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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.
She did not listen to it, but she said, girl, this title sounds so you.
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Visit audible.com slash morbid. On November 13th, 2022, four University of Idaho students were murdered.
Today, finally, the true story. Based on over 300 interviews, in their own words, family members talk about their heartbreak and grief.
Students and townspeople describe that terrifying night.
Police detail the dramatic investigation and arrest of Brian Koberger.
You've never read a true crime like James Patterson and Vicki Ward's The Idaho Four.
The true story, it's finally here. Hey weirdos, I'm Ash.
And I'm Alayna. And this is Morbid. We are finally at part four, and I can't wait to get out of this because this guy sucks.
Yeah, this has been a really tough one. Actually, this morning at the freaking gym, because of this case, I was literally sharting myself and my little platform hugs.
No, I didn't wear those to work out. Wow.
So I wear my little slippers when I'm going in because I want to be comfy on the ride there.
Of course. But I'm parking in this red sedan.
Out of all the fucking parking spots around me, like all the parking spots everywhere, this guy parks in front of my spot in his red ass car staring at me.
Wow. And all I could think of was Peter G.D.
Sutcliffe. And I ran inside of there. And Mama does not run.
And in a red sedan. That's scary. I got into the gym and I work out with my friend.
And I was like, look at my hands. Look at my hands.
I'm shaking. I was very scared. Yeah, I don't love that.
You know what it is? This case... I mean, he's just awful and he's so brutal.
And just like how these victims were treated in the press is just like a real bummer.
Because it's like in the grand scheme of things, this was not the 1800s.
You know, like this was the 1970s into the early 1980s.
And it's like... That never should happen.
Never. Ever. Ever, ever, ever. But we've said it before that the police department did apologize, like put out a formal apology after he died.
Right. And Richard McCann, who was Wilma McCann's son, he was five years old when she was killed.
Oh my God. He like really led this. I like, I really encourage you guys to like look him up.
I think he's on like social media and stuff.
He does a lot of good work. With this stuff, you know what I mean?
Like, he really is. And he's very outspoken about it, as he should be.
And he was really the one, like, leading the charge to get that formal apology.
Because they all deserved it. They were, like, super instrumental, like, the victim's families in making that happen.
So, like, they're really fucking impressive.
Hell yeah. He looks so much like his mom.
Like, he looks like he's a spitting image of his mom.
When I looked at him, I was like, oh, my God, you have her face.
Like, it's just, I'm like, oh. And, like, he doesn't get to know her.
And that's, like, he was five. That's the thing.
And at five, you know your mom. Yeah. You know what I mean?
Like, you are connected. Yeah, but he never got the chance to, like, continue to, like, grow with her.
Exactly. That's what sucks and that's what people forget is these kids, like so many, what, 26 orphans in this?
These kids, a lot of them were of age where they had full-blown bonds with their mom.
Some of them were like teenagers when this happened.
Yeah, like they knew their mom. They needed their mom.
They loved their mom. Like they, this was huge losses.
This wasn't like, I mean, it's a loss at any age, but obviously when it's like a baby, the memories aren't there.
So you just have to deal with it. A whole other kind of loss, which is I never got to know her at all, you know?
But, like, these are a different kind where it's, like, they had these memories.
Right. And they're going to have these memories.
And that's, like, such a hole. Yeah. And a lot of these women just, like, left home and said goodbye to them and said, like, I'll be... Yeah, going to work.
I'll be back later. Exactly. Like, one of them cooked dinner and left.
Yeah, of course. They all did... what they had to do as parents they were and they left their kids like responsibly like that with babysitters with family members with you know spouses with trusted adults yeah and it's like and then they were they were treated so shitty in the press and like that's the thing like i'll get to it at the end but richard says something like you know like all these women were innocent like all of them yeah including my mom yeah like that's like we need to remember that So as we remember that, we're going to go into the final three victims, which the final three victims were not working as sex workers, which is what shocked everybody because he suddenly changed.
You know, he had killed Jane McDonald, but... who was the 16 year old, but they were, I think they were still confused about that.
They didn't know if it was an accident that like, but it didn't make sense because like, there's just no real, like, obviously he just hates women.
And that's like the real, so people really were looking for that pattern, but it's like, no, no, no.
