and edit with pencil or in red pen and then edit onscreen. I don't know why, maybe it’s the rhyme of pen or pencil on paper that concentrates the brain.

2. If you don't read books you can't write books. 
Reading opens your eyes not just to how others write, but to the mistakes they make.

3. Read as widely as you can. 
I write crime and devour books in that genre, but I love reading horror and anything supernatural too. At one stage, I read every Western I could get my hands on.

Read books you love. Read books you hate. That way you can see what works and what doesn't.

4. Do chapter summaries or outlines so you know what you've written in every single chapter with a quick glance. 

Trust me, I've learnt this the hard way.

Keeping track also helps with continuity. You don't want people to shriek, "How can she have a fight with her brother when he died of a drug overdose and it was mentioned in chapter five!"

5. Save copies of your work every single day. Use a free online storage company like Dropbox.

Does your Internet provider give you access to online storage free? If so, use it. 

Back up not just every single day you do any work, but any time you make substantial or important changes. As well as online storage companies, email yourself your work to every email you have that either offers unlimited or a generous amount of storage. And invest in a an external drive. One large enough to store EVERY FILE on your computer.

That way if you're computer has a nervous breakdown you won't have a melt down when you discover you've lost all of your work.

6. You can put a bit of yourself into one character or every character, but never make them you. 
Make them react in their own way to things that happen to them, not you.

We give characters life, but its theirs to live in their very own unique way.

What do you think of those tips? Are there any tips that you swear by?

I'd love to hear from you.

Drop me a comment on this blog or contact me on Twitter where I tweet as @jenthom72

I hope to tweet you:)