Morbid - Episode 407: The Yorkshire Ripper Part 4

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

We've reached a conclusion here folks, and by the end of this Peter will be apprehended. First though, there were more fuck ups to be made in the investigation. More and more evidence headquarters were set up across various areas only leading to important information being completely looked over. Peter was also spoken to several more times, but really why was he? The investigators didn't even check up on his alibis. Then one night in 1981 Peter picked up a woman he intended to kill and little did he know she would be the one to end it all.Thank you to David White for being such a trooper and helping me with this research!Apple, R.W. 1981. "Truck driver in Britain confesses at his trial to killing 13 women." New York Times, April 30: A6.Byford, Lawrence. 1981. The Yorkshire Ripper Case: Review of the Police Investigation of the Case. Evaluation, Inspector of the Constabulary , Secretary of State for the Home Department, United Kingdom, London: Secretary of State for the Home Department, United Kingdom.Cobb, Richard Charles. 2019. On the Trail of the Yorkshire Ripper: His Final Secrets Revealed. South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword Books.Cross, Roger. 1981. The Yorkshire Ripper: the In-depth Study of a Killer and his Methods. New York, NY: Dell Publishing .Gazette News Services. 1981. "God's voice made me kill Yorkshire Ripper tells jury." The Gazette, May 12: 13.1980. "Union support sought for women to carry weapons." The Times, December 1.Wark, Penny. 1999. "The Ripper: why did so many women have to die." The Times, September 30.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, Prime members, you can listen to morbid, early, and ad-free on Amazon music. Download the app today. You're listening to Immorbid Network Podcast. Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, the host of Wondries Podcast American Scandal. Our newest series looks at the Kids for Cash Scandal, a story about two judges who stood accused of making millions of dollars in a brazen scheme that shattered the lives of countless children. Listen to American scandal on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey weirdo's a mash and I can't wait to get out of this because this guy sucks.

Yeah, this has been a really tough one. Actually, this morning at the fricking gym because of this case, I was literally sharding myself and my little platform hugs and I didn't wear those workouts. Wow. But, I wear like my little slippers when I'm going in because I want the comfy on the rod there. Of course. I wear like my like little slippers when I'm going in because I want to come to me on the broad there of course But I'm parking in this red sedan Out of all the fucking parking spots around me like all the parking spots everywhere

This guy parks in front of my spot in his red-ass car Staring at me and all I could think of was Peter GD set lift It's like cliff excuse me and I I ran inside of there, and Mama does not run. And in a red sedan. That's scary. My heart, I got into the gym and I work out with my friend. And I was like, look at my hands, I'm shaking. I was very scared.

Yeah, I don't love that. This is, you know what it is? This case, it's, I mean, he's just awful, and he's so brutal. And just like how these victims were treated in the press is just like a real bummer Because it's like in the grand scheme of things. This was not the 1800s, you know like this was the 1970s into the early 1980 and it's like That never should happen ever ever ever ever

But we've set it before that the police department did apologize, put out a formal apology after he died. Right. And Richard McCann, who was Wilma McCann's son, he was five years old when she was killed. My God. He really led this. I really encourage you guys to look him up.

I think he's on social media and stuff. He does a lot of good with this stuff. He really is. And he's very outspoken about it as he should be. And he was really the one leading the charge social media and stuff. He does a lot of good with this stuff. You know what I mean? He really is. And he's very outspoken about it as he should be. And he was really the one leading the charge to get that formal apology. And they all deserve that.

They were super instrumental like the victim's families and making that happen. So they're really fucking impressive. And yeah, he looks so much like his mom. Like he looks like he's a spitting image of his mom. When I looked at him, I was like, oh my God, you have her face. Like it's just I'm like, oh, and like he doesn't get to know her.

And that's like he was five. And at five, you know your mom. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like you are connected. Yeah, but he never got the chance to like continue to like work with her. Exactly.

Like that's what sucks. And that's what people forget is these kids, like so many what 26 orphans in this. These kids, a lot of them were of age where they had full blown bonds with their mom. Some of them were like teenagers in this type of age. Yeah, they knew their mom. They needed their mom.

They love their mom. Like they, this was huge losses. This wasn't like, I mean, it's a loss at any age, but obviously when it's like a baby, the memories aren't there, so you just have to deal with the whole other kind of loss, which is I never got to know her at all. But like these are different kind where it's like, they had these memories.

And they're gonna have these memories. And that's like such a whole. And it's like, oh. And a lot of these women just like left home and said goodbye to them and said like, I'll be back later. Exactly. One to them and said like, go into work. I'll be back later. Like, exactly.

One of them cooked dinner. Yeah, of course. They all did what they had to do as parents. Their moms. They were, and they left their kids responsibly. Like with babysitters, with family members, with spouses, with, you know. That trusted adults.

Yeah, and it's like, and then they were treated so shitty in the press. And that's the thing. I'll get to it at the end, but Richard says something, like all these women were innocent, all of them, including my mom. Yeah. That's like, we need to remember that. So as we remember that, we're going to go into the final three victims,

which the final three victims were not working as sex workers, which is what shocked everybody because he suddenly changed. He had killed Jane McDonald's, but who was the 16-year-olds? But they were, I think they were still confused about that. They didn't know if it was an accident, but it didn't make sense because like, there's just no real, like, obviously he just hates women. And that's like the real so people really were looking for that pattern. But it's like, no, no, he just happened to be able to meet these women who happen to be sex workers because they were out at that time. And as I don't think it has truly only about what they did for work. No, I don't

think so either. He kind of admits such later. He tries to go back and say like he was on a mission from God to kill sex workers. But in his own confession, he says at one point, I really just started wanting to kill women. Yeah, I mean, even some of the women that he attacked in the first place,

he just quote unquote thought they looked like a good time gal. Yeah, which it's like explained to me what that was. What is that? No, I present as a woman. That's what that is. Like I was out at a good time gal. Yeah, which it's like explained to me what that was. What is that? No, I present as a woman. That's what that is. Like I was out at a certain time. Right. That's what that means.

Like that's your idea. The other thing, that's the thing that pisses me off because that's something that we've mentioned. Like you were just out at a certain time. You have no idea what the fuck somebody's doing out. What if somebody, they could be out for any reason. They could be out because they just gave their parents some kind of medication that they made

and they're walking home because they just had a visitation with their child, they're walking home. They could have had to run out to the pharmacy because they or someone they love in their house is sick, their child and they had to run and grab a thermometer. They had to run and grab some medicine. And like maybe had a cute outfit on

because they give a shit about what they looked like and they feel good or they were out at a bar or they were out at a restaurant or they were hanging out with friends they can do whatever the fuck they want. They're going to ask people like there's no woman curfew. It's ridiculous and actually Josephine Joe Whitaker our next victim was coming home from her grandparents house. Oh my god. Wow. I didn't even know that. Like that's the thing. It's like you just say you've led right into it. That it's like they, they were doing any number of things and none of which meant that they should be stocked and attacked, no matter what they were doing.

They weren't doing anything that they deserve to be attacked and that's, that's the bottom line there. But Josephine Joe Whitaker was 19 years old in 1979. She was described as fearless, a generous, and kind girl. She was known to be very confident and friendly, and not afraid of speaking to new people. People later said that even if she was approached by a man that night, she would have never assumed

they were approaching her for nefarious reasons. She just wasn't scared of anyone. Like she had no, she was very fearless. Hell yeah. And actually later, Peter Sutcliffe in his confession said, she did not seem startled by me at all. Wow. And did not seem scared of me.

