Casefile True Crime - Case 37: The Yorkshire Ripper (Part 1)

Episode Date: October 22, 2016

[Part 1 of 3] West Yorkshire is a county in England that has a population of over 2 million people. It covers an area of over 2,000 km² and is formed by five cities: Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Kirklees, and Calderdale. Each one of these cities has its own history, its own identity, and its own voice. But during the 1970’s, they were all united. The residents of each city were looking over their shoulders, praying they wouldn’t be the next victim, in one man’s reign of terror who the press named, “The Yorkshire Ripper.” Research for this episode by Victoria Dieffenbacher. Co-written by Victoria Dieffenbacher and the Anonymous Host. For all credits and sources please visit casefilepodcast.com/case-37-yorkshire-ripper-part-1

West Yorkshire is a county in England that has a population of over 2 million people. It covers an area of over 2,000 kilometres squared and is formed by five cities, Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Kirkleys and Calderdale. Each one of these cities has its own history, its own identity and its own voice. During the 1970s they were all united. The residents of each city were looking over their shoulders, praying they wouldn't be the next victim in one man's reign of terror, the press named the Yorkshire River. At 7.30pm on the 29th of October 1975, Wilma McCann, a resident of Leeds, told her nine-year-old daughter, Sonia, that she was going

to town. She said she'd be back later that night. She instructed Sonia not to let the younger children out of bed. Wilma then left the home, walking out the back door. When Sonia woke up the next morning, she saw her mother hadn't arrived home. She took her younger brother to a nearby bus stop and stood there waiting, as that was the stop that Wilma used to travel. Sonia and her brother remained there waiting for their mum until a neighbour spotted them and returned them home. They were wearing school coats over their pyjamas. At 7.41am that morning, a milkman who was making the early rounds with his brother stopped in the car park of the Prince Philip football fields. He got out to deliver a crate of milk. He spotted what he believed was a Halloween costume of some

sort. He walked closer to have a better look and that's when he realised it was the body of a woman. Terrified, he took his brother away from the scene and ran to a nearby phone. He called the police and said he'd found a woman with a throat cup. The woman was Wilma McCann. Her body was found only a few hundred metres away from her home. Her slacks had been pulled down below her knees, her blouse and jacket had been ripped apart, her bra was pulled up and her handbag was still looped around her left hand. A group of detectives along with a forensic pathologist arrived and saw that the cut throat that the milkman described was actually a deep stab wound. There were numerous other stab wounds around her body. The forensic pathologist David G determined Wilma had been

murdered at the exact location she was found. There was no sign of sexual assault. G performed Wilma's post-mortem later that afternoon. He firstly discovered two lacerations to the scalp of Wilma's head. These had been missed at the scene as they were covered by her long hair. One of the lacerations wasn't severe but the other one was two inches long and had fractured her skull. G concluded that the attack had started while Wilma being struck on the left side of her head with a blunt object. G thought it was possible that the object was a hammer but he initially favoured an adjustable spanner. He determined the stab wounds came after Wilma had been struck. G said the attack had occurred in the very early hours of the morning,

most likely just after midnight and that it had lasted only minutes. Dennis Hoban, the head of Leeds Criminal Investigation Branch, was the officer in charge of the case. He started by finding out all he could about Wilma McCann. Wilma was born in Scotland and had 10 brothers and sisters. According to her mother she was brought up strictly and had to be in bed by 10 p.m. every night. In her early teens when her father discovered she was wearing makeup he took it from her and buried it in the garden. Once she finished school she travelled to Perth, Australia and worked at a hotel. At 19 she became pregnant and gave birth to her daughter Sonia.

Soon after she met Gerald McCann from Ireland. They married on the 7th of October 1968 and later moved to Leeds where father Wilma's brothers already lived. They had two more daughters and one son. In February 1974 they separated. Apparently during their marriage Wilma went out at night a lot and slept with other men. Gerald found out, grew tired of her behaviour and left the house. He met another woman and had another child. He still saw his daughters and son after school and as time went on he became increasingly worried about the situation his children were experiencing at home. Wilma needed money to support her children and during the evening

she left the house to go out and engage in sex work. Because of this her young children were home alone for long hours. Wilma had also started abusing alcohol. When police searched Wilma's house they found it filthy and neglected. They also found an address book which contained a large number of Wilma's clients. Detective Hoban made an appeal through the press for the clients to come forward. Hoban was very savvy with using the public to help solve crimes. He had a great deal of experience and had solved over 40 murders throughout his career. Hoban was concerned that Wilma was a sex worker. The truth of the time was the public was notoriously unsympathetic towards sex workers and Hoban was well aware of this. He referred to Wilma's clients as

boyfriends in the press and when appealing for help he shared pictures of Wilma's children in an attempt to strike a chord with the public. Hoban was able to pinpoint Wilma's last movements. After she left home at 7 30 p.m. on the 29th she visited several city centre pubs where she stayed until 10 30 p.m. At 11 30 p.m. she was seen on her own at a nightclub called The Room. Her last positive sighting was around 1 a.m. when two officers in a patrol car spotted her walking along Mean Wood Road. Other witnesses mentioned seeing her in her drunken state staggering and jumping in front of cars to try and stop them and get a lift home. A lab report confirmed she'd consumed between 12 and 14 measures of alcohol that night. Other witnesses came forward and said they saw

