British serial killer known as the Yorkshire Ripper as he murdered 13 women and attempted to kill 9 more, mostly prostitutes. A swarthy, bearded Yorkshire man, Sutcliffe was a white male, a truck driver for the past five years. He seemed happily married; they had no kids. Formerly a gravedigger: a coworker related that he would open the coffin lids to look at the cadavers before burial. On the other hand, he was known as a gentle man, even sentimental, and his mother-in-law described him as loving, kind and generous. He and his pretty wife, Sonia, were married for six years, the first three of which they lived with Sonia’s folks before getting a suburban home of their own. His work took him away from home for days at a time.
His method was to pick up the woman on the street or in a bar and when alone, hit her on the head with a ballpeen hammer. He then stabbed the victim with a long knife or screwdriver and sexually mutilated the body. As a fetish, when he finished his savage attack, he put his victim’s shoes neatly on top of her body.
His first attack took place 5 July 1975 and first murder on 30 October 1975 in the red light district of Leeds. Wilma McCann was a blonde 28-year-old divorcee with four kids who worked the clubs and streets at night. Her body, with multiple stab wounds, was found in a soccer field not far from her home. Three months later, the second victim was found with injuries the police refused to describe. There were no more attacks for over a year, until February 1977, then another in April 1977. Two months later he killed a 16-year-old who was just walking home, the first victim who was not a prostitute. On 1 October 1977, police found the body of a girl who’d been dead for ten days. The day before, the killer had returned and moved the body to where it would be found. On 31 January 1978, an 18-year-old woman was found and on 17 May 1978, a frail 41-year-old woman. Two other bodies had been found in March 1978, and in November 1975 that were attributed to the same killer. All had been mutilated in ways that linked them with the Yorkshire killer, in northern towns linked by a major highway.
It was 5 April 1979 before police had a breakthrough. The killer struck a 19-year-old clerk, a woman who was not sexually selling herself and who was in a respectable residential area near the University. Witnesses came forward for the first time. On 2 September 1979, he struck another university student returning home from a pub.
He was arrested on 2 January 1981 and at his trial, found guilty and sentenced to life. He said he was driven by a “divine mission” to rid the streets of prostitutes and that he would kill again if freed. He stared straight ahead with a stony countenance at the sentencing, while crowds cheered outside. At the turn of the millennium, he was still in a top security mental hospital prison.
The High Court dismissed an appeal by Sutcliffe in 2010, confirming that he would serve a whole life order and never be released from custody. In August 2016, it was ruled that Sutcliffe was mentally fit to be returned to prison, and he was transferred that month to HM Prison Frankland in Durham. He died on 13 November 2020 at the age of 74.
Link to Wikipedia biography