She was just a badass. Yeah, she was just like, fuck you, I'm taking a walk and walking home. Like, so yeah. She worked as a clerk for the Halifax Building Society and on this particular day, Wednesday, April 4th, 1979, she had actually received a new silver watch that she was eager to show off to

her family. She decided to stop at her grandparents' home on her way back from work, but when she got there, her grandmother was at some church function, and she actually wasn't going to be home until like 11 p.m., which like, go grandma. They were going off at church that night. But Joe decided to wait for her, because she was like, I want to hang out with her. And when she came home, they had a nice visit together for about an hour, hung out, talked. Sometime around midnight, Joe said she had to get home. And her grandparents were like, no, why don't you stay here? They were worried for her safety.

Joe insisted she was gonna be fine. She told them, I'll get home safe and quick, don't worry about it, which breaks my heart. So she headed away from Huddersfield Road and went towards the direction of Saville Park. Or Saville Park, I'm not exactly sure how to say it. As she walked quickly home, Peter Sutcliffe approached her out of nowhere. He asked her where she was headed and asked if she knew the time. She again was not intimidated by him at all, and so she let her eyes go to the clock tower to tell him what time it was. And when she did this, he hit her in the head with a hammer.

And she fell to the ground and he hit her again and again. And when she had stopped moving, he dragged her away into the darkness about 30 feet away. He truly escalated here. I just want to say this really quick. This is pretty graphic. So I apologize. It's like it's terrible. So he had with him this time a sharpened Phillips head screwdriver. What the fuck? When, when he had brought her into the darkness off the roadway, he stabbed her 25 times in the chest, stomach, thighs, and in her vagina. Oh, he brutalized her body. And then he just

dragged her back out of the darkness and to that field and left her there. It's unreal. Yeah. The next morning, she was found by a woman waiting at the bus stop on the roadway. She noticed something off of the roadway, a bit of a distance away,

and she initially thought it was just a bundle of rags, but she was curious, and she walked closer and closer to it, and as she got closer, it became clear that this was a body of a woman. She immediately called the police from a phone booth. And meanwhile, a bus driver had driven past the scene and also noticed what was going on. They didn't know exactly what they were looking at either, but something about it, they said it chilled their blood

and just implored them to call and report it. Isn't it crazy how even if you don't see anything, there's just a feeling, not only girls, when scary things like this. Exactly. Now, investigators showed up on scene and began to process. She was kind of out in the open. There were crime scene photos,

and it's really shocking where he left her. They actually first thought she had been hit by a car and had been thrown or had crawled to where she was lying. But when they got closer, they saw the absolute brutality thought she had been hit by a car and had been thrown or had crawled to where she was lying. But when they got closer, they saw the absolute brutality inflicted upon her, the stab wounds and the head drama. What's even worse is while this is happening, Joe's brother David was picking up some newspapers in the area to begin his paper route. No. He passed by this chaotic scene on Savile Ruttpark Road and he was curious what was going on. He saw a bunch of police. So he peeked into the scene, and he noticed a shoe lying on the sidewalk,

and he immediately recognized the shoe as his sisters. He tore out of there, ran home and told his parents. Oh my God. They checked Joe's bedroom, and she was nowhere to be found. Immediately, they called the police in a full-blown panic, because they just assumed she had told them, I'm going to be home. But they just assumed she had told them I'm going to be home. Which means they just assumed she would be in her bed. Yeah. Well, I mean, she was just going to see her grandparents. Yeah.

Now, George Oldfield was on the scene with the Ripper Squad. And they were actually hesitant to call this one an official Ripper scene. Again, Joe was not a sex worker, but the injuries lined up perfectly. There was no question here. Yeah, and it's all within the same proximity. There were reports that she had been seen earlier in the think that was a good idea. I think that was a good idea. I think that was a good idea. I think that was a good idea.

I think that was a good idea. I think that was a good idea. I think that was a good idea. I think that was a good idea. I think that was a good idea. I think that was a good idea. I think that was a good idea. I think that was a good idea. I think he was from the North. So they were taking way more time up there, and they were really breaking stuff away from local investigations.

Then in June of that same year, more communication was sent that led to further divisions from investigating Joe Whitaker's stuff in particular. It was nonsense, which makes it so much worse that they were paying attention to those letters. Because it was nonsense. The communication that came in June was actual audio recordings that were received. It was a cassette tape and it was received by George Oldfield. And this is what it said.

It said, I'm Jack. I see you're still having no luck catching me. I have the greatest respect for you, George, but Lord, you are no near catching me now than four years ago when I started. I reckon your boys are letting you down, George. It can't be much good, can ya? The only time they came near me was a few months back in Shappleton when I was disturbed.

Even then, it was a uniform copper, not a detective. I warned you in March that I'd strike again. Sorry, it wasn't Bradford. I did promise you that, but I couldn't get there. I'm not quite sure when I will strike again, but it will definitely be sometime this year, maybe September or October, even sooner if I get the chance. I'm not sure where, or maybe Manchester. I like it there. There's plenty of them knocking about. They never learn, do they, George? I bet you've warned them, but they never listen. At the rate I'm going, I should be in the book of records. I think it's 11 up to now, isn't it?

Well, I'll keep on going for quite a while yet. I can't see myself being nickned just yet. Even if you do get near, I'll probably top myself first. Well, it's been nice chatting to you, George. Yours, Jack the Ripper. Wow. And that was audio. Weird.

Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, the host of Wondries Podcast American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history, presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our newest series, we look at the Kids for Cash Scandal, a story about corruption inside America's system of juvenile justice. In Northeastern Pennsylvania, residents had begun noticing an alarming trend. Children were being sent away to jail in high numbers and often for committing only minor offenses. The FBI began looking at two local judges, and when the full picture emerged, it made national headlines. The judges were earning a fortune, carrying out a brazen criminal scheme, one that would

shatter the lives of countless children, and force a heated debate about punishment and America's criminal justice system. Follow American scandal wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wonder App. voice or manner, speaking and give them some kind of lead to work on. It was clear to investigators that the accent on the tapes was a northern accent. And it was the only thing they really felt they had to go on. But this was terrible because investigators ran with this idea. Yorkshire police sent a shit ton of resources up north, started completely abandoning all the other investigations.

This fucked local r ripper investigations, completely, especially Joe Whitaker, and the ones after this. Even though the police were now moving resources and causing more issues for themselves in the community, the press was still on their bullshit as well. They were now touting another victim, Joe, as one of the, quote unquote, sad ones,

because she was not a sex worker. If she was no a sex worker. She was, no, the loss of any human life is pretty fucking sad. She and Jane were allowed it as the true sad cases because they didn't ask for it essentially. Oh my God. They referred to her as absolutely respectable, which she was, but they never referred to any

of the other ones like that. And that's where the issue arrives. It's just like, it's like for anyone to be that brutally murdered, no matter who the fuck they were, what the fuck they did. No. Traject. It is beyond tragic. Well, that's where the problem is, too, because this is like a double-edged issue, because

it's like, we're only calling certain women sad and tragic and innocent and not deserving of it, which is fucked up. But then on the other side of the whole thing, now those women are being, are the ones who are like, well, why are they the sad ones in the whole book? Because it's like, this is making issues for all of these victims' families, all of them. Yeah. Because now the ones that are being

to loud it as the sad and innocent ones feel shitty that their loved ones, even though they are sad and are innocent, are the only ones being loud it that way. But now it's like, you should call everybody that. It's just, what are you doing? Nobody is better victim. Nobody's better than anybody. This is a murder victim.

