Criminology - The Yorkshire Ripper Part 2

Episode Date: June 2, 2024

Between 1975 and 1980, The Yorkshire Ripper terrorized Northern England. His attacks and murders were reminiscent of Jack The Ripper, who operated in the late 1800s. Letters signed Jack The Ripper and a recording supposedly of the killer's voice only served to taunt the police. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the crimes of Peter Sutcliffe, aka The Yorkshire Ripper. In this second and last episode on The Yorkshire Ripper, we detail Peter Sutcliffe's background and arrest. People began questioning why the police hadn't identified Sutcliffe sooner, which could have saved lives. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Everyone and welcome to episode 310 of the Criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Hey, Morp, how you doing, man? I'm doing good. We're recording this the day after Memorial Day and I spent the weekend, you know,

doing a little bit of stuff in the pool, but mostly I binged season one of True Detective, which is probably eight hours of the best television. made. Now, had you seen it before? I did. And it, and every time I rewatch it, it's never any, you know, it's, it's just as good as the first time around. So yeah, I, I find it to be the same way. I've seen it maybe 10 or 15 times. I just have rewatched it that many times. And I just think it's great television. The acting is great. The story is great. I also like the third season a lot. the second season, not so much.

I'll watch it, but it's not as good, even though I love all the, the people who are in it. Yeah, I like the other seasons two, two, three,

and four in different ways for different reasons, but nothing to me, season one is just impeccable as far as acting production, just all the way around. So, you know, it was 90-something degrees here in Florida,

you know, so I didn't want to be outside 100% of the time. So it was a good way to offset that a little bit and watch a good show. Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. We played some pickleball. My wife is into this pickleball game. So she bought a net for the driveway and some paddles and we're learning how to play pickleball.

I hear that can be very aggressive. People get very excited and very aggressive when it comes to their pickleball play. But we are not aggressive. We are still at the point where we're trying to figure out how to hit the ball successfully. So that's where we're at. That's all about having fun. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Russ Mays and Kate.

So some great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks so much to everyone that supports the show. It really helps us out. And for anyone else that would like to, you can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. All right.

So we're diving back into the Yorkshire Ripper Murders. In our last episode in part one of the Ripper Murders, we detailed the toured page. that the Ripper was striking at and the fear that he was striking in the community. He attacked women of different types of backgrounds. Although he's generally thought of as being a murderer of sex workers, the last murder we discussed was the September 1979 murder of Barbara Leach. After her death, it seemed as if the Ripper dropped from sight.

On August 20th, 1980, just short of a year since the Leach murder, 47-year-old Marguerite Walls, who worked for the Department of Education and Science Office, was brutally attacked after she left work in Leeds, between 9.30 and 10.30 p.m. She was walking home alone when she was attacked from behind, blows to the head left her unconscious. A rope was placed around her neck, and she was strangled to death before being dragged about 60 feet into a driveway. All of her clothing, with the exception of her tights, were removed, and her body was covered with leaves. The next day, her body was discovered by two weeks. landscapers. Some of her belongings were found discarded in the area. This included her shoes,

her skirt, a shopping bag, and a checkbook. The beating had the hallmarks of the Ripper, but the use of a rope to strangle Marguerite was different from the usual Ripper M.O., prompting Detective Chief Superintendent James Hobson, after consultation with forensic experts, to announce to the press, we do not believe this is the work of the Yorkshire Ripper. Eventually, though, police would officially list her as a Ripper Vickham. The next month on September 24th, 34-year-old Eupadra Bandera, a doctor from Singapore was walking home after a night out in Leeds. She took a shortcut through an alley where she crossed paths with the Ripper.

In typical Ripper fashion, he hit her in the head with a hammer until she was unconscious. He removed her shoes and took her purse tossing them nearby. Then, just like the attack on Marguerite, he took her. tied a rope around Eupadra's neck and tried to drag her away. Apparently, someone nearby surprised him because he dragged Eupadra for a short while before he left her and fled the area. Thankfully, she survived and was able to give police a description of the man. She described him as being in his mid-20s with dark hair and a full beard and mustache. The similarities of this attack to that of Marguerite walls were undeniable.

police thought they were both attacked by the same man, but they just didn't think he was the Ripper. As in Marguerite's case, they eventually concluded that Upada Bandera was a victim of the Ripper. And you do see this come up in many cases. There are a lot of different attacks and murders that, you know, occur in an area. Depending on how big the city is, there can be a lot of them. When you're dealing with a serial predator, you know, how to police figure out which attacks to attribute to this one person. And here with these latest two attacks, they don't attribute them initially to the Ripper. And you can see why.

