??/??/?? - Peter Sutcliffe - The Yorkshire Ripper
Real-Life Crimes

A lone and savage killer stalked the deserted streets of England's northern towns. As police struggled to catch the maniac, 13 women died before the case reached a dramatic climax. Part-time prostitute Wilma McCann was tottering slightly on her high heels as she made her way home after a night out in the pub.

It was a bitterly cold October night in Leeds and she was glad to be within sight of her house in Scott Hall Avenue when the bearded stranger approached. Wilma, 28, and the mother of four young children, probably never knew what happened next.

A hammer crashed down on the back of her head, once and then again, shattering her skull. Swiftly her attacker dragged her body away from the street to the darkness of the deserted Prince Philip playing fields. Wilma was already dead as her killer feverishly pulled down her white flared trousers and tore open her jacket and blouse.

Then, in what was to become a ritual trademark, he stabbed her 14 times in her chest and stomach. Wilma McCann had been slaughtered by Peter Sutcliffe. She was the first murder victim of a man soon to be known worldwide as the Yorkshire Ripper.

It was 30 October 1975. At first local police treated it as an isolated case. It was a savage killing, probably by a stranger and thus the hardest type to solve. Why had Wilma been killed? She had not been raped. Yet the killing showed clear signs that the murderer was a deeply disturbed sexual deviant.

On the other hand, her purse had been stolen. Sex crime or robbery? Any thoughts among seasoned CID men that the case was a bizarre one-off were rudely dispelled less than three months later, on 20 January 1976.

Frenzied attack

A man on his way to work in the early morning darkness almost tripped over the body of Emily Jackson, a 42-year-old prostitute, as she lay where she had been dumped in a side alley in the Chapeltown area of Leeds, centre of the city's red light district.

Her top clothing and bra had been torn off. Then her frenzied killer had stabbed her 50 times in the neck, chest, stomach and back. But, as with Wilma McCann, these wounds had all been inflicted after death. Emily's life had also been instantly taken out by two massive blows to the back of the head.

The head wounds on both women had the same characteristics. The fractures were round indentations, as if each victim had been struck by a small, heavy ball. And some of the stab wounds were very odd, not like normal knife injuries, but more like punctures.

Within several hours murder squad officers had decided on the likely weapons: a ball-head hammer and a sharpened Philips screwdriver. They were to become the Ripper's signature. One other small clue was duly logged. On one thigh was a boot print. Size seven: small for a man.

So far the detectives had failed to make an important connection. Two other women, neither of whom were prostitutes, had been attacked in West Yorkshire in 1975: Anna Rogulskyj, aged 34, had been savagely attacked with a hammer in Keighley on 5 July, and Olive Smelt, 46 years old, had been bludgeoned and slashed across the buttocks in Halifax on 15 August.

Both women pulled through after brain surgery, but it was nearly three years before police realised they were part of the same pattern. And it was over four years before police realised the attacks and murders were all linked.

On 9 May 1976 Marcella Claxton was attacked by a man with a dark beard as she crossed Roundhay Park, Leeds, after dark. Marcella, an educationally backward 20-year-old, screamed and her attacker ran off. Detectives were sure it was an abortive attack by the Ripper.

Attacks stop

For a year there were no more attacks and detectives wondered if the killer they sought had committed suicide or been jailed for some other crime elsewhere. But if any doubts remained in police minds that a serial killer was on the loose, they vanished on the morning of 6 February 1977 when the body of a part-time prostitute, Irene Richardson, was found by a jogger on open land known as Soldiers Field, part of Roundhay Park.

The 28-year-old mother of two had been felled by three massive blows to the head with a ball-head hammer. The scene was all too familiar. Some of her clothing, including, strangely, her boots, had been pulled off. Then she had been mutilated with 20 or more stab wounds from a knife and a Philips screwdriver. Irene had set out the night before to go to a disco.

But somewhere en route she had been waylaid by Sutclifie, who had driven her to Roundhay before killing her. Parallels were now being drawn with that other series of horrifying and unsolved crimes of a century before, the murders of Jack the Ripper.