This is a human being with a family, no matter what, 100% across the board. Just report it the same way. It's a woman just say that. Like, ah, I don't know why this was so hard for them. Now, the distinction being made here is just constant. The only good to come out of the press doing this in this case was at the press and the community were now pushing even harder against the Yorkshire police to stop being, quote, lazy and indifferent to the brutal slangs of local women. My God.

So the next one, this was a truly successful, this was a truly stressful time for anyone working the case because there were some good ones in there that were truly trying to work this case. There always are. But it was just being overshadowed by the worst of the worst. But especially George Oldfields, he was under a immense amount of stress, because as of the face of the investigation, he received all the flak and all the blame, regardless. And in July 1979, shortly after the audio recordings were sent to him,

he suffered a heart attack, and he actually had to be hospitalized for like a while. Oh, wow. Coincidentally, at the same time, another lead detective, Jim Hobson, we talked about him, I believe, in the first one. Yeah, I think you're right. His wife had an accident. She fell down the stairs and fractured her skull. Oh my gosh.

And he had to care for her, so he had to take time off. Now with the team's two most senior investigators gone, the case was somehow in even warship. Yeah. Not only were they just completely lacking evidence or any leads, but there were also infightings between departments. The Yorkshire police and the Northern police force

were a mess of different opinions about the authenticity of the letters and the audio. Senior officials believe they were real and we're treating it the investigation as such because they were unable to get it together for even a second, and a lot of them were bumbling in ego-driven. Peter Sutcliffe was able to just coast into Bradford unnoticed on September 1st, 1979. Great.

And some of the local officers didn't think that those letters were authentic. Like, a lot of people in a lot of community. So it was just all these different opinions, and they just had to listen to those senior investigators who were running with this, like egos. So September 1st, 1979, 19 year old college student, Barbara Leach, was out in Bradford as well. His last few victims are among the youngest. She was a student at Bradford University

and she was out celebrating a new semester with a ton of her friends from school. They were hanging out at Manville Arms, which was a pub that a lot of students went to on Great Horton Road near the university. They were just doing what college students do, eaten, having a beer, listening to music, dancing, just hanging out.

They went here a lot, so they knew all the bartenders, they knew all the people who work there. And about 11 p.m. is when the place closed. But this group of friends, including Barbara, they always made it a habit to stay later and help the owner, Roy Evans, clean and close the bar. Wow, yeah.

They did this this night as well, and they left around 12.45. By this time, it had begun to rain lightly. And Barbara's friends were trying to get a cab, but she waited a minute. And then she was like, you know what? I actually like walking in the rain. I'm going to take a walk. Her roommates had waited up for her over an hour because she didn't have a key to get in.

So they were going to let her in. And she didn't show up and they figured, you know, she must have stopped somewhere with the friends. She was out with. She wasn't alone. Yeah. As far as they knew. So they were like, oh, she must have stopped somewhere with the friends she was out with, she wasn't alone. Yeah. As far as they knew. So they were like, oh, she just must be somewhere else. And again, no cell phones or anything. This is 79.

So they went to bed. Mm-hmm. Now the next day, they woke up and Barbara still wasn't home. This is when they panicked and they were like, do we report or missing? Do we call people? They started calling around being like, where is she? Do you know, they're college kids. They don't, like,'t, like, they're like, kind of say, you're 19 years old.

I don't know if she's just staying over someone's house. Like, yeah, we don't want to make a big stink of this. We don't have to. But they're kind of discussing it with themselves. And then around 4 p.m., police constables Simon Grieves was walking his beat around the university. And in one of the yards off back ash grove. He found a pile of garbage along a wall, one of the walls that looked strange and out of place to him. When he got closer, he saw under a dirty old carpet and a pile of bricks, the body of Barbara Leach. A pile of bricks. Now David Ghee in the Ripper Squad was called onto the scene and it was clear she was another victim on the list.

She had been hitting the head at least once with a hammer. Her shirt was pushed up, and she had been stabbed in the stomach and shoulder eight times with a screwdriver. My God. Her pants were also unbuttoned and pulled halfway down, but there was no evidence of seamen or rape. So it seems like he does this sometimes just

to shame them, probably. Yeah. So investigator Gil Rein made this was the guy that was leading this area. He made another headquarters at the Bradford station. We now have probably like a dozen evidence incident rooms here. That's what I was read out everywhere. Why are there a million and 42 of these?

And all of these incident rooms and evidence areas are spread out. so they all have different evidence in different areas than none of them are communicating. Yeah. Why is this happening like this? But he tried to gather the Ripper Squad, but most of them were up north chasing the bullshit letter leads. Things got messy, they got complex real fast, they couldn't handle the tips coming in, because

they didn't have enough officers down there. Right. The crime scene Had no evidence that they could actually use and that was a really active neighborhood a lot of students went through there But no one had any information. That's crazy. Yeah Again, the press went wilds with this murder It was another woman who did not work as a sex worker in this meant that the idea that no woman was safe Was now a reality. This made people lose it. They believed the police could not keep them safe anymore They were not feeling protected by the police. No, they would just they were like this is just gonna keep happening right with no resolution So one year after Barbara leach is murder. This was interesting

Britain's national union of students held an emergency meeting in Kent. They ended up petitioning for the right of women's students to carry weapons on campus to protect themselves because the cops couldn't do for them. I mean, yeah. They also petitioned for better lighting on campuses and in parking lots. How fucked is it that you have to petition for stuff like that? It's like just put up fucking lights. Yeah. And they also ended up the university changed schedules so that classes would end earlier when it was still daylight.

That's good, which was really good. And at universities doing what they need to do. Exactly. And at the same time, a professor at Bradford University where Barbara had gone, her name was Professor Hillary Rose. She wrote a letter to the Times and she criticized the police and their investigation into Barbara's murder. She pointed out some serious flaws and mistakes that happened, including them interviewing boys at the university that would have been barely 14 at the first ripper killing. Oh my God. They were even interviewing boys who had entered campus as students in 1980. a year after Barbara was killed

Just wasting time and resources those guys weren't even on campus. It's like whose idea was that even? Yes, so like why are you interviewing them? They were definitely not of age to commit that first killing like they can't even drive Exactly. And this guy has a waste of time like come on especially He's been described as somebody in his 30s. He's been described to somebody in his 30s. They talk about a car every single time. It's like, come on guys. He's got a whole beard. They're like a 14 year old.

The profiler thought he had like a wife or a partner at home. Like this is not, you're, we're a 12 murders deep and seven attacks or somewhere around seven attacks deep. And you think it's a 14 year old kid? Like, come on. Guys, you're wasting time and resources. And it's also like, like, I'm sure some of these women were like bigger than a 14 year old kid.

