Worse Than Jack The Ripper: How Peter Sutcliffe "The Yorkshire Ripper" Became England's Most Prolific Serial Killer
Because of the often transient nature of many of his victims, and the disturbing level of apathy shown by the police, notorious serial killer Peter Sutcliffe was able to get away with murder for years
In January 1981, two Sheffield police officers spotted a man and a woman inside a car parked on the side of a dark road. The officers noticed that the license plate on the car didn’t match the car’s make or model, which was a criminal offense. The officers approached the vehicle and spoke to the man inside before taking him to the police station.
At the station, one of the officers saw a photofit on the wall, and he noticed the man he had just brought in bore an uncanny resemblance to it. The officer, acting on his own intuition, returned to the area where he first saw the man with the illegal license plates, and there he found a hammer and a knife.
The man they had brought to the station for illegal license plates was none other than the UK’s most prolific serial killer: “The Yorkshire Ripper.”
The Killings Begin
On the dreary morning of October 30th, 1975, the body of a young woman was found by the local milkman as he did his rounds. He discovered the body lying face up in the Prince Philip Playing Fields, which was located just behind Scott Hall Avenue, a council estate in Leeds.
The woman’s body had been brutally butchered with 15 stab wounds to the chest, neck, and abdomen, and had received two blows to the back of the head with a hammer.
The woman was identified as 28-year-old Wilma McCann. Wilma McCann was the mother to four children aged 4 to 7. Her body was found less than 150 yards from her home on Scott Hall Avenue.
The police were called to the scene, and it didn’t take long for them to deem the murder as a “simple” attack on a prostitute. Though the attack and murder were savagely vicious, unfortunately, because of the status of the victim, the police did not make solving the crime a high priority.
A few months later, on January 20th, 1976, the body of Emily Jackson was found dumped behind a bakery in Chapeltown, a well-known red-light district. Jackson was a 43-year-old ‘part-time’ prostitute who was in such financial ruin that she turned to the “street life.”
She had been stabbed 57 times with a Philips-head screwdriver, and two depressions were found at the back of her skull, indicating she had been struck with a weapon, likely a hammer.
Her boots were neatly placed on the back of her legs, and the content of her handbag was laid neatly beside her body: she was also found to have a size 7 shoe imprint on her leg, suggesting her attacker had forcefully stamped on her thigh after the attack.
Jackson’s 17-year-old son was given the awful task of identifying his mother’s body; her murder is also how he found out his mother was prostituting.
The police now made a connection between the murder of Emily Jackson and Wilma McCann due to the similarity in injuries. However, due to insufficient physical evidence left by the perpetrator, the police had very little to go on.
They were also struggling to find any witness reports because of the “type” of women the crimes included - and it was only just beginning.
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