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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.
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Visit audible.com slash morbid. On November 13th, 2022, four University of Idaho students were murdered.
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The true story, it's finally here. Hey weirdos, I'm Alayna.
I'm Ash. And this is Morven. Here we are.
We are in part three of the Yorkshire Ripper series.
It is going to be four. That will be the end point, I promise.
We are going to get all the way up to ten murder victims in this one.
The last three I will do in the fourth part of the series.
And then I think we're going to close during that same episode, episode four.
I want to talk more about what the family members, that they got the apology from the police station even after the fact.
Talk a little bit more about them because they got forgotten and all this.
So that's what we're going to do today. We're going to talk about these.
He's getting progressively worse. Yeah. And he started off absolutely terribly.
So that's saying something. He started off at the bottom of the barrel and somehow he got lower.
Even deeper than that. Yeah. It's really bad.
Other than that, I don't think we were going to really.
Oh, you know what? There is one thing that happened this weekend that I was like, I just have to say this because it freaked me out and stressed me out so much this weekend.
This is terrible. I'm sure you guys heard about it probably by now.
But in Texas, a little girl named Athena was literally abducted, a seven-year-old girl. abducted out of her driveway by a FedEx driver delivering packages, and within an hour, he had murdered her and dumped her body.
Are you fucking kidding me? I can't stop thinking about it.
No, and this guy was just some random 30-year-old FedEx driver.
I am just without words about it. This poor family, I can't even...
And it's right before Christmas. You're getting packages delivered all the time.
Of course, yeah. Like, are you kidding me?
I don't know what is wrong with people. Like, I wish there was some way to end all of this.
Like, how do we just... Get back to a place where, like, this is not... It's not so terrible all the time.
I just, like, that story, when it popped up on my newsfeed, I was like, oh my god.
It's awful. John and I couldn't stop thinking about it all weekend.
I was like, that is just unfathomable. I can't say the word.
Yeah, no, it's so true. It really is. She was just in her driveway.
And you don't think about it. No, of course.
These people are supposed to be vetted to come to your house and drop things off.
And it's like, according to FedEx, he doesn't have a criminal record.
And they do check records for... Because he was a contract driver.
That's crazy. So they say they do check records for that and that his record in the counties that I suppose it covers was clean.
I don't know how far that goes or if that means he had a clean record completely.
Right. But it looks like... By all accounts, he didn't have anything that would have tipped them off.
To have no priors and then do something like that horrific.
That's what's getting me. That's a bold first step.
Yeah, like middle of the day or like early in the day.
At her home. Who knows? She's literally minding her own business in her driveway.
You would never think. Like that parent probably said like, yeah, just stay in the driveway.
Yeah, exactly. Because you think your child's safe on your property.
And they should be. Your children should be safe at home.
But it's like, guys, this world is a scary world we're in right now.
Like, how sad is it that children can't play in their front yards?
Yeah, they literally can't. Like, now I would never even, like, watch the girls and let them ever do that.
Oh, no. Never. Never, never, never. You can't even go inside for like a second.
And it also bums me out because like FedEx drivers, UPS drivers, like all these package drivers, they work their asses off.
And then this guy goes and gives them this.
During the holiday season especially, but they work their asses off all the time.
I mean, where would we all be without them?
You know what I mean? Like I rely on them a lot for everything.
Yeah. And it's like, especially now, they're working crazy hours, like, breaking their backs to do this.
I mean, and then this happens, and it's going to freak people out.
I mean, like, obviously, it's going to freak everybody out.
And I feel bad. Like, that sucks. Because I'm freaked out.
I'm freaked out, totally. But I know, like, our FedEx drivers and all them, like, I love them.
I appreciate them. Right. And that really sucks.
It sucks when one really rotten apple can really fuck it up for everybody.
It's so true. So definitely don't like, I mean, I wouldn't just like judge every single, you know, FedEx, UPS, all that, all their drivers.
It's just like be vigilant. Yep. But like, my God.
It's just like that story really got to me and I just feel horrific for that family.
It's terrible. Anytime this would be devastating beyond words or comprehension.
But you add the whole. add the holidays into it and oh it's just how do you do that to somebody it really bummed me out but how do you do that i just had i had to talk about it because i just had to get it out of my brain yeah i'm like john and i have just been like so upset about it all the thing it's like you don't even i get so many cnn updates and i'm like oh no like stop like i can't because it's all bad news right now everything it is i got one the other day that there's a black hole fucking directly pointing at earth and i'm so stressed out about it And I told Dash, don't worry about that one because like we could get hit with an asteroid any second.
And that made me feel so much better, guys.
And there's like volcanoes that are way overdue.
There's fault lines that are way overdue for.
She's really just feeding the anxiety. That stuff doesn't even bother because I'm like, whatever, we're overdue there.
But like. But it's the people. I'm afraid of all of it.
People, the evil monster people that are just lurking around that are the real fucking danger here.
Honestly. But guys, everybody hug each other.
Be nice to each other. Light a holiday candle.
Celebrate whatever it is you would like to celebrate, whatever it is that makes you happy.
Elena's really into Yule. Yule it up. I'm really into Yule right now.
Let's just celebrate it. Everybody just be happy, man.
Don't worry. Don't be all like uncool, you know?
That's my girl right there. But, you know, speed, we'll get out of that because I just had to get that out.
And I just want everybody to like hug each other and not be dicks.
But here we are. We're going to talk about one of the biggest dicks of them all.
Great. So we are in part three. I just want to start this out by saying...
At the end of this whole thing, he left 26 kids without their mother.
26 orphaned children. 26 children had their mothers taken from them.
And not only that, taken from them in brutal ways and then have to sit there and watch the entire world basically swipe it aside because they happen to be sex workers.
It's so messed up. As well as human fucking beings.
And the whole, and we've said it so many times, but it's like the whole thing is, oh, it's a dangerous job.
What do you expect? You cannot say that.
First of all, not that. That goes without even saying.
And you can say that about a million other fucking jobs.
Absolutely you can. But you never would.
No. You never would because for some reason they're not deemed quote unquote less than.
That's like my dad was an electrician. That's like saying, well, if he got electrocuted and died, that's like saying, well, he was an electrician.
He was asking for it. No, he was not. And you would never say that.
So shut the fuck up about sex workers. And it's just like that's what they did for their job.
That's how they earned money. They were mothers.
They were daughters. They were friends. And that's why they were doing that.
Because they had children to support. And all of these women were down on their luck.
Like, you don't know what you would do for your kids when you're desperate.
You have no idea what you would do. Yeah.
