Serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, better known as the Yorkshire Ripper, has died age 74. Photo / News Corp Australia
Serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, better known as the Yorkshire Ripper, has died age 74. Photo / News Corp Australia
Serial killer Peter Sutcliffe – better known as the Yorkshire Ripper – has died at the age of 74.
Sutcliffe, who was serving a life term for murdering 13 women across England's northwest and Yorkshire between 1975 and 1980, was moved from a maximum-security prison in County Durham to University Hospital in North Durham this week, according to the Yorkshire Post.
He was said to have refused treatment for coronavirus, and also had a number of other underlying health issues, having been rushed to the same hospital a fortnight ago after a suspected heart attack. He was also said to be obese and had diabetes.
Former police officer Bob Bridgestock, who worked on the hunt for Sutcliffe, said he "won't be shedding any tears" for the killer, who was convicted in 1981.
Richard, the son of Sutcliffe's first victim – mother-of-four Wilma McCann – said his death would bring "some kind of closure".
Sutcliffe was convicted in 1981, after murdering 13 women between 1975 and 1980. Photo / Supplied
"The attention he's had over the years, the continuous news stories that we've suffered over the years, there is some form of conclusion to that," he said.
"I am sure a lot of the families, surviving children of the victims, may well be glad he has gone and they have a right to feel like that."
In his 2003 book on Sutcliffe's crimes, Wicked Beyond Belief, Michael Bilton wrote that the subject of the killer "brings dreadful memories flooding back for those most intimately involved".
"The family of Sutcliffe's victims deserved to know what really happened during that awful period when a beast called Peter Sutcliffe roamed the North of England creating outright terror," he said.
Sutcliffe was particularly focused on sex workers, women who were easily forgotten by society and the police. However any women who crossed his path was at risk.
Bilton goes on to say Sutcliffe was a "monstrous and disturbed individual" who was "a sick and perverted killer who got powerful sexual thrills from having women at his mercy as he slaughtered them."
The 13 women Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering were:
• Wilma McCann, 28, from Chapeltown, Leeds, was killed in October 1975.
• Emily Jackson, 42, from Morley, Leeds, was killed on January 20, 1976.
• Irene Richard, 28, from Chapeltown, Leeds, was killed on February 6, 1977.
• Patricia Atkinson, 32, from Manningham, Bradford, was killed on April 24, 1977.
• Jayne MacDonald, 16, from Leeds, was killed on June 26, 1977.
• Jean Jordan, 21, from Manchester, was killed between September 30 and October 11, 1977.