The M.O is quite different than the previous attacks that we discussed. I think when you add the rope to the mix, everything else was similar. you have lone women attacked in the night, hitting the head with a hammer. But the rope was definitely a deviation from the normal ammo. So I think that did lead police wondering, is this the same guy? Because, you know, let's face it, if somebody else wanted to do similar crimes, they could attack in a similar method. And the Ripper would automatically, you would think, be at the top of the suspect list.

so it might be a way for a copycat to get away with a similar crime. On October 25th, almost a month to the day after the attack on Eupadra at Bandera, the ripper struck again. 21-year-old Maureen Leah, known as Mo, an art student, was walking to catch the bus after a night out at a pub with friends. She woke up in the hospital without much memory of what had happened to her. The back of her skull had a hole in it, possibly from a screwdriver, and the rest of her skull had been fractured.

Her cheekbone and jaw were broken. Her spinal cord had been damaged, and she was covered in bruises and cuts. She spent weeks in the hospital before being able to go home and rehab from her injuries, but she was doomed to years of PTSD. On November 5th, just 10 days after the attack on Mo Lea, 16-year-old Teresa Sykes would become a Ripper victim. That night, she was walking to a store in Huddersfield when she was attacked from behind. she was struck in the head with what she thought was a hard metal object.

During the attack, she tried to grab at it, to take it away from her attacker. She screamed and her boyfriend who was nearby hurt her. He ran to her and the Ripper fled when he saw the young man approaching. Teresa survived, but like so many others, required brain surgery due to the extent of the trauma to her head. She would later tell police that the attacker had a dark, beard, mustache and hair. And this stood out to me more, because we have seen it in other cases, you have this really horrible predator, stalking and attacking women. But the minute that they encounter a boyfriend, a husband, or something like that, they run away. They're scared to

death to tangle with someone who might be as powerful as them. Yeah, I think it just proves that they're cowards at heart and they target who they perceive to be vulnerable lone victims, which in the Ripper's case was lone women. But when you have a strong male that's fighting back, they're scared. And we see this time and time again in a lot of cases where a second person there or a boyfriend or husband, whoever it is, often runs off the attacker. So I think at heart you can tell that they're really cowards. Teresa was one of the fortunate victims who survived a Ripper attack.

The next victim would be the last of the Ripper's victims, but not as fortunate. On November 17th, less than two weeks after the attack on Teresa Sykes, 20-year-old Jacqueline Hill was walking back to her dorm in Leeds. Her mom had warned her to be careful walking at night, and Jacqueline promised that she would be. But she wasn't prepared for the Ripper when he attacked her from behind. She was struck in the back of her head with a hammer, then dragged to a more secluded area before she was disrobed. The ruthless killer stabbed her multiple times in the chest with a screwdriver, and once an eye before he fled. Less than 30 minutes after the attack, a student walking in the area found Jacqueline's cream-colored back,

and immediately noticed blood on it. She ran to get help, and police were soon back in the area, shining their flashlights around, looking for any sign of the bag's owner. Somehow, they missed the signs of the struggle on the ground nearby. One of Jacqueline's mittens and her eyeglasses were on the ground near where police searched. It wasn't until after daylight the next morning

that a store manager stumbled upon Jacqueline's body, not far from the area where, police had briefly looked. Pressure on police was immense to this point to stop the Ripper, but this attack really pushed it over the edge. Police would be questioned over and over as to whether Jacqueline could have been saved had they found her. For their part, police didn't spare much in the way of resources trying to catch the Ripper.

They devoted several detectives from various police agencies and seemingly an unlimited budget. In total, over 600 people made up the task force, which considered. assisted of the lead detectives, field detectives who would go out and question potential suspects, and various support staff, secretaries, and people to man the phones. The people on the task force were focused and dedicated to catching the killer before he struck again. In total, police questioned more than 200,000 people, searched 30,000 homes, 180,000 vehicles, all at a cost of $10 million, which would be the equivalent of almost $40 million in 2024.

And some of these numbers and figures morph are eye popping. I mean, you think about questioning 200,000 people searching 30,000 homes, 180,000 vehicles, and then the cost. There's no doubt that police put a lot of resources into trying to catch the Ripper, but how could they not? I mean, this is a person who had committed a lot. large number of really heinous crimes to this point. And you know that the pressure was unrelenting on police. Yeah, I think the backlash from the public to solve this case was so much that they could

not put all the manpower that they had available into this task force in the budget that they had because it was that big and that important. So I think when it failed to catch him after so long, I mean, you could view it as a disappointment that they spent so much time and resources and so much time passed before there was a break in the case. Suspacks and persons of interest were cross-checked against each other to see who matched a sketch, who drove one of the potential vehicles, the killer drove, who had been questioned and ruled out. Along the way, it seems leadership on the task force made a couple of big mistakes.