He just happened to be able to meet these women who happened to be sex workers because they were out at that time.
And I don't think it is truly only about what they did for work.
No, I don't think so either. He kind of admits such later.
He tries to go back and say like he was on a mission from God to kill sex workers.
But in his own confession, he says at one point, I really just started wanting to kill women.
Yeah, I mean, even some of the women that he attacked in the first place, he just quote unquote thought they looked like a good time gal.
Yeah, which it's like, explain to me what that means.
What does that mean? Like, no, I present as a woman.
That's what that is. Like, I was out at a certain time.
Right. That's what that means. Like, that's, you're an idiot.
The other thing, like, that's the thing that pisses me off because that's something that we've mentioned.
Like, you were just out at a certain time.
You have no idea what the fuck somebody's doing out.
What if somebody, they could be out for any reason.
They could be out because they just gave their parents some kind of medication that they needed.
They're walking home because they just had visitation with their child.
They're walking home. They could have had to run out to the pharmacy because they or someone they love in their house is sick, their child, and they had to run and grab a thermometer.
They had to run and grab some medicine. And, like, maybe had a cute outfit on because they give a shit about what they look like and they feel good.
Or they were out at a bar. Or they were out at a restaurant.
Or they were hanging out with friends. They can do whatever the fuck they want.
They're grown-ass people. There's no woman curfew.
It's ridiculous. And actually, Josephine, Joe Whitaker, our next victim, was coming home from her grandparents' house.
Oh, my God. Wow. I didn't even know that.
Like, that's the thing. It's like you led right into it.
That it's like they were doing any number of things and none of which... meant that they should be stalked and attacked, no matter what they were doing.
They weren't doing anything that they deserved to be attacked, and that's the bottom line there.
But Josephine Jo Whitaker was 19 years old in 1979.
She was described as fearless, a generous and kind girl.
She was known to be very confident and friendly and not afraid of speaking to new people.
People later said that even if she was approached by a man that night, she would have never assumed they were approaching her for nefarious reasons.
She just wasn't scared of anyone. Like she had no she was very fearless.
Hell yeah. And actually later, Peter Sutcliffe in his confession said she did not seem startled by me at all.
Wow. And did not seem scared of me. She was just a badass.
Yeah, she was just like, fuck you, I'm taking a walk.
I'm walking home. Like, so, yeah. She worked as a clerk for the Halifax Building Society.
And on this particular day, Wednesday, April 4th, 1979, she had actually received a new silver watch that she was eager to show off to her family.
She decided to stop at her grandparents' home on her way back from work.
But when she got there, her grandmother was at some church function.
And she actually wasn't going to be home until like 11 p.m., which like, go grandma.
They were going off at church that night.
But Joe decided to wait for her because she was like, I want to hang out with her.
And when she came home, they had a nice visit together for about an hour, hung out, talked.
Sometime around midnight, Joe said she had to get home.
And her grandparents were like, no, why don't you stay here?
They were worried for her safety. Joe insisted she was going to be fine.
She told them, I'll get home safe and quick.
Don't worry about it, which breaks my heart.
So she headed away from Huddersfield Road and went towards the direction of Seville Park.
Or Savile Park. I'm not exactly sure how to say it.
As she walked quickly home, Peter Sutcliffe approached her out of nowhere.
He asked her where she was headed and asked if she knew the time.
She, again, was not intimidated by him at all.
And so she let her eyes go to the clock tower to tell him what time it was.
And when she did this, he hit her in the head with a hammer.
And she fell to the ground and he hit her again and again.
And when she had stopped moving, he dragged her away into the darkness about 30 feet away.
He truly escalated here. I just want to say this really quick.
This is pretty graphic, so I apologize. It's like it's terrible.
So he had with him this time a sharpened Phillips head screwdriver.
What the fuck? When he had brought her into the darkness off the roadway, he stabbed her 25 times in the chest, stomach, thighs, and in her vagina.
Oh. He brutalized her body. And then he just dragged her back out of the darkness into that field and left her there. unreal yeah the next morning she was found by a woman waiting at the bus stop on the roadway she noticed something off of the roadway a bit of a distance away and she initially thought it was just a bundle of rags but she was curious and she walked closer and closer to it and as she got closer it became clear that this was a body of a woman She immediately called the police from a phone booth.
