Peter Sutcliffe: The Yorkshire Ripper

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.

MURDER 1 – Wilma McCann, 30 October 1975

Wilma McCann probably never knew what hit her on that night in 1975. The Ripper had struck with the savagery that was to become his hallmark.

Wilma McCann was the first of the Ripper’s victims to die. The police could see several plausible motives for her death. They suspected her to a part –time prostitute who perhaps had come across a violent client; or, alternatively, as her purse had been stolen it could have been a robbery that went wrong. But there were no clear leads, and the mother of four’s murder was to remain unsolved for more than five years.

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 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, as if each victim had been struck by a small, heave 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 Phillips screwdriver. They were to become the Ripper’s signature. On 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 where 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 realized they were apart of the same pattern. And it was over four years before police realized 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.

MURDER 2 – Emily Jackson, 20 January 1976

Hammer blows followed by frenzied slashing with a knife were common factors in the early killings.

A complex personal life and what her husband described as an insatiable sexual appetite drew part-time prostitute Emily Jackson to her fatal encounter with the Ripper. Following the death of her 14-year old son, the Jacksons sought comfort in the pubs along Roundhay Road, Leeds. That was where Emily picked up her clients, so her husband was not worried when she failed to appear at closing time; he simply took a taxi home and went to bed. The next morning, Emily’s body was found between two derelict buildings by a workman taking a short cut. It was so horribly mutilated that case-hardened investigating officers were distraught with shock.

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 Phillips screwdriver Irene had set out the night before to go to a disco. But somewhere en route she had been waylaid by Sutcliffe, 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 disemboweling them or cutting out organs with a scalpel-type blade. Was the Leeds murderer inspired by these killings? The press was 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 police, moved out to London, Manchester or Birmingham. Many more set up business just a few miles away in Bradford.

MURDER 3 – Irene Richardson, 6 February 1977

Forced into prostitution in order to earn money to keep her young children, Irene Richardson went out on a winter’s night in 1977 looking for trade. Her savaged body was found by a jogger the next morning on a local park.

The Ripper did not strike again for a year. Irene Richardson was killed in Leeds, close to where Wilma McCann had been found. Her head was smashed with a hammer, and she had been almost disemboweled by frenzied slashes with a Stanley Knife.

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 about 2 a.m. On her way home she was stalked and waylaid by the Ripper.

Her body was found by children about 9.30 a.m. lying against a wall in Reginald Terrace. She had been hit three times with a ball-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 the 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.

MURDER 4 – Tina Atkinson, 23 April 1977

Tina Atkinson was killed at her flat in Bradford. The savagery of the attack bore all the hallmarks of the Ripper crime. However, detectives found a clue they had also picked up at an earlier murder, a print from a size seven boot.

Tina Atkinson was a divorced mother of three who entertained clients at her flat on the edge of Bradford’s red light district. It was there that she took the Ripper one warm Saturday evening, and her mutilated body was found the next day.

MURDER 5 – Jayne MacDonald, 25 June 1977

The death of a teenager Jayne MacDonald caused more public outrage than did the previous killings of prostitutes.

Jayne MacDonald was just 16 years old when she was ‘picked’ by the Ripper as she walked home late after a night out. Her body was found by children the following morning.

Fatal descriptions

She later described her assailant as having blonde 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 as 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 bushed to complete his grotesque ritual, something again put him to flight.

Sutcliffe drove back to Yorkshire, but he realized 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 bank note, 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.

MURDER 6 – Jean Jordan, 1 October 1977

Jean Jordan often visited relatives at short notice. She was not reported missing when she failed to return home after a night out.

The attack on Jean Jordan was the Ripper’s first murder in Manchester. However, he left a vital clue. Jean had been paid in advance with a brand new £5 note, which she had put into a secret pocket of her handbag. On leaving the scene he had forgotten to retrieve the note, which he knew could be traced by the police to the payrolls of two or three companies in Bradford. This so disturbed Sutcliffe that he returned to the body a week after the murder, but he could not find the money. In a fury the Ripper further mutilated the remains with a piece of glass.

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 on the body. Her corpse was found the next day.

Police then found the £5 note and realized 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 was 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 Helens 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 help 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.

MURDER 7 – Yvonne Pearson, 21 January 1978

In a tragic prophecy, Yvonne Pearson once said it would be just her luck to meet the Ripper. She did, fatally, on 21 January 1978.