Wilma talking to a truck driver. In response to this information Detective Hoban organised several late-night roadblocks. He set up the roadblocks along the route Wilma had taken after she left the nightclub. It wasn't long before they identified the truck driver. The driver admitted to stopping and talking to Wilma but he didn't take her home when she asked for a lift. He said she was well and truly drunk clutching a white plastic container with a curry and chips. A few days later another witness came forward and said he'd seen Wilma getting into a K registered car. The car was either red or orange coloured and of a model similar to a Hillman Avenger. A K registration plate refers to the time period the registration

plate was issued. K plates were issued between August 71 and July 72. The witness had also gotten a look at the male driver of the car. He was described as possibly West Indian or African, aged around 35 years old with a full face and a thin droopy mustache. He was wearing a donkey jacket which was popular amongst construction workers. Five weeks later 29 of Wilma's former clients had been interviewed and eliminated from the inquiry and the police were still searching for the man in the K registered car. Over the Christmas and New Year period Detective Hoven questioned sex workers in the Chapeltown area of Leeds which was the red light district where Wilma had lived and worked. Although Hoven didn't find information about the driver he was

looking for he did receive information about a suspicious man aged around 50 possibly Irish who drove a worn out Land Rover and who often cruised the Chapeltown area. In order to help jog the memory of potential witnesses police came up with the idea of dressing a female police officer in Wilma's clothes and then superimposed Wilma's face from another photograph so it would be like they had a picture of her the night she was murdered. 2000 posters were printed with this image and distributed to shops around the area of Chapeltown. Unfortunately no useful information came from this. By now the forensic pathologist David G had processed all of the swabs he had taken from the crime scene. He discovered traces of semen on the back of Wilma's trousers. Tests

were unable to determine a blood group but the fact the semen was discovered there told them that the killer had probably masturbated over her after the murder. Newspapers described Wilma's murder as a Jack the Ripper type of crime. Eight weeks and five days after Wilma's murder 137 officers had put in over 53,000 hours on the case. They had visited 5,000 houses and taken 538 statements and it had resulted in basically nothing. They were no closer to identifying a suspect and it was eight weeks and five days after the murder that a new victim was found. At 8 a.m. on Wednesday the 21st of January 1976 a man on his way to work parked his car opposite an alley in an abandoned area of Chapeltown which had been marked for redevelopment.

When he got out of his car he glanced to his right and saw a pair of legs lying amongst rubble about 15 feet down the alley. At first he believed he was looking at a shop window dummy but as he got closer he realized it was the body of a woman. He called the police and once more Detective Hoban and forensic pathologist David G were at the scene. They were able to determine her identity from the contents of her handbag which was laying nearby. 41 year old Emily Jackson. The dress she was wearing was pulled up above her waist and some tights she was wearing were displaced in order to show her underwear. Her bra had been lifted. A search of the crime scene revealed a boot impression left nearby.

Like with Wilma there were two lacerations to Emily's head. In Emily's case both were very severe. This time G favored a hammer being the weapon. Emily had suffered far more stab wounds than Wilma over 50. There was a considerable pull of blood next to a wall a short distance away which proved the killer most likely started his attack there and then dragged Emily to where her body lay at the time she was found. G concluded the killer struck Emily to the head first before stabbing her. He wasn't sure what weapon could have been used. Some detectives present at the post mortem suggested the screwdriver. G planned to consult with several colleagues to make sure he got the

weapon right. Although there were similarities in the attack G wasn't sure if the same man who killed Wilma had killed Emily. Detective Hogan though had no doubt. Both Emily and Wilma worked in the same area and visited the same places. Hogan got to work finding out all he could about Emily Jackson. Emily was born in 1933 in Hemsworth a town 40 minutes away from Leeds. She had five brothers and three sisters. A couple of years after Emily was born her family moved to Leeds. When she was 19 she married Sydney Jackson. They lived in various places around Leeds during the first six years of their marriage. They had four children three sons and a daughter. They lived in Northcock Crescent in Leeds where they started a roofing business together

and where they remained until the time of Emily's death. Their eldest son Derek died at the age of 14 after falling from a first floor window. From then on neither Sydney nor Emily were the same. They started living more recklessly one day at a time and they went on having what many believed was an unconventional marriage. Sydney described Emily as being sexually insatiable and that she needed to go out and be with other men. Their roofing business started to fail so in order to support their family Emily started sex work. Sydney helped her and actually drove her around in their van while she was working. On Tuesday the 20th of January 1976 they'd gone out together to a pub one mile away from Chapeltown. It was a known place where strippers danced at lunchtime

and sex workers gathered at all hours. While Sydney entered the pub to have a drink Emily went to work. Sydney left the club at 10 30 p.m. and he didn't see Emily. On a lot of occasions Emily took clients to their van so Sydney assumed that's where she was. He took a taxi back to their house without checking. He only discovered she'd been murdered the next morning when he got a call from the police. Hovind shared this information in a press conference and appealed for witnesses who were in the area that night to come forward. The police seized Emily and Sydney's van for an examination. They realised the van was filled with supplies for the roofing company so there was essentially no room for Emily to take a client to the van. Still they completed an examination and found

four fingerprints inside that could not be eliminated. On the 23rd of January two days after Emily was found Hovind appealed through the press to all sex workers who worked in the area of Chapeltown to come forward. That same day the Sun newspaper ran an article with the headline Ripper hunted in call girl murders. Police circled the streets talking to all known sex workers. A 19 year old worker said she'd been talking to Emily around 7 p.m. just before she got into a Land Rover. She gave a description of the driver whose main feature was that he had a bushy beard. A photo fit was made of this description and was circulated through the press. All Land Rovers registered in West Yorkshire were checked. There were over one thousand.

