UK UK - Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe

[wfgodot]

DM:

Yorkshire Ripper set to leave Broadmoor after 31 years: Serial killer is 'no longer mentally ill' and could transfer to normal prison but he's furious he's losing his Freeview TV, DVD player

 

[wfgodot]

Luke Haines notes:

He’s written a song called ‘Leeds United’ that appears to be narrated by Peter Sutcliffe…
‘It’s, err, the tale of a simple northern lad. The starting point was how the hunt for the Ripper dominated my memory of the 1970s. The song wrote itself from there. There’s a reference to a “13-nil defeat”; Leeds fans used to chant “Ripper 13, Police nil”. Sensitive guys, these Leeds fans.’ [http://www.timeout.com/london/music/luke-haines-ten-things]

[video=youtube;V3OA7PVZPSE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3OA7PVZPSE[/video]

 

[Legally Bland]

Police and Home Office officials are reviewing claims that Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, may have been responsible for other attacks for which he was never charged.

Unpublished documents with details of other attacks, photofits and suspects that might be linked to Sutcliffe are being examined. West Yorkshire police said on Sunday that they would pursue any new lines of inquiry.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...lved-peter-sutcliffe-yorkshire-ripper-attacks

I'd be surprised if he wasn't responsible for other attacks. Whether any can be proven is a different matter.

 

[wfgodot]

DM version:

Yorkshire Ripper may face more murder charges

plus two other WS Yorkshire Ripper threads:

UK - Did Yorkshire Ripper kill young Elsie Frost?

UK ∙ 'Wearside Jack' speaks: hoaxer derailed Yorkshire Ripper investigation in 1979

 

[STANDREID]

So is he cured now?

 

[Hewitt]

Peter Sutcliffe may well have killed others but he's also carrying the can for at least one other killer. West Yorkshire Police had a terrible reputation for incompetence, corruption and fitting-up easy targets at the time and tried to suppress evidence in order to get Sutcliffe off on an insanity charge (therefore avoiding a trial), in exchange for him admitting to all of the 'official' murders; fortunately the QPS was having none of this, as there wasn't any provision for Plea Bargaining under British Law and it was obvious the Police were just trying to brush the whole thing under the carpet.

'The Yorkshire Ripper' was really just a bogey man invented by the tabloid media that hid the horrifying true scale of random acts of violence against women in Northern England during that period.

 

[OkieGranny]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/yorkshire-ripper-could-put-back-7821756

Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe could be put back on trial as part of a major new police probe into at least THIRTEEN more suspected victims.

Detectives have already visited two women who survived unsolved brutal attacks during his five-year reign of terror. They asked for statements and DNA samples.

A relative of one of the women told us: "Police knocked on the door and told her she was on a list of possible victims. They asked her to give a new statement and took a sample. They said science has evolved – and that they were looking at 13 other cases."

 

[Legally Bland]

Luke Haines notes:

He’s written a song called ‘Leeds United’ that appears to be narrated by Peter Sutcliffe…
‘It’s, err, the tale of a simple northern lad. The starting point was how the hunt for the Ripper dominated my memory of the 1970s. The song wrote itself from there. There’s a reference to a “13-nil defeat”; Leeds fans used to chant “Ripper 13, Police nil”. Sensitive guys, these Leeds fans.’ [http://www.timeout.com/london/music/...es-ten-things]

RSBM video

As a Leeds fan, I think this needs some clarification. This chant wasn't glorifying the ripper, it was aimed at police incompetence. It may not have been in the best taste, admittedly.

Leeds was a city living in fear in the late 70's - beginning of the 80's.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

The Daily Mail has also carried the story today of the possibility of Sutcliffe facing further charges:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...e-ripper-face-trial-13-suspected-victims.html

 

[Legally Bland]

From Melmoth's link above. Possible other victims, but I'm not sure these are necessarily the same as those the police are re-investigating.

WAS SUTCLIFFE BEHIND THESE ATTACKS TOO?