Like, this was a bad time. Everybody was going through it.
People were desperate. Like, it just bums me out.
Like, 26 kids lost their mothers during this.
And it could have been more. Yeah. Outrageous.
With all the survivors even that he has.
Yeah. And lost their mothers while their mothers were out trying to put food on the table.
It's awful. That's what's even, it's like, and then they were treated like, like all the headlines were like, you know, good time girl, like sex worker, blah, blah, blah, like worse things than, you know, saying that.
I'm a sorry person, right? in the article.
Did you know that person personally? Well, and it's like, you can see Wilma McCann's son came out and was like, my mom wasn't just a good time girl.
She wasn't just this. She was my mother.
And it's like, oh, that bums me out. No person is just one thing.
No. And it just bums me out. And actually, Emily Jackson, one of the victims who was there with her husband, whose roofing company had fallen on hard times, and they had actually lost their son, Derek, when he had fallen out a window.
They went through a lot. Her son, Neil, was actually 17 years old when that happened.
And he had to be the one to identify his mother.
At 17 years old. And he actually helped write a book about his mother, her murder, and life after everything.
I'm going to link it in the notes for this.
But it just bums me out. This was handled really poorly when it happened.
Real poorly. Cases like this usually are.
Yeah, it followed right in the footsteps of Jack the Ripper.
But let's start off with a survivor. A third survivor.
Her name is Marilyn Moore. So on December 14th, 1977, at around 8 p.m., Marilyn Moore had left her friend's place on Gibson Road.
The house was close to the Gaiety Pub in Roundhay Road, two places frequented by Peter Sutcliffe.
Marilyn was only 25 years old, working as a sex worker at the time.
And since it was only 8 p.m., Marilyn decided, you know what, she was leaving her friend's house.
She was like, why not try to get her client on her way home?
Make some money. Yeah. She did see a dark-colored sedan drive by her and only noticed it because it drove by again before she got to her apartment.
So that's when she took a little notice.
So she was a little suspicious. Then she tried to kind of look around for anybody that could be a potential client.
She wasn't getting a lot of luck, so she was like, eh, I'll just go home.
Then as she walked by Franklin Place, she saw the same car again.
Third time. But now she saw that the driver was outside of the car and leaning against it.
She thought it appeared that he was gesturing to her to come over.
So she came over. The description she gave later was that this man was about early 30s, dark wavy hair, and had a clean and well-kept beard.
She was nervous that evening because of all the Ripper news, because now it was becoming very widely known.
But since he was so casual and he had said hello to some of the other working girls in the area in front of her, she felt more confident that he was likely not the guy.
He was friendly with the other girls. Right.
He just wasn't coming off that way. He introduced himself to her as Dave and they agreed on five pounds.
He suggested they go to a spot on Scott Hall Street and off they went in his car.
When they arrived, it was a very desolate and isolated area.
And he parked the car and suggested doing the whole thing in the back seat.
So she got out to get into the back seat, but the door was locked.
So he got out and said he would unlock it for her.
But he had a ball-peen hammer in his hand.
Oh. And when he was behind her trying to unlock the door, he brought it right down onto the back of her head.
Oh. Every time you say that, I swear I can feel it.
He hit her again, and she said she felt, quote, a searing, sickening blow on the top of my head.
That's how she described it. She screamed very loudly and fell, but as she fell, she grabbed onto his pants to try to hold herself up.
And he just kept hitting, because she thought also this would stop him.
Right. From like having to, he would have to stop, but it didn't.
He was just hitting her over and over as she continued to scream.
This was unintended and unexpected to Sutcliffe.
Usually he is able to incapacitate women very quickly with a blow to the top of the head.
They usually fall, either unconscious or barely making any noise that anyone else would hear, and he's able to finish.
But her screaming, Marilyn's screaming, caused a nearby dog to start barking as well.
And that freaks him out. So he decided to abandon ship and he left Marilyn on the ground.
My God. He had also hoped later he would say that he figured that she probably would die because he had hit her so many times with the hammer.
He just figured it would be a slower death.
Wow. And he would just leave her to die by herself.
Great human. And he just drove off back home to Sonia, his wife.
Remember, he has a wife. That's the other thing that this fucker has a wife.
Every time you say that, it hits different.
And he just goes home to her after this.
I hope I can say poor her. Yeah, I mean, she didn't know anything.
By all accounts, Sonia had no idea. Like, she's just like, imagine finding out that's the man you slept next to for years and years of your life.
I can't. While you knew, while you probably sat together and watched reports of this man happening before anybody even knew who he was.
It's wild. Like, they probably, I'm sure, like, think of all the times that you watch the news and comment on it together.
Yeah, of course. They probably talked about it at some point.
Absolutely, I'm sure they did. And I'm sure he fucking loved that.
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Now, she stayed on the ground for about five minutes, and then miraculously, she pulled herself up and started walking in the direction of the street.
Wow. Luckily, a young couple were driving by and saw her covered in blood and crying, just like stumbling across the street, and they called for help.
Marilyn was brought to Leeds General Infirmary and her injuries were a depressed fracture in her skull and other bruising and lacerations to her head, face, arms, and hands from defensive wounds because she had tried to stop him.
Investigators rushed to the hospital to talk to Marilyn and the doctors and were told that, quote, considerable force had been used by her attacker.
Oh, yeah. And it was evident the objective was not an attack, but murder.
That was definitely what the objective was.
Now, luckily, Marilyn was conscious by the entire time that it was happening.
Luckily and unluckily. Unlucky because nobody should have to be conscious for that whole thing.
But luckily because she was able to describe this asshole pretty clearly.
And she told them he was in his early 30s, a little bit of a stocky build, dark wavy hair, and the neat beard that was nice and trimmed.
And he was about 5'8". She also told them he drove a possibly maroon sedan.
And he did drive a red car. All right, go girl.
So, I read Cossair. So, investigators used this and went through the list of Ripper leads and people of interest.
They went through all the Daves and Davids, but none fit that description, obviously.
Guys. And they put together and circulated a photo fit from the description as well.
Crime scene investigators also found that the tire marks at Marilyn's scene matched the ones found at Irene Richardson's murder scene.
So, they were able to connect. Now, by 1978, the investigation into the Ripper murders and attacks had turned into full-blown panic.
Because even after Marilyn's description, the photo fit, the tire, nothing.
Weren't getting anything. They were able to connect these things and say, sure, this same person did this one, but who the fuck is this person?
That's the problem. And this is the 70s?
Yeah. So it's like, we don't have a lot to do here.