And meanwhile, a bus driver had driven past the scene and also noticed what was going on.
They didn't know exactly what they were looking at either, but something about it, they said it chilled their blood and just implored them to call and report it.
Isn't it crazy how like even if you don't see anything, there's just a feeling that lingers with scary things like this?
Exactly. Now investigators showed up on scene and began to process.
She was kind of out in the open. There are crime scene photos and it's really shocking where he left her.
They actually first thought she had been hit by a car and had been thrown or had crawled to where she was lying.
But when they got closer, they saw the absolute brutality inflicted upon her, the stab wounds and the head trauma.
What's even worse is while this is happening, Joe's brother David was picking up some newspapers in the area to begin his paper route.
No. He passed by this chaotic scene on Savile Root Park Road, and he was curious what was going on.
He saw a bunch of police. Oh, my God. So he peeked into the scene and he noticed a shoe lying on the sidewalk and he immediately recognized the shoe as his sister's.
He tore out of there, ran home and told his parents.
Oh my God. They checked Joe's bedroom and she was nowhere to be found.
Immediately they called the police in a full-blown panic.
Because they just assumed she had told them, I'm going to be home.
Between these times. And they just assumed she would be in her bed.
Yeah. Well, I mean, she was just going to see her grandparents.
Yeah. Now, George Oldfield was on the scene with the Ripper squad, and they were actually hesitant to call this one an official Ripper scene.
Again, Joe was not a sex worker, but the injuries lined up perfectly.
There was no question here. Yeah, and it's all within the same proximity.
There were reports that she had been seen earlier in the evening getting into a Ford Escort, but all of this was kind of bumbled because they were paying a ton of attention still to those two letters we talked about last episode.
That weren't even from him. They were still really focused on those, and those letters had made it seem like he was from the North.
So they were taking way more time up there, and they were really breaking stuff away from local people.
So irritating. Then in June of that same year, more communication was sent that led to further divisions from investigating Joe Whitaker's death in particular.
It was nonsense, which makes it so much worse that they were paying attention to those letters because it was nonsense.
The communication that came in June was actual audio recordings that were received.
It was a cassette tape and it was received by George Oldfield.
And this is what it said. It said, I'm Jack.
I see you're still having no luck catching me.
I have the greatest respect for you, George, but Lord, you are no nearer catching me now than four years ago when I started.
I reckon your boys are letting you down, George.
It can't be much good, can you? The only time they came near me was a few months back in Chapleton when I was disturbed.
Even then, it was a uniform copper, not a detective.
I warned you in March that I'd strike again.
Sorry it wasn't Bradford. I did promise you that, but I couldn't get there.
I'm not quite sure when I will strike again, but it will definitely be sometime this year, maybe September or October, even sooner if I get the chance.
I'm not sure where, maybe Manchester. I like it there.
There's plenty of them knocking about. They never learn, do they, George?
I bet you've warned them, but they never listen.
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The town of Agde in France is famous for sun, sand, sea and sex.
But lately, life on the coast has taken a strange turn.
The town's mayor, a respected pillar of the community, has been arrested for corruption.
His wife claims he's been bewitched by a beautiful clairvoyant.
Then there's the mysterious phone calls that local people have been getting.
I am the Archangel Michael. the whole town has been thrown into chaos.
As the mayor is unable to carry out his duties, I would like to address you all.
Legal proceedings have been initiated. Join me, Anna Richardson, and journalist Leo Schick for The Mystic and the Mayor as we investigate a story of power, corruption, and magic.
Binge all episodes of The Mystic and the Mare exclusively and ad-free right now on Wondery Plus.
Start your free trial in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or the Wondery app.
Now, a few weeks after receiving these audio tapes, Oldfield held a press conference about them.
He played pieces of the audio. He released only parts of the letters to press outlets.
He wanted someone to maybe recognize the voice or manner of speaking and give them some kind of lead to work on.
It was clear to investigators that the accent on the tapes was a northern accent.
And it was the only thing they really felt they had to go on.
But this was terrible because investigators ran with this idea.
Yorkshire police sent a shit ton of resources up north, started completely abandoning all the other investigations.
This fucked local Ripper investigations completely, especially Joe Whitaker.
Right. And the ones after this. Right. Even though the police were now moving resources and causing more issues for themselves and the community, the press was still on their bullshit as well.
