You have made your point. Her body was found three days later beneath railway arches in Garrards timber-yard to which he had driven her. [72] Later that year, in September 1969,[73] he was arrested in Bradford's red light district for being in possession of a hammer, an offensive weapon, but he was charged with "going equipped for stealing" as it was assumed he was a potential burglar. The force of the impact tore the toe off the sock and whatever was in it came out. [88] At this time police also announced they were ready to bring charges against Sutcliffe for another attack on a woman who was listed as a possible victim of Sutcliffe by Hellawell, Mo Lea, who had been attacked with a hammer in Leeds in October 1980 by a man matching Sutcliffe's description. But after a pattern began to emerge with all the killings - victims were all struck over the head with a hammer before being stabbed with a knife or screwdriver - it was clear they were after one man. [92] Detectives had been able to compare Sutcliffe's DNA with the killer's in order to eliminate him from the inquiry. [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. [45], Sutcliffe was charged on 5 January 1981. The Yorkshire Ripper's ashes were scattered at a seaside beauty spot, his niece has said as she revealed the terrible impact he had on her life. It wasn't until January 1981, three months after his final attack on 20-year-old Jacqueline Hill in Leeds, that police caught up with Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe admitted he had hit her, but claimed it was with his hand. At the time of this attack, Claxton had been four months pregnant and subsequently miscarried her baby. 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. Sutcliffe confessed to being the perpetrator, saying that the voice of God had sent him on a mission to kill prostitutes. [125] On 9 March 2011, the Court of Appeal rejected Sutcliffe's application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. Cat is Cosmopolitan UK's features editor covering women's issues, health and current affairs. [34]:190[35] Sutcliffe seriously assaulted Maureen Long in Bradford in July. But when he was finally caught in 1981 it was for driving with false number plates. After an attack with a pen by fellow inmate Ian Kay on 10 March 1997, Sutcliffe lost the vision in his left eye, and his right eye was severely damaged. [86] He fitted Sutcliffe's description, being described as 5feet 8inches (1.73m) tall with black hair and a beard, and hit her with a hammer. [110] On 23 February 1996, he was attacked in his room in Broadmoor's Henley Ward. [46] At his trial, he pleaded not guilty to thirteen charges of murder, but guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. [18] The following is a summary of Sutcliffe's confirmed crimes: Sutcliffe's thirteen known murder victims were Wilma McCann (Leeds 1975), Emily Jackson (Leeds 1976), Irene Richardson (Leeds 1977), Patricia "Tina" Atkinson (Bradford 1977), Jayne MacDonald (Leeds 1977), Jean Jordan (Manchester 1977), Yvonne Pearson (Bradford 1978), Helen Rytka (Huddersfield 1978), Vera Millward (Manchester 1978), Josephine Whitaker (Halifax 1979), Barbara Leach (Bradford 1979), Marguerite Walls (Leeds 1980) and Jacqueline Hill (Leeds 1980). Birdsall visited Bradford police station the day after sending the letter to repeat his misgivings about Sutcliffe. While it should have been the effective nerve centre of the whole police operation, the backlog of unprocessed information resulted in the failure to connect vital pieces of related information. 7.1/10. No one felt safe - and every man was a suspect. [115], On 17 February 2009, it was reported[116] that Sutcliffe was "fit to leave Broadmoor". McCann, from Scott Hall in Leeds, was a mother of four children between the ages of 2 and 7. Peter Sutcliffe, later dubbed the Yorkshire. [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. He stamped on her thigh, leaving behind an impression of his boot. I went back to the car and got in it".[24]. [37], On 14 December, Sutcliffe attacked Marilyn Moore, another prostitute from Leeds. On 17 January 2005, Sutcliffe was allowed to visit Arnside where the ashes had been scattered. The play was produced by New Diorama.