Of course. He's going to overpower them. Yeah. And of course, it's because like there was the letters were not giving anything. Right. Like this audio is not giving anything, and you're spending all your time doing that, all your time interviewing these children, essentially,

that weren't even on the campus or near the campus when this happened. No. So investigators went back to past victims, because they were just like, where do we even go from here? Grass being on straws. So they started going back to past victims,

and they started piecing through the evidence from the beginning again Because they're like we miss something obviously And they looked at cars and they re-interviewed a lot of people in fact in October No, don't you even they went back to Peter's fucking house and re-interviewed him again What the third time was in a charm? Oh, no at the end of this he was interviewed was in a charm? Oh no, at the end of this, he was interviewed formally interviewed at least nine to ten times and he was interacted with upwards of 19 times for this investigation. 19 times. And because no officer shared information with each other and all those evidence rooms

and incident rooms were all separate and they all didn't had their own set of evidence, no, they, it was a shit show. No one re-interviewing him this day knew that there were heavy suspicions on him at one point at all. He was a nameless random guy to them that just popped up in the files. So he told them that the night Barbara was killed, he was home doing repairs on his house.

And Sonia was like, yeah, he was. Because she didn't know what time that happened. Is she thinking like why have you been interviewed by police this many times? Well, she's like, yeah, he was. Cause she didn't know what time that happened. If she thinking like, why have you been interviewed by police this many times? Well, she's like, I don't know. Like, she's, because they were interviewing a shit ton of guys. So, she's probably, he's probably telling her like, you know,

I drive a car that looks like that. That's why I'm gonna be on this list or like, yeah, I'm sure he's telling her things and she's like, okay. Well, one time he was interviewed at work too. So, she may not have even known. But, oh my God. Yeah, it's also like, does any of you have an instinct?

Well, none of them are really following up on alibis either. They're just taking face value alibis from these people who are like, well, I was just doing this and they're like, cool. Like, do you think they can really check up on it? Fuck. Yeah, you got me. Yeah, I guess I have no alibi.

Like 90, I'm pulling that on my butt, but I'm like, Jesus Christ so many of them have alibi. Yeah, absolutely. And then 90% of the time you check their alibi, boom, that's how you get them. It's ridiculous. Wow. So following the death of Barbara Leach,

investigators continued their emphasis on the Ripper letters and an investigation in Northern England that would eventually cost more than one million pounds. Weirdly, this lead, this lead to absolutely not a shred of a lead at all. You got a shock. I really got to go. So, Sutcliffe went quite, he went kind of quiet for a little while until Juneish of 1980, so a few months at least. Because he felt to get a hot of short. He was feeling the heat. Now, when, and this is when police saw his car speeding

on Manningham Lane. Now, remember in October of 79, he had been interviewed again. Yes. June of 1980 suddenly police see his car. They don't know what's his car. It's first speeding down Manningham Lane. So they follow him home. And they stopped him in his driveway and they talked to him and they found out that he was very drunk. And neighbors said that they could hear him fighting with the officers about taking a breathalyzer that evening. He was yelling. He was clearly drunk.

He blew us such on a breathalyzer and was brought in and arrested. He was literally brought to the fucking police station and he ended up having his license suspended. And later they made him loot that, later that would make him lose his job as a lorry driver when he was convicted having his license suspended. And later they made him loot that later that would make him lose his job as a lorry driver when he was convicted. Oh yeah. But at this time when he was arrested,

one of the officers who had spoken to Sutcliffe filed a report suggesting that the Ripper Squad look into Sutcliffe as a potential suspect. So at least somebody's got a name. One of these officers was like, something's weird here. Yeah. Maybe you should look at him He was told that they they'd already looked into him and he was ruled out. They weren't gonna talk to him Yeah, let's not re-interview it. So this officer saying something's telling me that we need to look further into them and they're like

Are you kidding me? Let's just look into those fake letters some more. Yeah, that seems more that makes sense So Wednesday August 20th 1980 only a month or so later, he was back at it again. 47-year-old Marguerite Margo Walls was leaving her job at the Department of Education and Science. She was going to go on vacation the following day, so she'd stayed a bit late to make sure that everything was taken care of. She walked into the leads leads evening and after walking a busier section, she turned into a more secluded area to get to her home. She was very close to her home. When suddenly, Sutcliffe stepped out in front of her

and before she could even react, he hit her in the head with a hammer. Then he looped a ligature around her neck and dragged her by her neck to the shadows of a private terrace. She's there, he strangled her to death. Then he stripped everything off of her, but her tights and dragged her body over to a garden wall

where he put her under leaves and grass cuttings. Wow. The next morning, two gardeners found her and called police who arrived very shortly. Detective Hobson was back on the case at this point. And he wasn't convinced this was a Ripper Berder, which I understand that. Yeah, total change of the book.

Margot wasn't a sex worker, and she wasn't stabbed. And she was also stripped completely, and was strangled with a ligature, which was definitely all new for the Ripper. Yeah, he'd never used to do that. Was there one that had ligature marks around her wrist? There was some, I think there was some thought that that could happen, but it wasn't a...

But this time was very short. And this is around her neck. Exactly. Another headquarters was set up at Pudzies Police Station because that's going so well. And after canvassing the neighborhood, they turned up nothing once again. Hobson basically treated this as an isolated incident

and he told the press in the public this was not a ripper victim. She press in the public this was not a river victim. She actually wasn't, she was not a victim officially until he was, Suckliff was actually arrested later. Oh wow. And the, the ligature was found in his possession. He's still had it. He had pieces of the ligature.

He denied he killed her at first, but the later confessed. And said he wanted to kill a sex worker and leads that evening, but he had forgotten his knife and his screwdriver and had to make do with whatever he had in the car. And that's why that was different. Oh, okay. Just one month after this, he came back to leads for another victim. So now he's like, boom, boom, boom, like month, month, month.

He went to headingly, which was not a typical location for him. It was suburban, it was well lit, traffic to very heavily, and kind of bougie a little bit. Bougie. Thank you. But on the evening of September 24th, Dr. Upadhyabandara, I believe that's how you say it. I looked it up.

A 35-year-old doctor from Singapore, who was attending Leeds University on a scholarship from the World Health Organization. Like, all of them? Yeah, brilliance. Was visiting some friends and then had been on her way down Oldly Road to go home. She passed by a Kentucky Fred Chicken restaurant and she said she saw a man staring at her

and he was in the restaurant, but she, like, staring out at her and she was like, ah, yeah, it unnerved her. And so she kept walking and, like, hurried up a little bit. Isn't it sad that as a woman, like, you know exactly, like I gotta get out of here? Like, I feel something. She turned down Chappellayna as a shortcut,

and as she rushed to get down to the other street that was more lit, she was suddenly hit in the head with something in fell. So he ran out of that Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and ran up behind her to hit her. And there was no one else in this restaurant. He just must have rushed out of there. I have no idea.

But Sutcliffe then looped a ligature around her neck and tried to choke her. But someone came out of their house hearing the commotion nearby and he freaked out and left. Meanwhile Dr. Bendera is just laying there bleeding from the head out. Luckily the neighbor who had come out called police immediately and Detective Newton arrived on the scene. This was also not initially looked at as a ripper attack.

Again, because it's so different. But they definitely connected it to Margot Walls because of the ligature and everything. Did they think there was some kind of copycat sort of going on? They didn't even think that. They thought this was just a different situation. Total information. Unfortunately, Dr. Bendera could only say that he was, quote, a man aged about 25, 5 foot four, with black hair, a full beard and mustache, which I think they, they, you said that that

wasn't enough. And I was like, that was a pretty good description considering she got hit on the head. Yeah, from behind. Yeah, like she'd only seen his face in the KFC restaurant like walking by. And also, yeah, she nailed that. I was good to say. That was like a great description. Uh-huh. But no one else could help. There was no other witnesses and that was all they had. Right. And Dr. Banderra ended up actually taking a long time to recover from this. And then she returned to Singapore. She left. Which I don't blame. I would have gotten the fuck out of there. Now barely over a month later on November 5th, he was out again.

