[13] Her photofit bore a strong resemblance to Sutcliffe, like other survivors, and she provided a good description of his car, which had been seen in red-light districts. [2]:71, Sutcliffe reportedly hired prostitutes as a young man, and it has been speculated that he had a bad experience during which he was conned out of money by a prostitute and her pimp. His victim was Yvonne Pearson, a 21-year-old prostitute from Bradford. [78], In 1982, West Yorkshire Police appointed detective Keith Hellawell to lead a secret investigation into possible additional murdered committed by Sutcliffe. A later inspection back at the site of Sutcliffe's arrest revealed he had discarded a hammer and a knife when he supposedly went to relieve himself behind the building. Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, who murdered 13 women and attacked seven others between 1975 and 1980 across West Yorkshire, plus two in Greater Manchester. Birth City: Bingley, West Yorkshire. [44], When Sutcliffe was stripped at the police station he was wearing an inverted V-necked jumper under his trousers. The man who hoaxed detectives by claiming to be the Yorkshire Ripper has died, police have confirmed. [23], Sutcliffe's first documented assault was of a female prostitute, whom he had met while searching for another woman who had tricked him out of money. [6] Since his conviction in 1981 Sutcliffe has been linked to a number of other unsolved murders and attacks. [68] Nina Lopez, who was one of the ECP protestors in 1981, told The Independent forty years later, Sir Michael's comments were "an indictment of the whole way in which the police and the establishment were dealing with the Yorkshire Ripper case". [37], On 14 December, Sutcliffe attacked Marilyn Moore, another prostitute from Leeds. Detective George Oldfield's unshaken belief the 'Ripper' was a man from the North East possessing a 'Geordie' accent wasted valuable police time and resources searching for a man who fitted a profile matching the hoax recordings and letters that had been sent to Oldfield at the investigation headquarters in Leeds. Fans likely wouldn't have recognised Bruce in the horror show (Picture: S Meddle/ ITV/ REX/ Shutterstock) Speaking about what happened that day, Bruce shared his story in the documentary The Ripper. He soon admitted he was the Yorkshire Ripper and spent 15 hours. [84] As part of the research for the book, Clark and Tate claimed to have found evidence that pointed to the wrong man having been convicted for the Sewell murder, having unearthed a pathology report which allegedly indicated that the originally convicted Stephen Downing could not have committed the crime. [2]:92 In a confession, Sutcliffe said he had realised the new 5 note he had given her was traceable. After a two-hour representation by the Attorney-General Sir Michael Havers, a ninety-minute lunch break, and another forty minutes of legal discussion, the judge rejected the diminished responsibility plea and the expert testimonies of the psychiatrists, insisting that the case should be dealt with by a jury. Harrison's murder had been linked to the Ripper killings by the "Wearside Jack" claim, but in 2011, DNA evidence revealed the crime had actually been committed by convicted sex offender Christopher Smith, who had died in 2008. [9][pageneeded], The first victim to be killed by Sutcliffe was Wilma McCann on 30 October. In 1981, Yorkshire lorry driver Paul Sutcliffe was convicted of murder. The police told him he was "very lucky", as the woman did not want anything more to do with the incident. The sexual implications of this outfit were considered obvious but it was not known to the public until published in 2003. [64] After Sutcliffe's death in November 2020, West Yorkshire Police issued an apology for the "language, tone, and terminology" used by the force at the time of the criminal investigation, nine months after one of the victims' sons wrote on behalf of several of the victims' families.[65]. Tyre tracks left near the murder scene resulted in a long list of possible suspect vehicles. [53] After his trial, Sutcliffe admitted two other attacks. The third book (and second episodic television adaptation) in David Peace's Red Riding series is set against the backdrop of the Ripper investigation. [123] The hearing for Sutcliffe's appeal against the ruling began on 30 November 2010 at the Court of Appeal. [34], The Attorney General, Sir Michael Havers QC, at the trial in 1981 said of Sutcliffe's victims in his opening statement: "Some were prostitutes, but perhaps the saddest part of the case is that some were not. [141], A play written by Olivia Hirst and David Byrne, The Incident Room, premiered at Pleasance as part of the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In total, Sutcliffe had been questioned by the police on nine separate occasions in connection with the Ripper enquiry before his eventual arrest and conviction. Ripper Notes Author: Dan Norder Publisher: Inklings Press ISBN: 0978911229 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 110 Get Book. [108] In March 1984, Sutcliffe was sent to Broadmoor Hospital, under Section 47 of the Mental Health Act 1983.