13/03/05 - Return to the house
of evil
By David Hudson And Terry O'Hanlon
Sunday Mirror
THE wife of Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe has moved
back into the House of Evil where he planned his murders.
Ex-schoolteacher Sonia Sutcliffe has shocked police
and neighbours by returning to the home she shared with
the notorious serial killer. She has tidied up the garden
and put her name back on the electoral roll.
The move follows the collapse of her seven-year marriage
to hairdresser Michael Woodward.
One long-term neighbour in Bradford, West Yorkshire,
said last night: "Why did she have to come back
and re-awaken the horror?
"We know that he hid his hammers, knives and screwdrivers
in that garage-workshop. He washed bloodstained clothes
in the side kitchen and burned them in the garden,
"We had managed to forget the nightmares, but
this just brings everything back."
Sonia, who now works as a stress counsellor, recently
moved her belongings out of the flat in Saltaire, West
Yorkshire, she shared with her second husband. The couple
still talk regularly and the split is believed to be
on friendly terms.
She has been seen scrubbing and polishing in the four-bedroom,
bow-fronted detached home in Garden Lane in the Heaton
area of Bradford. Her mother Maria Szurma had been living
there until her death from throat cancer two years ago,
and it stood empty until Sonia's return.
The Sunday Mirror has also learned that 54-year-old
Sonia has increased her visits to deranged Sutcliffe
at Broadmoor Hospital in Berkshire. There are suspicions
at the secure mental hospital that she has become extremely
jealous following stories linking the Ripper with a
series of women pen pals.
One Broadmoor insider said: "Sonia's support helps
keep Sutcliffe going. Although they are divorced it
is obvious they are still very close. He recently talked
to her excitedly about the possibility he could one
day be a free man."
Sutcliffe, 58, and Sonia, the daughter of Czech refugees,
paid £16,000 for their home in 1977 when they
moved in. Today the property, which they still jointly
own, is worth 10 times more. If Sonia ever wants to
sell it the Legal Aid Trust will try to claim her ex-husband's
share of the proceeds
Sutcliffe - an ex-gravedigger who says he was told
to murder prostitutes "by voices" he heard
from a gravestone - had already started on his sadistic
reign of slaughter when they moved in.
His long-distance lorry driving gave him the freedom
to become Britain's most feared serial killer
He would venture out to slay and mutilate prostitutes,
then return to hide his murder weapons and remove possible
clues before climbing into bed with his wife.
In 1984 Sutcliffe was given 20 life sentences for 13
murders and seven attempted murders between 1975 and
1980 - but police believe another 50 women may have
been attacked or killed by him.
Today Sonia, who knew nothing about the killings until
her husband was caught, is a virtual recluse and is
seen only occasionally by neighbours.
As soon as she moved in she started to tidy up the
old house and neighbours say it now shines like a new
pin.
But the years have taken their toll on her good looks
and well-dressed image. Gone are the flowing locks,
smart clothes and once-familiar dark glasses that she
wore for Sutcliffe's court appearances. Last week as
she stepped out briefly from the side door of the 1930s-built
house, her hair was ruffled and her face strained. She
was dressed in a multi-coloured woollen jumper, a thick
coat to stave off the biting wind blowing from the Yorkshire
Moors, with a pair of clogs on her feet and a pair of
baggy tracksuit bottoms completing her look.
She has few friends, but keeps in touch with her older
sister Marianne, who has a homeopathic treatment practice
near Wembley, North London.
Her life entered a new phase when she married 45-year-old
Michael Woodward - who bears a remarkable similarity
to the dark-haired, bearded Ripper - seven years ago.
She first mer him when she made an appointment at the
Bradford hair salon where he works - but the marriage
was not to last
Meanwhile, Broadmoor insiders she Peter Sutcliffe's
weight has ballooned to 22 stone. He is now unrecognisable
from the familiar pictures of him as a younger man.
But he clings to the belief that he will eventually
be freed, claiming he is now sane and no longer a threat
to women. He also wants to be let out to visit his sister,
who is dying of cancer.
Sutcliffe had been planning to re-marry. But last week
the Sunday Mirror revealed that he has been dumped by
his bride-to-be, grandmother Pam Mills, 54.
She ended their 15-year romance in an emotional phone
call after her son Darren Platts and daughter Amanda
"persuaded her to see sense".
Pam, from Leicester, had written the Ripper 3,000 letters
and visited him in Broadmoor since 1990. They got engaged
in December and planned to wed in the chapel at the
hospital.
However, one woman still stands by her man - Sonia.
Despite divorcing 10 years ago, she still keeps their
wedding photos on her bedside table.
"It's as if he has a magnetic hold over her,"
said the neighbour. |
