Suzy Lamplugh murder: Police searching area 'next to former tipping site'

An area being searched by police investigating the murder of Suzy Lamplugh is next to a former tipping site that "could have concealed anything", a woman who lives nearby has told Sky News.

Officers investigating the 33-year mystery of the estate agent's murder have started searching areas of land in Worcestershire.

The Metropolitan Police said officers are acting on new information received as a result of the publicity surrounding the search of a property in Sutton Coldfield in November last year.

Joanne Parsons, who lives along the B4084 near Drakes Broughton in Worcestershire, says the proximity of the new search to her property has made her family wonder whether anyone could have used the site to dispose of a body.

Her concerns have been reported to police.

Ms Parsons told Sky News: "It has come as a complete and utter shock to us to find out what was going on because it was so close.

"We just thought that we'd mention what was going on at the time - whether or not there is any relevance we just don't know.

"It would have been very, very easy - you could have concealed anything underneath the tipping that was going on there, half a village, there was so much of it.

"It was really like a quarry site, it was all building waste, rubble. If they were digging up roads or anything they put everything that there was down there."

Ms Parsons said previous police searches had focussed on a brook that borders her family's land.

Sky News has spoken to the previous owner of the tipping site, who did not want to be named, but said only top soil was dumped there over a period of three weeks in 1986 - the same year that Ms Lamplugh disappeared.

The 25-year-old estate agent was working in Fulham, west London when she vanished in July 1986.

In November last year, police searched a property once owned by the mother of the prime suspect in Sutton Coldfield.

They dug up the back garden and found nothing, but said that publicity generated from the search had yielded new information and led them to the new site back in Worcestershire.

Over the years, detectives have searched a number of rural sites in the county, including a disused army barracks.

Ms Lamplugh disappeared after going to meet a client known only as "Mr Kipper". She was never seen again, and in 1994 was declared dead, presumed murdered.

Detectives think convicted murderer and rapist John Cannan was responsible, but he has always denied involvement.

Police say Ms Lamplugh's family have been told about the latest developments, but her parents, who set up the personal safety charity the Suzy Lamplugh trust have since died.

Officers said the owner of the land being searched is in no way connected to the operation or investigation.

© Sky News 2019