Yeah, what are we going to do here? And nothing was moving forward.
So much money was being dumped into this, and it seemed like it was just being flushed down the toilet.
And people were still being killed and wounded and traumatized, all while they're bumbling around, not figuring out how to organize themselves.
Right. Worse yet, they seem to be just abandoning leads and pathways, like, all the live long day.
Yeah, this was very poorly managed. Like, the search into the five pound note that was found at the Jean Jordan murder scene in her purse, that was one that narrowed them down to places of business and actually let them speak with Sutcliffe himself and clear him.
Then, so that happened, they cleared him.
Like, what the fuck? I forgot that that even happened.
Yeah. Then they just abandoned that like they did with the cars.
Because once they had talked to a few people, they were like, oh, well, I guess we can't find him.
We did what we needed to do. And remember when they did that with the cars?
The car thing? And they only had, like, how many left?
Yeah. It's wild. So ridiculous. And they had gotten through so many.
Exactly. And then they even put it, like, they even narrowed it down to white Corsairs and they stopped that investigation.
Like, they just kept... abandoning things.
So frustrating. And unfortunately, it was a real shit show.
And the photo fits they had and were circulating all described a different man.
Of course. It seemed, and were not helping with any identification or leads.
It was only serving to confuse everyone and frustrate everyone.
Yep. So January 21st, 1978, right in the beginning of the new year, Yvonne Pearson had made dinner for her two children, and then she had left them with a babysitter who was a neighbor, so she could go out and make money.
Yvonne, like all of the other women in the area, knew that things were definitely much more dangerous now with the Ripper on the loose.
And she had actually been good friends with Tina Atkinson.
Oh. So in response to this, she actually kept with her a pair of scissors as defense.
Smart. And she made sure everyone knew, I will fucking use these.
Yeah, don't fuck with me. Yvonne was finishing up a drink with a friend around 9.30 p.m. at a pub on Lum Lane in Bradford.
She said her goodbyes to head out onto the street to look for a client.
And as she was walking down the street, a man in a red Ford Corsair almost hit her.
Jesus. And he actually like squealed to a stop, rolled down his window and was apologizing to her like, oh my God, I'm sorry.
Even though he fully intended to do that.
Well, we'll talk about that after. Yvonne said, that's actually good timing.
Put it down to fate. That was her response to him.
Then she got in the car. Oh, my goodness.
So Sutcliffe drove to a dump on, I think it was Athington Street, and he parked doing the same thing he did with Marilyn, suggesting that they go in the back seat.
As Yvonne got out of the car, he grabbed a stashed heavy lump hammer.
And he, or a long camera, excuse me. And he snuck up behind her, hitting her in the head with it.
Oh my God. I got to Google what that is.
I know what that is, but. I have to tell you too, this one is very upsetting.
Okay. And it's graphic. It upset me. So she fell to the ground and he dragged her by the collar of her dress or her shirt and dragged her to an old dirty sofa because they were near like a dump site.
A car actually pulled up next to his at the time and a man and woman were in it and they were like talking to each other.
He later said that it seemed like they were there for ages.
So he was just waiting with Yvonne on the sofa, like trying to keep her quiet.
And he said she was moaning loudly from being hit in the head with a hammer.
So he shoved couch stuffing down her throat and held her nose shut.
Oh my God. While he waited for them to leave.
While she's like bleeding from the head.
Now, once the car had left, he then kicked her in the head and body several times and then jumped on her chest until her ribs cracked.
Oh my God. That's what he did. To Yvonne Pearson, who has two children, two daughters, I believe, at home.
And the last thing she did was make them dinner.
Make them dinner and then go out to provide.
And he jumped. It's like he crushed her.
Yeah. Oh, my God. What's worse? How do you?
I just, like, how do you do that to someone?
Yeah, that one, like, really got to me. That is such...
A different kind of species. To have that happen to you and to have that be the way you go out of this earth.
It's horrific. I can't. Horrific. And what's worse is Peter Sutcliffe had actually spent the day helping his parents move before this.
And had been doing so up until about 9 p.m.
So he was just with his parents helping them move.
Oh, so his parents figured things out? Yeah.
They stayed together? Yeah, I guess they were, I don't know if they were both moving or he helped like either.
I'm not sure exactly what the details with that were, but he was helping them at least.
And he went straight out trolling from there, came across Yvonne quickly and by accident.
And he later said during his trial that Pearson was the only woman he did not intentionally set out to murder.
But when she used the word fate, he thought it was a sign from God that she was meant to be killed by him.
And I think that's bullshit. And I think that's him putting it on her.
Uh-huh. And I think it's him trying to say, well, she did it.
She's the one who used the word fate. I don't think that's right.
I don't think personally that, like, I don't, you know, I just can't.
I don't think God tells people to kill people.
I know what you're going to say. I know what you're going to say.
I don't think if there is a God. That's what I was trying to say.
That this person is out there whispering into dirtbags' ears, like, see Peter Sutcliffe, go kill this innocent woman.
Who killed her? I actually think one of the first things in the book he supposedly wrote, I guess, says, thou shall not kill.
Yeah. Is that not one of the things? That's a commandment.
There you go. So I don't know why we're using him as the scapegoat here.
We're also, he's not only using like this god as a scapegoat, but he's also using Yvonne as a scapegoat.
Yeah. Saying that she used the word fate.
I wouldn't have done it if she didn't do that.
Yeah, you would have. So you're putting it right on her again.
You would have. Of course you would have.
You would have found her or somebody else.
Yeah. He was 100% out to kill another woman.
And for him to sit there and use her and what she said as the reason is such a little bitch way of getting out of it once again.
It's him putting it on these women that they deserved it or they asked for it.
Like, fuck you. Do you think it truly was an accident or do you think he spotted her and had the idea or the impression that she was a sex worker?
Yeah. I think he saw her. Yeah, I don't think that was accidental.
I don't think it was either. So Yvonne's babysitter obviously was very nervous when she didn't show up that evening or the next morning.
She called the police immediately to report her missing because this was not like her.
She didn't just not come home. And she wasn't found until March 26th.
What was the date that this happened? January 21st.
Oh my God. Someone walking by the dump site saw an arm sticking out from the disgusting old sofa and discovered her body.
This one was a tough one. Investigators initially believed this was actually a separate murder and not connected to the Ripper murders.
Well, it's so different. That I can understand.
She was found long after death, which is not like the other Ripper murders.
He leaves them out. He leaves them pretty much to be discovered.
Her cause of death was strange, obviously, and there was no evidence that she had been stabbed, which is part of his MO.