[109]. Peter Sutcliffe died in hospital aged 74 in . He stamped on her thigh, leaving behind an impression of his boot. 38 Ripper's first victim, attacked with a hammer and knife after a night out. Sutcliffe had been interviewed on this issue. Born and raised in Yorkshire, England, he had mental troubles since childhood. [91][93] The murder of teenager Mary Gallagher in Glasgow in 1978 was also believed to be included on Hellawell's list of possible victims, and he was said to be taking this case "very seriously". Although Sutcliffe was interviewed about it, he was not investigated further (he was contacted and disregarded by the Ripper Squad on several further occasions). Wilma McCann's son Richard, who was just five-years-old at the time of his mother's murder, said the serial killer's death would bring "some kind of closure" for himself and the other family members of his victims. Police analysis of bank operations allowed them to narrow their field of inquiry to 8,000 employees who could have received it in their wage packet. Police were able to trace the note back to the bank, which consequently narrowed their search down to around 8,000 people. On 16 July 2010, the High Court issued Sutcliffe with a whole life tariff, meaning he was never to be released. When two policemen in Sheffield walked past a brown Rover in January 1981, and noticed the car's registration plate did not match the number on the tax disc, they stopped the man at the wheel. 13 women were dead and the police seemed incapable of catching the killer. [12], Reportedly a loner, Sutcliffe left school at age 15 and had a series of menial jobs, including two stints as a gravedigger in the 1960s. All except two of Sutcliffe's murders took place in West Yorkshire; the others were in Manchester.. [80] Sutcliffe was familiar with the estate where she was murdered and was known to have regularly frequented the area; in February 1977, only months before the murder, he was reported to police for acting suspiciously on the street Wilkinson lived. Sutcliffe initially attacked women and girls in residential areas, but appears to have shifted his focus to red-light districts because he was attracted by the vulnerability of prostitutes and the perceived ambivalent attitude, at the time, of police to prostitutes' safety. On January 2, 1981, the police pulled Sutcliffe over with a young woman in his car. By the mid-1970s Wilma, 28, was bringing up four kids on her own in a house with no carpets or heating. For other people named Peter Sutcliffe, see, Investigations into other possible victims, The neurosurgeon was Dr. A. Hadi Khalili at, George Oldfield and other senior individuals involved in the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper had consulted senior FBI special agents. She survived and provided police with a description of her attacker. Tyre tracks found at the scene matched those from an earlier attack. The Yorkshire Ripper began his gruesome crusade of violence against women in 1975, when he killed 28-year-old mother-of-four Wilma McCann, 28 as she walked home from a night out in the early hours of 30 October. Now, Netflix is showing a documentary looking into the harrowing crimes the Yorkshire Ripper committed, in a new four part series. [92] Barbara Mayo was already ruled out as a Peter Sutcliffe victim by police in 1997, and the DNA sample in her murder case has not been linked by police to that of Weedon or Stratford, showing the murders were committed by different people. [114], On 22 December 2007, Sutcliffe was attacked by fellow inmate Patrick Sureda, who lunged at him with a metal cutlery knife while shouting, "You fucking raping, murdering bastard, I'll blind your fucking other one!" [143] To be titled The Long Shadow, it was expected to air in September 2022.[144]. With the evidence mounting up against him, after two days of questioning Peter Sutcliffe eventually admitted being the Yorkshire Ripper. [14] On 5 March 1976, Sutcliffe was dismissed for the theft of used tyres. [105] The Mayo, Stratford and Weedon cases did not feature in the 2022 documentary version of Clark's book. Peter Sutcliffe, the convicted serial killer known as the Yorkshire Ripper, refused to be shielded in prison in the months before he died from the coronavirus, an inquest has heard. One of his brothers admitted that their father was an abusive alcoholic, stating that he once smashed a beer glass over Sutcliffe's head for sitting in his chair at the Christmas table, after arguing, when the brother was four or five years old. During a strip search, officers noticed that Sutcliffe was wearing elbow padding, as well as an upside-down V-neck jumper under his trousers, exposing his genitals. In April 1980, Peter Sutcliffe was arrested for drink driving. Sutcliffe murdered 13 women and attempted to . I see you are still having no luck catching me. [100] After his conviction in 1981, South Yorkshire Police interviewed Sutcliffe on the murder of 29-year-old Doncaster prostitute Barbara Young, who had been hit over the head by a "tall, dark haired man" in an alleyway on the evening of 22 March 1977. [78], Around the time of Wilkinson's murder it was widely reported that Professor David Gee, the Home Office pathologist who conducted all the post-mortem examinations on the Ripper victims, noted similarities