Yvonne Pearson’s body lay concealed for two months after her death. It was also the site of a minor Ripper mystery that has never been solved, how did a neatly folded copy of the Daily Mirror dated a month after her death come to be tucked under her arm? After his arrest, Sutcliffe denied ever revisiting the body.

MURDER 8 – Helen Rytka, 31 January 1978

Helen Rytka was the Yorkshire Ripper’s eighth victim. She was killed by the horribly familiar series of savage hammer blows.

Working with her twin sister, Helen Rytka’s system for evading trouble involved each of them taking it in turns to go with clients while the other waited for her sister’s safe return. On the night she met the Ripper, though, Helen broke her own rules and met a horrifically violent end in a timber yard.

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 fro 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-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 her 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.

MURDER 9 – Vera Millward, 16 May 1978

Four months after he murder of Helen Rytka, the Ripper returned to Manchester. Vera Millward, mother of seven, died in a frenzied attack which took place in the well-lit grounds of the Manchester Royal Infirmary.

In May 1978 the Ripper again crossed the Pennines to kill in Manchester. The body of 41-year old prostitute Vera Millward was found with the characteristic Ripper injuries including a stomach wound so severe that her intestines had spilled out.

MURDER 10 – Josephine Whitaker, 4 April 1979

Four years after his vicious on the office cleaner Olive Smelt, the Ripper was back in Halifax. This time he chose a building society clerk. Josephine Whitaker as his victim, taking her life in Savile Park, close to her home.

When Josephine Whitaker was attacked after a gap of almost a year, she was just a few minutes walk from her home in Halifax. She had been on one of her regular evening visits to her grandparents. Police received thousands of calls after the murder because Josephine was another teenage victim, a clerk with the Halifax Building Society.

Double hoax

In April and June 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 recognized. 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 Manville 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 breaks in the attacks then followed, leading to renewed speculation that the Ripper was dead or in jail or 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 Farsley, between Bradford and Leeds. She had stayed on to clear up some correspondence because she was going on holiday the next dat. 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 Nuffield Centre in Leeds. Sutcliffe threw a noose around 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 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 residents. 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 a 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 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.

MURDER 11 – Barbara Leach, 1 September 1979

After an evening spent in a local pub, Barbara Leach went out to clear her head in the night air. She was to become the Ripper’s 11^th victim. Barbara was found partly concealed in a black alley, yards from where a friend had last seen her.

Just before the start of a new term, Bradford social sciences student Barbara Leach and some friends went for a night out at the Mannville Arms pub. At the end of the evening Barbara decided to get a breath of fresh air by walking home. She asked a flatmate to wait up for her and set off in the rain, but she had barely gone 200 yards before being violently assaulted by the Ripper. When she did not arrive home her flatmates thought she might have met another friend or stayed elsewhere. By late the next day, however, they were worried and reported her missing. Her body was found by a police officer the next day. She had been left in a back alley, under an old carpet which was weighed down with stones.

MURDER 12 – Marguerite Walls, 18 August 1980

Due to go on annual leave the next day, 47-year old Marguerite Walls was killed while walking home after staying late at work to clear her desk. Her body was found the next morning by two gardeners.

After another pause of nearly a year, the Ripper struck again. Marguerite ‘Margot’ Walls was a 47-year old civil servant who had been walking home after working late. She was bludgeoned and strangled as she passed through a respectable suburb of Leeds. Her body was dumped in a garden, just yards from the local police house.

MURDER 13 – Jacqueline Hill, 17 November 1980

Jacqueline Hill was attacked by the Ripper during the walk from a bus stop to her student flat.

After killing Marguerite Walls in October Peter Sutcliffe had carried out two savage but non fatal attacks, on a 34-year old girl in Huddersfield. His fourth attack in a month was on Leeds student Jacqueline Hill. The Ripper stalked his victim as she got off the bus near the university hall of residents where she lived. He struck as she was within 100 yards of safety, dragging her to some waste ground where he carried out his by now ritual mutilations. Jacqueline’s bag was found later that evening and reported to the police, but her body was not discovered until the next day. She was to be the last victim of Peter Sutcliffe’s murderous attacks.

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, Hyde’s spoke to the beard 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 Hyde 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 a 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 seconds of searching in the bushes by the fuel tank to find what they knew instinctively would be there, a ball-headed 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 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 would 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.