I just keep thinking about him jumping on her ribs.
Yeah, and that's never been a method before, so that threw them off.
David Gee, the pathologist, examined her body and determined her cause of death was definitely trauma to the head, but actually believed it was done with a large rock and not a hammer.
Okay. That wasn't true. Peter Sutcliffe later said he used a hammer.
Right. Like he confirmed it. But it was different than the ball beam.
But it was strange. It was a different, it wasn't the ball beam hammer that he usually uses.
Okay. Upon further inspection, he also found that the killer had shoved that handful of insulation into her mouth.
And that was something that's never happened.
Exactly. And they thought that this was done after the fact or it was done during for some other reason.
But Peter Sutcliffe later said, I did it so she would stop moaning.
A couple. He loves putting furniture on people.
Yeah, he does. Mattresses and stuff like that.
Yeah, it's weird. It's so strange. Also, her body was different than how Sutcliffe had actually left her initially when they found her.
She had been killed next to the sofa and left there that evening, but she was found with the sofa now partially covering her, along with other debris from the dump.
And there was also a copy of the Daily Mirror... dated February 21st, a month after she was killed, a full month after she was killed, but before she was found, it was tucked under her arm.
So he went back. So he later claimed he never returned to the body and he had no idea how that happened.
He's a complete bullshitter. Like, who would have done that?
He was like, I never returned to the bodies.
You returned to Gene Jordan's body. Yeah.
Like, four minutes ago. Like, are you kidding?
He definitely returned to this one. And he definitely left that daily mirror under her arm.
Yeah. Like, he did that. He thought he was getting real crafty.
Yeah. And he does this a couple. Like, he definitely was returning to these scenes when they were not found right away.
Yeah. Well, and also, I mean, like, I hate to say something this crude, but look what he did to people as they were dying.
Yeah. I'm sure he got off to them afterwards.
Absolutely. Because he's a fucked up individual.
Yeah, he's horrific. So only 10 days after the brutal murder of Yvonne Pearson on January 31st, this was way before she was found, so she was still missing at this point, but 10 days after he murdered her, Sutcliffe struck again.
Wow. This time he picked up Helen Ritka.
Helen was only 18 years old. My God. She had been living in a motel room with her twin sister Rita.
They had both been raised in a children's home and then aged out.
That's awful. They had been staying with a sibling, but like I think it was a little just like up in the air.
And although Helen had been working a job at the local candy factory, she had recently lost it.
So now they'd both turned to sex work to try to pull themselves out of their situation.
Right. They had plans. They had ambitions.
They were just desperately trying to get on their feet to make those happen.
Helen had actually just received a grant to attend Batley Art College, and she had dreams of becoming a soul singer.
Wow. Yeah. In a newspaper article I discovered, it said when Helen and Rita were 15, they actually sent a poem together into the Yorkshire Post.
And it was published. And the title was Lonely and Unloved.
Oh, God. The poem will destroy you. It is so sad.
And in one verse they wrote, and this just like gets you when you find out she does not survive.
She is a victim that died. They wrote no one cares if I was lured lured into the deepest hole cast aside by those so cruel and treated like a mule.
Yes loneliness is to live this way day after day.
Yes I would pray that someday love may find an open way.
Wow. This is who these people were. Like, they were just people who wanted... Love.
...what everyone around them had. Yeah. Like, that's, like, what you and I have.
Yeah. Love. A roof over our head. Family.
Food. To provide for your family. Like, that's all they were looking for.
Adults that cared about us when we were little.
And you have to... like beautiful twin babies and just leave them that's what it's like so sad and it's like they knew that they were like lonely and unloved at 15 you're right like that's so sad never feel that and then like she was that's like prophesizing like i know no one would care if i was lured lured into the deepest hole cast aside by those so cruel that's literally what happens to her that's scary that's not the first time that's happened in cases no it's like they know It's so sad.
So on January 31st, she was in the Red Light District when Peter came rolling through on his nightly trolling mission in Huddersfield.
Once he had her in his car, he drove her to the Leeds to Manchester railway station off Great Northern Street, and he found a secluded area to park with her.
Right. Right. Right. Wow. Wow. Wow. He's a twisted fuck.
And then he stripped her clothing off and dragged her naked and battered body into a wood pile nearby.
Once there, he stabbed her over and over again.
Now later, Peter would say that this time he became, and this is like, this is rough too, just trigger warning.
Once there, once he had stabbed her over and over again, he later said he became aroused by the idea of getting caught because he nearly had moments earlier when the two men walked by and he ended up raping Helen after bludgeoning and stabbing her.
Now, he said this, but it is important to note that the ME did not find evidence that she had been raped or had had sexual intercourse that evening.
So maybe he's just saying that. So I wonder if he is saying that to make it worse somehow or to desecrate her body and life and honor even more.
He said he found no evidence of this. He said that does not mean it didn't happen.
I just didn't find absolute evidence of this.
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Either way, whether he did do it or whether he just wants everybody to believe he did it, that is the most fucked up thing I've ever heard.
Either way. Yeah. Whether he did it or he's trying to convince you he did it and didn't actually do it.
I don't know. That's a whole other pathology.
They're horrible in either way. Yeah, they truly are.
Now, the next portion blew my mind because her body wasn't discovered for another three days.
And it was found by police dogs who were actually going through the area.
Oh, wow. The day after she was killed, though, lumberyard workers had arrived in the area, found the giant patch of blood-soaked ground, and torn women's clothing all around.
But they figured that since sex workers and drug users frequented the area, it wasn't cause for concern.
Blood soaking the ground in torn clothing, no matter who it is?
I'm sorry, friends. That large patch of blood soaked ground means someone was very injured.
Regardless of what these people do for work or what addictions they deal with, for that matter, that much blood in torn women's clothing should be reported.
Also, that's a fucking human. That's the thing.
No matter what. It's an injured human. Exactly.
Somebody was injured here. You should call.
That's what people need to realize. It's a human.
Yeah, just it's a human. That's a human.
You're a human. You would want somebody to call for you.
You might not be the best human on the face of the earth.
Why are you judging everyone else? You could be, I have heard stories, you could be a fucking neurosurgeon. who saves lives, and you could be the shittiest husband who beats your wife and hurts your children and does the worst shit imaginable, but I'm supposed to respect you because you do that for work?
Right. But this woman could do sex work for work and be the most brilliant, amazing, kind-hearted, loving mother, human friend ever, but because she works in that field, I'm going to treat her like shit.
What? What? Can we just judge by who the human is?