They were now touting another victim, Jo, as one of the quote-unquote sad ones because she was not a sex worker.
It's like, no, the loss of any human life is pretty fucking sad.
She and Jane were lauded as the true sad cases because they didn't ask for it, essentially.
Oh, my God. They referred to her as absolutely respectable, which she was, but they never referred to any of the other ones like that.
And that's where the issue arrives. It's just like to... It's like for anyone to be that brutally murdered, no matter who the fuck they were, what the fuck they did...
It's tragic. It is beyond tragic. Well, and that's where the problem is, too, because this is like a double-edged issue because it's like we're only calling certain women sad and tragic and innocent and not deserving of it, which is fucked up.
But then on the other side of the whole thing, now those women are the ones who are like, well, why are they the sad ones and blah, blah, blah, because it's like, This is making issues for all of these victims' families.
All of them. Yeah. Because now the ones that are being lauded as the sad and innocent ones feel shitty that their loved ones, even though they are sad and are innocent, are the only ones being lauded that way.
But now it's like... But you should call everybody that.
It's just... What are you doing? Nobody is a murder victim.
Nobody's better than anybody. This is a murder victim.
This is a human being with a family, no matter what, 100% across the board, just...
Report it the same way. It's a woman. Just say that.
Like, ah, I don't know why this was so hard for them.
Now, the distinction being made here is just constant.
The only good to come out of the press doing this in this case was that the press and the community were now pushing even harder against the Yorkshire police to stop being, quote, lazy and indifferent to the brutal slayings of local women.
My God. So the next one, this was a truly successful...
This was a truly stressful time for anyone working the case because there were some good ones in there that were truly trying to work this case.
There always are. But it was just being overshadowed by the worst of the worst.
But especially George Oldfield, he was under an immense amount of stress because as of the face of the investigation, he received all the flack and all the blame regardless.
And in July 1979, shortly after the audio recordings were sent to him, he suffered a heart attack.
And he actually had to be hospitalized for like a while.
Oh, wow. Coincidentally, at the same time, another lead detective, Jim Hobson, we talked about him, I believe, in the first one.
Yeah, I think you're right. His wife had an accident.
She fell down the stairs and fractured her skull.
Oh, my gosh. And he had to care for her.
So he had to take time off. Now, with the team's two most senior investigators gone, the case was somehow in even worse shape.
Yeah. Not only were they just completely lacking evidence or any leads, but there were also infightings between departments.
The Yorkshire Police and the Northern Police Force were a mess of different opinions about the authenticity of the letters and the audio.
Senior officials believe they were real and were treating it, the investigation as such.
Because they were unable to get it together for even a second, and a lot of them were bumbling and ego-driven, Peter Sutcliffe was able to just coast into Bradford unnoticed on September 1st, 1979.
Great. And some of the local officers didn't think that those letters were authentic.
Like, a lot of people in a lot of the community.
Correct. So it was just all these different opinions and they just had to listen to the senior investigators who were running with this.
It's like egos. So September 1st, 1979, 19-year-old college student Barbara Leach was out in Bradford as well.
His last few victims are among the youngest.
Yeah. She was a student at Bradford University, and she was out celebrating a new semester with a ton of her friends from school.
They were hanging out at Manville Arms, which was a pub that a lot of students went to on Great Horton Road near the university.
They were just doing what college students do, eating, having a beer, listening to music. dancing just hanging out they went here a lot so they knew all the bartenders they knew all the people who work there um and about 11 p.m is when the place closed but this group of friends and including barbara they always made it a habit to stay later and help the owner roy evans clean and close the bar up wow yeah they did this this night as well and they left around 12 45.
By this time, it had begun to rain lightly, and Barbara's friends were trying to get a cab, but she waited a minute, and then she was like, you know what?
I actually like walking in the rain, so I'm going to take a walk.
Her roommates had waited up for her over an hour because she didn't have a key to get in.
So they were going to let her in. And she didn't show up.
And they figured, you know, she must have stopped somewhere with the friends she was out with.
She wasn't alone. Yeah. As far as they knew.
So they were like, oh, she just must be somewhere else.
And again, no cell phones or anything. This is 79.
So they went to bed. Now the next day they woke up and Barbara still wasn't home.
