The prime suspect in the murder of Suzy Lamplugh has died in prison at the age of 70.
Convicted killer John Cannan was jailed for a minimum of 35 years in 1989 for the rape and murder of Bristol newlywed Shirley Banks.
In 2002, police took the highly unusual step of naming him as the suspected killer of Ms Lamplugh after the CPS ruled there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him.
The Prison Service said the Category A prisoner died on November 6 at HMP Full Sutton.
‘As with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will investigate,’ a spokesperson said.
Suzy Lamplugh vanished on July 28, 1986, aged 25 after going to show a man around a house in Fulham
Convicted killer John Cannan was the prime suspect of her murder. He has died in prison at the age of 70
Estate agent Ms Lampugh vanished on July 28, 1986, aged 25 after going to show a man around a house in Fulham.
The case remains one of Britain’s most notorious unsolved crimes and her body has never been found.
The only clue to her disappearance was an appointment she put in her work diary suggesting she was showing the property to a ‘Mr Kipper’, who has never been traced.
Three days before she vanished Cannan had been released from a hostel at Wormwood Scrubs prison, where he had been serving a six-year sentence for rape.
It later emerged that in prison he was known by other inmates as Kipper.
Former car salesman Cannan also had access to a BMW car of the type thought to have been driven by ‘Mr Kipper’ and resembled a photofit of a man seen with Miss Lamplugh outside the Fulham flat on the day she disappeared.
Cannan had always maintained his innocence and insisted in a letter last December that he did not kill Ms Lamplugh.
He sent a handwritten note via his lawyers to The Mirror stating that he had not been in London but was instead in Birmingham ‘treating my mother to a spot of lunch’ on the day Miss Lamplugh went missing.
In the rambling letter, he told the newspaper that he wanted to make a number of ‘points’ given the media spotlight on his case after he was denied parole earlier this year.
Ms Lamplugh’s late parents Paul and Diana dedicated their lives to finding her and established the Suzy Lamplugh Trust to improve awareness of personal safety.
Cannan was found guilty of the brutal murder of Shirley Banks, who he killed in 1987.
The newlywed’s body was not found until the following year at Dead Woman’s Ditch in the Quantock Hills, Somerset.
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