Through the late 1970s and early 80s, women in the north of England lived in fear of a serial killer known as the Yorkshire Ripper. He started off killing street prostitutes but several of his victims had no connection with sex work.
Peter Sutcliffe was not the UK’s most prolific serial killer – Dr Harold Shipman, a general practitioner, is believed to have killed 250 people in the 1990s – so why does he retain such a vaunted place in British criminal history?
Sutcliffe’s unique place in the annals of folklore stem from the fact that for five years he terrorised a large part of northern England, making women terrified to go out alone at night.
In cities like Leeds, Bradford and Manchester groups of vigilantes roamed the streets to “protect our women.”
Dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper, his savage attacks had echoes of the 19th century London serial killer Jack The Ripper and his reputation was enhanced when letters and audio tapes arrived, taunting detectives.
The sender was dubbed Wearside Jack and the Ripper Squad were convinced he was the killer.
In the summer of 1975 two women were attacked in Keighley, West Yorkshire and one in nearby Halifax.
All three survived and the attacks did not make headlines outside the immediate area.
But in the early hours of 30 October 1975 Wilma McCann, a 28-year-old prostitute from the run-down Chapeltown district of Leeds, kissed her four young children goodnight and stepped outside.
She spent the night drinking in various Leeds pubs and clubs and by 1am was touting for business not far from her Chapeltown home.
Sutcliffe picked her up in his lime green Ford Capri and took her to the nearby playing fields. He suggested they have sex on the grass.
He later told police she unfastened her trousers and snapped: “Come on, get it over with.”
“Don’t worry, I will,” he replied, reaching for a hidden hammer and battering her to death.
Four months later Emily Jackson from Leeds, was battered with a hammer and stabbed 52 times with a screwdriver.
Sutcliffe did not strike again until February 1977, when he killed Irene Richardson, another Leeds hooker.
Two months later he struck for the first time in his hometown, Bradford, killing 32-year-old Patricia Atkinson.
The case only came to the attention of the national press in June 1977 when Sutcliffe claimed the life of Jayne MacDonald, a 16-year-old shop assistant, who was attacked with a hammer and a kitchen knife in Leeds.
The murder, and the fact that a serial killer was on the loose in Yorkshire, shocked the whole country.
The assailant was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper by the press and West Yorkshire’s Chief Constable Ronald Gregory appointed his most senior detective, Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield, to investigate the murders.
Sutcliffe, alarmed by the sudden increase in police action in Yorkshire, chose Manchester for his next attack.
Jean Jordan, 20, was murdered in October 1977. Her body was mutilated and dumped on allotments.
Sutcliffe was interviewed by police at the time but provided what seemed like a perfectly good alibi, he and his wife had been hosting a housewarming party.
Later it became clear that Sutcliffe had driven to Manchester after the party. Emboldened by his escape from arrest, Sutcliffe stepped up his attacks.
Three prostitutes, Yvonne Pearson, Helen Rytka and Vera Millward, were killed in the space of four months in 1978 in Bradford, Huddersfield and Manchester.
Desperate for results, Oldfield set up the Ripper Squad but without computers to assist them, they became bogged down in paperwork.
Serial Killer – Peter Sutcliffe
Oldfield also made a tragic blunder when he decided a series of handwritten letters, posted in Sunderland, were the work of the Ripper.
In them the author, dubbing himself Jack The Ripper, bragged about his handiwork and taunted Oldfield for failing to catch him.
In June 1979 Wearside Jack upped the ante, sending the police an audio cassette in which he continued to boast and goad Oldfield in a distinctive voice – softly spoken, with a pronounced lisp, his accent was pinpointed by experts to the Castletown district of Sunderland.
Oldfield drilled into detectives that they could discount suspects if they did not have a Wearside accent.
In 1979 Sutcliffe was interviewed for the fifth time by the Ripper Squad but although he triggered the two detectives’ suspicions they discounted him because his voice and handwriting did not fit the bill.
In April 1979 building society clerk Josephine Whitaker was killed in Halifax and in September the Ripper murdered Barbara Leach in Bradford.
The following August he killed Marguerite Walls, 47, a civil servant, in Farsley near Leeds, and in November he bludgeoned 20-year-old student Jacqueline Hill to death in the centre of Leeds.
On 3 January 1981 ventured to Sheffield for the first time and picked up street prostitute Olivia Reivers, 24, in his car.
She would have been his 14th victim had it not been for Sergeant Robert Ring and Constable Robert Hydes, who approached the parked car and questioned the pair.
He claimed his name was Peter Williams and said she was his girlfriend but he did not know her name, triggering their suspicions.
When a check on the brown Rover’s number plates showed they actually belonged to a Skoda car the officers decided to bring Sutcliffe in for questioning.
He asked to relieve himself behind a storage tank.
At the police station he admitted his name was Sutcliffe and was booked into a cell, charged with stealing the number plate from a scrapyard.
But Sgt Ring decided, on a hunch, to return to the scene of the arrest and there he discovered, behind the storage tank, a ball-pein hammer and a knife. Sgt Ring returned to the police station and contacted the Ripper Squad.
Detective Inspector John Boyle said to Sutcliffe: “I think you are in serious trouble.”
Over the next 15 hours Sutcliffe gave a full confession but at his trial at the Old Bailey in London he suddenly claimed he had heard “voices from God” telling him to go on a mission to rid the streets of prostitutes.
In May 1981 Sutcliffe was jailed for life and the judge recommended a minimum sentence of 30 years.
He was sent to Parkhurst prison on the Isle of Wight, but was later transferred to Broadmoor secure hospital in Berkshire in 1984, where he remained until his death.
In October 2005 John Humble, a retired builder, was convicted of being the Yorkshire Ripper hoaxer known as Wearside Jack. Humble, who was jailed for eight years after his DNA was linked to the letters, died in 2019.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
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