They discounted the Yorkshire accent that multiple victims described in favor of the wear side accent that was on the audio tape sent to police from someone they believed to be the ripper despite there being no proof that the sender of the tape and the letters was the ripper along the way some lower ranking detectives voiced their concerns that certain leads worth checking out were not being properly checked out. It turns out that one promising suspect was a man named Peter Sutcliffe. He looked like the overall descriptions of the Ripper, and he drove a similar car to one described by multiple witnesses. In fact, he appeared in the task force documents several times, and he had been questioned by police no less than nine times.

He was even the subject of a tip supplied by a friend of his who thought he may be the Ripper. In the end, higher-ups in the task force dismissed Sutcliffe along the way because he didn't have the whereside accent that the person on the audio tape had. It turns out dismissing Sutcliffe was a mistake of massive proportions, one that likely led to additional attacks. On January 2nd, 1981, about six weeks after the last Ripper attack, Peter Sutcliffe was pulled over in Sheffield. He had 24-year-old Olivia Revers, who performed sex work, in the car with him. Authorities on this traffic stop ran his plates and discovered they were fake. He was arrested and taken into custody at Hammerton Road Police Station in Hillsborough. Sutcliffe was then transferred to the Dewsbury Police Station in West Yorkshire, where he was questioned about the Ripper murders.

Meanwhile, Sergeant Robert Ring decided to go back to where they had arrested Sutcliffe and look for additional clues. During the traffic stop and arrest, an officer had allowed Sutcliffe to step to the side and urinate. In this area where Sutcliffe had relieved themselves, Sergeant Ring found a knife, a hammer, and a rope that had been concealed behind an oil drum. A second knife was eventually found hidden in a toilet tank at the Hamilton Road police station in Hillsborough, where they had taken Sutcliffe. Now, I don't know if police were ever 100% certain that the second knife was Sutcliffe's, but, But how scary is that thought that they transported this man potentially to the police station while he had the second knife on him? I mean, what were the protocols back then of patting people down and making sure that they didn't have any weapons? You would think they would frisk a suspect before loading them in the car and taking them back to the police station.

But the police rules in the UK are definitely a little different than they are here in the U.S. you know, for one thing, here officers have guns, tasers, that kind of stuff. And back then in the UK, it seemed like police operated on a honor system that they expected the people they apprehended to just cooperate out of, you know, an honor just to respect them for their status as a police officer. And they didn't really need weapons. It doesn't seem back then. Well, I'm sure they had some weapons, right?

They either had a nightstick or something like that. I just don't think they were carrying guns. The arresting officers were excited at the prospect that they might have caught the Ripper. Once at the Dewsbury Police Station, Sutcliffe was strip searched and found to be wearing something quite odd. An upside-down V-neck sweater was on his lower half. He had his legs through the sleeves, which were padded, and the bottom pulled up around his waist. The V-neck exposed his genitals. This outfit was basically used to protect his needs, but give him access to his genital area.

On January 4th, two days after he was brought in, Sutcliffe was officially questioned about the Ripper murders, and he quickly admitted that he was the Yorkshire Ripper. The hunt was over. After half a decade, the Ripper was off the street. Peter Suckcliffe was happy to talk about his crimes, but there was no remorse. According to the Times UK, Sutcliffe said, The women I killed were filth, and he also said his victims were littering the streets. He told officers, I was just cleaning up the place a bit.

Sutcliffe painstakingly gave police details of his murders, and the attacks in which his victims got away. He seemed to enjoy reliving the crimes as he discussed them. He did seem to have a tinge of regret for the murder of a 16-year-old Jane McDonald. He claimed that he thought she was a sex worker because of where he had seen her walking and only learned of her age and that she was just a young girl walking home when he read about her murder in the newspaper. He told The Daily Star, I felt like someone inhuman and I realized that it was a devil driving me against my will and that I was a beast.

Sutcliffe was questioned about the murder of Joan Harrison, a mother of two murdered in 1975. She was found beaten to death in a garage. Sutcliffe vehemently denied any involvement in her murder and in 2011, DNA finally revealed that Sutcliffe was not the killer of Joan Harrison. He had been telling the truth about not killing her. Her killer was determined to be a man named Christopher Smith, a convicted sex offender who had died in 2008. In all, Sutcliffe confessed to 13 murders and seven other attacks with accurate details. He told investigators that he knew the five-pound note.

in Gene Jordan's purse could potentially be traced back to him and admitted that he had actually gone back to where he left her body to try and recover it, but he couldn't find it. And this five pound note, we talked about it in part one, it really was and has been throughout the years, talked about in detail as a big part of this case. You know, I think at one point, they determined that it could have gone to, you know, something in the neighborhood of 8,000 people. I believe at a certain point, they got that list down to around 300 people. And Peter Sutcliffe's name was on that list. You know, they determined that the five pound note was part of a payroll that went to a number of companies,

one of which was one that Peter Suckcliffe was working at. And I think when you get into the area of criticism on the part of police, it's that this wasn't explored maybe as much as it should have been and that he murdered, I think seven people after the list was dwindled down. So people really gave the police a lot of flack about that. Yeah, I think it was just another missed opportunity. He mentioned his name appeared in case files several times. He was talked to several times.