Police found a man who fit the description. He'd been staying in leads the night Emily was killed and he was known for visiting sex workers. However he strongly denied being the man who picked up Emily. The police couldn't find any evidence to suggest otherwise. Another witness said she saw a dark blue transit van with L registration plates near the murder scene around 3 30 a.m. L registration plates meaning they were issued between August 72 and July 73. A check revealed there were 329 transit vans registered in leads at the time. 278 owners were tracked down, interviewed and eliminated. The remaining 51 were never traced. Hoban didn't give up. A police ranger over with flashing blue lights and a large photograph

of Emily drove through Chapel Town. An officer asked through a loudspeaker for witnesses who'd seen Emily to come forward. Doctors were also asked to come forward with names of patients who they believed might be capable of the murders. Sex workers were encouraged to give up the names of any clients they thought were suspicious. A cast was made of the boot print they found at Emily's crime scene. The results of the cast weren't encouraging and didn't reveal a lot of information. However it led police to believe that the killer might be a manual worker. Hoban sent an urgent message to all police stations in West Yorkshire with precise instructions. If anyone was taken into custody wearing similar boots and also had a vehicle with

tools then they had to be held for questioning in relation to the murders. His other instruction was for all police stations to start examining records of people with arrests for serious attacks on sex workers. As for the weapons used in the attack police visited hardware shops and tried different types of tools. G checked out screwdrivers which were suggested during Emily's post-mortem. At first a screwdriver seemed like a good candidate since the stub wounds had a cruciform shape and when he first entered the screwdriver during his testing this shape was produced. But as he drove the screwdriver deeper the cruciform shape vanished and it just became round. G's colleagues around England and Ireland suggested other tools that could produce this

shape none of them convinced G. By May 1976 Wilma McCann and Emily Jackson were officially linked as victims from the same killer. Police were nowhere near closer to catching him and in that same month there was a new victim. Marcella Claxton was 20 years old and originally from St Kitts a Caribbean island. She was the victim of abuse from her father and moved to England at the age of 10 with her mother. At the time of her attack she was three months pregnant. She had two other children who had been placed into foster care. On the 9th of May 1976 she went out to a club in Leeds. At 5am she left the club drunk. As she was walking home she saw a white car cruising the area.

The car pulled up next to her. The driver asked if she was doing business. Marcella said she wasn't. The driver got out of the car, took Marcella by the hand, made her get into the car and told her they were going to Round 8 Park to have sex. Once they got to the park he asked her to take off her clothes and gave her five pound. Marcella then told him she needed to go to the toilet. She walked to some nearby bushes that were in the park and hid. Marcella stayed there until she believed the man had gone. About 10 minutes later she returned to the spot she was at with the man to collect her shoes. When she bent over to pick them up she received several blows to her head. She was knocked to the

ground. Marcella pretended to be unconscious. The man stopped hitting her, got into his car and drove off. Before he left Marcella said he'd masturbated in front of her and told her don't phone the police. Once she thought he was gone she took off her underwear and held it against her head which was bleeding profusely. She managed to crawl towards a telephone box that was 100 meters away where she dialed triple nine. After the call she stayed in the telephone box waiting. She slumped down to avoid being seen. Luckily she did as only a short time later she saw the driver once again circling around the park with his car. At one point he stopped and walked over to the place where he'd attacked Marcella. He looked around in different directions then walked back

to his car and left. Marcella said he came back to see if I was dead. He didn't see me so he kept on driving. Marcella was taken to hospital where she was treated for eight severe lacerations to her scalp needing 52 stitches. She was discharged six days later. She lost the child and for years she suffered headaches and blackouts. Since Marcella had seen her attacker and could identify him she was scared he'd come back for her. Some time after leaving the hospital she went to the Gady pub which was the same pub where Emily had been the night she was murdered. Marcella said that the man who attacked her walked into the pub that night took a look around and then left. The moment she saw he was leaving she told the friend she was with and they ran after him but he was already gone.

The description Marcella gave to the police was a white man with dark hair, a beard and a mustache. Marcella was never included as an official victim in the investigation because she had no stab wounds. However when another victim appeared in the same place they needed her help. Irene Richardson was born in Glasgow Scotland. She had six sisters and three brothers. They were a poor but loving family. As a small child Irene was shy. She enjoyed music and loved to laugh. When she got to secondary school she took up smoking skipping classes and turned into a bit of a rebel. As years passed her brothers and sisters moved away and settled in different places. Irene waited until she was 17 and then ran off to London.

She stayed there for five years and didn't communicate with anyone from her family during that time. Her father passed away and because no one knew where Irene was they were unable to tell her. Irene had two children. She was unable to provide for them so they were put into foster care. Irene then moved to Blackpool where one of her sisters was working. In November 1970 she met George Richardson a man who'd worked as a barman and as a plasterer. They got married in June 1971 after six months of dating. They set up a home in Blackpool and had two daughters Irene and Amanda. In 1975 when baby Irene was two years old and Amanda had only just been born Irene decided to leave her home in Blackpool without saying a word. George reported her missing.

