THE YORKSHIRE RIPPER

On October 29, 1975, the body of a woman was found in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England.  Wilma McCann was 28-years-old and a mother of four.  Wilma had been struck in the back of her head twice and there were two groups of stab wounds found on her body.  

As police began the investigation into Wilma’s murder, they came to the conclusion that she was a sex worker and began questioning the red-light area in Chapeltown.  One witness told investigators that they had seen Wilma jump in front of a car and ask for a ride.  This was on the same road that her body was found on – Scott Hall Avenue.  

Wilma’s son, Richard, told Netflix’s The Ripper, which is a main source for this episode, that his mom was a survivor and she did whatever she had to do to get money for her family.  He explained that during her marriage to his father, she would often have breakdowns because of the traumatic relationship and would take the kids to social services.  However, once Wilma divorced her husband, she was always with her kids.  After Richard and his siblings, Sonia, Donna, and Angela, learned about their mother’s death, they were told to grab their belongings and were taken by the police to a children’s home. 

The police believed that Wilma’s murder was a “one-off,” and had the stance that a lot of sex workers were murdered.  Great.

As the police continued their investigation into Wilma’s murder, another body was found outside of a bakery in Chapeltown.  This was 43-year-old Emily Jackson, who was a mother of three.  The Jackson family was going through a rough patch and was quite close to having to declare bankruptcy.  Because of this, Emily took to sex work.  Emily’s son had to identify her body.  

Emily suffered 56 stab wounds and had two fractures to the back of her skull.  It was determined that her murder was forensically similar to Wilma McCann’s.  An important discovery made was that there were both cross-shaped and rounded stab wounds to Emily’s body.  It was quickly determined that a Phillips head screwdriver had been used.  There was also a men’s size 7 boot print found on her thigh from where she had been stomped on. 

Then in February of 1977, another woman was found murdered in a park.  Irene Richardson was from a large working-class family with six sisters and three brothers.  Irene married George Richardson in 1970 in Blackpool, and had two children.  Irene left George in 1975, but he found her in London where they tried to patch up their marriage, however, she again left later that year and he didn’t go looking for her.  She wound up homeless in Chapeltown in Leeds.

After a while, she found a place to stay at a bed and breakfast in the red-light district.  On the night of February 5, 1977, Irene left the B&B around 11:15 pm, allegedly looking for work.  Her body was found the next morning by a dog walker in Roundhay Park.  She was partly facedown with her boots laid neatly on top of the back of her legs.  Her purse was next to her body with its contents laid out neatly beside it.  When her body was examined, there was no semen present or any evidence of sexual assault. 

After this attack, the media dubbed this man the Yorkshire Ripper because of the similarities to the Victorian killer, Jack the Ripper.  As the police investigated Irene’s murder, they decided that she had been living a respectable life up until about ten days prior to her murder when she began sex work.  There were tire marks found at the scene that they took photos of as well as made a plastic caste.  They wanted to keep this to themselves, though, so that the perpetrator didn’t know what information they had. 

The second Ripper victim of 1977 was 33-year-old Patricia Atkinson in April.  Patricia was the first person murdered in her own flat in Bradford.  Patricia was last seen leaving the Carlisle Hotel and was also classified as a sex worker.  SHe was the Ripper’s fourth victim in 18 months.  The police found boot prints in blood leading to and from the apartment’s door and they believed that he had gone back to adjust Patricia’s body before leaving.  That print matched the print found at Emily Jackson’s scene.  The police also found Patricia’s diary that had many names written in and decided that speaking with those listed was a good place to start. 

As the investigation continued into these four murders, both the press and the police made it seem as if the man known as the Yorkshire Ripper hated sex workers and if you weren’t one, you were safe, you didn’t need to worry. 

But then, in June of 1977, a 16-year-old girl named Jayne MacDonald had been found dead in a playground.  It was determined that she had not been killed there, but was left there after where it would be easier for her body to be found.  Jayne was born on August 16, 1960 to Wilfred “Wilf” and Irene MacDonald.  She had two half-sisters named Carole and Janet from Irene’s first marriage and then a sister named Debra and brother, Ian.  Jayne enjoyed dancing and rollerskating in her free time and was working at a supermarket at the time of her death.  She was still living at home with her parents.