So this was just one more big thing that the police missed on and allowed him, his crime spree, to continue. And there's no way for police to do everything right in every single case. That would be asking too much, right? It's never going to happen. But I think when you have some of these kind of big glaring mistakes, they really get magnified, especially when you have a number of people who lose their lives after the point in time where police have some information that probably should have been acted upon.

And in a case like this, as big as it is, we mentioned they talked to, what was it, 200,000 people. So if Sutcliffe's name was in there once, you know, it'd be easy to justify, okay, he's a list, he's one person in a list of 200,000 people. But the fact that he was in there so many times mentioned in various places and spoken to by police on so many occasions, I think that's what really makes people angry in this case that they feel that there was just a missed opportunity to stop him. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency.

We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. The day after his arrest on January 5, 1981, Peter Sutcliffe was formally charged with multiple counts of murder and manslaughter. He pleaded guilty to 13 counts of manslaughter and seven counts of attempted murder, but not guilty to 13 counts of murder. He also claimed diminished capacity or temporary insanity. He was going to take a plea deal and the prosecution plan to accept it based on evidence that four psychiatrists had diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia.

It was a judge that rejected the deal and ordered a jury trial, which started on May 5, 1981. At trial, an officer testified to a conversation he had overheard during a visit between Sutcliffe and his wife. According to UPI.com, the officer heard Sutcliffe tell his wife, I'm going to do a long time in prison, 30 years or more, unless I can convince people in here I'm mad and get maybe 10 years in the looney bin. A jury unanimously found him guilty. Sutcliffe was sentenced to serve 20 sentences to run concurrently of life in prison and not in a psychiatric hospital. Justice Boreham recommended a minimum of 30 years before parole eligibility, meaning Sutcliffe would remain behind bars until at least 2011. Suckcliffe began serving his sentence at HM Prison Parkers on May 22nd, 1981.

Despite his diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, he was not moved to a more. more secure psychiatric unit and remained in the general population. Sutcliffe's legal problems didn't in there. Jane McDonald's mother won a lawsuit, receiving a judgment of just over 12,000 pounds and damages for the death of her daughter on March 5, 1982. According to UPI.com, this was the first time. A convicted criminal was held personally accountable for damages inflicted on his

victim in England. The same year, Sutcliffe confessed to Detective Keith Hellowell, that he had attacked Tracy Brown in 1975 and another woman, 22-year-old Anne Rooney, in Leeds in 1979. Detective Hellowell linked multiple murders, including the murders of some men to Sutcliffe. 66-year-old Fred Craven was killed on April 22nd, 1966. If Sutcliffe, then 20 years old, is responsible, this would be his first known murder. Craven was bludgeoned to death in his office above an antique store in Bingley, and his wallet was stolen. About 200 pounds were estimated to be in the wallet at the time of Craven's murder. The two were acquainted.

Craven and the Sutcliffe family lived on the same street, and Craven's daughter had actually rejected Sutcliffe's advances more than once. Sutcliffe's 16-year-old brother, Michael, was questioned in the crime but ruled out. 27-year-old John Tomi, a taxi driver, was attacked by a man he picked up in the leads who asked for a ride to Bingley. The passenger hit him in the back of the head with a hammer, causing him to lose consciousness. He survived but had skull fractures, a broken thumb, and numerous lacerations on his head. After Sutcliffe confessed to being New Yorkshire Ripper, Tommy was shown a group of photos

and confirmed it was Sutcliffe who had attacked him. Two other attacks on women, linked to Sutcliffe, fit his MO perfectly. Between 7.30 and 8 p.m. on November 11, 1974, 24, 28-year-old Gloria Wood was walking home, carrying grocery bags. A man with dark hair offered to help her carry them before striking her in the back of the head with a hammer. People nearby scared the man off, so she survived. But she had to have surgery to remove pieces of her own skull from her brain. A 21-year-old woman named Yvonne was walking at the Ilkley Railway Station on October 11, 1979. when she was attacked and bludgeoned from behind, Yvonne survived because the attack was interrupted

by another commuter walking up. The description of her attacker matches Sucliff. The murder of 18-year-old Debbie Marie Schlesinger doesn't fit Sucliff's M.O. But Detective Hallowell had a suspicion that Sucliff was responsible. On April 21, 1977, she was walking home in Leeds after hanging out with friends when she was stabbed in the heart. She managed to run a short distance before passing out and dying. Witnesses saw a man with dark hair near the scene of her murder. While she wasn't bludgeon and she wasn't a sex worker, Sutcliffe did use knives in his attacks, and records from his job as a truck driver show that he was delivering just 100 yards away from her home that day. Two days later, Patricia Atkinson was murdered.