And I think in the last part, it's like you have no idea how these people got there.
You don't just wake up one morning and say like, oh, you know what I think I'll do today?
It's like, no, something got you there. Multiple things, like multiple things happened in your life to get you there.
Yeah. And nobody deserves to be brutalized like this.
I don't understand how we still have to say things like this.
I know. Now, either way, she wasn't found for another three days.
And when she was found, she had been stuffed between pieces of lumber like trash.
Investigators were not able to yield anything of help from this scene.
And it seemed like women were just going to keep losing their lives with really little to no consequence outside of it.
George Oldfield told BBC Radio that they were closer than ever to catching the Ripper, but that was a lie.
They were nowhere near close to it. They were moving further and further away, if anything at all.
And unfortunately, the police set up another headquarters for evidence and tips and such in Huddersfields.
You guys got to stop setting places up and stuff like that and just start investigating.
And they also just, when they're setting up these things in different places, you're just making things more complicated and spread out.
And now different departments have to connect with each other.
And they're not. And we all know how that goes.
And they're not. We are now eight murders into this whole thing and they have zero leads and they have already talked to the killer at least once.
Wow. Yeah. He's escalating with each new attack and murder, and he's killing more and more frequently.
And they also weren't really taking enough time to analyze how his methods and procedures were evolving as well.
He went back to crime scenes now. He literally moves bodies later and stages them.
He didn't do that before. He also placed that newspaper in Yvonne Pearson's hands after the fact, regardless of what his stupid ass claimed.
He definitely did that. Yeah, I believe that for sure.
But regardless of what was actually happening, they were hoping for a break at the very least.
They were obviously hoping to end this. They just weren't doing a good job at it.
Even though this was clearly not being handled with the utmost care, it didn't make the department look good at all to have this case just unsolved and fluttering in the breeze like this.
So in May, it was announced that the Yorkshire Post were going to offer £5,000 as a reward for anyone offering any information that could lead to the arrest.
Nothing. Wow. Nothing of note came forward.
I'm sure so many things of no note came forward.
Exactly. Unfortunately. Now, as if this case wasn't already on a one-way train to nowhere, with the lack of organization and the seeming lack of urgency because of the victim demographic, really, there were more roadblocks ahead.
This case was as parallel to Jack the Ripper as can be.
And it gets even more so, because now we got letters.
Oh, man. Are they from Peter? Oh, they're from Jack the Ripper.
I have to go. We have some surefire hoax letters, and we have some that they thought were real.
So let's start in March 1978, where we are chronologically.
Can you also, just sorry, can you imagine writing a hoax letter?
No. Like, as somebody who's not even a murderer, just like a whole other different kind of fucked up.
Yeah. Like, you wasted part of your life doing that.
We are also going to get into the person who actually wrote some of these letters.
And we're going to roast the shit out of them.
We'll do that in episode four. Cheers. Jesus Christ.
Because right now we're in March 1978. That's where chronologically we are in it.
So this is when George Oldfield received the first letter.
It had been sent to the West Yorkshire police and it was postmarked Sunderland, 1.45 p.m., 8th of March 1978.
This letter was from someone claiming to be the Ripper, and he was doing the same kind of thing, taunting and acting like he was some god, like the same thing as Jack the Ripper, quote unquote, did.
And, you know, how he's holding the entire area in the palm of his hand.
And he also made sure to throw some digs at the investigators and their complete lack of leads.
Wow. So this is what the letter said. Dear sir, I am sorry I can't give my name for obvious reasons.
I am the Ripper. You're not. I've been dubbed a maniac by the press, but not by you.
You call me clever, and I am. You and your mates having a clue that photo in the paper gives me fits, and that bit about killing myself, no chance.
I've got things to do. My purpose is to rid the streets.
There's some really foul language in here, by the way, and I'm just going to read it.
My purpose is to feed the streets of them sluts.
My one regret is young Lassie McDonald, he's referring to Jane McDonald, the 16-year-old, did not know because changed routine that night.
Okay. Up to number eight now. You say seven, but remember Preston 75.
Get about a bit, you know. You were right, I travel a bit.
You probably look for me in Sunderland. Don't bother.
I am not daft. I just posted letter there on one of my trips.
Not a bad place compared with Chapel Town, Chapelton and Manningham and other places.
Warn whores to keep off the streets because I feel it coming again.
Sorry about young Lassie. Yours respectfully, Jack the Ripper."
Might write again later. I'm not sure last one really deserved it.
Whore's getting younger each time. Old slut next time, I hope.
Huddersfield never again. Too small. Close call.
Last one. Under the flap of the envelope, the letter writer had signed Jack the Ripper, which just makes me gag because I'm like, that's fucking clearly not.
No. Like, what are you talking about? It's just like, ugh.
Yeah. Yep. Also, like, just the most terrible, like, they're getting younger.
Like, what is wrong with you? Yep. Now, this one, what we, one of the things in this letter was Preston 75.
What was that? I'm actually going to get to that because initially they didn't connect what that meant.
Yeah. But they do connect it because he mentions it again in the second letter.
Okay. So the second letter came only days after the first, and this time it was sent to the editor of the Daily Mirror.
Obviously, he wrote two very similar letters, hoping one of them would get published or one of them would get noticed.
Also interesting, the daily mirror. Yeah, there's that.
Who knew? Yeah. Now, this one made sure to take credit for all the murders up to this point, but it also offered that same Preston 75 that was in the first one that they didn't really take notice of until now.
This was a reference to the murder of Joan Harrison, who was a sex worker murdered after being raped October 23rd, 1975, just a month after Wilma McCann was discovered murdered.
And she was murdered in Preston. So Preston, 75.
So you're saying that wasn't me? No, you're saying that was me.
He was taking credit for it. This was shocking because she was kicked and stomped to death after being raped.
Then her jewelry was stolen. It was horrific, but it wasn't like the Ripper's usual M.O.
He never really stole. That was never a thing.
And that was a different mode of murder, even though he had stomped on Yvonne's chest and done that whole thing.
The police kind of just assumed these were real letters, the first two, and they took this admission of being the murderer in the Preston case as a real confession, mainly because she was a sex worker, so they figured it all fit together.
She was not one of his victims. They did later catch someone.
I believe his name was Christopher Smith.
Do you think that Peter Sutcliffe was like, quote unquote, inspired by that killing and had heard the details of it and that's why he did that to Yvonne?
No, because that was way back in 75. I don't think he would have, like he killed Yvonne in 78.
That would have been a weird thing to suddenly be inspired by.