But now he's month, month, month. This time he was in West Yorkshire. In this night, he saw 16-year-old Theresa Sykes who was out buying cigarettes. She had run out on the errand and was only 50 yards away from her apartment that she shared with her boyfriend and their infant son. He snuck up behind her and struck her with a hammer out of nowhere. She fell to the ground, and as she looked up at him, he hit her again. He thought she would be unconscious because that was normally the case

after the second hammer hit, but she was not. She started screaming and fighting, and he bled, because he was, he's not used to them making noise. And he, I mean, he's barely in a secluded area. No. And his whole MO is incapacitating right away. Immediately.

Like no noise, no nothing. So when there's noise or any kind of chaos, he gets out of there. Her boyfriend actually heard the screaming because he was only 50 yards away in the apartment and ran out and found her in the grass. He called for police and unfortunately, she couldn't give really any information except that he had a beard and mustache, but that did help. And again, she was hit from behind

and then already thrown off guard when she saw his face. And that does match the other descriptions of the beard and mustache. And she luckily survived. Good. So less than two weeks later, Peter was out again and ready to kill. November 17th, he called Sonia and told her he was working late

and that we shouldn't wake up, wait up for him. She was actually pissed. She was like, what the hell, but she was like, what can I do? Whatever. So he was lying. Obviously, he was actually on his way to heading Lee and Leeds again. At the same time, 20-year-old University of Leeds student,

Jacqueline Hill, was attending a seminar, and she was very kind, smart, very popular with her peers. She was very, very, very close to her parents, and actually chose to stay at the University of Leeds just to be close to them. She had a to stay at the University of Leeds just to be close to them. She had a boyfriend that she really cared about. And she could have gone to any university she wanted to. But she loved her family. Now she seemed like an all-around delightful person and a very smart person, which all of

these women seemed like they had so much to fucking offer and so much to get done. They all had like, goals. Goals. They were all on the road, no matter if it was a tough road or not, they all had this like thing that they wanted at the end of it. Yeah, they had big dreams. Yeah. Her mother had actually been very nervous about the Ripper murders recently and had given

her a lot of tips to stay safe. She left the seminar around 9, 9,15 and it was around 9-30 when Peter Secliffe saw her as she got off the bus. Outside of that same Kentucky Fried Chicken. Interesting. She went down Alma Road, which was dark, but not unsafe. Just not well lit. And she was literally a hundred yards from her apartment when Peter appeared behind her and hit her on the head with the hammer. Her purse and glasses fell to the ground immediately, and once she fell, he dragged her into the darkness behind the arndale shopping center,

and he pulled her clothing up and began stabbing her in a frenzy. He stabbed her in the chest, stomach, and the left eye. Oh my god. Then he left her here. What the fuck? Later during his confessions, what he said about this was her eyes were wide open and she seemed to be looking at me with an accusing stare.

This shook me a bit and I jab the screwdriver into her eye, but they stayed open and I felt worse than ever. Oh my God, that was brutal. And then looking at you with an accusing stare. An accusing stare. You're stabbing her. Dude, like, are you kidding me? Around 10 p.m., a student from the university named Amir Hussein was walking in that area

and he found the purse. Now, he took the purse back to his apartment because one of his roommates was a former police officer or was a police officer, but I believe from in Hong Kong. Okay. But he was here at the university taking classes. So he brought it there being like, hey, I found this, like what do we do? So they called the police because they were like,

what the hell? And they actually found blood smears on the purse, and that's what really made them be like shit. Also, don't touch that. Don't touch that. Now, one of the roommates spoke later and said that the officers who arrived at the apartment, quote, seemed more interested in filling out a lost property form rather than

investigating the blood smears. And they had to convince the officers to investigate the surrounding area for the source of the blood. They would only do it after a cup of coffee. I don't even know. It gets worse. No. Then they took three to four minutes

peaking around the area where the purse was found, said everything looks fine, and they went back to the station. Oh good, I feel safe. Well, the next morning, an employee of the shopping center arrived at work and found Jacqueline's body. Those officers should have all been written up. Oh, it gets even worse.

I thought it was because guess where she was found? She was found covered with her own coat and was literally 30 yards from where her purse was. Are you joking? They were standing there for three to four minutes looking around and she was 30 yards away. And did anything happen to these officers that you could probably not? I couldn't find anything.

Bullshit. It was clear she had been hitting the head and stabbed many times. Even with David Guy on the scene for this one, they still didn't believe it was a ripper murder. In fact, they held a press conference where they said, we have no reason to suspect that the ripper is involved. We cannot rule out him out, but we have nothing to suggest it with him. I mean, this one is... Nothing?

Like, pretty... She was hitting the head with a hammer and stabbed. And stabbed and then discarded. Yeah, pretty publicly. I'm without words for how they didn't connect this one, but like, okay, David Guy mentioned the similarities after her autopsy. Yeah. And only then did George Oldfield get called into leads to take a look at this because he was back on the scene. November 20th, he actually held another press conference where he said that original statement was bullshit about this not being a ripper case.

And he said they were urging women, quote, to not travel alone if you can possibly help it. No woman is safe until this man is caught, which yes, this one finally officially got linked the next day with a memo out to all stations that this was a ripper killing. Okay. Finally something. So on November 25th, detectives in Milgar set that that headquarters received an anonymous letter. And it read, to whom it may concern, I am writing to inform you that I have every good reason to believe I know the man you are looking for in the ripper case. It is an incident which happened within the last five years.

I cannot give any date or place or any details without myself being known to the Ripper or you if this is the man. It is only until recently that something came to my notice, and now a lot of things fit into place. I can only tell you one to two things which fit for example. This man has had dealings with sex workers and always had a thing about them. Also, he is a long-distance Laurie driver,

collecting engineering items, et cetera. I am quite sure if you check up on dates, et cetera, you may find something. His name and address is Peter Sutcliffe, five garden lane, heat and Bradford. Did Sonia write that? The letter was received by Detective Sergeant Boot and marked action to trace interview Sutcliffe and priority number 1 when it was received.

Before handing it off to a police woman to be processed with other credible leads, oh great, like here we are, it's gonna be processed, here we go, we got it, like they have a name. Let me guess there was a clerical error. It was ignored, no clerical error go, we got it. Like they have a name. Let me guess, there was a clerical era. It was ignored. No clerical era, they just ignored it. In fact, when Sutcliffe was arrested in 1981, that letter was still sitting in the same basket

that it had been placed in. It had never been touched. Oh my God, that letter was read. That letter was read. And then it was put in a basket and never moved again. And this is somebody this is at least a year later and it's still sitting in the basket. Wow. Somebody wrote in saying, I know this man could put you need to look into this man's dress. His name and address and it is a name that you have spoken to at least nine other times and And you left it in a basket?

Do we ever find out who wrote that? That letter, so yeah. Was written by none other. That's Peter. Then Trevor Burritzel. Finally, this motherfucker came. Do you remember him? He was around, honestly.