Sutcliffe was never charged in any of these murders, and there are debates as to whether or not he is responsible for them, just like with Jack the Ripper and the murders back in 1888. While Sutcliffe may not have been charged with any more prison time for additional crimes, his life behind bars wasn't easy. On January 10, 1983, inmate James Costello, followed Sutcliffe and attacked him with a broken jar. Causing injuries to Sutcliffe's face that needed 30 stitches, this was the first attack he would face behind bars, but not the last. Sutcliffe was sent to Broadmoor Hospital in March 1984 due to the passage of the Mental Health Act of 1983. Despite the move to Broadmoor, Sutcliffe was attacked again.

On February 23, 1996, inmate Paul Wilson, convicted of robbery, made a bit of small talk with Sutcliffe, asking him if he could borrow a VHS tape with his. His guard down, Sutcliffe was vulnerable, just like his victims. Wilson used the cord from a pair of headphones to strangle him. He survived, but this was not the last attack. Sutcliffe was attacked for a third time. On March 10, 1997, he was stabbed with a pin by inmate Ian K. The injuries were very severe.

He completely lost vision in his left eye, and his right eye was badly wounded. Ian K was moved to a more secure psychiatric unit. Sutcliffe was attacked again. On December 22nd, 2007, inmate Patrick Serita, who had been convicted of killing his mother, rushed at him with a knife while screaming obscenities and calling Sutcliffe a rapist killer. Sarita tried to poke out Sutcliffe's eye, but he was able to back up enough that the knife only cut his cheek, instead of gouging out his right eye. In addition to the attacks Peter Sutcliffe suffered,

in 1989, Sutcliffe's wife, Sonia, separated from him. In July 1994, their divorce was finalized. She had stood by him defending him for years. Some people even suspected she knew he was the Ripper, but never called police. And I'll be honest with you more of the first thing that kind of went through my mind, when, you know, we were talking about some of these attacks on Peter Sutcliffe was that it was like the tables had turned. There were predators praying on him now, much in the very exact same way that he had prayed on his victim.

He was the vulnerable one. Now, I don't advocate for that type of violence, but I don't think anybody's going to lose any sleep. over the attacks on Peter Sutcliffe, given his history and the horrible crimes that he committed. Yeah, we know that prison justice is a real thing. They don't take kindly to rapist and people that harm women and children in prison are usually looked down upon. And especially when they're high profile target like Peter Sutcliffe was for someone to get some cred in prison as the person that killed or attacked the Yorkshire Ripper, there's no shortage of people that would probably take a chance to try and do him some harm. And I was actually kind of surprised that he was in Jen Pop there early on.

Because to your point, Morph, you know, there are people in there who probably are never getting out. It would almost be kind of a badge of honor to them to take out this horrible guy, Peter Sutclough. They would be known forever, almost like the assassination of Jesse James or something like that. Other interesting developments came. In 2002, authorities announced they would be charging Sutcliffe with the murder of 18-year-old Debbie Marie Schlesinger, but they never did. In 2003, at the age of 57, Sutcliffe was diagnosed with diabetes. The next year, his father passed away, and on January 17, 2005, he was allowed to go to the the village of Arnside, where his father's ashes had been spread after his cremation.

Four employees from Broadmoor escorted him during this brief release. This, of course, made headlines and had plenty of people outraged. And I think this is something that you see in many countries outside of the U.S., people, inmates, even really bad individuals being allowed to leave the facility or the prison. Now, he's escorted. I get that. But, you know, if you're the family of one of the victims and you read that in the paper, I would think that would cause you to just about lose it. You know, your family member is gone. But this man is allowed to pay his respects to his father outside of the facility. The fact that he's even allowed to leave, I think would upset. many, many people. Yeah, we're not talking about some celebrity that's serving like a 60-day sentence

for some dumb thing they did in a low-security setting. This is a heinous serial killer that was proven to be extremely dangerous. So I think in the minds of these families and the public in general, there's no reason that he should have been allowed to go out on the street for any reason. In 2005, there was a major development in the case that would highlight some failures by police early on. DNA from the envelope on one of the where side jack letters proved that a man named John Humble and not Peter Sutcliffe had mailed them. He was arrested and convicted of four counts of perverting the course of justice due to the letters in audio tape he sent. In 2009, John Humble was released from prison under the new name John Anderson. Police had bought in to the detriment of catching the real killer that

where side jack was the Yorkshire Ripper. And they dismissed suspects, including the real Ripper, based on their belief. And I think, you know, this is one of the things that people really struggle with in this case, because it brings up some of the really tough questions, such as how many Ripper victims might have been spared, if Humble didn't send those hoax letters, and if the police didn't buy into them. And we talked about it quite a bit in part one.