[142]. Sutcliffe was charged with multiple counts of murder, and was found guilty at a trial in the Old Bailey later that year. During his imprisonment, Sutcliffe was noted to show "particular anxiety" at mentions of Wilkinson due to the possible unsoundness of Steel's conviction. On 1 September, Sutcliffe murdered 20-year-old Barbara Leach, a Bradford University student. The basis of his defence was that he claimed to be the tool of God's will. "Bastard prostitutes who were littering the streets. [104] The Home Office responded by stating that it would send any new evidence to the police. While at Parkhurst he was seriously assaulted by James Costello, a 35-year-old career criminal with several convictions for violence. Sutcliffe. Leeds in the late 1970s and early 1980s was a place of fear and suspicion as the hunt for one of Britain's most prolific killers dominated the city. [74][75] Wilkinson's murder had initially been considered as a possible "Ripper" killing, but this was quickly ruled out as Wilkinson was not a prostitute. His first. According to his statement, Sutcliffe said, "I got out of the car, went across the road and hit her. [2]:107, Ten days later, he killed Helen Rytka, an 18-year-old prostitute from Huddersfield. Warning: This article contains details of violence some readers may find distressing. It was on . [91] Sinclair also happens to be the prime suspect in the murders of Kenny, McAuley and Cooney, but detectives felt they did not have enough evidence to charge him before his death in prison in 2019. 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. [22] Claxton was four months pregnant when she was attacked, and lost the baby she was carrying. He repeatedly bludgeoned her about the head with a ball-peen hammer, then jumped on her chest before stuffing horsehair into her mouth from a discarded sofa, under which he hid her body near Lumb Lane. Claxton survived and testified against Sutcliffe at his trial. [59]:83, In 1988, the mother of Sutcliffe's last victim, Jacqueline Hill, during an action for damages on behalf of her daughter's estate, argued in the case Hill v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire in the High Court that the police had failed to use reasonable care in apprehending Sutcliffe. Humble was remanded in custody and on 21 March 2006 was convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison. The tape contained a man's voice saying, "I'm Jack. She survived and provided police with a description of her attacker. [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. Tyre tracks left near the murder scene resulted in a long list of possible suspect vehicles. [135], The song "Night Shift" by English post-punk band Siouxsie and the Banshees on their 1981 album Juju is about Sutcliffe.[136]. [86] Most notably, Sutcliffe's work record also showed that he was delivering to an engineering plant 100 yards from Schlessinger's home on the day she was killed. [123] The hearing for Sutcliffe's appeal against the ruling began on 30 November 2010 at the Court of Appeal. [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. Sutcliffe was interviewed nine times,[56] but all information the police had about the case was stored in paper form, making cross-referencing difficult, compounded by television appeals for information which generated thousands more documents. [100] Jenkins' murder remains unsolved. The serial killer was serving a whole life term for murdering 13 women across Yorkshire and north-west England. [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]. [75][82] The location Wilkinson was killed was very close to Sutcliffe's place of employment at T. & W. H. Clark, where he would have clocked in for work that afternoon. How and where was the Yorkshire Ripper caught? Despite matching several forensic clues and being on the list of 300 names in connection with the 5 note, he was not strongly suspected. [108] In March 1984, Sutcliffe was sent to Broadmoor Hospital, under Section 47 of the Mental Health Act 1983.[109]. [86][87] A list was complied of around sixty murders and attempted murders. [2]:92 In a confession, Sutcliffe said he had realised the new 5 note he had given her was traceable. [86][90] There were also two men on Hellawell's list of possible victims. In April 1980, Peter Sutcliffe was arrested for drink driving. Peter William Sutcliffe (2June 1946 13November 2020), also known as Peter Coonan and dubbed in press reports as the Yorkshire Ripper (an allusion to Jack the Ripper) was an English serial killer who was convicted of murdering thirteen women and attempting to murder seven others between 1975 and 1980. [122] Sutcliffe spent the rest of his life in custody. Richardson was bludgeoned to death with a hammer. 