Debra Schlesinger: Murdered in Leeds in April 1977, the 18-year-old has long been suspected of being another of Sutcliffe’s victims.

She was stabbed through the heart as she walked down the garden path of her home after a night out.

Witnesses recalled seeing a dark, bearded man near the scene. Two days later Sutcliffe murdered Patricia Atkinson in Bradford.


Maureen Lea: The 20-year-old art student survived an attack on an October night in 1980. As she walked through the grounds of Leeds University she was grabbed from behind – like many Ripper victims – and repeatedly hit about the head, leaving her with many injuries.

The attack took place close to where Sutcliffe murdered Upadhya Bandara the previous month and Jacqueline Hill weeks later.


Gloria Wood: Miss Wood, then aged 28, was attacked while walking across a school playing field in Bradford in November 1974.

She was hit several times over the head with a hammer by a man who offered to carry her bags. She suffered terrible injuries but survived.

Her description of the attacker was strikingly similar to the appearance of Sutcliffe, who lived nearby.


Fred Craven: In April 1966, almost a decade before Sutcliffe’s first official attack, bookmaker Fred Craven was smashed over the head at his shop in Bingley, West Yorkshire, by robbers who stole £200.

Police arrested Michael Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper’s younger brother, but they failed to interview Peter Sutcliffe, who had repeatedly pestered Mr Craven’s daughter to go out with him. At the time, the two families lived near each other. The murder remains unsolved.


Rosemary Stead: The 18-year-old shop assistant was followed down the side of a field in Queensbury, Bradford, in January 1976. She was hit from behind and suffered serious head injuries. Her attacker resembled Sutcliffe.


Tracy Browne: Aged just 14, Tracy was hit five times with a hammer from behind while walking along a country lane in Silsden, West Yorkshire, in August 1975. She needed brain surgery to survive. Sutcliffe was never convicted of the assault.

Tracy Brown: Aged just 14, Tracy was hit five times with a hammer from behind while walking along a country lane in Silsden, West Yorkshire


Gloria Booth: The married 29-year-old was found near-naked and strangled in a park in Ruislip, West London, in June 1971. Detectives did not link the murder to Sutcliffe, but her family believes her injuries bear all the hallmarks of a Ripper killing.

Gloria Booth: The married 29-year-old was found near-naked and strangled in a park in Ruislip, West London


Wendy Sewell: Mrs Sewell, 32, a secretary, was found with fatal injuries in a cemetery in Bakewell, Derbyshire, in September 1973. The case became known as the ‘Bakewell Tart’ killing because of her promiscuous reputation. Groundsman Stephen Downing was convicted the next year but this was overturned in 2002. Derbyshire Police later announced the case was closed.

Wendy Sewell: Mrs Sewell, 32, a secretary, was found with fatal injuries in a cemetery in Bakewell, Derbyshire.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...trial-13-suspected-victims.html#ixzz46q63VtCG

 

[OkieGranny]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/yorkshire-ripper-killed-dad-oap-7864836

Irene Vidler says police officers told her mum they were “99% sure” serial killer Peter Sutcliffe murdered her husband, but that they lost crucial evidence to prove it.

Bookie Fred Craven, 61, is believed to have become one of the Ripper’s first victims when he was struck down in his office in Bingley, West Yorkshire in April, 1966...

Irene recalls Bingley-born Sutcliffe as a “nasty piece of work”, although he even had tea with the family on occasion.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

Peter Sutcliffe may well have killed others but he's also carrying the can for at least one other killer.

Can you provide more information about this? Which murder or murders currently attributed to Sutcliffe do you believe was/were carried out by another person?

'The Yorkshire Ripper' was really just a bogey man invented by the tabloid media that hid the horrifying true scale of random acts of violence against women in Northern England during that period.

While I agree that there was a lot of violence against women in northern England at the time, both random and domestic, Sutcliffe was no bogeyman. There were too many similarities and too well-defined an MO and signature in too many of the murders in W Yorkshire and Manchester at that time for there not to have been a serial killer operating in the region.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

I'd be surprised if he wasn't responsible for other attacks. Whether any can be proven is a different matter.