Jayne had been with friends the night before her murder and had missed her bus home.  She eventually got tired of waiting for a ride so she decided to walk home.  She was attacked at around 2:00 amon Reginald Street in Leeds. 

Her body was found the next morning around 9:45 on a playground in Chapeltown.  Jayne had been hit on the head three times with a hammer, stabbed in the chest and back, and a broken bottle was found embedded in her chest.  

Once the police realized that Jayne was not a sex worker and was an “innocent,” everything changed.  The murders became national news and police were going house to house in Keighley, Bradford, and Leeds.  Women in Yorkshire were frightened and afraid to be out on their own at night. 

The police were investigating the murders and collecting what evidence they could.  At this time, there was no DNA, and all they could do was blood grouping.  Plus, there was no semen or saliva found at any scene.  After Jayne’s murder, the police wrote a letter to the Yorkshire Ripper that was published in the papers.  

Then in July of 1977, Maureen Long was attacked in Bradford.  She was struck in the back of her head and suffered 4-5 stab wounds.  However, Maureen survived.  She was able to speak with police about her attack from her hospital bed.  Maureen had been out at a disco tech and when she left, she was attacked.  After her release from the hospital, Andy Laptew, a police constable with the West Yorkshire police, took Maureen out to a dance hall to see if she could identify the man who attacked her – the Yorkshire Ripper.  It was set up as if he was taking her on a date.  In the Netflix series The Ripper, Andy said that Maureen liked to drink and he had spent 78 quid that night.  She wasn’t able to identify anyone as her attacker.  She had also suffered brain damage that destroyed some of her memory cells.

The next step in the police investigation was to go undercover in the red-light area and write down license plate numbers of the cars that had single men in them.  These numbers would get written down on index cards and sent to the incident room.  In the incident room, the police had hundreds of thousands of index cards with all information from tips and the investigation recorded on them.  Once the tips were recorded, they received actions, and officers would follow up.  This was an ongoing part of the police investigation. 

Three months after Maureen’s attack in October of 1977, a man named Bruce Jones found a body in Manchester.  A woman named Jean Jordan had gone missing nine days prior.  She was found with her hair burnt off, her face smashed in, her breasts were cut off, and she was disemboweled.  

Jean Bernadette Jordan was born on December 11, 1956 in Motherwell, North Lanarkshire, Scotland.  She later moved to England where she lived with her “common law” husband, Alan Royle, and their two children.  She was a sex worker in the Manchester area and was known as “Scotch Jean.”  

She had gone out on the night of October 1, 1977 to work.  She met a man, and agreed to a price of £5.  She was then driven to a spot on Princess Road in Chorlton where she met her untimely fate.  

At the time of Jean’s murder, there were about 400 officers working in West Yorkshire on the case, however, the Ripper had now carried out a murder in Manchester.  Motorways were a fairly new thing at this time, so the police weren’t used to this form of travel for this type of crime.  

As police searched the area where Jean’s body was found, they determined that though she was found under a hedge, she wasn’t there initially.  They determined that the Ripper had come back at some point and moved her body.  They also discovered her purse nearby with its contents spread out and a £5 note as well.  It was a newly printed note and the police suspected that the killer had come back to find it, because it would be traceable.  

The police were able to trace the note and went to several factories and interviewed employees about the murders.  It was quite possible that the police had spoken to the Ripper during these interviews.  Keep that little gem in your back pocket for later. 

Just two months later, in December of 1977, there was another attack in Leeds.  Marilyn Moor was hit three times by an attacker, but she grabbed his trousers, and he fled.  Marilyn survived her attack and the police were able to match the tire tracks left at the scene to the tire tracks from Irene Richardson’s scene.  Marilyn was also able to provide information for a sketch of her attacker.  She described a 30-year-old man with a beard and dark hair.  This photo was put on the wall of every police station. 