He feared the worst however some months later Irene contacted him and told him she was in South Kensington London working in a hotel. George moved to South Kensington to see if they could make things work but in April 1976 Irene left again. George was unable to cope and their two girls ended up in foster care. Whilst back in London Irene met Stephen Bray a man who'd escaped Leicester prison. Without telling Stephen she was married to George Irene left with him to leads. In October 1976 they moved from boarding house to boarding house in the Chapel Town area. Stephen got a job as a doorman in a nightclub and Irene worked as a cleaner at a YMCA hostel. She started using Bray's last name and they even organised to get married on the 22nd of

January 77 but neither Stephen nor Irene turned up. They had drifted apart and were no longer seeing each other. Irene had been failing to turn up to work at the hostel for days. She suddenly appeared one day and requested an advance on her wages because she had bills to pay. Irene then disappeared for several days again before returning to the hostel to get her shoes and her overalls and to apologise for her behaviour. She said she was in a bad situation and had to run away from a man. For close to two weeks Irene had no money, no job and no place to go. She lived on the streets and spent some nights sleeping in a public toilet. Some people she knew allowed her to use their bathroom to take a shower. In the first days of February 77 a woman who ran a boarding house

in Chapel Town and who had rented a room to Irene and Stephen previously allowed Irene to stay there free of charge just for a few days until she got back on her feet. On Saturday the 5th of February 1977 28-year-old Irene told a friend that she had planned on going to see Stephen Bray at the nightclub where he worked located one mile away from Chapel Town. She left the boarding house at 11.15pm and briefly visited a friend who lived a few blocks away. She stayed there until 11.30pm. Just before midnight a car pulled up alongside her. The male driver offered her money in exchange for sex. Irene agreed and got into his car. At 7.50am the next morning Sunday the 6th of February a 47-year-old accountant who was out jogging through Round 8 Park saw Irene's body lying

face down. He approached her slowly and later was quoted as sane. I brushed the hair to one side and then I saw the blood on her neck. Her eyes were glazed and staring. She was obviously dead and I ran to one of the houses to call the police. Detective Dennis Hoban who was in charge of the first two murders now attended the scene as an assistant. The new officer in charge was Detective Jim Hobson. David G remained as the forensic pathologist. The scene was immediately taped off and a 35 feet long black plastic screen was put up to conceal Irene's body from onlookers. Football matches that had been scheduled to start that morning on the fields in the park had to be cancelled as officers were performing a fingertip search throughout the entire park.

A fingertip search is where officers get on their hands and knees and touch everything on the ground with their fingertips to try and find anything useful that could be considered evidence. Police located tyre tracks that ran from the roadway and stopped close to Irene's body. Irene's handbag was lying open a few feet away from her. On her right foot her boot had been left on. Her boot and sock were missing from her left foot. Her clothing was intact from the waist up however her pants had been removed. The killer had placed a coat on top of her. Irene had been viciously stabbed. In the post-mortem G found three lacerations to Irene's head. These blows were extremely severe causing much more damage than just a fracture as had been the case with the previous

victims. Again G believed the killer struck Irene with one blow to the head and immobilized her. Then he hit her two more times and dragged her from where the tyre tracks ended to where she was found. He then stabbed her. G believed the weapons used in this attack were most likely a hammer and a very sharp knife. G had no doubt that this murder was linked to Wilmer McCann's and Emily Jackson's although the new detective in charge Jim Hobson wasn't completely sure about this and he started several different lines of inquiry. As a first step he arranged for George Richardson to come from Blackpool so he could positively identify Irene. Her late husband denied she was a sex worker or would even resort to those measures. He said she was sick she just

couldn't settle down. Traces of semen were found on the inside of Irene's coat. This time they were able to determine the blood type. Type O. Hobson sent a message out requesting all West Yorkshire police divisions and surrounding forces keep a lookout for anyone coming into custody with blood-stained clothing. He also ordered officers to visit local dry cleaners and to make house to house inquiries. A hundred officers were assigned this task and in the following weeks numerous men were questioned and several items of clothing were examined including shoes and raincoats. Different tools including hammers and knives were also examined but they found no matches. A partial fingerprint that was discovered on one of the bus tickets that Irene had inside her purse

couldn't be eliminated. Roundhay Park was known as a place that couples visited in their cars to have sex. Officers started visiting the park of a night and approaching couples asking if they had seen anything or anyone suspicious. The morning after Irene's body was found one newspaper headline read Jack the Ripper Horror. Three days later Detective Hobson made an appeal through the media for any information as to the whereabouts of Marcella Claxton. It was now 10 months since her attack in Roundhay Park. Marcella had since moved and police were unable to locate her. The media didn't just ask for anyone who'd seen her but they described her attack as a carbon copy of Irene's and for that reason they said Marcella could hold vital clues that could

help crack Irene's case. Hobson supported this by saying that both attacks had a lot of similarities like the fact that both women had been attacked with a blunt object from behind. Both had been picked up in Chapeltown for sex and both of them had been taken to the same place Roundhay Park. Marcella came forward that day and again gave the description of her attacker. The next morning Hobson briefed the media with the description however it wasn't the exact same description that Marcella had given before. Hobson said the man was aged between 25 and 35 years old. He was 5 feet 9 inches tall of medium build with dark wavy hair. At the time of the assault he was wearing a dark suit with a multi-coloured shirt and tie.

One more priority Hobson had at this stage was taking sex workers off the streets. Over the next few months police arrested and issued cautions to more than 100 women in Chapeltown. Before a sex worker was arrested and charged they were entitled to two cautions. So what Hobson hoped was that by giving out cautions they would frighten women from coming out to the streets and working. He said he wasn't really interested in arresting anyone, he was just trying to protect people. It didn't really work so Hobson encouraged the workers to at least let a friend or someone know where they were. Hobson also placed officers in Chapeltown to write down the registration numbers of men that were cruising the area. The surprising thing

was that Hobson revealed all of this to the media. They knew about all of the wounds Irene suffered, they knew about the arrest and caution strategy, they knew officers were writing down registration numbers in Chapeltown, and they knew the squad was checking a possible connection with another murder that happened in Preston, Lancashire, an hour and a half away from Leeds. Joan Harrison was 26 years old. She'd become addicted to morphine and alcohol and in order to support those habits she turned to sex work. Joan was killed in a garage in Preston after suffering several blows to the head. She'd been wearing two bras and these were both unfastened. Her trousers had been removed

