A cold-blooded MO: he was attacking helpless women with a hammer before stabbed them to death with a screwdriver … One of Britain’s most evil killers. World’s Most Evil Killers s2e12: Peter Sutcliffe – The Yorkshire Ripper s/a Britain’s Most Evil Killers
For five years he evaded capture while brutally murdering 13 young women across the north of England … Sutcliffe had attacked at least 7 more women. ibid.
‘He had no personality, no charisma about him whatsoever.’ ibid. interviewing rozzer
The trial began on May 5th 1981. ibid.
We have received letters that we believe to be genuine. And we are presently analysing a tape that we also believe comes from someone that we would very much like to talk to in connection with this enquiry. Red Riding Trilogy: Nineteen Eighty (2001) starring Jim Carter & Robert Sheehan & James Weaver & Sean Harris & Charlotte James & Michelle Holmes & Tony Mooney & Andrew Garfield & James Fox & Julia Ford & Lesley Sharp et al, director James Marsh, Ripper rozzer
To me you’re like a bad angel on a mistaken journey. ibid.
We want you to head up a covert home office inquiry into the Ripper investigation. ibid. head rozzer to Hunter
Between 1975 and 1981 a series of horrific murders in the north of England would lead to the biggest manhunt in British criminal history. Over five years the killer, dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper, murdered thirteen women and brutally attacked at least eight others. In the aftermath it emerged that the killer was questioned by police nine times over those five years: each time they let him go. The Yorkshire Ripper Files: A Very British Crime Story: Chapeltown, BBC 2019
Despite the police’s assumption that Wilma [McCann] was a prostitute I can’t find any clear evidence that she was. ibid.
Jayne MacDonald didn’t fit the pattern: she was a teenage girl who lived at home with her parents. ibid.
The police had decided the killer was motivated by a hatred of prostitutes. The Yorkshire Ripper Files: A Very British Crime II: Manhunt
In April 1979 the body of the Yorkshire Ripper’s tenth victim was found in a park in Halifax. ibid.
I’m struck by Oldfield’s total faith in the tape and letters. ibid.
1970s attitudes towards women led the police to ignore key witnesses rather than abandon their theory about the killer. The Yorkshire Ripper Files: A Very British Crime III: Justice
He was 34, married and worked as a lorry driver. ibid.
‘He was odd. There was something about him.’ ibid. street sex worker
Sonia, Peter Sutcliffe’s wife, never took any money from the media. ibid.
The work of the Ripper Squad was commended by the judge. ibid.
Eyewitness accounts were given little credence. ibid.
West Yorkshire, England: That night mum was going out. It was midweek and we were put to bed. I’m five, my sister she’s six. And the next memory was of Sonya waking me up. Still dark. And she told me that mum’s not come home, come on, we’ll go look for her. It was around 5 o’clock. It was cold. It was dark. We crept out through the garden, through a hole in the hedge on to the field out the back. I kept remember thinking, where the hell’s my mum. The Ripper I: Once Upon a Time in Yorkshire, Wilma’s son, Netflix 2020
This was the ultimate crime against women. And at the heart of it was a monster. By the end of five years he controlled us all. ibid. woman #1
It was the biggest crime investigation there had ever been in the United Kingdom. No police force had experienced that level of pressure. ibid. rozzer
She’d [first victim] been brutally battered about the head and had other horrifying injuries to her body. ibid.