Timetable of Terror

1969

Sutcliffe stalked a prostitute in Leeds, and coshed her with a sock full of shingle. The same year he had also gone out armed with a hammer, intending to kill, and had been arrested, but was only fined £25 for being “equipped for burglary”.

5 July 1975

Anna Rogulskyj, aged 34, was attacked with a hammer by an unknown man in Keighley.

15 August 1975

Another attack took place, on 46-year old office cleaner Olive Smelt.

30 October 1975

Sutcliffe killed his first victim, Wilma McCann, a 28-year old prostitute in Leeds, near her home in Scott Hall Avenue.

20 January 1976

The second victim, 42-year old Emily Jackson was found dead in the Chapeltown area of Leeds. Police realized that they had a potential serial killer on their hands.

9 May 1976

Twenty-year-old Marcella Claxton was attacked by a dark-bearded man in Roundhay Park. Leeds, but he ran off when she screamed.

6 February 1977

A part-time prostitute, 28-year old Irene Richardson, was found dead on open ground, at Soldiers Field, part of Roundhay Park. Newspaper reports began to dub the killer ‘The Yorkshire Ripper’.

23 April 1977

Leeds prostitutes were terrified and many of them moved. The Ripper moved to, he killed 32-year old Tina Atkinson in Bradford.

25 June 1977

The next murder victim was 16-year old Jayne MacDonald, who worked in a shop in Leeds. The Ripper stalked her as she walked home from a night out.

27 July 1977

The next victim survived. Maureen Long was propositioned and struck with a hammer, but the Ripper ran off. Her recollection of a blonde-haired attacker confused police efforts for some time, one of a series of conflicting descriptions.

1 October 1977

The Ripper crossed the Pennines to Manchester, and killed 20-year old prostitute Jean Jordan. He left her body in a cemetery but realized that he had given her a new £5 note, which could potentially be traced to him. He returned to the body but could not find it.

14 December 1977

Marilyn Moore was attacked with a hammer in Leeds but her assailant fled, and she survived.

21 January 1978

The Ripper killer 22-year old Yvonne Pearson. Her body was not found for two months.

31 January 1978

Only 10 days later the eighth victim, Helen Rytka, was murdered in Huddersfield. She was an 18-year old prostitute.

In March 1978 the body of Yvonne Pearson was found. A newspaper that was dated a month after she had been killed was found under her arm.

16 May 1978

In Manchester once more, the Ripper killed Vera Millward, a 41-year old Spanish-born prostitute. This murder was followed by an 11-month pause in the killings.

4 April 1979

The next victim was 19-year old Josephine Whitaker, a building society clerk.

In April and June of the same year, police were sidetracked by hoax letters and a cassette tape, which caused them to divert their investigation to Sunderland.

1 September 1979

Barbara Leach, a student at Bradford University, was murdered on the way home from an evening with friends. Another long break in the killings followed.

18 August 1980

Another murder took place in Farsley, between Bradford and Leeds. The victim was 47-year old civil servant Marguerite Walls.

Two more women were attacked, Dr Upadhya Bandara in October, and 16-year old Theresa Sykes in November, but both survived.

17 November 1980

The Ripper’s last murder. Student Jacqueline Hill was killed in Otley Road, Leeds.

2 January 1981

The Ripper picked up Olive Reivers in Sheffield, but passing police officers were suspicious about his car and he was arrested, but not before he had dumped his weapons.

He was taken to Dewsbury police station as part of a round-up in which the West Yorkshire police had asked to be informed of men arrested while consorting with prostitutes. The arresting officers, realizing that their suspect was now part of the Ripper enquiry, returned to the scene and found the weapons. Also, a knife was found in a lavatory cistern at Hammerton Road police station, where Sutcliffe had hidden it. Faced with the evidence, Sutcliffe confessed.

22 May 1981

After his trial at the Old Bailey, in which he pleased guilty to manslaughter but not guilty to murder, Sutcliffe was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

“I’m Jack” Investigation

The “I’m Jack” hoax letters and tape caused a great deal of confusion and time-wasting on the investigation. The tape that taunted and haunted the Ripper squad arrived in the post at the West Yorkshire police HQ on 18 June 1979. It was immediately linked with three letters that had come in during the previous 15 months. Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield and his boss Ronald Gregory weighed the evidence, and decided it was genuine. The tape and letters gave them what they thought was a host of clues: voice, handwriting, even a blood group from the saliva used to seal the envelopes. They hoped that by broadcasting the tape it would be only days before the Ripper was pinpointed. Linguistic experts said the voice on the tape was a Sunderland accent, and Oldfield sent a team to the Wearside town to stand by. But as soon as the tape was played on TV and radio they were swamped with thousands of calls claiming to know whose voice it was. All had to be checked out.