This is when they panicked, and they were like, do we report her missing?
Did we call people? They started calling around, being like, where is she?
Do you know? They're college kids. I was going to say, you're 19 years old.
I don't know if she's just staying over someone's house.
We don't want to make a big stink of this when we don't have to.
But they're kind of discussing it with themselves.
And then around 4 p.m., police constable Simon Greaves was walking his beat around the university and in one of the yards off Back Ash Grove.
Yeah. He found a pile of garbage along one of the walls that looked strange and out of place to him.
When he got closer, he saw under a dirty old carpet and a pile of bricks the body of Barbara Leach.
A pile of bricks. Now, David Gee in the Ripper Squad was called onto the scene, and it was clear she was another victim on the list.
She had been hit in the head at least once with a hammer, her shirt was pushed up, and she had been stabbed in the stomach and shoulder eight times with a screwdriver.
My God. Her pants were also unbuttoned and pulled halfway down, but there was no evidence of semen or rape.
So it seems like he does this sometimes just to, like, shame them, probably.
Yeah, yep. So Investigator Gil Rain made... This was the guy that was lead in this area.
He made another headquarters at the Bradford station.
We now have... Probably like a dozen evidence incident rooms here.
That's what I was just... Spread out everywhere.
Why are there a million and 42 of these?
And all of these incident rooms and evidence areas are spread out.
So they all have different evidence in different areas that none of them are communicating.
Like... Yeah. Why is this happening like this?
But he tried to gather the Ripper squad, but most of them were up north chasing the bullshit letter leads.
Things got messy. They got complex real fast.
They couldn't handle the tips coming in because they didn't have enough officers down there.
Right. The crime scene had no evidence that they could actually use.
And that was a really active neighborhood.
A lot of students went through there, but no one had any information.
That's crazy. Yeah. Again, the press went wild with this murder.
It was another woman who did not work as a sex worker, and this meant that the idea that no woman was safe was now a reality.
This made people lose it. They believed the police could not keep them safe anymore.
They were not feeling protected by the police.
They were like, this is just going to keep happening.
Right. With no resolution. Right. So one year after Barbara Leach's murder, this was interesting, Britain's National Union of Students held an emergency meeting in Kent.
They ended up petitioning for the right of women students to carry weapons on campus to protect themselves because the cops couldn't do it for them.
I mean. Yeah. They also petitioned for better lighting on campuses and in parking lots.
How fucked is it that you have to petition for stuff like that?
It's like, just put up fucking lights. Yeah.
And they also ended up, the university changed schedules so that classes would end earlier when it was still daylight.
That's good. Which was really good. University is doing what they need to do.
Exactly. And at the same time, a professor at Bradford University where Barbara had gone, her name was Professor Hillary Rose.
She wrote a letter to The Times and she criticized the police and their investigation into Barbara's murder.
She pointed out some serious flaws and mistakes that happened, including them interviewing boys at the university that would have been barely 14 at the first Ripper killing.
Oh, my God. They were even interviewing boys who had entered campus as students in 1980, a year after Barbara was killed.
Just wasting time and resources. Those guys weren't even on campus.
Like whose idea was that even? Yeah. So like, why are you interviewing them?
They were definitely not of age to commit that first killing.
Like they can't even drive. Exactly. And this guy has a car.
That's such a waste of time. come on especially described as somebody in his 30s he's been described as somebody in his 30s they talk about a car every single time it's like come on guys he's got a full beard they're like a 14 year old the profiler thought he had like a wife or a partner at home like this is not your we're at 12 murders deep and seven attacks or somewhere around seven attacks deep and you think you think it's a 14 year old kid like come on guys your way and it's wasting time and resources And it's also, like, I'm sure some of these women were, like, bigger than a 14-year-old kid.
Of course. Like, he's going to overpower them.
Yeah. And, of course, it's because, like, the letters were not giving anything.
Right. Like, this audio is not giving anything.
And you're spending all your time doing that, all your time interviewing these children, essentially, that weren't even on the campus or near the campus when this happened.
No. Yeah. So investigators went back to past victims because they were just like, where do we even go from here?
Grasping at straws. So they started going back to past victims and they started piecing through the evidence from the beginning again.
Because they're like, we missed something, obviously.