between the Wilkinson murder and the killing of Ripper victim Yvonne Pearson three months later. Birdsall visited Bradford police station the day after sending the letter to repeat his misgivings about Sutcliffe. [72], We feel it is highly improbable that the crimes in respect of which Sutcliffe has been charged and convicted are the only ones attributable to him. [84] It alleged that, between 1966 and 1980, Peter Sutcliffe was responsible for at least 22 more murders than he was convicted of. [86], Hellawell also included six unsolved murder cases in Scotland on his list of potential Sutcliffe victims, and Sutcliffe was reportedly interviewed in prison about a number of murders in Scotland. On 25 November 1980, Birdsall sent an anonymous letter to police, the text of which ran as follows: .mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}, I have good reason to now [sic] the man you are looking for in the Ripper case. Sutcliffe murdered 47-year-old Marguerite Walls on the night of 20 August 1980, and 20-year-old Jacqueline Hill, a student at Leeds University, on the night of 17 November 1980. It was his sixteenth attack. [5] This drew condemnation from the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP), who protested outside the Old Bailey. Sign up to our newsletter to get more articles like this delivered straight to your inbox. The Yorkshire Post reports a second knife had been hidden in a police station toilet before he was searched. On 1 September, Sutcliffe murdered 20-year-old Barbara Leach, a Bradford University student. Between November 1971 and April 1973, Sutcliffe worked at the Baird Television factory on a packaging line. [98] Investigators had taken DNA from Sutcliffe at Broadmoor Hospital in December 1997, in order to see if they could find links between him and unsolved crimes. For five years, investigators had pursued every lead in an effort to stop. An index card was created on the basis of the letter and a policewoman found Sutcliffe already had three existing index cards in the records. The Yorkshire Ripper Is Finally Caught. MacDonald was not a prostitute and, in the public perception, her murder showed that all women were potential victims. Although broadcast over two weeks, two episodes were shown consecutively each week. [83], In 2003, Steel's conviction was quashed after it was found that his low IQ and mental capabilities made him a vulnerable interviewee, discrediting his supposed "confession" and confirming Yallop's long-standing suspicions that he had been wrongly convicted. I have the greatest respect for you George, but Lord! In the series she questions whether the attitude of both the police and society towards women prevented Sutcliffe from being caught sooner. Episode 1", "Yorkshire Ripper 'has admitted more attacks', "Sutcliffe's 'secret murders': When Yorkshire Ripper was quizzed on unsolved Dundee killings", "Tayside murders 'bore hallmark of the Ripper', "Angus Sinclair: A lifetime of abuse, rape and murder", "The Bristol prostitute murdered as the Yorkshire Ripper hunted red light districts", "Wendy Sewell murder: Pathology report 'contradicts conviction', "Yorkshire Ripper moved back to prison after 32 years in Broadmoor", "Crime case closed: Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper", "Deranged killer admits Yorkshire Ripper blinding", "Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe 'fit to be freed from Broadmoor', "Summer date for hearing that could lead to parole for Ripper", "Yorkshire Ripper will never be released", "Yorkshire Ripper to remain locked up for life", "Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe challenges "whole life" ruling", "Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe challenges full-life jail sentence", "Yorkshire Ripper loses bid to appeal "whole life" term", "Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe loses life tariff case", "Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe 'facing Broadmoor exit', "Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe moved from Broadmoor to prison", "Yorkshire Ripper moved back to prison from psychiatric hospital", "Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe dies aged 74", "Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe cremated at secret funeral", "This is Personal: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper Awards", "Crimes That Shook Britain Series 4 | Crime and Investigation", "The Yorkshire Ripper Investigation, The Reunion BBC Radio 4", "The Yorkshire Ripper Files: A Very British Crime Story", "The Incident Room review Yorkshire Ripper retelling puts police in the spotlight", "Long Shadow Yorkshire Ripper drama cast includes some big names", "WELCOME TO CHAPELTOWN: COREY TAYLOR AND CLOWN DELVE INTO SLIPKNOT'S NEW 'BARNBURNER', https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peter_Sutcliffe&oldid=1142141115, British people convicted of attempted murder, Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in England, English prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment, People convicted of murder by England and Wales, Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by England and Wales, Prisoners who died in England and Wales detention, Serial