and so had her boots. But there were differences between this murder and the others. There were no stab wounds. Many of Joan's injuries were thought to have been done by kicking and not with a weapon. There were signs of sexual assault and her handbag along with other possessions were missing. The possibility of Joan's murder being related to the others was considered by Hobson and other detectives. However, they eventually ruled it out. There were too many differences. Hobson believed the greatest lead they had in Irene's case were the tyre tracks at Round Eight Park. Hobson started what was called a tracking inquiry. The aim was to find out what car was at the park that night and who it belonged to. In order to do this they had to use the tyre

tracks to identify the car. Basically the tracks at the park would have a certain measurement. This measurement would then be compared with all the makes of tyres and since not all tyres fit all cars they would eventually narrow down the list of potential cars. This tracking inquiry started the day Irene was found and by 5.15 pm the next day they had a list ready of models of cars that could have used the tyres. The list totaled around 100. Hobson then instructed the officers working in Chapeltown to check all of the park cars they drove past at night. The officers were instructed to write down the registration number and the tyre details onto a card. He also instructed for checks to be conducted at scrap yards and auctioneers. These checks lasted for six weeks

but after that time it had to be abandoned. The amount of cars parked on the street and at auction years and scrap yards was endless and they were getting nowhere with it. Instead, Hobson decided to consult an expert in the tyre industry. This had some effect. The list of potential models of cars was halved from 100 to 50. Hobson then got approval to do a mass screening within the West Yorkshire police area. There were two searches carried out, a computer record search with the police national computer and a manual search with the vehicle licensing officer. In 1977 not a lot of data was kept in the government computer so a big part of the search had to be manual. With the mass screening they learned that the amount of cars that had to be

examined numbered 53,000. A large amount of officers were assigned to the mammoth task of going through every one of those cars. Patricia Atkinson was born in Thorpe Edge, Bradford. She had two brothers. At the age of 16 she met Raymond Mitra at a dance hall and after months of dating they got married on the 1st of April 1961. They stayed with Patricia's parents for a short period of time before moving close by to Manningham, which is known as Bradford's Red Light District. They had three daughters. In Patricia's mid-20s she suddenly felt like she hadn't done any real living and started going out often. In this period she cheated on Raymond numerous times. It was for this reason that they

separated and got back together repeatedly before finally one day Patricia left the house for good. Patricia was first convicted for sex work in 1975. In 1976 Raymond divorced her and kept custody of their daughters. Patricia rented a small flat in Oak Avenue Manningham close by to the Red Light District and she started a relationship with Robert Henderson. On Saturday the 23rd of April 1977, 33-year-old Patricia went out to the regular bars she always visited. She ended up at the Carlisle Hotel. Patricia was an alcoholic and had spent most of that day drinking. A stripper had been booked to dance at the Carlisle Hotel but failed to turn up so Patricia climbed on the stage and stripped herself. This resulted in an argument with the

manager and she left the Carlisle at 10.15pm. Patricia visited the International Club in Lomb Lane until 11.10pm. After that she was seen staggering drunk through Church Street to St Mary's Road in Manningham. The next day Robert became concerned that he hadn't heard from his girlfriend. At 6.30pm he went to her flat and knocked on the door. He didn't get a response so he forced his way into the flat and found Patricia on the bed. Robert ran to the caretaker of the building and made him call the police. At 8pm the head of Bradford's detectives John Domoll was at the scene. As soon as he saw Patricia he knew she was a ripper victim. The blows to Patricia's head had again escalated in force

as had been the case since Wilma McCann's murder. Her jeans were pulled down to below her knees and her underwear had been pulled down. Her t-shirt had been pulled up and her bra unfastened. There was a boot print in blood on one of the sheets next to her. As this murder had happened in a different jurisdiction to the others a different crime scene examiner was used. She believed Patricia was struck in the head as she ended her room. Due to the blow she lost consciousness and fell to the floor. The killer then moved her body next to the bed where there probably was another blow to the head. After that the killer maneuvered Patricia's body on top of the unmade bed by climbing on it and dragging her up.

And this is how a bloody shoe impression was left on the sheet. Once Patricia's body was on the bed further blows were delivered and then the stab wounds. The post mortem was carried out by David G who had performed the other post mortems. He confirmed a pattern and linked Patricia's case to the other attacks. Similar head injuries, similar movement of clothing, no signs of sexual assault and multiple stab wounds caused by different instruments. In the search of her flat police found a diary listing 50 of Patricia's clients. Domile went to the media and requested all of the men to come forward and be interviewed. Since Patricia took her clients to her flat the place was filled with different fingerprints.

Many could be eliminated from the investigation however there were nine different sets that couldn't. The boot impression was thought to come from a Dunlop Wellington boot. Since the sheet was crumpled the exact size was hard to determine but there was a possibility that it could match the boot impression found at Emily Jackson's murder scene. When following Patricia's movements on her last night Domile found out that she was a frequent user of taxis even for only short distances so he ordered that every taxi driver in Bradford be interviewed. There were 1200 in total. Other sex workers were also interviewed. It was at this point that Barbara Miller a 36 year old came forward and said that she'd been

attacked two years prior in Bradford. It happened in March 1975 around 9 30 p.m. A man in a land rover drove her to a quarry in the Bolton Woods area of Bradford. Once they got there he told her to get out of the vehicle but she refused so the man dragged her out punched her in the stomach, chest and face then he banged the back of her head against the car. He drove off when she got up and started to fight back. The description she gave was of a man aged 35 to 40 years old five feet eight inches tall blue eyes a stocky build and untidy ginger hair along with a full ginger beard and a mustache. He also had a possible iris accent with a slight Birmingham dialect. He had a scar on his left hand and a blue and red tattoo. The police more than anything

