"[27], On the night of 15 August, Sutcliffe attacked Olive Smelt in Halifax. A Netflix documentary, The Ripper, looks at Peter Sutcliffe's horrific crimes. On Jan. 2, 1981, two police officers approached Sutcliffe, who was in a parked car in an area where prostitutes and their customers were commonly spotted. Yorkshire Ripper's niece says evil uncle's ashes are scattered at . [127] In August 2016, a medical tribunal ruled that he no longer required clinical treatment for his mental condition, and could be returned to prison. [38], The police discontinued the search for the person who received the 5 note in January 1978. 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. [86][88][87] Twelve of these occurred within West Yorkshire, while the others took place in other parts of the country. Following his conviction, Sutcliffe began using his mother's maiden name of Coonan. [125] On 9 March 2011, the Court of Appeal rejected Sutcliffe's application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. [5] This drew condemnation from the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP), who protested outside the Old Bailey. Despite being found sane at his trial, Sutcliffe was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Peter Sutcliffe died in hospital aged 74 in . Peter William Sutcliffe (2 June 1946 - 13 November 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. Although Sutcliffe was interviewed about it, he was not investigated further (he was contacted and disregarded by the Ripper Squad on several further occasions). [90] One of these was Fred Craven, a bookkeeper murdered with a hammer on the same street Sutcliffe lived on in Bingley in 1966, and whose daughter Sutcliffe was known to have approached and been rejected by. 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". At Dewsbury, he was questioned in relation to the Yorkshire Ripper case as he matched many of the known physical characteristics. 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. McCann, from Scott Hall in Leeds, was a mother of four children between the ages of 2 and 7. Sutcliffe was charged with multiple counts of murder, and was found guilty at a trial in the Old Bailey later that year. 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. [77] Steel had confessed to the murder under intense questioning, having been told that he would be allowed to see a solicitor if he did so. He is confirmed to have brutally murdered 13 women between 1975 and 1980 before he was stopped. 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 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. While at Parkhurst he was seriously assaulted by James Costello, a 35-year-old career criminal with several convictions for violence. When did he get caught? In December 2017 West Yorkshire Police, in response to a Freedom of Information request, neither confirmed nor denied that Operation Painthall existed. Apart from a terrorist outrage, it is difficult to conceive of circumstances in which one man could account for so many victims. [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 were able to trace the note back to the bank, which consequently narrowed their search down to around 8,000 people. It was one of the largest investigations by a British police force[55] and predated the use of computers. Sutcliffe spent thirty years at Broadmoor Hospital before being moved to HMP Frankland in County Durham four years ago 2016. Paul Wilson, a convicted robber, asked to borrow a videotape before attempting to strangle Sutcliffe with the cable from a pair of stereo headphones. 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. Clark (Holdings) Ltd. on the Canal Road Industrial Estate in Bradford. [96][97], Other links made by police between unsolved attacks and Sutcliffe would also be subsequently disproven. In 1977, the cops finally caught their first break when they found a five-pound banknote in the purse of one of his victims Jean Jordan, a prostitute he mutilated and murdered. [108] In March 1984, Sutcliffe was sent to Broadmoor Hospital, under Section 47 of the Mental Health Act 1983.[109]. It was on . [92] Upon Sutcliffe's death in 2020, Clark submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Home Office, asking if Sutcliffe's DNA was on the national DNA database. I'm Jack. The prosecution intended to accept Sutcliffe's plea after four psychiatrists diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia, but the trial judge, Justice Sir Leslie Boreham, demanded an unusually detailed explanation of the prosecution reasoning. 