In that most famous of all multiple murders in Victorian London, a killer had preyed on prostitutes, stabbing them, ritually disembowelling them or cutting out organs with a scalpel-type blade. Was the Leeds murderer inspired by these killings?

The press were soon to make the connection, dubbing the Leeds fiend as the new Ripper, within days adapted to The Yorkshire Ripper'. Detectives struggled to find a motive. None of the victims had been raped. So why was the killer apparently picking out prostitutes?

After the murder of Irene Richardson there was near panic in the red light district. Many of the 'toms', as they were known to local vice police, moved out to London, Manchester or Birmingham. Many more set up business just a few miles away in Bradford.

The Ripper moves on

Like a wolf following a flock of sheep, the Ripper moved on, too. On 23 April 1977 he selected his next victim, attractive divorcee Patricia Tina' Atkinson. Tina was a 32-year-old local woman who had turned to prostitution to feed her three young daughters.

She lived in Oak Lane, right on the edge of the Bradford red light zone. On the night of her death she had spent the evening drinking in a pub. Sometime after leaving she had met the Yorkshire Ripper and a violent death. Tina had taken him home to her own flat: her mutilated body was found the next day on her blood-soaked bed.

Four hammer blows had shattered her skull. Then her killer had stabbed her seven times in the stomach and slashed her sides. There was one small but important clue - a boot print on the bedclothes, size seven; identical to the one found on Emily Jackson. It was another two months before the Ripper struck again.

The victim was to be his youngest. Sixteen-year-old Jayne MacDonald had just left school and had a job in a shop in Leeds. On the night of 25 June 1977 she went to the Hofbrauhaus night spot in the city centre to go dancing with friends. She left at about 2 a.m. On her way home she was stalked and waylaid by the Ripper.

Her body was found by children at about 9.30 a.m. lying against a wall in Reginald Terrace. She had been hit three times with a ball-head hammer then stabbed a dozen times. Why had this young girl suddenly become a victim? Sadly, despairing detectives concluded that Jayne's death was probably a 'mistake'. She just happened to live in an area where prostitutes walked the street.

Ironically Jayne's home was just six doors away from the home of the first victim, Wilma McCann. A month later, Maureen Long met the Ripper and survived. On the night of 27 July 1977, 30-year-old Maureen was walking through the centre of Bradford after a night out when she was offered a lift by the Ripper, cruising in his car.

On a nearby patch of open ground Maureen was struck by a savage blow from behind with a hammer. But something saved her life. For a reason still unknown, her attacker fled, leaving her for dead. She was found and rushed to hospital, where she underwent brain surgery.

False descriptions

She later described her assailant as having blond hair, and a witness described a white Ford Cortina leaving the area; two unfortunate inaccuracies that were to further confuse the Ripper Squad. Her attacker had dark hair and drove a different model of car, a white Ford Corsair.

On 1 October 1977 the Ripper changed his tactics, causing police more problems. He crossed the Pennines to Manchester and killed again. The victim this time was Scots-born prostitute Jean Jordan. Some time after midnight, the 20-year-old mother of two was picked up by the Ripper, who was now driving a newly bought red Ford Corsair.

He drove her from Moss Side to the Southern Cemetery and killed her with savage ferocity. Eleven hammer blows rained on her head. But as he dragged her into dense bushes to complete his grotesque ritual, something again put him to flight.

Sutcliffe drove back to Yorkshire, but he realised he had made a potentially disastrous mistake. He had given Jean Jordan a new £5 note from his wage packet. The police might trace it back to him. For eight anxious days he scanned newspapers and listened to the news on radio and TV, but there was nothing about his latest outrage. Jean Jordan's body had still not been found.

Driven on by his worry over the banknote, Sutcliffe motored back to the cemetery. Her body was where he had left it. Frantically he searched her handbag, but could not find the money. It was hidden in a secret pocket.