Duh. And they looked at cars and they re-interviewed a lot of people.
In fact, in October. No, don't you even.
They went back to Peter's fucking house and re-interviewed him again.
But the third time wasn't a charm? Oh, no.
At the end of this, he was interviewed, formally interviewed at least nine to ten times, and he was interacted with upwards of 19 times for this investigation.
19 times. And because no officers shared information with each other, and all those evidence rooms and incident rooms were all separate, and they all didn't have their own set of evidence...
It was a shit show. No one re-interviewing him this day knew that there were heavy suspicions on him at one point at all.
He was a nameless random guy to them that just popped up in the files.
So he told them that the night Barbara was killed, he was home doing repairs on his house.
And Sonia was like, yeah, he was. Because she didn't know what time that happened.
Is she thinking, like, why have you been interviewed by police this many times?
Well, she's like, I don't know. Because they were interviewing a shit ton of guys.
So he's probably telling her, like, you know, I drive a car that looks like that.
And that's why I'm going to be on this list.
Or, like, I'm sure he's telling her things.
And she's like, okay. Well, one time he was interviewed at work, too.
So she may not have even known. But, oh, my God.
Yeah. It's also, like, does any of you have an instinct?
Well, and none of them are really following up on alibis either.
They're just taking face value alibis from these people who are like, well, I was just doing this.
And they're like, cool. Like, do you think the killer is going to be like, fuck.
Yeah. You got me. Yeah, I guess I have no alibi.
Like 90, I'm pulling that on my butt, but I'm like, Jesus Christ, so many of them have alibis.
Absolutely. And then 90% of the time you check their alibi, boom, that's how you get them.
It's ridiculous. Wow. So following the death of Barbara Leach, investigators continued their emphasis on the Ripper letters in an investigation in Northern England that would eventually cost more than £1 million.
And weirdly, this lead, this led to absolutely not a shred of a lead at all.
You gotta go. Shocking. I really gotta go.
So Sutcliffe went quite, he went kind of quiet for a little while until June-ish of 1980.
So a few months at least. Because he felt it getting hot, I'm sure.
He was feeling the heat. And this is when police saw his car speeding on Manningham Lane.
Now remember, in October of 79, he had been interviewed again.
Yes. June of 1980, suddenly police see his car, they don't know it's his car at first, speeding down Manningham Lane.
So they follow him home. And they stopped him in his driveway and they talked to him and they found out that he was very drunk.
And neighbors said that they could hear him like fighting with the officers about taking a breathalyzer that evening.
He was yelling. He was clearly drunk. He blew as such on a breathalyzer and was brought in and arrested.
He was literally brought to the fucking police station and he ended up having his license suspended.
And later that would make him lose his job as a lorry driver when he was convicted.
Oh, yeah. But at this time when he was arrested, one of the officers who had spoken to Sutcliffe filed a report suggesting that the Ripper squad look into Sutcliffe as a potential suspect.
So at least somebody's got an instinct. One of these officers was like, something's weird here.
Yeah. Maybe you should look at him. He was told that they had already looked into him and he was ruled out.
They weren't going to talk to him again.
Yeah, let's not re-interview anyone. So this officer is saying, something's telling me that we need to look further into them.
And they're like, eh. Are you kidding me?
Let's just look into those fake letters some more.
Yeah, totally. Yeah, that seems more. That makes sense.
So Wednesday, August 20th, 1980, only a month or so later, he was back at it again.
47-year-old Marguerite Margot Walls was leaving her job at the Department of Education and Science.
She was going to go on vacation the following day, so she had stayed a bit late to make sure that everything was taken care of.
Just going off on vacation. She walked into the Leeds evening, and after walking a busier section, she turned into a more secluded area to get to her home.
She was very close to her home. When suddenly, Sutcliffe stepped out in front of her, and before she could even react, he hit her in the head with a hammer.
Exactly. god then he looped a ligature around her neck and dragged her by her neck to the shadows of a private terrace jesus there he strangled her to death then he stripped everything off of her but her tights and dragged her body over to a garden wall where he put her under leaves and grass cuttings wow the next morning two gardeners found her and called police who arrived very shortly um Detective Hobson was back on the case at this point, and he wasn't convinced this was a Ripper murder, which I understand that.