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. [141], A play written by Olivia Hirst and David Byrne, The Incident Room, premiered at Pleasance as part of the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The hoaxer case was re-opened in 2005, and DNA taken from envelopes was entered into the national database, in which it matched that of John Samuel Humble, an unemployed alcoholic and long-time resident of the Ford Estate in Sunderland a few miles from Castletown whose DNA had been taken following a drunk and disorderly offence in 2001. But when he was finally caught in 1981 it was for driving with false number plates. [69], Amongst other things, Byford's report asserted that there was a high likelihood of Sutcliffe having claimed more victims both during and before his known killing spree. The sexual implications of this outfit were considered obvious but it was not known to the public until published in 2003. Hill's body was found on wasteland near the Arndale Centre. 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. 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. What is needed is an officer of sound professional competence who will inspire confidence and loyalty". Between November 1971 and April 1973, Sutcliffe worked at the Baird Television factory on a packaging line. [63], In response to the police reaction to the murders, the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group organised a number of 'Reclaim the Night' marches. [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. He was the subject of one of the most expensive manhunts in British history, making fools of the West Yorkshire Police. Given that Sutcliffe was a lorry driver, it was theorised that he had been in Denmark and Sweden, making use of the ferry across the Oresund Strait. [34], Joan Smith wrote in Misogynies (1989, 1993), that "even Sutcliffe, at his trial, did not go quite this far; he did at least claim he was demented at the time". [12], Sutcliffe met Sonia Szurma on 14 February 1967; they married on 10 August 1974. [84] It alleged that, between 1966 and 1980, Peter Sutcliffe was responsible for at least 22 more murders than he was convicted of. [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". Sutcliffe confessed to being the perpetrator, saying that the voice of God had sent him on a mission to kill prostitutes. The identification and subsequent capture of the man labelled 'The Yorkshire Ripper' by the media was actually quite fortuitous. [14] On 5 March 1976, Sutcliffe was dismissed for the theft of used tyres. [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. He was unemployed until October 1976, when he found a job as an HGV driver for T. & W.H. 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. [52] The jury rejected the evidence of four psychiatrists that Sutcliffe had paranoid schizophrenia, possibly influenced by the evidence of a prison officer who heard him say to his wife that if he convinced people he was mad then he might get ten years in a "loony bin". I was just cleaning up the place a bit". [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. [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. The 74-year-old had been serving a life term for murdering 13 women across. In November 2020, the man known as the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, died of COVID-19 at the age of 74. [92] Detectives had been able to compare Sutcliffe's DNA with the killer's in order to eliminate him from the inquiry. How They Were Caught: The Yorkshire Ripper - YouTube How They Were Caught: The Yorkshire Ripper BuzzFeed Unsolved Network 5.37M subscribers 187K views 1 year ago The story behind the capture. Peter Sutcliffe was born to a working-class family in Bingley, West Riding of Yorkshire. [124] The appeal was rejected on 14 January 2011. ", "Son of Yorkshire Ripper victim Emily Jackson says 'thank f*** for that' after killer's death", "How Coronation Street's Les Battersby actor became a Yorkshire Ripper suspect Bruce Jones says the mix-up cost him his marriage", "Peter Sutcliffe murdered 13 women: I was nearly one of them", "Wearside Jack: I deserve to go to jail for 'evil' Ripper hoax", "Yorkshire Ripper hoaxer Wearside Jack dies", "THE ATTACKS AND MURDERS - THERESA SYKES", "DNA helps police "solve" 1975 Joan Harrison murder", "Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe's weight-gain strategy in latest bid for freedom", "Yorkshire Ripper: Tribunal rules Peter Sutcliffe can be sent to mainstream prison", "Six more attacks that the Ripper won't admit", "Story of Yorkshire Ripper hoaxer "Wearside Jack" to be made into movie", Judgments Brooks (FC) (Respondent) versus Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis (Appellant) and others, "Families of Yorkshire Ripper victims receive police apology for language used during investigation", Report into the Police Handling of the Yorkshire Ripper Case, "Ripper guilty of additional crimes, says secret report", "Peter Sutcliffe, the bullied mummy's boy who gave millions nightmares", "BBC - Inside Out - Yorkshire & Lincolnshire - Ripper mystery", "Yorkshire Ripper: The Secret Murders.