Trevor, who was in the car when Sutcliffe committed that first attack on that unknown woman who was never named with the rocks in a sock. Yep. The Trevor, that Trevor, he was ready to lead police to his former friend who he just knew was the river. Good. And he said, I looked back and I didn't want to think it was him, but too many things lined up and I could not live with my friends.

He came around. Good. Finally. When no one replied to the letter or followed up with him, Trevor actually went down to the police station, himself in person. Spoke to police and gave them an in-person statement about this. They took the statement, they filed it, but they never followed up on it or even passed the statement to any senior officer. How, how are you that careless?

It was placed in a drawer and it wasn't seen again until after Sutcliffe was arrested in 1981. This is why people get the balls to do things like because of this shit. This is exactly why and this is what the police state department Apologize for when he years because they were like that was bullshit actually more than 20 years later. That was a lot of bullshit and We're different and they literally are like, I promise. Like we look into these things now. Now at this point, investigators were still sold on the idea that the original hoax letters and the audio message was the real ripper.

You're spending a lot of time on like a random piece of paper and a random tape. Like when you should really just be out on the streets talking to people and maybe looking at letters that you've already received. Yeah, but the public and a lot of professionals were not sold at all and were questioning what the investigators were fucking thinking. Right. So in early December 1980, Jack Windsor Lewis, who is a linguist, he examined the letters himself. Okay. He examined the letters himself. And he actually publicly stated that he believed the letters were very much a hoax.

And he said, even though it is definitely under, in his opinion, not the real ripper, there was a possibility that they would be able to identify the writer by his characteristics, like spelling, punctuation, weight of writing. So he actually suggested and really urged the Yorkshire police to release the full letters to the public. Okay. Because he believed if you release that full audio and you release the letters, they are definitely connected. This is the same person in his opinion. Sure.

So we're looking for one person who has done a really fucking shitty thing and has derailed this entire investigation. Yeah. So put it out there and he said, because there's so many specific things in each of these, they're very specific to this person, he said, I think if you put them out there, someone will recognize him through that. And he said, that's how distinct I think they are. And even the voice, yeah. Yeah. But they did do that eventually, but not a lot was coming from it. Don't worry, though. They find out who was. And he does, he's getting trouble. He sure does. Good. Now on January 2nd, 1981, Olivia Rivers had been working on the streets and Sheffield

for a few hours when she came upon Peter Suckliff, a little after 9pm. Apparently Suckliff had actually approached her friend, but her friend had actually denied him because she told Olivia there was something in his eyes that scared me. Wow. And she literally was like, no, I don't want your business. Like, no, no. Olivia apparently didn't think so. She said that she wasn't scared of him. Okay. So she got in the car.

He was just talking to her, she said. And he kept talking about his wife and he was being strange and she was just kind of like, so she was like, I'd really like to just get this over and get the fuck out of your car. Yeah, like what are we doing? But while they're talking and she's trying to convince him, like can we hurry this along,

a police officer pulled up behind them. Uh huh. Suckliff told Olivia immediately, you have to say you're my girlfriend. Uh huh. And she was like, okay, so the police approach, Olivia knows this isn't gonna work because Suckliff had one, he had a spony registration.

He stole in a registration. Oh my God. So that's bad. But the office are recognized to live here. Like, she had been arrested a few times for it. So, the solicitation and all that. So, she knew she was like, I'm not going to say I'm your girlfriend. They know me.

She's like, literally no that guy. Yeah, she was like, they know I'm not. So, she was just like, but she was like, that's weird. Like, like, like, not what I had to say that. They were both arrested. But before he was taken to the car and cuffs, Sutcliff told Sergeant Ring, the arresting officer, I have to pee. Uh-huh.

So Ring let him duck behind a bush and pee. Then he came back and was arrested, which that comes back later. Just remember that he let him pee. He let him go off into the darkness and pee. Okay. And then come back. Okay. So, Seklif was interrogated for hours at the station, but it was about solicitation and about the stealing registration. Yeah.

There wasn't about anything else. Sonia was actually like she called the station because she heard he was arrested. The police told him her the charges were solicitation and stealing. Oh, honey. But because of the recent murders, police had been told that they had to report all suspicious men who were arrested in the company of sex workers to the Ripper Squad in George Oldfield. The only...

Which Ripper Squad, though? Well, that's, I'm like, I think it was like the main one. That's the only smart thing they did was finally put that into place. Yeah. I mean, that's just fucking like, I feel like I could come up with that. Exactly. But the next day, Sutcliffe was moved to do Doosbury station and interviewed further.

["Doo's Berry Station"] Things he said were starting to line up and George Oldfield was like, um, wait a second. Finally, he's mentioning his white, he that he had a white Ford Cossera at one point. He mentioned his job as a Lori driver and that his job schedule, you know, what it was and they're thinking about that letter and they're thinking about, then they started looking into the investigation and seeing that his name came up quite a few times. Finally, and then there was something that wasn't released to the public and didn't until after this.

There was blood found on some of the victims, or excuse me, there was evidence found on some of the victims that this, that was a rare blood type. Ah, and they found it at several of the scenes, but they were never able to use it. Guess who's blood type that match? Peter Sutcliffe. Peter Sutcliffe.

Who knew? So Sargent Ring, the arresting officer, arrived at the station that night and he's like, oh, shit, I might have caught the ripper. Like, that's wild. And he's like, oh, okay. And he's like, oh, shit. I let him pee behind a bush before I arrested him. And he's like, oh, okay. And he's like, oh shit. I let him pee behind a bush before I arrested him.

Then he was like, huh. I actually think I heard metal hit the ground before he got in the police car. Oh. So he went back to the area. Well, I didn't know he didn't think that he discarded something. Yeah. He looked where he peed.

He found a ball peen hammer and a large knife on the ground. That fucker was able to ditch the murder weapons in front of the police. Wow. And Olivia was about to be killed. Could you imagine how she felt when she realized that? Thank goodness. That she wasn't.

So now investigators... Yeah. Her friend was probably like, I fucking told you. Yeah, she's like, I knew I felt something with this guy. Never doubted that girl's intuition. Don't doubt your gut or your friend's. Don't doubt your gut or, and if your friends feel something, at least listen to it. So now investigators are like, wow, so maybe he is our guy.

And soon they discovered that all his alibis were shit and they fell apart. Wow, imagine if you would just follow it up on the first one. And Sonia gave them the real deal on where he actually was on night. He came, he claimed to be home. She was like, oh no he wasn't. Like they were like Sonia.

He said that he was home on these days. And she's like, fuck no he wasn't. Oh good. Yeah, she was like, I'm not gonna say that. It's like, good, good. I thought you meant like she had lied in the past. Oh no, I was like, what? She, as far as I could tell, she told what she knew. Yeah,

that's it. That she didn't know other stuff. No, when he said he was home with Sonia on the night, he was arrested, she was like, no, he called me and said he was working late. Like, she was like, I'm not going to bullshit for you. Yeah, because she finds out what he's arrested for. She's like, fuck you. Gloves her off, brother. So after days of being interrogated and the murder weapons being found, and finally things starting to fall into place. Jesus Christ. Shut Cliff. He's still getting hammered, investigated.