Yeah, total change of motive. Margo wasn't a sex worker, and she wasn't stabbed.
And she was also stripped completely and was strangled with a ligature, which was definitely all new for the Ripper.
Yeah, he'd never used a ligature. Was there one that had ligature marks around her wrist?
I think there was some thought that that could have happened, but it wasn't something.
But this time it was for sure. And this is around her neck.
Exactly. Another headquarters was set up at Pudsey's police station.
Because that's going so well. And after canvassing the neighborhood, they turned up nothing once again.
Hobson basically treated this as an isolated incident.
And he told the press and the public this was not a Ripper victim.
She actually wasn't, she was not a victim officially until Sutcliffe was actually arrested later.
Oh, wow. And the ligature was found in his possession.
He still had it? He had pieces of the ligature.
He denied he killed her at first, but later confessed.
Interesting. And said he wanted to kill a sex worker in Leeds that evening, but he had forgotten his knife and his screwdriver and had to make do with whatever he had in the car.
And that's why that was different. Oh, okay.
Just one month after this, he came back to Leeds for another victim.
So now he's like, boom, boom, boom, like month, month, month.
He went to Headingley, which was not a typical location for him.
It was suburban. It was well lit, trafficked very heavily and kind of bougie a little bit.
Bougie. Thank you. But on the evening of September 24th, Dr. Upadhyay Bandara, I believe that's how you say it, I looked it up, a 35-year-old doctor from Singapore who was attending Leeds University on a scholarship from the World Health Organization.
My God. Yeah, brilliance. Was visiting some friends and then had been on her way down Oldley Road to go home.
Mm-hmm. She passed by a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and she said she saw a man staring at her.
And he was in the restaurant, but she, like, staring out at her.
And she was like, ah, yeah, that, it unnerved her.
And so she kept walking and, like, hurried up a little bit.
Isn't it sad that as a woman, like, you know exactly, like, I gotta get out of here.
Like, I feel something. She turned down Chapel Lane as a shortcut, and as she rushed to get down to the other street that was more lit, she was suddenly hit in the head with something and fell.
So he ran out of that Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and ran up behind her to hit her.
And there was no one else in this restaurant?
He just must have rushed out of there. I have no idea.
But Sutcliffe then looped a ligature around her neck and tried to choke her.
But someone came out of their house hearing the commotion nearby, and he freaked out and left.
Meanwhile, Dr. Bandera is just laying there bleeding from the head now.
Luckily, the neighbor who had come out called police immediately, and Detective Newton arrived on the scene.
This was also not initially looked at as a Ripper attack.
Again, because it's so different. But they definitely connected it to Margo Walls because of the ligature and everything.
Did they think there was some kind of copycat sort of going on?
They didn't even think that. They thought this was just a different situation.
Unfortunately, Dr. Bandera could only say that he was, quote, a man aged about 25, 5'4", with black hair, a full beard and mustache, which I think they said that that wasn't enough.
And I was like, that was a pretty good description considering she got hit on the head. yeah from behind yeah like she'd only seen his face in the kfc restaurant like walking by and also yeah she nailed that i was gonna say that was like a great description but no one else could help there was no other witnesses and that was all they had right and dr bandera ended up actually taking a long time to recover from this and then she returned to singapore she left which i don't blame i would have gotten the fuck out of there Hey, weirdos, we need to tell you about something that has completely blown our minds, collectively.
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Now, barely over a month later on November 5th, he was out again.
Jesus. But now he's month, month, month.
Yeah. And this time he was in West Yorkshire.
And this night he saw 16-year-old Teresa Sykes, who was out buying cigarettes.
She had run out on the errand and was only 50 yards away from her apartment that she shared with her boyfriend and their infant son.
Aww. He snuck up behind her and struck her with a hammer out of nowhere.
She fell to the ground and as she looked up at him, he hit her again.
He thought she would be unconscious because that was normally the case after the second hammer hit, but she was not.
She started screaming and fighting and he bled because he's not used to them making noise.
I mean, he's barely in a secluded area. No, and his whole MO is incapacity.
Right away. Immediately. Like no noise, no nothing.
So when there's noise or any kind of chaos, he gets out of there.
Her boyfriend actually heard the screaming because he was only 50 yards away in the apartment and ran out and found her in the grass.