were interested in the fact that he had a land rover and a ginger beard. Already in Emily Jackson's case in Leeds a witness had seen her getting into a land rover so for the next three months 90 police officers in Bradford concentrated on this lead. They made 2,300 house-to-house inquiries, checked 1,924 cars and took 2,161 statements. All of that led nowhere. At this point the investigation was making national headlines and was talked about constantly on radio and television. Newspapers and media outlets from all around the country sent reporters to get in-depth stories of what was happening. After Patricia's murder George Oldfield the assistant chief constable meaning the second in charge of the entire West Yorkshire

police said that if there was a new ripper murder he would be taking charge as he was the most senior detective in the force. Jane McDonald was born in Leeds. She had three sisters one brother and two parents who all loved her dearly. She left high school at the age of 16 and got work in the shoe department at Grand away supermarket on Round Hay Road. She was sweet, cheerful and someone who loved life in every way. She liked to go dancing and roller skating and loved clothes shopping. Her parents kept a close eye on her and she'd promised them that when she went out at night she wouldn't walk alone. She lived only six doors away from Willman McCann so her family were well aware about the murders and the closeness of them. On Saturday the 25th of June 1977

Jane went to a German themed pub located in the center of Leeds. There she met Mark Jones, an 18 year old local boy. At 10 30 p.m the pub closed and Jane left with Mark and his friends. They walked through Leeds Center and a bit later Mark's friends left them alone. They purchased some food and at midnight Jane realized she'd missed the last bus to return home. Mark told her they could go to his sister's house and she would take her home. They walked up York Road towards Chapel Town. When they got to Mark's sister's house her car wasn't there so it wasn't an option. They continued walking to St James Hospital and entered the garden from the nurse's home. They stayed there for around 45 minutes. Then they walked back

towards Hare Hills and when they reached Beckett Street they split up. Mark had to return home too and it was now 1 30 a.m. They were close to Grandway Supermarket where Jane worked so Jane was familiar with the area and didn't mind being left alone. They said they could buy us and promised to see each other that Wednesday. Jane continued through Beckett Street. At 1 40 a.m she was seen walking in the direction of Round Hay Road and at 1 45 a.m she was seen walking through Chapel Town close to her home. At 2 a.m a woman who lived near an adventure playground in Chapel Town said she'd heard banging and scuffling followed by what sounded like a Scotsman mouthing obscenities. During the day two young children

who were at the playground found Jane's body. As he had previously stated Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield took charge. He attended the scene along with David G and Detective Hobson. Jane had been found in abandoned land just in front of the playground surrounded by rubbish old tin cans and broken bottles. Her clothes were out of place and she was missing one shoe. In the post mortem G found three semicircular lacerations to her scalp along with fractures to the skull and many stab wounds. Like any other murders G determined that Jane had been struck on the back of the head first then dragged to where she was found. Death had occurred sometime before 3 a.m. Jane's murder didn't just change the face of the investigation because

Oldfield was now leading it. It also changed the response from the public. As initially feared by Detective Hobson back when he was leading the investigation of Ruemer McCanns and Emily Jackson's murders a lot of the public at the time shared little sympathy for sex workers. But Jane was a 16 year old girl who had just left school. Jane's father later described how he'd found out. The police came in and said are you the father of Jane McDonald? I said yes. I'll kill her when she comes home because she didn't phone last night. They said you may not have to and that's as much as I knew. He went on to say that whoever was responsible had basically killed their entire family. The day after Jane's body was found graffiti was sprayed on a nearby wall that read hang the

ripper. Oldfield's way of leading this investigation was with detail. He wanted everything written down to the very last minute. Detective spent several days piecing together Jane's last hours. They were able to break them down to the minute. A large map was placed in the incident room where they were conducting Jane's investigation. Oldfield wanted to identify every single person who'd been in Jane's vicinity at the time. It was estimated that around 200 people were around Jane as she walked home that night and around 50 were close to her when she was murdered. Oldfield wanted every single one of those people interviewed and eliminated. In order to do this, Oldfield placed a free phone service in the incident room so that people with any leads

or possible sightings could call. He spoke publicly in every way he could. He said he needed people to come forward who were there that night. He asked local churches and community leaders for assistance in making people talk. After these appeals, a woman and her 10-year-old boy who lived in Chapeltown contacted the incident room. Both of them had been writing down registration numbers from cars. The woman started doing this after a man in a car pestered her. There were hundreds of registration numbers that she had written down and they were given to officers to check out. Oldfield thought this was a wonderful idea and he asked the other residents in the area to do the same. At the very least, he requested people write down registrations of the cars they

thought looked suspicious or were curb crawling. Oldfield also made the decision to bring the documentation and files of all five murders together into one room. Up to this point, the files of each murder were kept in different rooms and officers were instructed just to focus on that one murder. Now they'd be able to see all the information together. A detective chief inspector was placed onto every shift inside the incident room and their role was to check all incoming statements. Up until now, officers had mostly been working through action and not so much through paperwork. Oldfield aimed to change that, making sure everyone understood his instructions. Everything was to be written down to the very

last detail. He wanted to make sure nothing was missed. Out of house-to-house inquiries, the occupants of 679 homes in 29 streets were seen and interviewed. Nearly 3,700 statements were taken and checks were made on all men taken into custody for offenses of violence. Oldfield also organised the seminar with 25 psychiatrists from Yorkshire in order to get assistance from mental health hospitals of our patients who could be considered suspects. This turned out to be unsuccessful. Once again, sex workers were questioned about their regular clients and asked about the violent ones. But the police were phased with the problem. They persisted with the plan of arresting and cautioning sex workers to try and get them off the streets. They had even charged many of them