Since there's no statute of limitations for murder in the UK, files and materials relating to unsolved murders are kept in archive and tend to be brought out periodically for review, especially where new information has been received or there are new forensic tests and suchlike that might break the case open. In practice, the police stop this review process once 70 years have passed, on the basis that any perpetrator is unlikely to be still alive or, if still living, realistically capable of being prosecuted. Even so, the file remains technically open forever.

So in theory any materials such as the victims clothes and possessions should still be available for further testing and may provide the DNA of the attacker.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

From Melmoth's link above. Possible other victims, but I'm not sure these are necessarily the same as those the police are re-investigating.

The attack on Maureen Lee in October 1980 is very interesting, because coupled with the killing of Jacqueline Hill in November 1980 and the attack on student Ann Rooney "who was attacked on college grounds on the outskirts of Leeds in 1979" it suggests Sutcliffe was actively targeting Leeds University students towards the end of his career.

I was a student of Leeds Uni at this time so am very familiar with the university's facilities in the north of the city then. "College grounds on the outskirts of Leeds" could only have been either Oxley or Weetwood Halls (both all-female at this time) or (much less likely) Boddington Hall which was mixed so there were plenty of male students about. (There was also a small all-male hall of residence, Sadler, a few miles further out at Adel, right on the edge of the city) I really do not recall hearing about the attack on either Maureen Lee or Ann Rooney, which astonishes me considering how alert everyone was in the city, especially students, following the murder of student Barbara Leech in Bradford in 1979.

What I do know is that there was a very real scare at Oxley, which is still very isolated but back then was incredibly so, because several women reported a man lurking in the shrubbery on the approach to the house on several occasions during the 1979 and 1980 period. For students without a car (and very few back then did have one), there were two walking routes from the nearest bus stops:

1. Alight on Otley Road (main artery in and out of the city), then walk some 150 yards across playing fields using well-lit footpath, but then into the wooded grounds surrounding the house; or

2. Alight on Weetwood Lane, a minor local road which was heavily lined with mature trees so very dark, and walk up the sparsely lit driveway for 200 - 250 yards and then into the wooded grounds of the house. I believe it was in the shrubbery just inside the house's main grounds on this route that the man was reported lurking.

You can find Oxley Hall on Google maps.street view by searching for Oxley Hall, Weetwood Lane. It's important to know that at the time the Hall of Residence consisted of the main Victorian house, an attached block of study bedrooms to the west of the main house, and two small annexes each housing 10 - 20 female students, both in their own grounds just off Weetwood Lane. Students in the annexes went to the main hall for meals. The other large blocks of study bedrooms to the SE and SW of the main hall were built in the 1990s (I think) so are much later. At the time of the Ripper, Oxley as a whole probably housed only 150 - 200 women in total.

 

[Legally Bland]

There's an interview Maureen Lee here:

[video=youtube;x2ziJMdGPT8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2ziJMdGPT8[/video]

At 3:10 she says her attacker was disturbed by a passer-by at the end of Woodhouse Road. I assume she means Woodhouse Lane, which would put her near the main LU campus, maybe she wasn't in a Halls of residence.

Either way, there's not much distance between them and she seem positive it was Sutcliffe.

I'm also surprised you didn't hear anything about these attacks, even if it was just rumours on campus. At the beginning the video below, Det. John Stainthorpe was assigned to investigate an attempted muder in Ilkley which he says was clearly the Ripper, but was ordered not to link it so as not to add pressure onto the investigation.

I have to say what a strong lady Mo is.

 

[Legally Bland]

[video=youtube;ZeFN-lutx10]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeFN-lutx10[/video]

I was at school in Woodhouse in 1980, but I was only 8. I remember after a couple of attacks nearby they'd talk about it in assembly and tell us not to worry because he wasn't attacking children. And that was good enough for me, I wasn't scared even though we used to make our own way to and from school in those days, but I did feel the general sense of fear at the time.