Then in February of 1978, another body was found in a timber yard.  18-year-old Helen Rytka had become the seventh murder victim of the Yorkshire Ripper.  Helen was born on March 3, 1959 in Leeds.  She and her sister, Rita, had had a chaotic upbringing, so when they left home, they turned to sex work.  The night Helen died she had been with her twin sister, Rita, before meeting her killer.  

Helen had been struck five times on her head and stabbed repeatedly in her chest.  She was found three days after she was murdered. 

With seven murders unsolved, the reward for information that police were offering increased from £10,000 to £30,000.  After this the calls increased and came from ex-girlfriends, wives, clairvoyants, people pulling cranks – and all went on index cards and onto the Big Wheel in the incident room.  There were so many index cards in that room that concrete pillars had to be added so that the room wouldn’t collapse.  

The eighth victim of the Yorkshire Ripper was found only a month later in March of 1978 on Easter Sunday in Bradford.  A woman’s hand was found sticking out of a pile of rubbish underneath an old sofa.  A passerby had seen the hand and called the police.  

The body was identified as belonging to 22-year-old Yvonne Pearson who had gone missing two months prior.  Yvonne Ann Pearson was born on February 2, 1956.  She had two children, Colette and Lorraine.  Though she was the eighth body found, she was killed prior to Helen Rytka making Yvonne the Yorkshire Ripper’s seventh murder victim, and Helen the eighth.  

At the scene, the police found a copy of the Daily Mirror newspaper under Yvonne’s arm that was dated a month to the day prior to when she had been murdered – Tuesday, February 21, 1978.  This told the police that the killer had gone back to put the paper there to taunt them.  

The public was continuing to feel frustrated with the investigation as well.  Graffiti was found that read, “Ripper 8, Police Nil.” 

Unfortunately, in May of 1978 the body of 40-year-old Vera Millward was found at the Manchester Royal Infirmary.  There were more than 800 staff and patients at the hospital with flood lights around the campus.  The police looked for witnesses, but no one saw or heard anything.  

Vera Evelyn Millward was born in Madrid, Spain on August 26, 1937.  She was the mother of seven children.  Vera was a sex worker and was reportedly going to meet a regular client when she decided to get in the car with a different client.  Once at the infirmary, the Yorkshire Ripper attacked Vera with a hammer then stabbed her.  She was found the next day making her his ninth murder victim.  

After the eighth murder, the police publicly asked the Yorkshire Ripper to give himself up.   Around the time of the plea and the body of Vera Millward was found, the police received letters from who they believed to be the Yorkshire Ripper.  The letters were signed, “Jack the Ripper,” though.  He wrote about knowing that Vera had had surgeries prior to her murder – which was true.  He also threatened to kill again. 

The letters were sent for fingerprinting and the gum strip was sent for testing.  The police learned that the letter writer was a B-secreter.  

After this, the police received a tape – right out of the blue!  Now they had letters, a tape, the boot print, the £5 note, the tire tracks, his blood group, handwriting, and the sketch of Marilyn’s assailant.  They were beginning to feel like the investigation was getting somewhere and they would be catching the Ripper soon. 

But then in April of 1979, a body was found in Halifax.  19-year-old Josephine Whitaker was found in the playing fields at Savile Park.  It had been eleven months since the last murder.  

Josephine Anne Whitaker was born on December 19, 1959 in Halifax, Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England.  She was a middle class clerk that worked at the Halifax Building Society.  

After Josephine’s murder, the police now believed that no woman was safe and all were at risk.

One of Yorkshire’s officers, George Oldfield, who was one of the men in charge of the Ripper investigation, played the tape sent to them “from the Ripper” to the Halifax police with the belief that it was from the same person who had sent the letters.  Also, with the firm belief that this was their man. 

