??/??/?? - Peter Sutcliffe : born to kill
Real-Life Crimes

Peter Sutcliffe was born on 2 June 1946, the eldest of five children, in Bingley, Yorkshire. He was a quiet and introverted boy who clung to his mother. At school he was unhappy. Frequently bullied because of his slight build, he often played truant.

He left school at 15 with no qualifications and little drive or ambition, and took a series of dead-end jobs. Unlike most Yorkshire lads of his own age, he showed no interest in cricket, soccer or rugby. And, although good-looking, he showed little interest in going out with girls.

When he was 16 he tried to change his image. He bought a Bullworker exerciser and started working out with weights, a trend commonly noted by psychiatrists in rapists and sex killers. But he did not have a girlfriend until he was 21.

Then he met his future wife, Sonia Szurma, in a local pub. She was only 16 but they started going out regularly together. The couple broke up several times in the seven years before they married. It was during one of these partings that Sutcliffe claims to have suffered the humiliating incident with the prostitute that had allegedly caused him to hate them all with a murderous loathing.

He told detectives he only picked up the prostitute to "get back" at Sonia, who had been dating another man. In 1972, Sonia went to teacher training college in London. In 1974, the couple married, but they often had furious rows, and it was within a year of his wedding that Sutcliffe started his reign of terror.