Three years later, yeah. I think this person who wrote these letters is not Peter Sutcliffe.
Well, I know that. It is not Peter Sutcliffe.
Oh, okay. And I think this person was trying to prove some kind of... thing by connecting another case to make it seem like he was more of... So basically this person was like, I know all about serial killers.
Now, the second letter said, Dear Sir, I have already written to Chief Constable George Oldfield, a man I respect, concerning the recent Ripper murders.
I told him, and I am telling you to warn them, whores, I will strike again and soon when the heat cools off.
Excuse me. About the McDonald lassie, I didn't know that she was decent, and I'm sorry I changed my routine that night.
I didn't know she was decent. Okay. Up to murder eight now.
You say seven, but remember Preston 75. Easy picking them up.
Don't even have to try. You think they'd learn, but they don't.
Most are young lassies. Next time, try older one, I hope.
Police haven't a clue yet, and I don't leave any.
I am very clever, and don't look for me up there in Sunderland, because I'm not stupid.
Just pass through the place. Not a bad place compared with Chapleton and Manningham."
Can't walk the streets for them whores. Don't forget, warn them.
I feel it coming on again. If I get a chance, sorry about Lassie, I didn't know.
Yours respectfully, Jack the Ripper. Might write again after another week gone by maybe Liverpool or even Manchester again.
Too hot here in Yorkshire. Bye. I've given advance warning, so it's yours and their fault.
God, this letter is like all over the place, but also it's exactly almost the same as the first one.
And this is not Peter Sutcliffe. This is a fucking asshole who did this.
Yeah, this person is deeply disturbed. This derailed the investigation into another murder.
So this person fucked it even further. And I'm sure that was probably their intention all along.
It's really fucked up. And we will talk about this person when it comes up.
I just want to keep this in chronological order so we're not jumping from time frames here.
But these are when the letters are received.
Exactly. I just want to keep the number of things going.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Now, just like the letter stated, he was going to strike again.
Of course, that was a very easy thing to throw on paper because he has been striking left, right, up, down, all over the place.
May 16th, 1978, 41-year-old Vera Millward was unlucky enough to come across Peter Sutcliffe during his escalation period.
Beryl was actually born in Spain and had come to Manchester in the 50s.
It was very shortly after she arrived that she met someone, got married, and had four children with him.
But in the 1960s, her husband had passed away, and she fell on very hard times.
Her children ended up being taken out of the home because she simply couldn't afford to provide for them on her own.
Once this happened, she turned to sex work as a desperate option to try to get them back, try to get a house.
The work is dangerous enough as it is, especially at this time and place, but Vera was also in very poor health.
Oh, no. She had only one lung. Oh, my God.
And she suffered from chronic and often debilitating stomach issues.
In the years before she met Peter Sutcliffe, she had undergone at least three intense surgeries for her stomach.
Wow. Although things had been tough for her, by the 70s, she had met and moved in with her boyfriend, Cy Burkett.
They had two children together, but at the end of the decade, by the end of the decade, Cy had lost his job and things had turned worse financially again.
Thus, she was back in the sex work world.
But she wasn't really telling him that she was back in the sex work world.
She was just trying to help on the side.
Yeah. Slightly. So on May 16th, 1978, she left her apartment around 10 p.m., and she told Cy that she was just running out to get some cigarettes at the store.
But instead, she had an appointment with a long-term regular client that she had.
Okay. So out she went to meet this client, but he didn't show up.
Okay. So instead of going home, Vera had her heart set on making money that night.
So she went looking for a replacement client.
She was like, I'm already out. I've already committed to working that evening.
I'm going. I'm in the headspace, I'm sure.
Let's just go. Let's make some money. Now, unfortunately, Sutcliffe happened to be trolling around Manchester that evening where Vera was because leads in Bradford were being heavily watched and patrolled by police now.
So he had switched to Manchester. Finally, they're doing something.
So he saw Vera walking down the street and he asked her if she was doing business.
She got in the car and Sutliff brought them to a secluded area near Manchester Royal Infirmary.
So a hospital. Wow. His new MO, as we have said, was to suggest the backseat instead of an outside area.
This made the victim have to get to the backseat, left them vulnerable to his attack.
Barrow went to open the backseat door. Sutcliffe hit her from behind with the hammer three times.
Once she had fallen, he dragged her to a place where the light didn't touch, where he pulled her dress up to her shoulders and slashed at her stomach savagely enough that her intestines spilled out of her body.
Oh, my God. He then turned her onto her stomach and stabbed her over and over through the same wound in her back, just like Jane McDonald's.
He then placed her face down onto a pile of trash and left her there.
Wow. The next morning, two workers arriving to do ground keeping work at the Royal Infirmary found what they believed to be a discarded mannequin.
When they got closer, they discovered this was a real person.
Her arms were tucked under her chest and her shoes were on her thighs.
He also put her coat across her. This was very similar to the Irene Richardson where he put her boots on her thighs and her coat across her.
Yeah. He never really explains this. Okay.
But I don't know what that whole ritual he does is.
Now investigators knew this was a Ripper victim right away.
And since it was Manchester, Jack Ridgway was the lead investigator.
He was the lead on the Gene Jordan case as well.
See how we have too many lead investigators happening?
Yeah, it's like why would you not just have one lead investigator leading the investigation?
You need like a task force here. So now we have another broken off section of the investigation which makes it more complex and more unorganized.
They searched the crime scene and they found boot prints around the body.
They also found tire tracks and were able to match them to the ones found at the Irene Richardson murder and the Marilyn Moore attack.
So police started asking around the crime scene for anyone who had heard or saw anything.
And after all, this was an infirmary area, so people were going in and out at all times.
A man had actually brought his son into the hospital that evening around 10 p.m., and he told investigators that he thought he heard someone yell for help three times before going silent.
He stopped to see if his mind was playing tricks because he was like, I was stressed.
Yeah. My son was going in like we were at the ER.
I thought my mind was just going crazy. And then I realized I'm at a hospital and maybe someone was yelling for help.
Either in an ambulance, outside, inside.
Yeah, I get that. And he said, he just figured his mind was playing tricks.
So he didn't hear anything else. And he just ushered his son in.
And he's like, I just really wasn't thinking straight.
Yeah. Which is not this guy's fault. No.
No. Now, Ridgway met with John DiMali, who was the guy from the West Yorkshire Ripper Squad.
So many guys. And he shared his findings.
The West Yorkshire Squad believed there was a link between Vera's murder and the Ripper killings, but wouldn't agree that their cases were connected or that their cases, the West...