killers who died in prison custody, Articles with self-published sources from January 2021, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from January 2021, Pages containing links to subscription-only content, Articles with incomplete citations from June 2021, Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from September 2022, Articles lacking page references from January 2021, Articles with dead external links from October 2022, Articles with permanently dead external links, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, 22+ (13confirmed murdered, 7confirmed injured, 2suspected to be injured, at least 1 other officially suspected murder), This page was last edited on 28 February 2023, at 18:59. The sections "Description of suspects, photofits and other assaults" and parts of the section on Sutcliffe's "immediate associates" were not disclosed by the Home Office. The basis of his defence was that he claimed to be the tool of God's will. Employing the same modus operandi, he briefly engaged Smelt with a commonplace pleasantry about the weather before striking hammer blows to her skull from behind. Sutcliffe was accompanied by four members of the hospital staff. In January 1981, Peter was jailed after police caught him with a 24-year-old prostitute called Olivia Reivers. A report compiled on the visit was lost, despite a "comprehensive search" which took place after Sutcliffe's arrest, according to the report. Sutcliffe admitted he had hit her, but claimed it was with his hand. 2,164. I sometimes wish I had died in the attack. Many people do. Over three months the police interviewed 5,000 men, including Sutcliffe. 7.1/10. [2]:144 He was sentenced to twenty concurrent sentences of life imprisonment, which were converted to a whole life order in 2010. Warning: This article contains details of violence some readers may find distressing. When she got out of the car to urinate, he hit her from behind with a hammer. [100] Jenkins' murder remains unsolved. [104] The Home Office responded by stating that it would send any new evidence to the police. He had a number of underlying health problems, including obesity and diabetes. The Yorkshire Ripper has died at the age of 74 - nearly 40 years after he was convicted of murdering 13 women across the north of England. The attacks took place across Leeds, Bradford, Manchester, Huddersfield and Halifax, which meant officers were thrown off the scent of a serial killer being to blame. [69], This letter was marked "Priority No. He went on a killing spree and was even a suspect of the cops, but by the time they put 2 and 2. After hosting a family party at his new home, he returned to the wasteland behind Manchester's Southern Cemetery, where he had left the body, to retrieve the note but was unable to find it. Initially, Peter Sutcliffe was only stopped by police in Sheffield because they suspected his car had false number plates. In August 1979 a prostitute, 32-year-old Wendy Jenkins, was killed in Bristol, and Avon and Somerset Police liaised with West Yorkshire Police about whether there was any potential links to the "Ripper" killing spree. The trial proper was set to commence on 5 May 1981. This Is Personal: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper, a British television crime drama miniseries, first shown on ITV from 26 January to 2 February 2000, is a dramatisation of the real-life investigation into the murders, showing the effect that it had on the health and career of Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield (Alun Armstrong). He often used the services of sex workers in Leeds and Bradford and targeted them. [12], Sutcliffe met Sonia Szurma on 14 February 1967; they married on 10 August 1974. [121], Psychological reports describing Sutcliffe's mental state were taken into consideration, as was the severity of his crimes. [8] Kathleen was a Roman Catholic and John was a member of the choir at the local Anglican church of St Wilfred's; their children were raised in their mother's Catholic faith, and Sutcliffe briefly served as an altar boy. Two local police officers on the night shift chanced upon the couple parked in this . [92] Detectives had been able to compare Sutcliffe's DNA with the killer's in order to eliminate him from the inquiry. Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe was finally caught in January 1981 with simple old-fashioned police work. Based on the recorded message, police began searching for a man with a Wearside accent, which linguists narrowed down to the Castletown area of Sunderland, Tyne and Wear. This man as [sic] dealings with prostitutes and always had a thing about them His name and address is Peter Sutcliffe, 5 [sic] Garden Lane, Heaton, Bradford Clarkes [sic] Trans. No one felt safe - and every man was a suspect. He went on to describe all the attacks in a detailed confession that lasted 24 hours. [86] The killing took place only two days before Sutcliffe's known killing of Patricia Atkinson in Bradford. The "Wearside Jack" hoaxer was given unusual credibility when analysis of saliva on the envelopes he sent showed he had the same blood group as that which Sutcliffe had left at crime scenes, a type shared by only 6% of the population. calguns ccw good cause,