We even heard the tape, we read the letters, but we also talked in detail about how many victims who survived described, described to police the fact that their attacker had this very specific Yorkshire accent. So it does seem like, you know, kind of one of those big blunders. Like, how could you believe after hearing this man's voice on audio tape who obviously had a much different accent than a Yorkshire accent was the Yorkshire Ripper? And I think just like with the five pound note.

it brings in that what if. If police had just done this, how many people would have been spared? And those are tough questions to answer, especially on the part of the police. I think it's fair to point out the fact that the police sort of bought into these hoax letters as being from the real Ripper and sort of put blinders on to any other possibility. But I think some of the blame has to go to the guy that wrote these. hoax letters in the first place, you know, in high profile cases, people do this kind of thing often. They want to be part of the case, so they attach themselves into it, as sometimes in the form of letters that they mail in, and it gives them probably a thrill, but maybe they don't

think that it also can affect the investigation and ultimately cause there to be more victims. So I think, well, some people might say that the police have blood on their hands, allowing other victims to be killed, I think this letter writer has some on his hands as well. It was determined on February 17, 2009, that Sutcliffe was able to leave Broadmoor Hospital. His living victims were terrified that this would mean he would be released from custody instead of return to prison to complete his sentence. Their fear wasn't unwarranted. A request by Sutcliffe was heard by the High Court on July 16, 2010. He was asking for a new date for parole eligibility. The argument here is that if he was able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be. He was

to leave Broadmoor, maybe he would be able to return to society. Instead, he was given a whole life term. It was decided that Sutcliffe would never leave prison. But on November 30th, 2010, Sutcliffe launched an appeal against the ruling that he would spend the rest of his life in prison. This appeal was rejected on March 9, 2011. This was a very good ruling. It's just four years later, Sutcliffe was found to be no longer clinically, mentally ill by staff at Broadmoor. And in August 2016, it was determined by a medical tribunal that he did not require any further treatment at that time. Because his sentence still had no parole option, Sutcliffe was sent back to prison and not released into society. And I think it's pretty scary more if that there was a halfway decent chance that he could have been released into society.

Pretty tough, in my mind, to think that this guy would not have gone back. to doing the exact same things he was doing. I think any time you have mental health intertwined with the crime that someone did, you run the risk for saying, okay, if this guy is cured one day, maybe he should be able to walk free. And I think some people would make the argument that even if Sutcliffe was, quote, unquote, cured of his mental illness, that he should never go free for all the murders that he committed. there's just no way in a lot of people's mind they think that that should happen.

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offering both virtual and in-person sessions nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability, and get started in as little as two days. And if something comes up, you can cancel up to 24 hours in advance at no cost. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow helps you find therapy on your time. Whatever challenges you're facing, Grow Therapy is here to help. Grow accepts over 100 insurance plans, including Medicaid in some states. Sessions average about $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Visit growtherapy.com slash book Now to get started. That's growtherapy.com slash book now. Growtherapy.com slash book now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Authors Chris Clark and Tim Tate link Sutcliffe to eight more murders in their 2015 book, Yorkshire Ripper, The Secret Murders. Forty-year-old Mary Judge, who did sex work, was bludgeoned to death near the Leeds Parish Church on February 22nd, 1968. year old Lucy Tinsla was killed on the way home from her birthday party in Nottingham.

On August 4th, 1969, her murder was very brutal. She had been strangled, sexually assaulted. Her vagina had been stabbed over 20 times and her abdomen had been slashed. This seems like a classic Yorkshire Ripper M.O. 29-year-old Gloria Booth was murdered in West London on June 13, 1971. as she was walking home from work. At the time, Sutcliffe and his then girlfriend, Sonia, were living in West London.

Glory was strangled and left half naked. 14-year-old Judith Roberts was riding her bicycle in Staffordshire on June 7, 1972, when she was bludged into death. She had 19 different head wounds. Andrew Evans, just 17 years old, confessed to this crime and served 25 years in prison before being released. Witnesses had seen a gray Ford escort driving behind Jews, shortly before she was killed. Sutcliffe happened to drive that exact car. He would have been near

the crime scene on his way from Bexley Heath to Bingley for work. He could have stopped to visit his now fiance, Sonia. 32-year-old Wendy Sewell was killed during her lunch hour on September 12, 1973. A witness saw her arrive at Bakewell Cemetery at 12.50 p.m. and was found shortly after with seven wounds to her head from a pickax. The 17-year-old groundskeeper of the cemetery, Stephen drowning was arrested and convicted. In 2001, the conviction was overturned. But the next year, a new investigation that considered Sutcliffe still found that Downing was the only suspect.