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. [94][92] In 2007 a man was tried for the murder of Elizabeth McCabe after a 1 in 40 million DNA match was found between his DNA and samples found on the victim's clothing, but he was found not guilty by a majority verdict at the conclusion of the trial. [94][95][92] The murder of Hila McAuley could also be definitively proven not to have been committed by Sutcliffe as on the same night she was killed he murdered Jean Jordan in Manchester. In that episode, Sutcliffe is played by Joseph Mawle. The identification and subsequent capture of the man labelled 'The Yorkshire Ripper' by the media was actually quite fortuitous. [101][92] For many years Sutcliffe was linked in the press to the murder of 42-year-old Marion Spence in Leeds on 10 June 1979, but a man had in fact been convicted of her murder in January 1980. He is confirmed to have brutally murdered 13 women between 1975 and 1980 before he was stopped. [b] The investigation used it as a point of elimination rather than a line of enquiry and allowed Sutcliffe to avoid scrutiny, as he did not fit the profile of the sender of the tape or letters. When she got out of the car to urinate, he hit her from behind with a hammer. [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. Sutcliffe struck the back of her skull twice with a hammer, then inflicted "a stab wound to the throat; two stab wounds below the right breast; three stab wounds below the left breast and a series of nine stab wounds around the umbilicus". It was one of the largest investigations by a British police force[55] and predated the use of computers. The search for Sutcliffe was one of the largest and most expensive manhunts in British history, and West Yorkshire Police was criticised for its failure to catch him despite having interviewed him nine times in the course of its five-year investigation. When the tape arrived it was a personal message to. [76][75] Police eventually admitted in 1979 that the Yorkshire Ripper did not only attack prostitutes, but by this time a local man, Anthony Steel, had already been convicted of Wilkinson's murder. [5] The report led to changes to investigative procedures that were adopted across UK police forces. Namibia and Iceland caught in jaws of fish scandal. I was just cleaning up the place a bit". But how did they finally discover who he was, after so many years falling under the radar? [86] At the time detectives did not believe Schlessinger's murder was a Ripper killing as she was not a prostitute. History of notorious killer who brutally murdered 13women", "How police caught Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe in Sheffield 37years ago this week", "Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe victims", "Looking back: The Yorkshire Ripper investigation", "Restoring reputations of Yorkshire Ripper's victims after decades of victim-blaming", "Yorkshire Ripper serial killer Peter Sutcliffe dies", "Women who survived Sutcliffe's attacks also had to survive institutional sexism", "The Yorkshire Ripper was not a 'prostitute killer' now his forgotten victims need justice", "Daughter of Ripper victim kills herself", "Yorkshire Ripper: Who were serial killer Peter Sutcliffe's victims? [9][10], Through his childhood and his early adolescence, Sutcliffe showed no signs of abnormality. Although Sutcliffe was interviewed about it, he was not investigated further (he was contacted and disregarded by the Ripper Squad on several further occasions). [3][4] After his arrest in Sheffield by South Yorkshire Police for driving with false number plates in January 1981, he was transferred to the custody of West Yorkshire Police, which questioned him about the killings. [141], A play written by Olivia Hirst and David Byrne, The Incident Room, premiered at Pleasance as part of the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. [48][49], Sutcliffe pleaded guilty to seven charges of attempted murder. [43] On 25 November 1980, Trevor Birdsall, an associate of Sutcliffe and the unwitting getaway driver as Sutcliffe fled his first documented assault in 1969, reported him to the police as a suspect. Police visited Sutcliffe's home the next day, as the woman he had attacked had noted Birdsall's vehicle registration plate. "[27], On the night of 15 August, Sutcliffe attacked Olive Smelt in Halifax. [99][92], Other forces across Britain also investigated links between Sutcliffe and unsolved murders in their force area. The police found that the alibi given for Sutcliffe's whereabouts was credible; he had indeed spent much of the evening of the killing at a family party. Anna's life. [15] Other analyses of his actions have not found evidence that he actually sought the services of prostitutes but note that he nonetheless developed an obsession with them, including "watching them soliciting on the streets of Leeds and Bradford". [118] The court decided that Sutcliffe would never be released. Sutcliffe was not convicted of the attack but confessed to it in 1992. 