The tape said, “I’m Jack.  I see you are still having no luck catching me.  I have the greatest respect for you, George.  But Lord, you are no nearer catching me now than four years ago when I started.  I reckon your boys are letting you down, George.  You can’t be much good, can you?  I am not quite sure when I will strike again.  But it will be some time this year.  I’m not sure where.  Maybe Manchester.  I like it there.  There’s plenty of them knocking about.  They never learn, do they, George?  At the rate I’m going, I should be in the book of records.  I think it’s up to eleven now, isn’t it?  Well, it’s been nice chatting to you, George.  Yours, Jack the Ripper.”

After listening to the tape and checking the letters, the police determined that the letters were sent from Sunderland and the man on the tape had a Sunderland accent.  They now believed they had what they needed with the handwriting and the accent so they began searching in Sunderland.  They investigated a square mile in Sunderland searching for their man.  There were 100 detectives making inquiries in the area about the Ripper. 

In September of 1979, the eleventh murder victim was found in Bradford.  Barbara Leach, a 20-year-old student was found just 150 yards from her home.  She was studying psychology at Bradford University and was walking home after a night out with friends.  She was followed by the Yorkshire Ripper until he attacked her from behind.  He dragged her into an alleyway where he then stabbed her.  She was found two days later after her friends reported her missing.  

Barbara Janine “Babs” Leach was born on January 5, 1959 in Kettering, Northamptonshire, England to David and Beryl.  She had a sibling named Graham.  

After the murder of Babs, female students were bussed home from university for their safety.  The Chief Constable launched Project R at this time as well.  The police publicly put out the letters they received as well as the audio from the tape.  They played the audio and had the letters posted all over the area and spent about a million pounds on the project. 

The Sunderland police were searching for the letter writer, but they received no calls from anyone saying that they thought they knew who the writer was.  Once the Sunderland police had all three letters that the Yorkshire police had received, David Zackpisson, a detective inspector, realized that the writer was using Victorian language so he searched for the 1888 letters that were written by Jack the Ripper and found several similarities in the wording.  He believed that the 1888 letters were used as a script and the current letter writer was copying Jack the Ripper.  He also realized that at the time the letters were sent, Yvonne Pearson’s body hadn’t yet been found, but the letter writer had never said anything about that murder in the letters.  This is when David was convinced that both the letters and the tape were a hoax.  He submitted a report that they had doubts, but George Oldfield was under so much pressure that he ignored this – needing his theory to be true. 

In October of 1980, Maureen Lea, known as Mo, was out with some friends the weekend before her 21st birthday when she was attacked.  She was an art student at Leeds University and was out celebrating.  Her friends had decided that it was getting late and they should call it a night.  She had only had two beers at the pub and when her friends split off to go toward the park, she went the other way toward the bus stop.  The streetlight was out  and she heard a voice behind her, with a Yorkshire accent, that she didn’t recognize.  She was scared and continued to walk toward the bus stop, but heard footsteps behind her.  Eventually, the person caught up to her and she felt a blow to the top of her head. 

She woke up in a hospital bed with a broken jaw, a fractured skull, a cracked eyebrow, puncture wounds to the back of her head, cuts, bruises, and swelling.  The doctors explained to her that her injuries were similar to those of other Ripper victims.  The police came to ask her about her attack.  She explained to them, in detail, what had happened, the voice with the Yorkshire accent, everything, but she never heard back from them after that day.  She felt like they had played down her attack because of the public ridicule they were facing. 

After months of Project R, nothing came about and by November of 1980, there was another murder.  The Yorkshire Ripper’s thirteenth and final murder victim was 20-year-old Jacqueline Hill.  Jacqueline was born on May 22, 1960 in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England and she was killed on November 17, 1980.  She was a third year student at Leeds University and she was studying French.

The Ripper attacked her with a hammer and then dragged her body to a nearby waste ground where he then stabbed her with a screwdriver.  

After Jacqueline’s murder, the West Yorkshire police put a curfew on women and the public anger had reached its boiling point.  The women of Yorkshire organized a march with signs that read, “Men off the streets!” and begged the question, why do women have to stay home.   It was the “Reclaim The Night March” and it wasn’t just about the Yorkshire Ripper.  It was about all men who are violent.  After the initial march, women held marches all around the country. 