My mother worked as a merchandiser going round supermarkets at the time including the one at the Arndale centre (Kwik Save?) but my father persuaded her to quit after the Jacqueline Hill murder.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

There's an interview Maureen Lee here:

Thanks - I hadn't see that before.

At 3:10 she says her attacker was disturbed by a passer-by at the end of Woodhouse Road. I assume she means Woodhouse Lane, which would put her near the main LU campus, maybe she wasn't in a Halls of residence.

There's every chance that Maureen was not in a hall of residence or academic flats. From a bit of research it seems that she was a student of Leeds Polytechnic, not of Leeds University. Before 1992, tertiary, degree-level, education in the UK was divided between the self-governing universities and similar institutions and the polytechnics which were established and run by local authorities. One difference between them was that generally, universities drew students from all over the UK and beyond, while polytechnics tended to provide tertiary education to local students who usually lived at home with their parents and therefore did not need other accommodation. Polys provided a local solution for students who either did not have the grades to go to a "proper" university or who lacked the confidence to live away from home. That said, a number of polys became centres of excellence in specific vocational education, such as Portsmouth or Southampton Poly which was the UK's only centre for naval architecture, ie ship design, at that time. What was Leeds Poly subsequently became Leeds Beckett University, and it was separated from the University by the inner ring road and apart from that the two campuses were contiguous.

In terms of Woodhouse Road, yes that is confusing. There's no sign of such a road on Google maps, but parts of that area of the city have changed since my day and it's possible that either the road has been renamed or demolished, eg for a road improvement scheme, since then.

I'm also surprised you didn't hear anything about these attacks, even if it was just rumours on campus.

Me too. Perhaps I was aware of them at the time but my memory has faded since then. The attack on Maureen happened at the beginning of the academic year, when I was probably focused on my studies. Bear in mind also that many of the attacks which are now being looked at as additional Sutcliffe attacks were not associated with the main sequence of murders at the time by either the police or media. The view was very much that Sutcliffe attacked prostitutes and that his earlier "innocent" (ie non-prostitute) victims were mistakes. It was also that Sutcliffe's attacks ended in murder, so any non-murders were discounted as attacks by him. Towards the end of his activities, when he was clearly starting to attack students, the view was that his preferred targets were still prostitutes but that he had moved on to students because the red light districts had become too hot for him. In retrospect, and with re-evaluation of his activities, it's becoming much more obvious that his targets were simply young and middle aged women.

 

[Legally Bland]

Looks like he may finally be transferred to mainstream prison.

[FONT=&amp]The Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, who murdered 13 women, may be released from the secure psychiatric hospital Broadmoor and sent to a mainstream prison after a tribunal concluded that his mental illness was under control.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]Sutcliffe was given 20 life sentences when he was convicted in 1981, but was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1984 and transferred to Broadmoor in Berkshire.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]On Thursday, a mental health tribunal ruled that he no longer required clinical treatment and could therefore be moved back into the mainstream prison system. He is serving a whole-life tariff and will die in jail.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/12/yorkshire-ripper-to-be-sent-to-mainstream-prison[/FONT]

 

[Earth]

I would seriously doubt any claimed murders that involved sexual assault prior to 1978. It is extremely rare, but serial killers can change their MO. A prominent example would be Levi Bellfield, who went from sexually assaulting victims and hiding the body to attacking women over the head with a hammer in parks.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

Yorkshire Ripper confesses to unsolved 1975 attack on schoolgirl, 14, who he wrongly believed was a prostitute

The Yorkshire Ripper has confessed on tape to a savage attack on a 14-year-old schoolgirl because he wrongly thought she was a prostitute.

Peter Sutcliffe, 71, admitted hitting Tracy Browne with a branch before throwing her over a wall.

Despite having suffered two fractures to her skull Tracy managed to stagger to a farmworker's caravan and he raised the alarm.

Two months after the August 1975 crime in Silsden, West Yorkshire, Sutcliffe killed his first [originally accredited] victim Wilma McCann, 28.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-Ripper-confesses-1975-attack-schoolgirl.html