who had already received two cautions. This didn't create a great environment for the sex workers to want to talk to police. Not too many were forthcoming with information. Detective Hobson, who was still working the investigation but was just no longer in charge, started a covert operation in Chapeltown. He had officers recording registration numbers of cars that were trying to pick up women. These lists could later be revisited if there was another murder. Hobson had already tried a similar operation when he was in charge of Irene Richardson's murder and believed it was the most useful strategy they had. Oldfield made a further appeal through the media. He said,

the public have the power to decide what sort of society they want. If they want murder and violence, then they will keep quiet. If they want a law-abiding society in which their woman folk can move freely without the fear of attack from the likes of the individual we are hunting, then they must give us their help. Officers were working an average of 13 hours per day, arriving at 9am and leaving between 10pm and midnight. They had a 10am briefing every day to see how the house-to-house inquiries were going. While most of the officers were in the big incident room, Oldfield was in another office with Detective Dick Holland, who he appointed second in charge of the investigation. Detective

Holland reviewed all the paperwork from the other officers and assigned further actions to follow up. He filtered through everything and sent the essential information to Oldfield. Still, the paperwork began to pile up quickly and on most nights, Oldfield stayed up late with a bottle of whiskey going over the remaining paperwork. He slept in the police station so he was ready to go at first hour in the morning. In another media address, Oldfield said, There is no doubt in my mind that he will strike again. The big questions are when, where and who is going to be his next victim. Maureen Long was 42 years old. She lived in a small town located between Leeds and Bradford.

She was separated from her husband but still maintained a good relationship with him and on Saturday the 9th of July 1977, two weeks after Jane's murder, she met up with her ex-husband in a pub in Bradford. She had four points of view with him and left around 11.10 pm. She went on her own to the Mecca ballroom in Manningham Lane. She was a regular at the place. Maureen loved going out dancing. She stayed there until 2am but doesn't remember much from that point on. She remembered going to the cloakroom at the club but nothing further. A hot dog man who had a stand outside the club saw her leave and walked to Bradford's centre. At 3.15am, a security guard who worked at a factory on

bowling back lane heard his dog bark. He went to take a look at the direction where the dog was barking and he saw a car without lights driving off fast out of Mount Street. He was sure the car was a Ford Cortina Mark II with a black roof. He said it looked like there was something heavy in the boot of the car. At 8.30am, people from a gypsy caravan site near Bowling Back Lane heard shouts of help coming from somewhere nearby. They called the police. They found Maureen in an abandoned open land site with rubbish all over her. Maureen was struggling to even move. Maureen said, all I remember was trying to pick myself up. I kept falling and then I wondered what was wrong with me and I kept falling back and I was trying to pull myself up,

falling back again. Then I was screaming and I heard this dog barking. Someone said oh you're alright and that's all I remember. When you get hit over the back of the head you can't remember things. If I hadn't had beer that night I'd have died of hypothermia. All her clothes were displaced. Her bra had been pulled down to her waist. Her tights and pants pulled to her knees. She was rushed to hospital and G along with Oldfield and Holland saw her after she was treated. Maureen had a large fracture to her skull. Five stab wounds to the front and side of her body and her left shoulder. One of the stab wounds had penetrated her liver. She also had three broken ribs. Her head injuries were so severe that she required

specialist neurosurgery. Maureen spent nine weeks in hospital before being discharged. She eventually remembered that a man gave her a lift and she gave the following description. A fair haired white male aged around 35 years old, thick set over six feet tall and he was driving a white car. The man police had in mind was a taxi driver. They had already been interviewing taxi drivers after Patricia Atkinson's murder. There was one in particular who stood out to police. His name was Terence Hawkshaw and his physical appearance was similar to all the previous descriptions given. He was 36 years old, six feet tall, weighed about 95 kilos or 210 pounds, had long hair brushed back and a boyish face. On the night Maureen was attacked he'd been

seen near the mecca ballroom and he drove a white Ford Cortina with a black vinyl roof. On top of that he was known for letting sex workers have sex with clients in his taxi. Police checked his taxi receipts and they discovered he'd been close to the areas when several of the attacks took place. Oldfield arranged for him to be questioned thoroughly. He was kept for 36 hours at the detective training school in Wakefield, a city 20 minutes away from Leeds. Terence lived with his mother and police searched the home. They found he had two hammers. Both were examined along with his taxi, but police found nothing linking him to the murders. During the 36 hour questioning of Terence, Oldfield tried to convince him that he might have a split

personality and for that reason he might have committed the murders but couldn't remember them. For a while Oldfield ordered a team of 12 detectives to follow Terence's every move. Oldfield liked Hobson's idea of maintaining a covert operation and recording the registration numbers of men that toured the red light area of Chapeltown. Oldfield enlarged that strategy and ordered officers to do the same thing in Manningham, Bradford's red light area. However, Oldfield did order a stop to Hobson's previous operation, the tracking inquiry. Hobson had started that when he was leading Irene Richardson's murder. There were still 20,000 cars to examine of the 55,000 that were on the list. Oldfield was concentrated on the description that the

security guard from Maureen Long's attack had given. He'd mentioned a Ford Cortina Mark II. This model wasn't on the list of the possible models that the tracking inquiry had produced. That told Oldfield the killer had either changed cars or the tracking inquiry method had failed them and he didn't have the manpower to continue it. There were too many different lines of inquiry happening at the same time with too many men dedicated to each of them. So the tracking inquiry was the first thing Oldfield put a stop to. Officers were already looking at all the Ford Cortinas registered in West Yorkshire. 3,000 were located. The owners were interviewed and eliminated. When they were done interviewing Ford Cortina owners, Oldfield came back to the lead of the

ginger-bearded man in the Land Rover that was seen in Wilmer McCann's and Emily Jackson's cases. The squad received 117 tips of men who looked like that and who drove that car. They were able to trace 56 of them. Up to this moment, 300 officers had worked 343,000 hours. 175,000 people had been questioned, 12,500 statements had been taken, and 101,000 vehicles had been checked. Still, the police were no closer to identifying the killer and they were about to have another victim in a new city. Manchester is one of the biggest cities in England. It is located about one and a half hours northeast of Leeds, just outside West Yorkshire. In October 1973, 16-year-old Jean

