Convicted rapist and murderer John Cannan has insisted in a letter that he did not kill estate agent Suzy Lamplugh in 1986 and that he has an alibi for the day she disappeared.
Cannan, 69, 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.
The killer was jailed for a minimum of 35 years for the rape and murder of Shirley Banks in 1987, along with another sexual offence, an attempted kidnapping and two sexually motivated abduction offences.
In 2002, police took the highly unusual step of naming him as the suspected killer of Miss Lamplugh after the CPS ruled there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him. He has maintained his innocence.
Cannan (pictured) was jailed for a minimum of 35 years for the rape and murder of Shirley Banks in 1987, along with another sexual offence, an attempted kidnapping and two sexually motivated abduction offences
Suzy Lamplugh, a 25-year-old estate agent, vanished on July 28, 1986 after going to show a man around a house in Fulham
In his letter, Cannan has now slammed the police for ‘blaming’ him for the killing, making the baseless claim: ‘I think it’s to divert public attention away from themselves,’ and adding: ‘I have been deeply suspicious of them.’
‘They have generated such huge prejudice against me that it has caused me to lose faith in the world. The evil in prejudice lies… in the very nature of prejudice itself. It’s a horrible and divisive thing. I know, I’m living under it,’ he goes on to say in the rant.
Cannan’s mother is said to have suffered from dementia and it is not known whether she is alive to stand up his ‘alibi’ that he was in his hometown the day Miss Lamplugh was last seen alive.
The 25-year-old estate agent vanished on July 28, 1986 after going to show a man around a house in Fulham.
The case remains one of Britain’s most notorious unsolved crimes and Miss Lamplugh’s 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.
Cannan has now slammed the police for ‘blaming’ him for the killing of Miss Lamplugh
Newlywed Shirley Banks was killed by John Cannan in 1987. Her body was not found until the following year
The prime suspect in the murder of Suzy Lamplugh (pictured) is to stay behind bars after the Parole Board ruled that he is too dangerous to release
The former car salesman 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.
Her 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.
Cannan, who is currently being held at top security HMP Full Sutton, East Yorkshire, has never admitted his crimes.
A parole hearing in September was told that Cannan insists he is innocent and has refused to engage in any programmes to address the risk of reoffending.