While the investigation was still in complete fucking disarray, sorry for the language, but dear god, reporter Joan Smith requested any files that the FBI had on the Ripper.  From what she said in the documentary, the FBI in the U.S. and all police stations in Britain, had information on the Yorkshire Ripper.  Once she received the documents from the FBI, she learned that the reports on the women that were killed were extremely misogynistic.  There were horrible remarks about the victims, such as Wilma McCann being neglectful of her children and home and her being a sex worker was actually just an assumption made by the police.  It wasn’t an actual fact.  Irene Richardson had no previous convictions, but was THOUGHT to be engaged in sex work so therefore, they made that a fact. 

Joan realized that Wilma McCann was actually not this man’s first victim, she was his first to be killed.  The first known attack was in 1969 when he used a sock with stones in it to hit a woman.  She had survived, but declined to press charges.  There was then Olive Smelt who was attacked on August 15, 1975 in Halifax.  She was struck with a hammer and attacked with a knife, but a passing car interrupted the attack.  She was 46 at the time of her attack and was not engaged in sex work.  She had spoken to him and told the police that he had had a Yorkshire accent.  The police excluded this evidence from their investigation.  

Despite two women telling police that the man that had attacked them had a Yorkshire accent, the police eliminated anyone that didn’t have a Geordie accent.  Which from what I’m gathering (sorry, I’m just a gal from the Midwest who says OPE), is the accent you would hear in Sunderland where the letters and tape came from. 

The people of England believed that the police were never going to catch the Yorkshire Ripper. 

Then in January of 1981 in the Sheffield area, an officer named Robert Hydes, a Sergeant out on patrol, noticed a car with a man and woman inside that had number plates that didn’t match.  Meaning, the license plate was registered to a different vehicle than the car it was on.  This officer realized that this was a vehicle offense and brought the man into the police station.  Once he had the man at the station, he saw the sketch from Marilyn’s attack and realized they looked a lot alike.  

The officer went back to the area where he had found the car and did a quick search.  He found a hammer and then a knife stashed near the car.  After five and a half years, and by luck and chance, the Yorkshire Ripper had been caught. 

The Yorkshire Ripper was identified as Peter William Sutcliffe from Heaton, Bradford, West Yorkshire, England.  He was 35-years-old at the time.  Once in custody, he gave a voluntary statement and outlined each murder in detail, starting with Wilma McCann. 

So, let’s get a little background on Peter Sutcliffe before moving on.  Peter William Sutcliffe was born on June 2, 1946 in Bingley, West Yorkshire, England to John and Kathleen Sutcliffe.  He had five younger siblings, two brothers and three sisters.  They were a working class Catholic family.  Sutcliffe was described as being a loner in his teen years with voyeuristic tendencies.  His father was often violent toward his mother and Sutcliffe was known as a “sissy” and a “mother’s boy.”  He believed that being feminine was a weakness. 

When he was fifteen, he left school and took on several different jobs.  He worked in a factory/mill and then in 1964, he became a grave digger when he was 18-years-old that led to a part time job at a morgue.  While at this job, he bragged to friends about robbing bodies from the morgue. 

In 1966, Sutcliffe met a woman named Sonia Szurma.  The two began a relationship and married on August 10, 1974.  The couple had no children. Then in 1976, Sutcliffe got a job as a truck driver and was considered to be a trusted employee throughout his time there, including during his killing spree.  

Back to the interrogation and arrest now.  Sutcliffe knew about the tire tracks and the five pound note that was found.  He also thought that he was in the clear after the tape was released with the Geordie accent.

After the arrest, the media talked to several people, including Sutcliffe’s father.  He stated that he had no idea that his son was behind the murders and said that he had been a kind and timid child.  Neighbors of Sutcliffe said that he was normal and friendly.  

Once Sutcliffe had been arrested, Andy Laptew, from the Yorkshire police, found that he had actually been interviewed when the five pound note was found.  He was one of many employees interviewed and he told police that he never went to sex workers because he was recently married.  However, his boot prints/size matched the ones found at the crime scenes and when Laptew had brought the report to his boss, he was eliminated because he didn’t have a Geordie accent. 