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. [6] Since his conviction in 1981 Sutcliffe has been linked to a number of other unsolved murders and attacks. Peter Sutcliffe, the man also known as the Yorkshire Ripper after he murdered 13 women in the north of England throughout the 70s and 80s, died of coronavirus last month at the age of 74. [12], Sutcliffe met Sonia Szurma on 14 February 1967; they married on 10 August 1974. A report compiled on the visit was lost, despite a "comprehensive search" which took place after Sutcliffe's arrest, according to the report. The urge inside me to kill girls was now practically uncontrollable. Now, Netflix is showing a documentary looking into the harrowing crimes the Yorkshire Ripper committed, in a new four part series. [89], One of the cases investigated was an attack on student teacher Gloria Wood in November 1974, in which Wood was attacked as she walked home one evening in Bradford by a man who had asked if she needed help carrying her bags. Police were able to trace the note back to the bank, which consequently narrowed their search down to around 8,000 people. Only days after Sutcliffe's conviction in 1981, crime writer David Yallop asserted that he may have been responsible for the murder of Carol Wilkinson, who was randomly bludgeoned over the head with a stone in Bradford on 10 October 1977, nine days after Sutcliffe's killing of Jean Jordan. [81] Furthermore, earlier on the day as Wilkinson's murder, Sutcliffe had gone back to mutilate Jordan's body before returning to Bradford, showing he had already gone out to attack victims that day and would have been in Bradford to attack Wilkinson after he come back from mutilating Jordan. "[38], On 4 April 1979, Sutcliffe killed Josephine Whitaker, a 19-year-old building society clerk whom he attacked on Savile Park Moor in Halifax as she was walking home. Yorkshire Ripper's niece says evil uncle's ashes are scattered at . This inquiry also looked at the killings of two prostitutes in southern Sweden in 1980. [86] Detectives were able to eliminate Sutcliffe from forty of these cases with reference to his lorry driver's logs, leaving twenty-two unsolved crimes with hallmarks of a Ripper attack which were investigated further. [85] In 2022, ITV broadcast a documentary based on Clark and Tate's book which discussed links between Wilkinson's murder and Sutcliffe. I have the greatest respect for you, George, but Lord, you're no nearer catching me now than four years ago when I started."[39]. I hasten to add that I feel sure that the senior police officers in the areas concerned are also mindful of this possibility but, in order to ensure full account is taken of all the information available, I have arranged for an effective liaison to take place.[69]. The BBC reports he refused treatment for COVID-19, and died in hospital in November 2020 as a result. Despite being found sane at his trial, Sutcliffe was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. The decision to allow the temporary release was initiated by David Blunkett and ratified by Charles Clarke when he became Home Secretary. Ch 5, documentary "Born to Kill" broadcast 12.05am 21 September 2022 a profile of the serial killer. Sutcliffe committed his second assault on the night of 5 July 1975 in Keighley. Tyre tracks found at the scene matched those from an earlier attack. The police then decided to do a . The play focuses on the police force hunting Sutcliffe. Sonia had several miscarriages, and they were informed that she would not be able to have children. 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. Peter Sutcliffe died in hospital aged 74 in . His parents were John William Sutcliffe and his wife Kathleen Frances (ne Coonan), a native of Connemara. He reportedly refused treatment. [104], A number of murders Clark and Tate claimed could be linked to Sutcliffe already have DNA evidence, such as the murders of Barbara Mayo, Eve Stratford and Lynne Weedon, and investigators are known to already have a copy of Sutcliffe's DNA and have been able to rule him out of unsolved cases as a result.