Hideous mutilation

Now the strange urges flooding his twisted mind told him to finish the job he had started. He removed her clothes, but he had not left home equipped to mutilate. Sutcliffe was forced to search a nearby allotment until he found a broken shard of glass from a greenhouse.

He then carried out a hideous mutilation of the body. Her corpse was found the next day. Police then found the £5 note and realised it could be an important lead. It had been issued by a bank at Shipley, near Leeds, four days before the Jean Jordan murder, and had been sent out in payrolls for factories in the area where Sutcliffe worked as a truck driver.

Officers interviewed over 5,000 people who could have received the note in their wage packet. One was Sutcliffe: twice in eight days he was interviewed. But after politely answering the police questions he gave no reason for them to be suspicious, and there was no follow-up action.

It was the first of several amazing close calls Sutcliffe was to have with the police before he was caught. On 14 December he struck again, battering Marilyn Moore. She was attacked with a hammer in Leeds, but Sutcliffe fled before he could complete his gory routine. Marilyn's life was saved in hospital.

The New Year was only three weeks old when the Ripper murdered for the seventh time on 21 January 1978. His victim was 22-year-old prostitute Yvonne Pearson. Her body lay undiscovered for two months, by which time Sutcliffe had killed again.

Victim number eight was vivacious Helen Rytka, an 18-year-old streetwalker. She worked with her identical twin sister from the Railway Arches red light zone along Great Northern Street in the mill town of Huddersfield.

The sisters had a well-rehearsed routine they thought would keep them safe. Each would go with a 'punter' in turn, the first waiting for the second to get back to their street corner 'base' before starting the routine again.

The sisters even took the numbers of the cars of each other's clients as a safeguard. But on the night of 31 January their double act went fatally wrong.

Breaking the rule

Sutcliffe, fearful that police activity was making Bradford too risky, set off for Huddersfield in his red Corsair. He spotted Helen waiting for her sister to return from a spell with a client.

Perhaps it was the promise of some quick extra money that persuaded Helen to break her golden rule and get in the car without waiting for her sister to come back. She was never seen alive again. Two days later her naked body was found battered and stabbed and hidden behind some corrugated iron in a timber yard.

This time the Ripper had broken with tradition and had sex with his victim, probably after she had been battered senseless. Two months later the body of the Ripper's earlier victim Yvonne Pearson was found hidden under an abandoned sofa on a Bradford dump.

She had been hit so hard her skull had broken into 21 pieces. Instead of a ball-head hammer, a heavy club or coal hammer had been used. Her clothing had been partly removed and horse hair stuffing from the sofa had been pushed down her throat to stifle her screams.

There had been no stabbing, but there was no doubt that this was a Ripper killing. There was also a most bizarre twist. As in the case of Jean Jordan, the killer had seemingly returned to the body. Under one arm detectives found a neatly folded copy of the Daily Mirror, dated exactly one month after she had been killed.

Over 200 CID officers were now assigned to the case full-time. There was huge coverage in newspapers and on TV, but still police were no closer to finding the killer.

Another brutal murder

With chilling predictability, Sutcliffe ruthlessly ended the life of another woman in May 1978. He again crossed the Pennines to Manchester. There, on 16 May, he met Vera Millward, a 41-year-old Spanish-born prostitute who had seven children.

Vera had been waiting at home for a regular client, but when he failed to turn up she went looking for trade. At about 1.30 a.m. a patient at Manchester's Royal Infirmary awoke to hear a woman's screams and a cry for help, then silence. When daylight broke it revealed Vera's body lying in a flowerbed.

Her head had been caved in with a club hammer and her torso had been slashed and stabbed. Then, without explanation, the killing stopped. For 11 months there was a break in the terror. But in April 1979 the nightmare began once more, with a new and even more terrifying variation.

Sutcliffe stopped stalking red light districts and started picking on lone women at random. On the night of 4 April, 19-year-old Josephine Whitaker, a clerk with the Halifax Building Society, had been to visit her grandparents. She left their house late to walk to the home which she shared with her parents less than a mile away.