The West Yorkshire Ripper Squad cases were connected to these, or even Ripper cases.
Okay. So they just continued investigating their cases, which were fucking Ripper cases, completely independently from the Manchester investigations.
Right. This is working out great so far, guys.
Keep going. Too many cooks in the kitchen.
All three of these lead investigators get together, and the West Yorkshire one is like, nah, I don't think ours are even related to yours.
Right. Or ripper killings, but I do agree that you two, yours are connected and are probably ripper killings.
Like what? But we're going to go investigate ours over here.
It's like, someone needs to sit in a room together and figure this out.
For real. Do you also think that was like a weird ego thing?
Oh, I'm sure egos play a huge role in this shit.
Now, I mentioned earlier how it was slow going for investigators to realize that there was a lot of escalation and a lot of tweaks to the usual MO here.
How are you not realizing that when a woman was stomped to death?
Yeah. It's like he was egging the investigators on by getting more reckless and brutal as they failed to catch him.
Obviously, he was getting way more violent and savage with his attacks, but he was also now stabbing and slashing quite a bit.
The last few victims had their, like a last couple of victims had their abdomen slashed open and had their entrails pulled out.
That's new and that's so much more brutal.
He was also getting more brazen with the locations.
Yes, he was being careful to not troll in places where the police were openly canvassing and stepping up their patrols, but he was choosing locations within those safe zones that he had found where a lot of people were around and could easily get him caught in the act.
A hospital, that's a 24-7 operation with lights, people, ambulance staff, patients, everywhere.
And then there was that whole thing Where he said he got aroused by the idea of getting caught.
Yeah. When he killed Helen. Right. Now, shit got even wilder after this, and I don't just mean with the murders.
With the investigation. Oh, how does it even?
Because now psychologists started really mucking up the waters.
They had already come out with a profile that was pretty terrible for identification purposes.
What was it? Before, I think we talked about it maybe in part one or two, but basically they had said he was just this raving madman and would look like a raving madman.
Oh, yep, yep, yep. That was it. He was just going to be walking around snarling.
They also believed he was socially strange and would be someone who couldn't handle holding down a job or a marriage or a long-term relationship.
This certainly described Peter earlier in life.
Yeah, strange. But now he had a job as a lorry driver.
He had a long-term relationship that was now a marriage.
And he was hosting housewarming parties with friends and hanging out with people in public without issue.
No one came forward and said this guy's a weirdo.
He got good at it. Yeah. Then some of those doctors decided that the slashing of the women's abdomen was childbirth related.
They actually associated this with, quote, a man who had his heart set on having children and was raging about it because obviously his wife or partner was not able to give him a child.
So now he was taking his anger out on these women, most of whom were mothers themselves.
Yeah. Once again, let's place it on the women in these men's lives.
It's always their fault. These women are barren, and that's why their men go out and murder sex workers who are mothers themselves and slash open their abdomens because they're mad that their wife or girlfriend can't have babies.
Right. Like, what sense does that make? Like, let's... Yeah.
Let's do that. No, I think this man just hates women.
I think that's what it comes down to, guys.
I don't think there's actually even a reason.
I think he just... I think there are things that added to it, but I think he just hates women.
No, that's definitely it. That is 100% it.
Stop trying... I feel like... And everybody always tries to like overcomplicate things.
Yeah, that's the thing. And I will say one psychologist that George Oldfield consulted for the case was pretty dead on with some of his notions about Sutcliffe.
Not all though. He was off on one big thing and I will get, I will point that out first.
And then I'm going to go into the parts that he was pretty accurate about.
Okay. So this guy's name was Dr. Shaw and Stephen Shaw, and he gave an interview to the Yorkshire Post in November of 1978, where he basically declared that the Ripper was done.
Why would he be done? He said the Vera Millward murder was the crescendo, and now he was going to settle down and get married and never brutally torture another woman again.
When has that literally ever happened? How did he come up with this conclusion?
Literally nothing points to that. It wasn't even a conclusion.
It was a conclusion. Nothing. So who knows?
And he seemed like a pretty smart doctor, too, which is why Wilde sent me into a tizzy seeing that.
I was like, why would you ever come to that conclusion?
Yeah. He also said, though, that likely, and this thing that he said likely followed him around for a bit after he said it.
He said, quote, I realized I could end up with egg on my face.
Yeah. You did. Here we are. But he also said he believed the Ripper had finally found his true love.
A woman who, of course, quote, was the opposite of a tart, possibly very religious, someone who is in his eyes a paragon of virtue.
Sir. You're going to need to lay out for me how you came to that conclusion.
And also, you're going to call all the women that he murdered tarts?
Yeah. A tart. And think that that's going to be palatable?
But he's settling down with the opposite of a tart, which is somebody that's very religious.
It's like, what are those two? Like, if I'm not religious, then I'm a tart?
Like, so if I'm very religious, I'm not a tart.
Like, but if I am not religious, I am a Tartan.
Like, how do those two conflate? Weird. Together.
Weird. Like, I don't understand that. Like, Sarah, I tried to see what you were trying to do there, but I failed.
Because I'm like, wait, so I'm an atheist.
Mm-hmm. And I'm married. No, you're not, girl.
You're a Tartan. And not a Tartan. So, like, how does that work?
Also, what's a Tartan? Like, what do you, what exactly are you, like, can you lay out what a Tartan is for me?
Right. Like, I don't understand that. It's just a shitty thing to say.
It is a very shitty thing to say. But he also had said he believed Sutcliffe was someone who could hide this side of himself and live normally outside of this world.
Yeah. And he did. Also, that's just kind of obvious, though, because he's gotten away with this for that long.
True. So... But he was married, he had a job, he had friends, no one suspected him.
He also called him over-controlled, an over-controlled aggressive psychopath, and said this means that he is cold, callous, and aggressive, but also doesn't learn from his mistakes and takes a lot of unnecessary risk.
Yeah. And the only thing I disagree with in this situation is that he said he would likely behave normally when things were going well for him, but he would likely lash out and kill when things didn't go well.
This could be true considering he lashed out when Sonia hurt his feelings and when the sex worker laughed at him.
That was one of the first things. He even went out and murdered after, but he didn't just do it after things like that.
He went out and murdered after buying his dream home.
Yeah. So, like, he went out and murdered after, like, helping his parents move.
Like, he celebrated buying his dream home with brutally murdering a woman.
Yeah. It doesn't seem to be a consistent pattern for him to only attack when things go sour.
So I do disagree with that, but I see where it was coming from.
But it's clear that he had some kind of frenzied moments during these attacks.