Officially the senior officers kept a firm front, sticking to the story that they believed the message were real. In private they were having doubts, especially when Detective Chief Inspector David Zackrisson of Northumbria police gave them a report which showed that 10 phrases in the letters were very similar to phrases used in letters sent to police in London by Jack the Ripper in 1888. Zackrisson warned that the whole affair could be an elaborate hoax. The Geordie voice could simply be someone who had studied the original Ripper case from the 1880s.

Detection – The Ripper Exposed

Was Peter Sutcliffe a cold-blooded killer or a helpless psychotic, unstable to control his vicious urges? Sutcliffe told the Old Bailey jury that he killed prostitutes because he had been receiving “messages from God” since he was a 20-year old grave digger, saying that he should go out and “clean up the streets” by killing vice girls. Three eminent psychiatrists had interviewed Sutcliffe and each formed the view that he was a paranoid schizophrenic who suffered delusions he was on “a mission from God”.

But his defence could not explain why in 17 hours of interviews with the police after he admitted to being the Ripper, he never once mentioned the messages from God. And at his trial, a prison officer who had been guarding Sutcliffe whole he was on remand claimed that he had heard him telling his wife that he planned to con the court into believing only a short time in psychiatric hospital.

The prosecution argued that Sutcliffe was a sex killer who carefully planned his attacks and had a little remorse afterwards. Six of his murders showed clear signs of sexual sadism. Although Sutcliffe did not rape, he got his thrills by knifing and mutilating his victims, in effect, rape with a knife.

Although he had ‘excused’ his early crimes to himself by only killing prostitutes, his sadistic urges to kill and mutilate became so strong that in the end any female victim would do. After his conviction, Sutcliffe was sent to the maximum security wing of Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of White. He as a marked man, reviled by most other prisoners for his crimes against innocent women. In 1983 he was attacked by another inmate, who slashed his face with a broken coffee jar. It needed 84 stitches to repair the damage.

In 1984 he got his wish to serve time in a ‘loony bin’. After prison staff noticed his mental condition was deteriorating he was moved to the maximum security mental hospital at Broadmoor, where he is still detained, with little prospect of ever being released back into society.

Biography – Peter Sutcliffe: Born to kill

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 exercise 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 a 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.

Shotgun Suicide?

At first glance it was an open and shut case. The body was on the bed, a huge hole blown through its face. On the floor lay a shotgun. It looked like suicide, but was it?

The body lay on its back on the bed. Blood shone obscenely in the light, from a hole which had been punched through the head: a fist sized hole, right between the eyes. It was not a pretty sight. Still, the uniformed police who were first on the scene were used to such sights. After all, this was Miami, and Miami could be a rough city.

Monday 8 September 1986 had just begun. The long Miami weekend was drawing to a close, and the operators manning the lines of Miami’s ‘911’ emergency telephone service had had a typically busy time, but the rush was now over.

“Jack’s been shot!”

The call came just before one in the morning. It was a tragically routine affair in the crime ridden Florida metropolis. A distraught female voice had cried “Jack’s been shot!”

Police were sent to Number 80, North West 69^th Avenue. The house was in a poor to middle-class area of Miami, a part of the city where violent crime was not unusual.

First on the scene were the uniformed officers, dispatched on receipt of the 911 call, who arrived at the house within minutes. They were soon joined by detectives from the Miami City Police’s homicide department and the duty Medical Examiner from Metro-Dade County, who is called in on any occasion of violent death.

The house was a low, one storey building. On entering, the first thing the investigators noticed was the unusual décor. There were fur rugs everywhere, and on the walls there was a collection of native spears. The bedroom, on the south side of the house, was dominated by a large, fur-covered water-bed. A lamp with a Harley-Davidson share lit the scene.

Lying on its back across the bed, partly covered by a quilt and Indian-style blanket, was a man’s body. The body was black-haired and heavily bearded. One blue eye gleamed in the light; the other eye had been obliterated and most of the left side of the face was covered in blood.