As she crossed Savile Park she was stalked by Sutcliffe. He fractured her skull with one blow from a heavy hammer. After dragging her into the undergrowth he pulled off her clothing and stabbed her several times in the stomach with a specially sharpened Philips screwdriver.

Double hoax

In April and June of 1979 the police were cruelly thrown off course in their investigation by a double hoax. First, letters purporting to be from the Ripper were sent to the squad. They were given to newspapers to publish, hoping the handwriting would be recognised.

The letters were phoney. But worse was to come when a lengthy cassette tape by a man calling himself "Jack" was sent to the police. The speaker had a strong Geordie accent. Dialect experts narrowed the area still further to Sunderland.

For months, the police were convinced it was the voice of the real killer taunting them about his plans to kill again and how easily he had got away with things. They switched much of their effort to the Tyne and Wear area of north-east England.

One theory was that the killer had lived in Sunderland but had a job that brought him regularly to Leeds and Manchester. Meanwhile the Ripper continued his brutal attacks.

Student killing

The next to die was Barbara Leach, a second-year social science student at Bradford University. On 1 September 1979. she had spent the evening drinking with friends in the Mannville Arms pub. At about 1 a.m. she left to walk home to her digs in Grove Terrace. In Ash Grove, Sutcliffe attacked her.

Her body was found the next day, covered with discarded carpet held down by bricks. She had been stabbed repeatedly with the same screwdriver used to kill Josephine Whitaker. Another long break in the attacks then followed, leading to renewed speculation that the Ripper was dead or in jail for some other offence.

But in the summer of 1980 the nightmare began yet again. On 18 August civil servant Marguerite Walls, 47, worked late in her office at the Department of Education and Science in Parsley, between Bradford and Leeds. She had stayed on to clear up some correspondence because she was going on holiday the next day.

At about 10.30 p.m. she left to walk the mile to her home. Somewhere she fell prey to the Ripper. Her body was found two days later, covered with grass cuttings and leaves, in the garden of a large house. She had been killed with blows from a hammer and then strangled, but there were no knife wounds, a fact that caused several detectives to doubt if this was a 'genuine' Ripper murder.

In October and November there were more attacks, but both victims survived. The first was Dr Upadhya Bandara, a visitor from Singapore who had been on a course at the Nuffield Centre in Leeds. Sutcliffe threw a noose round her neck from behind and hit her on the head, but then changed his mind and fled, leaving his terrified victim bloody and dazed.

On Guy Fawkes night, 5 November, he attempted to attack 16-year-old Theresa Sykes in Huddersfield, but her boyfriend heard her screams and ran to help. Sutcliffe fled into the night.

The last murder

Twelve days later he committed his final killing. Language student Jacqueline Hill, studying at Leeds University, got off a bus in Otley Road, Leeds, to walk a few yards to her room in Lupton Flats, a hall of residence. She had been to a special meeting for voluntary probation officers.

Sutcliffe had been in a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant opposite the bus stop where she got off. He beat her to the ground with a hammer, then dragged her unconscious body to bushes, stripped her and stabbed her repeatedly, one wound piercing her eye. Her body was found the next day.

The elusive Ripper had again vanished without trace, but after five years on the loose his time was running out. On 2 January 1981, the urge to kill welled up from the dark recesses of his mind once more. Tucking his hammer and sharpened screwdriver in his car coat, he set off in his car (this time a Rover 3500) and headed for Sheffield.

On Melbourne Avenue he spotted Olive Reivers. She got into the front seat next to him and he offered her £10 for sex. Sutcliffe asked her to get into the back, but she refused, an answer which may have saved her life.

Chance interception

A few minutes later, as Sutcliffe planned his next move, a police car gently pulled up in front of them. Sergeant Bob Ring and PC Robert Hydes thought something looked odd about the registration of the Rover. While Ring used his radio to ask for a computer check on the number, Hydes spoke to the bearded man in the driver's seat, who gave his name as Peter Williams.