Jordan ran away from her home in Scotland and moved to Manchester. She lived on the streets until Alan Royal, a 21-year-old chef, spotted her on his way home from work. He bought her a cup of tea and something to eat. Soon after that, they started a relationship and Jean moved in with Alan. First, they lived in a small flat in South Manchester. Then they had two sons, so they needed somewhere bigger. They moved to a larger flat near Manchester's city centre. With time, Jean and Alan grew tired of each other and they started going their separate ways, although they still lived together. The couple ran out of money and Jean turned to sex work. She worked at Mossside, Manchester's red light area, and at Cheatham Hill. At 9.30pm on Friday 1st October 1977,

20-year-old Jean left her sons aged 3 and 1 with a babysitter while she went out to get cigarettes. Jean never returned. Nine days later, on the 10th October, two men were looking for disused bricks on an abandoned landsite when they saw Jean's body, two miles away from her home. As the murder happened in Manchester, Oldfield had no jurisdiction there. In charge of this scene was Jack Ridgway, the detective chief superintendent of Central Manchester. Jean was found naked and her clothes were scattered around her. There was evidence the killer had returned to the scene to move her. At the post-mortem, they determined Jean had 11 injuries on her head and each of them had caused

a fracture on her skull. She had several injuries over her entire body, thought to be caused by a hammer, as well as many stab wounds. It was determined the blows with the hammer had come first, and the stab wounds were inflicted after death. Marks on Jean's neck indicated the killer had tried the sore off her head. Ridgway kept this secret at the time, as he thought it was one of those details that only the killer would know. Again, there was no sign of sexual assault. After the post-mortem, Ridgway arranged a meeting with Oldfield in Leeds. Oldfield had previously given a presentation about the Ripper murders to all senior detectives in Northern England. Ridgway had seen that presentation and he had no doubt Jean was a Ripper victim.

When Ridgway met with Oldfield and told him about Jean's murder, he said Oldfield looked as though he didn't want to know a thing about it. Oldfield told Ridgway, I think we should keep this thing quiet for the time being. Ridgway didn't have a problem with that since the Ripper murders were so high profile and he didn't want to deal with the media at that particular moment. But as Ridgway was driving back to Manchester, he was shocked to hear a radio announcement that said West Yorkshire Police had linked Jean Jordan's murder with the Ripper murders. When he arrived back in Manchester, Ridgway had to deal with the press immediately. Unlike the West Yorkshire police, Ridgway gave away very little detail about the crime.

He even refused to confirm the link with the Ripper murders. All he said was that there were similarities. That same day, Alan Royal appeared in the police station and said his wife had been missing for a week. Jean used to disappear for days and hitchhiked to Glasgow, so when Alan arrived home on the 1st of October, he wasn't surprised that she wasn't there. He actually hadn't been worried at all until he heard about the murder and saw the description of the woman sounded a lot like Jean. Police conducted a search of Alan and Jean's house but came up empty-handed. However, Alan told them that a fake leather handbag was missing. The handbag hadn't been located by police at the crime scene, so they printed notices about

the murder specifically mentioning the handbag and requested that people be on the lookout for it. On Saturday the 15th of October, a man found the handbag about 50 metres away from where Jean's body was discovered. Ridgway drove in a hurry to the scene and searched through the handbag. He found a new five-pound note. Ridgway believed this note was the reason the killer had returned to the murder scene and moved Jean's body. At the time, five pound was the usual fee sex workers charged. If the killer had given Jean this note, then it could incriminate him. Ridgway believed the killer thought about this after the murder and returned to the scene to try and find it. He obviously didn't find Jean's handbag, so he took off her clothes to see if she had it on her.

Ridgway believed that when the killer couldn't find the note, he tried to decapitate her in order to make the killing look different. With this in mind, Ridgway was sure the best shot they had was to find the owner of the note. In order to do this, he first had fingerprint specialists examine it. They were unable to produce a fingerprint. So their next step was to trace the note using the serial number. Ridgway organized an operation to follow the note from the moment it came out of the central bank to the moment it landed at a local branch. Whilst that was going on, other police arranged for a profile to be drawn up of the killer. They believed the ripper was probably from West Yorkshire,

certainly had a good knowledge of Leeds and Bradford, and had possibly developed a psychological hang-up about sex workers, either at the hands of one or possibly because his mother was one. In Bradford, the chairman of the National Housewives Register expressed the following opinion. I am sure we would not have had a ripper if brothels had been made legal. An agreement to this statement came from an unexpected source, Ronald Gregory, West Yorkshire's chief constable, Oldfield's boss. Gregory said sex work legalized in some way would eliminate a lot of the vicious attacks. In the streets, sex workers were warned to take care and not to stand alone and not to take lifts from people they didn't know.

Unfortunately, many women couldn't afford to take this advice, and the ripper would kill again. To be continued next week. you