Biker kit

The dead man was pretty big, just under six feet tall and heavily built. He was dressed like a biker, in a black T-shirt, blue jeans, black boots and a snake skin belt. A photo of the man mounted on a Harley-Davidson lay on the bedside table next to some empty plastic bags that had possibly contained cocaine. A roach clip, a device to hold a marijuana ‘joint’ so that it can be smoked right down to the end, was also on the table.

On the floor behind the door, only a few inches away from the body’s booted feet, lay a Smith & Wesson pump-action shotgun, it had just been fired once.

The dead man’s name was Jack Sebastian, and it was his girlfriend, Diane Sheldon, who had called the police. New she began to tell the investigating officers what had happened.

Homicide connection

Marginally involved in Miami’s drugs trade, Sebastian had been named in connection with a recent homicide. He was free on bail for the moment, but with a court case hanging over his head he had become very depressed.

The couple had been out drinking at the nearby Pine Tree Lounge, and had an argument. According to Diane, Jack had threatened suicide, and he had left the bar while she was in the bathroom. She had stayed and had a lot to drink.

Girlfriend’s story

On returning to the house, Diane claimed that she had found Sebastian sitting on the bed holding a shotgun. He said that he was going to kill himself, and fired one shot.

At first glance the scene did indeed look like a suicide, and the first police reports tentatively came to that conclusion. But Lyvia A. Alvarez, the Medical Examiner on the scene, had her doubts. Most gun suicides are carried out with the muzzle of the gun in contact with the skin.

In this case, however, there was a massive entry wound between the eyes, which was larger than would have been expected with a contact shot. Additionally, there was extensive ‘stippling’, small black powder marks, all over the forehead, nose and stretching down as far as the lower lip.

Shotguns fire a cloud of lead shot, which expands the further it files from the muzzle. The extent of marking on Jack Sebastian’s face indicated that the muzzle of the shotgun had been some distance from the skin when it was fired. This conclusion was enough for the police to change their findings from suicide to possible homicide, pending autopsy and ballistic reports.

Was it murder?

The body was removed to the Metro-Dade County Medical Examiner’s Department, where Dr Alvarez conducted the post mortem examination the following morning. The cause of death was obviously the gunshot wound to the head. The path of the wound was from right to left, and downwards. In other words, the weapon had been fired from above the victim’s head and to the right. The investigators thought it was extremely unlikely that a suicide would hold a long weapon like a shotgun above his head and to one side, another pointer towards murder.

Ballistic tests

The next stage was to examine the shotgun taken from the scene and the fired shotgun shell in it’s chamber. The gun was a standard Smith & Wesson Model 916 pump-action weapon; it had had its serial number obliterated, indicating that it had been illegally acquired.

The Metro-Dade Crime Laboratory first fired a shell through the shotgun, and then the ballistic experts made a microscopic comparison with the case found in the gun at the scene. They confirmed that both had been fired from the same gun.

The ballistic experts then tested the performance of the gun. Several rounds were fired and the spread of shot was measured at various distances. The findings indicated that the fatal shot had been fired with the shotgun’s muzzle between 18 inches and two feet away from Jack Sebastian’s head.

The next step was to check whether Sebastian’s arms could stretch far enough to reach the trigger of the shotgun. Tests conducted with the body showed that they were, but only if the muzzle was positioned right up against the face.

It was just possible for a big man to commit suicide and get the required muzzle clearance, but only by holding the gun between his legs and triggering the weapon with his toes. Bit it fired in that way the shot would have entered the head from below. In any case, Sebastian had been wearing boots when found, and he could not have pulled the trigger. If it could not have been suicide, then it had to be murder.

Obvious suspect

Diane Shelton was the obvious suspect. She had already admitted to arguing with her boyfriend, and her original suicide story was a lie. Presented with incontrovertible scientific proof, she admitted to killing her lover.

On the night in question she had gone back to Sebastian’s house. Very much the worse for drink, she was angry at being left in the Pine Tree Lounge. The argument which had started in the bar continued, and she threatened him with the shotgun. One shot, and Jack Sebastian was dead.

Diane Shelton was tried in October 1987, accused of second-degree murder. In her defence she claimed that she had been drunk and had not known that the weapon was loaded. Nevertheless, she was convicted and sentenced to a long term of imprisonment.