He finally looked at Detective Inspector John Boyle, who is the acting head of the Ripper Squad at this point and said, I think you're leading up to the New Yorkshire Ripper. And he said, and the detective was like, what about the Yorkshire Ripper? And Peter lean back in his blood in the chair, looked at him and said, well, that's me. So this fucker literally was like, guys, it's me. Like even they weren't like, we know it's you. It's like, you had to, he was the one who had to say it.

Are you kidding me? Everybody. He made an almost 24 hour confession of all his crimes. Wow. Now, during this whole thing, he denied ever sending those letters or the audio. Yeah. And he said he never communicated to the press or investigators. He was like, I didn't want to get caught.

Oh, so he never did send letters? He never sent any of them. Oh, okay. Those were not him. I thought you had said that he did send to some of his own. No, he was so... He was, they thought he did. And they were really that third No, he was, they thought he did. And they were really, that third letter, especially,

they really thought was him. The first two, they were like, that's a hoax. Definitely. I was convinced it was a hoax. I was like, yeah. That third one, they were really looking at, but it was not him. They were, he claims he didn't send anything.

I mean, it does make sense. He doesn't want to get caught. Yeah. And he also said Joan Harrison, the Preston 75 that was mentioned in the letters, that they claimed responsibility for. He said that was not one of my victims. Okay. And honestly, like, why would he deny one

if he really did it? Yeah. He admitted all the rest. And investigators still believed he was the killer of Harrison. And actually, we're pretty convinced he had a partner for a little while. Oh, he didn't. Okay, and he wasn't. Okay.

They did eventually remove her name from the official victim list, but it took a while. And they found her killing. Oh, okay. They even kind of contradicted their own belief during the original parts of the investigation because they interviewed Succliffe like I said, over nine times, and they said his voice in handwriting

didn't match the letter and tapes. So that was enough for them to rule him out. But now they're still trying to say that the guy who wrote the letters and did the auto tape is the ripper. They were still holding on to that idea. Even when he said he didn't do it, they were like, you wrote those letters and you sent that audio. But then there were things in the files that said Succliffe's words,

like voice and handwriting did not match. So how are you, those are two conflicting ideas guys. Like, what? Right, think of it out y'all. The identity of the letter writer and tape sender went unknown until 2005. Wow. More than 25 years later.

Damn, your ass was already out of high school. Yep, it was a man named John Humble. And his attorney said he was a substance abuser who thought the whole thing was just a joke. Oh yeah, that's silly. He was charged with perverting justice and fuck that guy. He went to jail for eight years.

He definitely should have gone for longer as far as I'm concerned. Definitely, but during this is wild, during this time, Succliffe wrote him a letter in jail. That should not be allowed. And it's wild. This guy is a dick of the highest order. He doesn't have, like, he definitely has blood

on his hands for what he did. Yeah, absolutely. Because he derailed the investigation. In a huge way. And he, those last three murders, he should feel guilty for this. Absolutely. But Succliffe acts like, because of him, those three girls died.

No, no, no, no, no. No, that's not the case. He absolutely has guilt. And he derailed the investigation, and he had a hand in that happening, and that, in suckclif not being caught. But his hand was not murdered those girls. Yeah, his hand was not holding a hand. No. being caught. But his hand was not murdered those girls. His hand was not holding a hammer.

And it's like, and this is just one of those things where cyclif is removing blame from himself and acting fucking. Yeah. High and mighty. It's John and it's God. Exactly. So in this letter, so according to the Sunderland echo, he wrote, you could have saved those three women, John. You have blood on your hands. No fuck off. You could even end up in broad more with me. That's where you belong. I have just heard that you got eight years in prison on Tuesday for the crimes you committed. I'm not surprised that you got that length of time

because what you did was very bad indeed. Are you shitty? My dude. You have now had your 15 minutes of fame and you have reopened old wounds again and put me back in the media spotlight. I do not need this now or ever again. The same thing will happen when you're released.

I hope you get some treatment for your problems, John, because you are very ill indeed. Be strong. God will look after you and the end of your friend, Peter. I don't have words. Are you looking in the mirror when you say any of this? I just like to be that unaware. That just off on a different planet. Just I have no responsibility for these. Because again, it's a narcissism.

John Humble, blame is owed on him. He derailed that investigate. Anybody who does hook shit during stuff like this? Reals an investigation. Blood on your hands. Absolutely. But you are not a murderer. No.

You did not actively do it. And for the murderer, to think he has some kind of high and mighty stance over that, no, we can all sit there. Yeah, of course. And we can say he has blood on his hands, but you, sir, are the fucking murderer? You shut the fuck up and sit over there. Exactly. Are you kidding me?

You have no high ground here. Get out of here. No. So that's ridiculous. But as for the murder of Joan Harrison, like I said, her killer was finally found, but not till 2011. Oh my God. They were able to use DNA evidence to trace the crime to Christopher Smith, who was a violent sex offender

and criminal from Leeds. He actually died in 2008. But in his apartment, they found a letter that said, I can't go on with my guilt. I've lived with it for over 20 years. I'm truly sorry for all the pain I have caused. Wow. So unfortunately, he escaped the justice he deserved.

But at least a name was put to the crime. And hopefully Jones family can at least have that. Do you know if that's the only woman he killed or is known to have killed? I think that's the only one that I know of, but I didn't look further into that case. But maybe I will just look into that case for that. So on Monday, January 5, 1981, that's when the news went public in Sheffield, that they had arrested a man in Sheffield, that they believed to be the Yorkshire Ripper. Chief Constable Gregory told the media, we are absolutely delighted about the developments

at this stage. And he said that they were immediately scaling down the search for the Ripper, because they believe this was him. Now, Sutcliffe was held at Armory Jail and Leeds and he was indicted for 13 murders and seven attempted murders. Oh, God. He put guilty, but his defense was going to be

that he was temporarily deranged and would be putting forth a defense of diminished capacity. Yeah. I'm so sure. Now, he was very with it, very open, very detailed oriented when he was interrogated by the police. But as soon as he got a defense attorney, suddenly he was hearing voices and he was not

understanding and not getting it. It was a very clear. Very clear shift. And he played right into it. He said he was given a divine mission from God to kill sex workers and he said, I would have kept going if I wasn't caught. He was interviewed 11 times by a doctor, Dr. Hugo Mill, Millney, I believe it is,

but it was a defense team. Dr. And he testified that he had a schizophrenic illness is how he referred to it. Now, just to be clear, Sonia was diagnosed with schizophrenia when she went through her time when she was trying to go through school and had like kind of a breakdown. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but she was managing her symptoms and she was going to therapy and she was thriving. Yeah, you know.

But so this is interesting because so what they think later is that Peter was her primary caregiver throughout that whole thing. He knew what the symptoms of schizophrenia are. He knows what the outbursts would be, what the choir. He can buy a period's would be. He knows how to imitate that. He knows what it looks like. He's been doing this for years. That his wife actually suffered from that.

And he's using that for his own game. Exactly. Now Peter Suckliff's trial began on May 4, 1981. And the defense he was going with, the mental and misdefense, it was basically they had two psychiatrists, that first one, they had a second one, who said that he was, he had time smiled, almost giggled when we were discussing very serious things. I think he's just an asshole who likes to kill women. I'm pretty sure that's what it is.