The driver then asked if he could get out to relieve himself and Hydes gave permission, keeping an eye on the driver as he stepped over to some bushes surrounding a fuel tank. What Hyde could not see in the darkness was the driver deftly dumping a hammer and sharpened screwdriver in the undergrowth.

By the time Sutcliffe got back to the car the computer check had been done. The plates were stolen and Sutcliffe was under arrest. At Hammerton Road police station he was charged. Again he asked to go to the lavatory. Once out of sight of the officers, he got rid of a knife by hiding it in the cistern.

But he retained a length of clothes line in his pocket, and that seemed very odd. West Yorkshire police had asked every force in the country to tell them if they arrested any men who were with prostitutes. So, after a night in the cells at Sheffield, Sutcliffe, who had now given the police his correct name, was driven to Dewsbury for further questions.

Ripper Squad Detective Inspector John Boyle interviewed him and began to get a cautious but definite feeling that this just might be the elusive Ripper. He told him he would be held in custody for another night for further inquiries to be made.

Meanwhile, in Sheffield, officers Ring and Hydes picked up the 'buzz' that over in Dewsbury they were still holding their prisoner from the night before, who was now being quizzed by the Ripper Squad. The penny dropped for both officers at the same time. Hydes and Ring raced to Melbourne Avenue.

It took only seconds of searching in the bushes by the fuel tank to find what they knew instinctively would be there - a ball-head hammer and a sharpened screwdriver. And back at the police station in Hammerton Road, a quick glance in the lavatory cistern came up trumps again: a knife.

The Ripper's confession

At Dewsbury, Boyle and Detective Sergeant Peter Smith, who had been on the Ripper trail from day one, almost jumped for joy. Returning to Sutcliffe's cell, Boyle let drop the news about the hammer and the other weapons. Sutcliffe, who had been chatty and helpful, fell silent.

Boyle told him: "I think you are in serious trouble." After a minute or so, Sutcliffe said: "I think you are leading up to the Yorkshire Ripper." Smith and Boyle were now trembling with excitement. Composing himself Boyle said: "Well, what about the Yorkshire Ripper?" "Well," said Sutcliffe, "that's me."

After admitting to police that he was the killer, Sutcliffe confessed to all his crimes. He readily agreed that he had killed 11 times, though the police were investigating 13 murders. He later told detectives: "You are probably right. I can't remember all the details of everything I have done."

Senior officers believed he had genuinely lost count of all his attacks. It took 17 hours to write down his full statement. He was eventually charged with 13 murders and seven attempted murders. Detectives were surprised to find out that Sutcliffe's rampage had gone back as far as 1969, when he had stalked a prostitute in Leeds and coshed her with a sock full of shingle.

But they were shocked when he told them that the same year he had gone out armed with a hammer, planning to kill, and had actually been arrested. He had been taken to court and was fined £25 for "going equipped for burglary".

Had Murder Squad police only known this after the murder of Wilma McCann, he could have been stopped there and then.

Hatred of prostitutes

Sutcliffe claimed that his hatred of prostitutes stemmed from an incident when he was 'ripped off for £5 by one. He told the detectives he had picked up the woman, who agreed to sex for £5. Sutcliffe could not raise an erection and gave up, but agreed to pay the woman.

He gave her a £10 note and she said she would come back with his change, but she failed to return. He told police: "I felt outraged and humiliated and embarrassed. I felt a hatred for the prostitute and her kind." He also admitted clubbing another prostitute unconscious in 1971 in Bradford.

Sutcliffe went on trial in the world famous Court One at the Old Bailey on 5 May 1981, 16 weeks after he was arrested. The trial almost never went ahead. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Anthony Havers, had agreed that Sutcliffe should be deemed mentally unfit to face trial.

But the judge, Mr Justice Boreham, insisted that a jury should have the right to decide if he was guilty of murder or not. Sutcliffe pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

But on 22 May the jury returned a verdict of guilty on 13 counts of murder and seven of attempted murder. He was jailed for life. with a recommendation that he should serve at least 30 years.