Bodies under the Bridge

The Ruxton case is one of the most horrific and shocking murders in British criminal history. More significantly, it also represents one of the earliest major triumphs of medical detection.

On the morning of Sunday 29 September 1935, Susan Haines Johnson, an early autumn visitor to the southern uplands of Scotland, crossed an old stone bridge about two miles north of the town of Moffat. As she looked idly over the bridge, Miss Johnson could scarcely believe her eyes: a disembodied human arm was reaching up out of a bundle at the bottom of the steep gully.

Susan Johnson told her brother Alfred who, after making his own brief investigation, told the police. That afternoon two local police officers began the grisly job of combing the tangled bankside of the Linn for pieces of flesh and bone.

The fragments were removed to the tiny mortuary attached to Moffat Cemetery. The search was resumed on the following morning, when other portions were discovered and initially examined by two local Moffat doctors.

More discoveries

The search continued until October, when an unsuccessful hunt by bloodhounds convinced the police that nothing further was to be found in the immediate vicinity, Then, on 28 October, a left foot was found wrapped in newspaper on the Glasgow-Carlisle road, nine miles south of Moffat. Also on 4 November a young woman found a right forearm and hand lying by the roadside about half a mile south of the original site.

By this time Professor John Glaister, head of Edinburgh University’s Forensic Science Department, accompanied by Dr Gilbert Millar of the University of Edinburgh, had visited the scene of the first discoveries, and had gone to the mortuary to make their first examination of the remains.

In all, 70 pieces of what appeared to be two bodies had been collected. One parcel contained two heads, one of which was wrapped in a pair of child’s rompers. Another piece of flesh was wrapped in the Sunday Graphic, which later proved to be an important clue.

The ears, eyes, nose, lips and skin of the faces had been removed, and some teeth extracted. The terminal joints of the fingers had been cut off, presumably to prevent identification by fingerprints. Nevertheless, one of the heads could be confidently ascribed to a young woman, while the other, after initially being thought to be male, was later identified as belonging to an older woman.

Vital newspaper clue

Officers closely examined the materials in which the dismembered remains were wrapped for any clue as to the origin of the victims. One of the bundles contained sheets of the Sunday Graphic, 15 September 1935. It so happened that this was a special edition containing features on the Morecambe festival and was sold only in Morecambe, Lancaster and the immediate area.

This alerted the Chief Constable of Dumfries, under whose leadership the investigation was proceeding, who had read an account of the disappearance three weeks previously of a young woman named Mary Jane Rogerson, who had been employed as a nursemaid by the family of a Lancaster doctor named Buck Ruxton.

Astonishing disappearance

The police investigated further and found to their astonishment that the doctor’s wife, Isabella Ruxton, had disappeared at the same time.

A distraught Mrs Jessie Rogerson, step-mother to Mary Jane, was brought in to see whether she could identify any of the material that had been used to wrap the grisly remains. Mrs Rogerson immediately picked out the blouse which she had given to Mary Jane after repairing it with a distinctive patch under one arm.

Following more information from Jessie Rogerson, the child’s rompers were later identified by a woman who had apparently passed on some children’s clothing to Mrs Ruxton when the family had stayed with her as boarders the previous summer.

So the connection between the dismembered bodies, the reports of missing Lancaster women and the family of Dr Buck Ruxton was now at least established, if not proved. At this point the main thrust of the investigation was placed in the hands of Captain Henry Vann, Chief Constable of Lancaster.

Dr Buck Ruxton had been born in 1899 to a Parsee family living in Bombay. Christened Bukhtyar Rustamji Ratanji Hakim, he abbreviated his first name to Buck Hakim. Later, in England, he changed it by deed poll to Buck Ruxton. Ruxton had gained his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degrees at the University of Bombay.

Fateful meeting

He had also attended Edinburgh University, where, although he failed to secure his fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons, he met Isabella Kerr. Miss Kerr managed a café in the city and was at the time married to a Dutchman.

Ruxton and Isabella too up together but never married, though when he secured the practice at No. 2 Dalton Square, in Lancaster, they lived together as Mr and Mrs Ruxton and she bore him three children. The household was completed by Mary Jane Rogerson, a cheerful girl of 20 whose duty it was to help with the children. There was also two live-out charladies, Agnes Oxley and Elizabeth Curwen.

Jealous relationship

The Ruxton’s relationship was not entirely harmonious, characterized by his insane, and quite groundless, jealousy.