Let's be real. But again, they were going with the, they believed he could be schizophrenic or have schizophrenic tendencies. And they said that he was only killing women because he had hallucinations. Okay. But the prosecutor, Attorney General Sir Michael Hargreaves, he was like, no, I think these psychiatrists prompted him a lot during these interviews. And they had recordings of it and they were like, yeah, I'm pretty sure you let him

to that conclusion and it's very clear. And he actually said all doctors do it. And he said, but some prompt a little harder than others. You did. Yeah, he also pointed out that in the hours and hours of interrogations and interviews that this side of him never came out. Right, exactly. But suddenly after getting a defense team, he's a different guy with a different motive like no, imagine that. And again, they said he's convincing portraying someone with schizophrenic symptoms because he spent years living with a wife who was being treated for those symptoms. And he himself had to help her manage them.

Uh-huh. So no, the crown was like, fuck that. And maintained that he was just a cold blooded, calculated murder, who had made this up because he knew he was going to and this is literally a quote. Yeah. By the way, this is a quote from the the crown. He was a cold blooded calculated murder who has made this up because he knew he was going to go to the quote unquote loony bin for 10 years instead of 30 years in prison. As further evidence, the prosecutor said that one of the defense's witnesses, Dr. Hugo Milney, actually acknowledged that he had caught Sutcliffe lying several times. Dude, you're gonna sign off on that?

And so he said, yeah, I guess it's pretty possible that he was lying about the hallucinations too. Yeah, if you caught him, if there's a precedent for lying, my guy. And finally, they pointed out, okay, if he's on this god-given mission to kill sex workers, I would say no. I would say no. I would say no. I would say no. I would say no. I would say no. I would say no. I would say no. I would say no.

I would say no. I would say no. I would say no. I would say no. I would say no. I would say no. I would say no. I would say no.

I would say no. I would say no. I would say no. I would say no. I would say no. I would say no. I would say no. I would say no.

I would say no. I would say no. I would say no. I would say no. I would say no. I would say no. to me. Why? How? Yeah. What was going on? Was it Jane and her gang of skirts 16 years old? Ridiculous. Like what was it? What exactly? And what was it that made you think the other ones, when you didn't initially walk up to them and strike a deal, what made you think those were? Yeah. What exactly is it? Is it a pair of pants that they're wearing? Is it a certain skirt? They're wearing? Is it some way they wear their hair? What is it? No, it's their women. Explain it. Is it some way they wear their hair? What is it? No, it's their women explain it. But yeah, it was ridiculous. So Basically it just came down to the fact that

Sucklif confessed he confessed lucidly Clearly he did not mince words. He did not say that he was having god hallucinations telling him to do this And they also reiterated all the facts of him being Completely different until that defense team got in his way. And after a six hour deliberation, the jury voted 10 to 2 in favor of convicting Suckliff on 13 counts of murder. Good. So on May 22nd, 1981, he was sentenced to life in prison. Five.

The judge spoke right to him in the, in the, in the, and he said, quote, he was recommending, quote, an unusually long period of incarceration because I believe you are an unusually dangerous man. I hope that when I have said life and that I hope that when I have said life imprisonment, it will mean precisely that. So yeah, so he sent there for life and in the years following his convention in sentencing, he actually bounced back and forth between Parker's prison and Broadmore Hospital. So he was treated for certain things. He also became kind of a target from other inmates.

In 1997, his cellmates stabbed him in the eye. Oh, so that's interesting. Sonia Sutcliffe stayed in the house that they lived in on Garden Lane, but she did file for divorce and they were divorced by 1994. She got remarried. I kind of love that she got the house. She just stayed in the house.

That was her dream house. Yeah, she never let that man ruin it for her. She, and again, he ended up confessing the things that they hadn't initially, like had initially attached to him before. So they believed the number could even be higher. Like we don't even know that. And in December of 1981, Lawrence Biford was actually put on to lead an investigation

into the investigation. So he had to look at that in time. And he concluded that the investigators had made many errors, countless, he said, and they engaged in very poor practices, that they said, he said absolutely stopped them from stopping him earlier. Yeah, absolutely. And he said, the poor communication between these departments

was the number one error that they had. In the five years that he was active, again, he was interviewed at least nine times officially. He was known to be in these areas. He drove the cars that these people saw him in, but they set up all these different fucking evidence rooms everywhere. And none of them were going, there was no cataloging across the department, so crazy.

Things were thrown in a basket and ignored. It's ridiculous. It's also nuts that that was just five years. Yeah, because the five years. Just like sitting listening to this story, I'm like, this sounds like it was like a 15-year-long period. Yeah. And he also pointed out that them putting so much emphasis on those letters and that audio tape significantly significantly hindered them stopping him before he killed the final three victims. I totally believe that and he actually said

Sutcliffe was never regarded as suspect because of undue reliance on the Sunderland letters and tape which served to eliminate him It's outrageous like it at the end of it, it really was like this investigation cost a shit ton of money and it almost let him go. Yeah. Like it almost let him go. A shit ton of money so many lives. What would have happened? Had he not been pulled over with Olivia? Exactly. And in November of 2020, Peter Sutcliffe was diagnosed with COVID. And he died at University Hospital in North Durham. He was 74 years old. I hope it was fucking miserable. I'm sorry.

And it was after his death that the police force apologized to the victim's families for how the case was handled, how their loved ones were spoken about in the press. The force chief at the time, chief constable John Robbins, said the language used at the time was, quote, as wrong then as it is now. He said, quote, on behalf of West Yorkshire police, I apologize for the additional distress and anxiety

caused to all relatives by the language, tone and terminology used by senior officers at the time in relation to Peter Sutcliffe's victims. Such language and attitudes may have reflected wider societal attitudes of the day, but it was wrong, is wrong than it is now. Absolutely. A huge number of officers work to identify and bring Peter Sutcliffe to justice, and it is a shame that their hard work was overshadowed by the language of senior officers used at the time, the effect of which is still felt today by surviving relatives. He said luckily

those attitudes are co-signed to history and our approach, excuse me, consigned to history and our approach today is wholly victim-focused, putting them at the center of everything we do. Good. Now Richard McKen, who I spoke of before, Wilma McKen's son, who was five at the time. Like I said, he was the one who really, he headed this up to get that apology. He wanted her, he said, for her to be described

as anything other than an innocent victim, it's just unacceptable. Of course it is. And he was quoted as saying, my mom and all those other women were completely innocent and deserved to live. And with that, the Yorkshire Ripper is dead, the police department apologized.

And hopefully some of these family members got any kind of peace from it. You would, you would, but for them. That is the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Suckliff. Wow. Good fucking written. Another dissertation for Malina Erk. That was truly so. Fucking written another dissertation from Alina earth That was truly so

So just anger producing like I'm so angry Truly truly truly that back that so many lives could have been saved if they just organized that even Slightly yeah, even just like cut down a couple of those. Truly posts and everything. It's outrageous. And I also, I have to thank our like really good friend, love of our lives, David White, for helping me with this. He's about us. With this research, because he's such a badass and this was such a daunting task. So I just got to thank him because he's a fucking trooper. He's a gem in a half. Yeah, he's a fucking trooper for help Help the best and I thank him. He's the he's the rule. He is the love of our life. He really is the little Lul and so is Mikey. Yeah, and Mikey. Yeah, you know, we just love we love some people

We know we have so many rules we do um well. Yeah, so with that being said We hope that you keep less than listening and we hope you keep it So weird that you're one of our rules. Yay Hey, Prime Members! You can listen to Morvid, Early, and Add Free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen Add Free with Wondery Plus and Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. Flash Survey.