Before his arrest, the police had actually spoken to Sutcliffe not once, but NINE TIMES.  He had been cited in the red light area and the five pound note was traced back to his work.  After his arrest, when the media spoke with his boss, he said that they all actually jokingly called him The Ripper. 

On January 5, 1981, Peter Sutcliffe was charged with thirteen counts of murder and seven counts of attempted murder.  He pleaded not guilty to the thirteen murder charges, but guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.  Which is like guilty by reason of insanity here in the states.  His reasoning for this was that he heard voices that ordered him to kill sex workers while he was working as a gravedigger.  He said that the voices originated while at the grave of a Polish man named Bronislaw Zapolski and that the voices were that of God himself. 

His trial took place at the Old Bailey in London due to the local knowledge of the case in Yorkshire.  He was Britain’s most notorious serial killer by this time and people from all over Britain lined up outside to try to get a seat inside for the trial.  

During the first two days of trial, they went through what Sutcliffe had told the police after his arrest in full, gruesome detail.  Then Sutcliffe took the stand.  He was tense and on edge, and explained to the courtroom about the voices in the cemetery. 

Three separate psychiatrists diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia, however, the prosecution noted that his wife, Sonia, had previously been diagnosed with schizophrenia and that Sutcliffe knew how to put it on for the psychiatrists.  

In May of 1981, after six hours of deliberation, Peter William Sufcliffe was found guilty on all counts.  He was sentenced to a minimum of thirty years before he would be considered for release.

After the trial, the police looked through other murders that could have been perpetrated by Sutcliffe and spoke with him about it.  According to police, he seemed quite proud of what he had done.  In 1981, he also confessed to the murder of Marguerite Walls.  He attacked her on August 20, 1980.  He followed her, attacked her from behind with a hammer, then tied a rope around her neck.  He dragged her into a garden before strangling her and hiding her body.  Marguerite was his thirteenth murder victim. 

The surviving victims of Peter Sutcliffe are Anna Rogulskyj.  She was 35-years-old and was walking alone in Keighley when she was attacked.  He hit her with a hammer and slashed her stomach with a knife.  Olive Smelt was attacked on August 5, 1975 in Halifax.   Tracey Browne was 14 when she was attacked on August 27, 1975 in Bradford.  He hit her five times in the head after talking with her for about a mile.  He took off when a car passed by.  Marcella Claxton was 20 when she was attacked in Leeds on May 9, 1976.  She was pregnant with her third child and almost lost the baby after her attack.  She suffered from chronic depression, headaches, and blackouts after her attack.  Maureen Long was attacked on December 14, 1977.  Upadhya Bandara was a 34-year-old doctor from Singapore.  She was attacked while walking home on September 24, 1980.  Sutcliffe hit her and she was left unconscious, but he fled after that.  Then there was Mo Lea, the art student from Leeds.  Lastly, Theresa Sykes who was attacked on November 5, 1980 in Huddersfield.  She was hit from behind and when her boyfriend heard her screams and came running over, Sutcliffe fled. 

After his arrest and conviction, Sutcliffe began going by his mother’s maiden name and was called Peter William Coonan.  In 1984, he was officially diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was transferred from prison to a secure psychiatric facility – Broadmoor Hospital.  During this time, he applied for the right to parole, but in 2010, a ruling stated that he would never be released from prison.  

In 2016, he was declared mentally able to leave the hospital and was sent to a maximum security prison.  Sutcliffe experienced several assaults while in custody.  Peter Willam Sutcliffe aka Coonan aka the Yorkshire Ripper died on November 13, 2020 at the age of 74 at University Hospital of North Durham in England.  At the end of October in 2020, he was treated for a suspected heart attack and after testing positive for Covid, he refused treatment. 

After the arrest, Sonia offered her support throughout the trial and initially visited him while he was in custody.  However, she divorced Sutcliffe in 1994 and her visits stopped in 1997 when she remarried.  Despite their divorce, she remained his named next of kin.  It is believed that Sonia planned his funeral.