In 1932 Mrs Ruxton attempted suicide, and two years later left her husband and fled to her sister’s home in Edinburgh. She was finally persuaded by a hysterically sobbing Ruxton to go back to Lancaster, but it was clear that the relationship was nearing crisis. A year after her return, Isabella Ruxton was wrongly accused of having an affair with a young local man named Edmondson, the son of family and friends, and on 7 September 1935 again escaped back to Edinburgh, with the Edmonson family.

On her return, Ruxton began a tirade of abuse that was to last most of the following week, until Mrs Ruxton went to Blackpool to meet her two sisters for the day. To Buck Ruxton, it seemed obvious that she had gone to meet a new lover.

Isabella Ruxton returned home on that Saturday night, 14 September. She was never seen alive outside 2 Dalton Square again; nor was Mary Rogerson.

Holiday alibi

Mrs Curwen was working at the Ruxton’s home on Friday 13 September 1935 when Dr Ruxton told her that she could go home and need not return until the following Monday. Mrs Oxley received a message via her husband that, as Mrs Ruxton and Mary had gone on holiday to Edinburgh, there was no need to come on Sunday as planned.

Shortly before midday on that Sunday Ruxton deposited his three children with friends of the family. When he arrived he complained of a cut hand, injured, he said, while opening a tin of fruit for the children’s breakfast. He was to make much of the cut to everybody he met over the following days.

At 4.30 that afternoon Ruxton visited a Mrs Mary Hampshire, one of his patients and after relating the story of the cut hand persuaded her to return with him to Dalton Square to help “prepare for the decorators”, who were expected to arrive the following morning. He explained that Mrs Ruxton and Mary were away in Edinburgh.

In retrospect, this invitation to Mrs Hampshire (and later to her husband as well) was either grossly arrogant or grossly stupid. This woman’s evidence alone could have convicted the doctor at his trial, she saw rolled-up carpets soaked with blood, strange stains on the bath, clothing stained with blood, and similarly stained blue suit which Ruxton had the audaciry to offer as a gift to Mr Hampshire.

Bloodstained clues

Scientific investigators, in collaboration with the police, established that other items of stained clothing and carpet had littered the yard at the side of the house, and police were told that fires had been seen blazing at all hours of the day and night; charred fabric identified as having been Mary Rogerson’s clothing was found in the ashes.

An unwholesome smell had been noticed by the charladies, and Ruxton had been obliged to spray the house with air freshener and eau-de-Cologne. Scraps of human tissue were found in the drains and waste pipes leading from the bath, and extensive bloodstains were present on the stairs and stair carpets, bathroom walls and floor, and on various items of clothing.

Meanwhile, at Edinburgh University, Professor Glaister had enlisted the help of anatomists and dental experts to help prove the identity of the remains. Professor James Brash of the Department of Anatomy began the painstakingly slow reconstruction of the two bodies.

Both heads had been deliberately mutilated to hinder identification, with a neatness that pointed to extensive medical knowledge on the part of the murderer. But luckily the two heads were markedly different in size and shape, and photographs of the two missing Lancaster women enabled the investigators to compare the skulls, and prove identity, a technique never before used in criminal investigation.

Ascertaining the cause of death presented predictable problems. In ‘Body No. 1’ (now established as that of Mary Rogerson), the neck and trunk with its internal organs were never recovered, making cause of death impossible to establish, though swelling of the tongue was consistent with asphyxia. ‘Body No. 2’ (established as that of Mrs Ruxton) exhibited a congested state of the lungs and brain which, associated with the damaged condition of the hyoid cone in the throat, indicated manual strangulation.

Charged with murder

The police were by now convinced that the case was watertight, and on the evening of 12 October Dr Ruxton was invited to call in at the police station to answer some further questions. At seven the following morning Captain Vann charged him with the murder of Mary Jane Rogerson. On 5 November Buck Ruxton was additionally charged with the murder of his wife.

Ruxton’s trial opened at the High Court of Justice, Manchester, on Monday 2 March 1936. The prosecution suggested that Mary Rogerson had been a witness to the murder of Mrs Ruxton by the doctor after a violent quarrel, and so had also been killed.

The jury required just over an hour to return a verdict of guilty. An appeal was lodged but was dismissed, and Ruxton was left to face the hangman on 12 May 1936, at Strangeways Prison in Manchester.

The End