Yeah. Attacks. Shaw agreed with this, saying, quote, the massive head injuries to the victims means that for 10, 15, or 20 seconds, he's in an absolute frenzy.
On one occasion, he hammered a head quite flat.
Ooh. On another occasion, he kicked a woman to death.
Then, rage spent, he is calm enough to go back to normal within his parameters and drive away.
And that's the truth. And just goes home to his wife after literally flattening a woman's head.
Yep. That is just like your brain could literally never wrap itself around that.
No, literally can't. But at this point, they do have the tire impressions.
Right. That's been a consistent thing they've been able to get.
I feel like you keep saying, but at this point, they do have the tires.
They do have this, this one thing that's at least something because it was linked to the Ford Corsair that Sutcliffe was actually driving.
Right. So they started interviewing men in the area who drove Ford Corsairs.
And ding, ding, ding, Sutcliffe was on the list.
So they talked to him again. They talked to him again.
In August 1978, they went to his home and they interviewed him.
His home this time. Yep. He had the car and he was known to hang around the areas where the victims were found.
Mm-hmm. So now remember, they already had interviewed him when they found that five-pound note in Gene Jordan's purse, so they now knew, like, he was known to the West Yorkshire Police Department now as being talked to before.
Yeah. And you would think with the added fact that he drove a Ford Corsair that was red, you would make him look, maybe look a little harder at him, but no.
They bought his story that he drove and stopped in these areas because they were on his way to and from work.
And he, quote, emphatically denied using the services of sex workers.
Oh, yeah, let's not even check up on it.
Let's just be like, yeah, he doesn't. So they were like, all right, cool.
Seems legit, I guess. It really doesn't, though.
So after this, he took a pause. It was almost a year before he started up again.
Wow. And it makes sense. Police were really stepping up at the very least their presence in these areas.
And they were interviewing people for sure.
Sutcliffe had now been interviewed at least twice.
By the end of this, they would have talked to him over a dozen times.
Are you serious? So he was likely trying to avoid being caught by being too brazen.
I think he was probably looking and being like, okay, they are closing in a little more now here.
It was the first time he really showed any kind of control or ability to stop his urges to maintain his cover.
Right. Which is very against, I think, what he's shown before.
He also made another move. He sold that Ford Corsair and he bought a black Sunbeam Rapier.
Okay. You would think that like if the, which they're not, but like if he's already been spoken to once by police, like he should really be looked at a little more closely.
And if he's getting rid of multiple cars, like that's another thing that maybe you could look for people who have bought like multiple cars within a few years.
You would think that would make sense, right?
Yeah, I would personally. And I haven't even been to like a day of law school.
But apparently they're not really looking at this stuff.
And at the end of the year, November 1978, his mother also died from a heart attack.
That's sad. People living around him and working with him said he was always so polite and nice to be around.
They really liked him. But after his mother's death, they said he got moody.
He got rude. He was just miserable. Yeah.
Right. As 1978 rolled into 1979, he was avoiding his neighbors and people.
He worked with everybody at all costs. It was a very sudden change in his persona.
It sounds like it. You will find different things about his childhood, too.
It's like the mother thing always sticks, that he was very close to his mom.
That story about the hotel and him being there for his father, like... you know, humiliating her over the affair.
And you'll hear things about his father.
I don't know what exactly is true. You hear from him that his father, like, beat them with belts.
Yeah. You also look at the time period.
That was happening. Unfortunately, that was not outside of the norm, unfortunately.
Like, that was a pretty routine thing to happen, I guess.
But, like, I haven't heard anything, like, crazy.
But when you look around, you'll see different things.
So I'm not sure exactly what that whole thing is.
But the one thing that is consistent that everyone will back up is that his relationship with his mom was very, very close.
Maybe too close. Yeah. But at this point, his mood is changing.
He's taking a pause. And George Oldfield received a third letter from Jack the Ripper.
Quote, unquote. On March 23rd, 1979, almost one year to the day after the first two letters were received in 1978.
And after almost a year break in the murders.
This one had a lot of the same tone with taunting the investigators, pointing to what they deemed the incompetence of their investigation and to his crimes.
But this time they also mentioned Vera Milward's murder and the fact that she had been hospitalized a few times before her murder.
This was discussed in news reports. This was also the letter, but this was the letter they took really seriously.
I'm not super sure why, because those hospital, like the fact that she was hospitalized several times was mentioned in the press.
So it wasn't like this was something only the killer would know.
But this letter said, Dear Officer, Sorry I haven't written, about a year to be exact, but I haven't been up north for quite a while.
I wasn't kidding the last time I wrote saying the whore should be older this time and maybe I'd strike in Manchester for a change.
You should have took heed. That bit about her being in hospital?
Funny, the lady mentioned something about being in a hospital before I stopped her whoring ways.
The lady won't worry about the hospital now, will she?
I bet you'd be wondering how come I haven't been to work for ages.
Well, I would have been if it hadn't been for you cursed coppers.
I had the lady just where I wanted her and was about to strike when one of your cursing police cars stopped right outside the lane.
He must have been a dumb copper because he didn't say anything.
He didn't know how close he was to catching me.
Jesus. He's like, did you get that letter?
Did you get it? This is very much Jack the Ripper-ish.
Like very much somebody who heard those letters, read about them, and decided to do the same exact fucking thing.
And this is, that guy is. This is bullshit.
All this is bullshit. Not the real guy. And then on Wednesday, April 4th, 1979, so only the following month, Peter Sutcliffe began again and would somehow get even more brutal.
Oh, no. This is where we're going to end for part three.
We are going to finish off with the three final murders and how this all finally gets caught.
Finally? Seriously? I'm like, when is he going to get caught?
Like, how many more? It's ridiculous. And we're going to talk more about the victim's families.
We're going to talk about the guy who wrote these letters and what happened to him.
We're going to talk about all that. And he did do a full confession, almost a 24-hour long confession.
Peter Sutcliffe. Yeah. Wow. But yeah, we'll talk about that.
And that is Yorkshire Ripper Part 3. And I can't wait to be out of this guy's life.
I'll tell you that much. What a wanker. He's dead now, so that's good.
I saw that. I wasn't going to say anything, but I did see that.
Spoiler alert, he's dead. Went hand in hand with the apology, it seems.
It did. It honestly was at the same. I actually think he died of complications due to COVID, I believe.
So there's that. Well, I hope it was brutal.
Yeah. And we hope that you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it weird. I don't have to tell you not to keep it this weird.
Yeah, you know how weird not to keep it.
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