It was Britain’s biggest ever missing person’s inquiry. And now, 35 years on, a Sky documentary is re-examining the tragic mystery of the estate agent who went out for lunch and never came back
In the summer of 1986, London was on the cusp of a boom, with house prices having risen by almost 20% in a year. When Suzy Lamplugh applied for a job as an estate agent, she noted with delight in her diary: “I’m hired on the spot.” In a distressingly prescient later entry, she revealed: “The company puts me in the window desk, as the most attractive female. That’s how it is, the most attractive female on display for any man to see.”
At lunchtime on 28 July, the 25-year-old left her window desk for a 12.45 appointment with a Mr Kipper and was never seen again. The disappearance sparked Britain’s biggest-ever missing person’s inquiry, but detectives were never able to trace her body and failed to gather enough evidence to charge their prime suspect. The Mystery of Suzy Lamplugh, a Sky documentary, unpicks why the murder remains unsolved but it doesn’t fully answer the other mystery: why does Britain remain so obsessed by her disappearance 35 years on?