In her own ground-floor flat in Bradford the body of 33-year-old Patricia Atkinson … She was the fourth woman to be murdered in a radius of ten miles within the last eighteen months. ibid. news
This was a man who hated prostitutes. A description that implanted in your mind that if you are not that kind of woman who had ‘many boyfriends’, then you were fine. ibid. woman #1
It’s just like, Oh no, not another, not again. ibid. rozzer
What set this one [Maureen Long] apart was that the woman had survived. She was able to talk to the police from her hospital bed. At long last this was the breakthrough they had been looking for. The Ripper II: Between Now & Dawn, Alan Whitehouse, Yorkshire Post
What followed was a classic Ripper attack. A blow to the back of the head from a blunt instrument and a knife down the front. ibid. TV reporter on scene
There were piles of paper everywhere in the Incident Room. ibid. rozzer
She [Jean Jordan] was cut in the most horrendous ways a person could cut someone. I ran to the phone box … ibid. man discovers body in Manchester allotment
There is a possibility he has been spoken to in this enquiry. ibid. rozzer
He was around 30, he had a beard and he had dark hair. The photofit of the Marilyn Moore attack was on the wall on every police station throughout this country. For the first time we had a picture of who we now believed to be the Yorkshire Ripper. ibid.
Nothing was working as it should. The filing system was so chaotic frankly they [rozzers] were floundering … No leads, no ideas. Undetectable. ibid. journalist
The murderer had been back and placed the newspaper under her arm. ibid. rozzer
It’s the worst series of unsolved killings in the world. The Ripper III: Reclaim the Night, news
The tyre tracks, the five-pound note, the footwear marks that had been lifted at the scenes, the blood group, the handwriting, the [chief rozzer George] photofit, he felt that this was only a matter of time. ibid. rozzer
Mrs [Josephine] Whittaker was a really respectable young lady … ibid. chief rozzer George
I think they could have done more. A lot more. ibid. TV interview of passer-by
It was the noisiest march I had ever been on. Women were furious … It was never just about these murders. ibid. Julie Binder
The misogyny … So, Wilma becomes a prostitute because they think Wilma is a prostitute. ibid. Joan Smith, Sunday Times
He [rozzer] found the hammer and then he found the knife. ibid. arrested man on traffic offence
In the end he [Ripper] was caught purely by chance. It wasn’t good police work. The Ripper IV, Alan Whitehouse
He gave a voluntary statement. He outlined all of his murders. ibid. rozzer
They [investigative big cheeses] were actually excluding incredibly important eyewitness evidence. All the senior detectives were men. They were from a very limited, very similar background. They had very similar prejudices, and they walk into this case without any understanding of it at all. What they were doing is chasing Jack the Ripper. ibid. Joan Smith
You’d got the psychiatric evidence from these three very eminent men who’d all trooped through the witness box and told us that he was a paranoid schizophrenic. You could see the police bristling at this. ibid. Alan Whitehouse
Peter Sutcliffe was convicted of thirteen murders and seven attempted murders. He took many secrets to the grave. The Yorkshire Ripper’s New Victims, captions, Channel 5 2021
John Tomey, forgotten victim, attacked 22nd March 1967, eight years before Peter Sutcliffe’s official murders began … ‘He hit me probably ten times with a hammer.’ ibid. captions
Nobody has ever been convicted of the attack on Tracy Browne … Mo Lea, forgotten victim, attacked 25th October 1980 … Fred Craven, forgotten victim, murdered 22nd April 1966 … ibid.
I was given the job of looking at the outstanding murders and attempted murders that may have been committed by this man. The number was astonishing really – I think there were seventy-eight … That gave us a list of about ten probables … There were two men in our final list. ibid. Keith Hellawell, Chief Constable West Yorkshire 1993-1998
Between 1975 and 1980 one man brought widespread fear to the people of the north of England. The attacks were sadistic and violent and led to the largest manhunt the people have ever faced. The man behind the crimes became known as the Yorkshire Ripper. The Ripper Speaks: The Lost Tapes, Channel 5 2022
When I sat down and talked to him he was very gently spoken, and so normal. ibid. visitor
He leaned heavily on the notion he was schizophrenic and had been hearing voices in his head from God. ibid.
I had that motorcycle accident in 1965. It split open my helmet and knocked my head in at one side. Really bad concussion, I had. I was unconscious for two days. I should have gone to hospital, really. ibid. tape