24-year-old Rosina Hilliard, a sex worker, was hit by a car and severely injured, but also strangled. Her body was found in Leicester on February 22nd, 1974. While this wasn't the usual M.O., Sutcliffe was making deliveries in that area for work. 25-year-old Allison Morris was stabbed and killed on September 1st, 1979, in Essex, just six hours before Sutcliffe killed Barbara Leach and Bradford. These areas were 200 miles apart, but it would be possible for him to travel from one place to another in that time. 24-year-old Sally Shepherd was walking home from the bus stop in South London on December 1, 1979,

when she was bludgeon to death and sexually assaulted. Her murder was very similar to Yvonne Pearson's murder in 1978. Both of their bodies had been dragged. Sutcliffe's then waif, Sonia, worked nearby in Deptford, where Peter would often visit her. Author David Yallop believes that Sutcliffe is the true killer of Carol Wilkinson. On October 10, 1977, she was walking to the bakery where she worked in Bradford. She was discovered in a field behind the building, naked and covered in blood. Two large rocks, the murder weapons were nearby.

Anthony Steele, a gardener for the building that Carol lived in, ended up confessing to her murder. He would later say he felt intimidated and mostly wanted the interview over, though they told him so many times. They had proof that he began to believe them. He was acquitted in 2003 and sadly died just four years later at the age of 52. The links for Sutcliffe to Carol's murder are strong. Apparently, her death was only excluded from the Ripper murders because she was not a sex worker. Until he began killing teenagers, many of the deaths were looked at as more of an occupational hazard for living that lifestyle.

Carol's murder was just nine days after the murder of Gene Jordan. He had mutilated Gene's body when he went to look for the five-pound note, which happened to be on the day of Carol's murder, placing him in Bradford at the time she was killed. He would have also been nearby for work that day at TNW. H. Clark, making Carol's murder another death that points to him through his work records. And I think in any big case like this, more, there are going to be a number of murders that people are going to try to link to a prolific serial killer. That is just very natural. We see that in so many cases from, you know, Ted Bundy to John Wayne Gacy, you name it. Yeah, it's sort of like the Zodiac in California. people try to connect him to every crime under the sun.

And I think it's possible that Peter Succliffe could be involved in one or more of these unconfirmed crimes we're talking about here. But, yeah, I think there's a risk of trying to connect him to everyone, especially with no, unless there's physical evidence or something that directly links him to. Yeah, I don't think it's enough just to say, well, he could have been in the area or, you know, something like that. The other thing that I kind of think about with Peter Sutcliffe is that he very readily admitted to being a killer. He gave details of his murders and all that.

So if there were additional murders, why would he not have admitted to those as well? Because he seemed to relish almost in giving the details to detectives. And I almost think he relished in his number. And like many, probably would have confessed to more had he done more just to make the number even higher. I don't know. I'm speculating there, but I think there's a component to that.

Yeah, when somebody admits to and confirms suspicions that they're responsible for a number of murders, you almost wonder what would be the point of him not connecting himself to other crimes, you know, denying and instead denying that he's involved. And we did see that some of the cases we talked about, or at least one of them, that police thought was connected to Peter Succliffe was proven later on by DNA to be someone else. And he denied being involved in that. So it could just be a case that he's not connected to these crimes. That's why he never took credit for them. Well, to your point, I don't think confessing to additional crimes was going to

hurt him really in any way. He wasn't going to do more time in prison by confessing to more murders. I think what is important is that Sutcliffe was never charged in any of these murders that people try to connect him to. In August 2016, Peter Sutcliffe was moved to HM Prison Franklin. The next year, another investigation was launched to try and connect unsolved cases to Succliffe. Four murders, including two in Sweden, were determined to be too different from how he was known to attack. Succliffe was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the age of 74, he was diabetic and very overweight. He contracted COVID and refused any treatment for it. After that, he had a heart attack and was taken to University Hospital of North Durham, where he did receive medical care. He recovered and

returned to HM Prison Franklin, but two weeks later, he was taken back to University Hospital. On November 13, 2020. He passed away in the hospital. It's unknown how many people Peter Sockcliffe attacked, how many lives he truly took, or how many people may have served time for crimes he committed. We mentioned that Suckcliffe was questioned nine times for the Ripper murders and slipped through the cracks. I think it's important to look at Suckcliffe's background, to see if there was anything there that would help explain why he did what he did or if there were opportunities to stop him before he committed all his murders. Peter Sutcliffe grew up in a volatile household with an abusive father who once smashed a bottle over his head on Christmas when he was just five years old.

His father would also bully him and call him a wimp for wanting his mom's attention. On Valentine's Day, 1967, Peter met 16-year-old Sanja. Serma at a pub in Bradford. When she was 22, Sanya was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and began receiving treatment. They married on August 10, 1974, the day she turned 24. Sonia trained to be a teacher, and the two bought a house together in Heaton. In September 1969, Peter Sutcliffe was angry at a sex worker who had stolen his money, so he was out searching for her. He would later claim that he gave her double her fee in cash after a fight with his girlfriend with the understanding that after they had done the deed, she would give him change. But he couldn't go through with it and called

their encounter off. He said she could still keep her fee, but he wanted to change. She didn't give it to him. And instead, according to him, had laughed at him. So days later, his friend Trevor Bursall was driving them around in his van. When Sutcliffe asked him to park and wait for him. He then walked up St. Paul's Road in Bradford, England. At this point, Birdsaw couldn't see him anymore, so he just waited. Eventually, Sutcliffe jumped back into the car. He was out of breath and told Bardsall to go quickly. During their drive, Suckcliff confessed that he had just assaulted a woman by putting a rock into his sock and swinging it at her head. As he told Bersall this, he took a sock out of his pocket.

took a rock out of it and threw the rock out the window. The woman had been able to spot Birdsell's van and made sure to remember the license plate number. Naturally, when officers asked Birdsell about the incident, they were appointed to Sutcliffe. At his home, Sutcliffe immediately confessed that he had hit the woman, but said he only hit her with his hand. The woman ended up declining to press charges, wishing to just move on from the incident. weeks after getting away with this brazen assault, Suckcliffe was ready to strike again. On September 29th, he was arrested in Bradford when he was found prowling in the dark, armed with a hammer near his running car.

It was assumed that he was looking for a house to break into, but looking back, it's clear that he was probably waiting for an unsuspecting victim. For this offense, Sucliff received the 25-pound fine. Then he was pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving on June 26, 1980. He was arrested but released to wait for trial, which would be held in January 1981. This left him free to keep terrorizing women. After much thought and consideration, Sutcliffe's friend Trevor Birdsaw, who had driven Sutcliffe in his van when he attacked the woman with a stone and a sock, way back in 1969, mailed an anonymous letter to police on November 26, 1980, naming Sutcliffe as a potential Ripper suspect. He just couldn't shake the feeling that Sutcliffe might be the Ripper.

It turned out he was right, but for two months, following that letter being sent, Sutcliffe remained free to potentially take the life of another woman. Thankfully, he was apprehended before that happened. So Morph as we wrap up our coverage of the Yorkshire Ripper, you know, I do think it's important to take time to talk about his childhood. Doesn't sound like it was great, which is not something. surprising. We see that in the childhoods of many serial killers. And I think the other thing that we often see is a series of incidents that happen prior to the murders started, where you could

make the case that if these individuals would have been held accountable for some of their actions, maybe it would have changed, you know, what they would go on to do. Now, there's no way to know that for sure. But I think in some instances, some of these individuals get emboldened by the fact that, you know, they're able to get away with things. So the next time they're angry, the next time they're frustrated, there's really nothing to hold them back because they don't feel like, A, they're going to be caught or, B, if they are, that really anything's going to happen to them. Yeah, I think it really enables people like Peter Sutcliffe to take the next step forward in their evolution as a killer. And until it's just something that's just a part of their life.

And for me, this case goes back to not just spotting these things in his background, but what we've talked about pre-extexteckel. extensively was even in the police task force investigation, you know, on one hand, the police spared no expense. They threw tons of manpower at this. They questioned lots of people. They spent a lot of money. But what really came down to was just missed opportunities. The fact that Sutcliffe's name appeared so many times in their files and he was questioned nine times, it just really a failure at some point to take this guy off the streets before he racked up the amount of victims that he did. I also think it's hard to overemphasize this kind of tunnel vision over where side jack, right? How much of that caused them to dismiss maybe a Peter Sutcliffe?

Because he didn't sound like whereside jack. You know, that notion of tunnel vision comes up quite a bit and it can really harm an investigation. There's just no doubt about that. Yeah, I think it just proves that even if you throw manpower and money at a case, it still takes good police work that are openly thinking about all the possibilities and not just going down one specific route. But no doubt. Peter Socliffe, he was, he was a bad guy, you know, pretty infamous serial killer in the annals of UK history. but that's it for our coverage on the Yorkshire Ripper. If you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating.

You can leave a review, but also keep telling your friends, word of mouth is huge for the podcast. If you want to find us on social media, we're on X with the handle at CriminologyPod. You can also find us on Facebook by going to facebook.com slash criminology podcast. and you can join our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcasts, Discussion and Fans. So that's it for another episode of Criminology, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode.

So until then, for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.