He called for police and unfortunately she couldn't give really any information except that he had a beard and mustache, but that did help.
And again, I mean, she was hit from behind and then already thrown off guard when she saw his face.
And that does match the other descriptions, beard and mustache.
Yep. And she luckily survived. Good. So less than two weeks later, Peter was out again and ready to kill.
November 17th, he called Sonia and told her he was working late and that she shouldn't wake up, wait up for him.
She was actually pissed. She was like, what the hell?
But she was like, what can I do? Whatever.
So he was lying, obviously. He was actually on his way to headingly in Leeds again.
At the same time, 20-year-old University of Leeds student Jacqueline Hill was attending a seminar.
And she was very kind, smart, very popular with her peers.
She was very, very, very close to her parents and actually chose to stay at the University of Leeds just to be close to them.
Wow. She had a boyfriend that she really cared about.
And she could have gone to any university she wanted to.
She was that smart. But she loved her family.
Now, she seemed like an all-around delightful person and a very smart person, which all of these women seemed like they had so much to fucking offer and so much to get done.
They all had aspirations. They were all on the road.
No matter if it was a tough road or not, they all had this thing that they wanted at the end of it.
Yeah, they had big dreams. Yeah. Her mother had actually been very nervous about the Ripper murders recently and had given her a lot of tips to stay safe.
She left the seminar around 9, 9.15, and it was around 9.30 when Peter Sutcliffe saw her as she got off the bus outside of that same Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Interesting. She went down Alma Road, which was dark but not unsafe, just not well lit.
And she was literally 100 yards from her apartment when Peter appeared behind her and hit her on the head with a hammer.
Her purse and glasses fell to the ground immediately, and once she fell, he dragged her into the darkness behind the Arndale shopping center, and he pulled her clothing up and began stabbing her in a frenzy.
He stabbed her in the chest, stomach, and the left eye.
Oh, my God. Then he left her here. What the fuck?
Later during his confessions, what he said about this was her eyes were wide open and she seemed to be looking at me with an accusing stare.
This shook me a bit and I jabbed the screwdriver into her eye, but they stayed open and I felt worse than ever.
Oh, my God. That was brutal. And looking at you with an accusing stare.
Yeah, an accusing stare. You're stabbing her.
Like, are you kidding me? Around 10 p.m., a student from the university named Amir Hussain was walking in that area, and he found the purse.
Now, he took the purse back to his apartment because one of his roommates was a former police officer.
Or was a police officer, but I believe from in Hong Kong.
Okay. But he was here at the university taking classes.
So he brought it there being like, hey, I found this.
Like, what do we do? Yeah. So... They called the police because they were like, what the hell?
And they actually found blood smears on the purse.
And that's what really made them be like, shit.
Also, don't touch that. Don't touch that.
Now, one of the roommates spoke later and said that the officers who arrived at the apartment, quote, seemed more interested in filling out a lost property form rather than investigating the blood smears.
And they had to convince the officers to investigate the surrounding area for the source of the blood.
They would only do it after a cup of coffee.
I don't even have words. It gets worse. No.
Then they took three to four minutes peeking around the area where the purse was found, said everything looks fine, and they went back to the station.
Oh, good. I feel safe. Well, the next morning, an employee of the shopping center arrived at work and found Jacqueline's body.
Those officers should have all been written up.
Oh, it gets even worse because guess where she was found?
She was found covered with her own coat and was literally 30 yards from where her purse was.
Are you joking? They were standing there for three to four minutes looking around and she was 30 yards away.
And did anything happen to these officers that you could find?
Probably not. I couldn't find anything. Bullshit.
It was clear she had been hit in the head and stabbed many times.
Even with David Gee on the scene for this one, they still didn't believe it was a Ripper murder.
In fact, they held a press conference where they said, we have no reason to suspect that the Ripper is involved.
We cannot rule him out, but we have nothing to suggest it was him.
I mean, this one is nothing like pretty.
She was hit in the head with a hammer and stabbed.
And stabbed and then like discarded. Yeah, brutally.
Yeah. I'm without words for how they didn't connect this one, but, like, okay.
David Gee mentioned the similarities after her autopsy, and only then did George Oldfield get called in to Leeds to take a look at this, because he was back on the scene.
November 20th, he actually held another press conference where he said that original statement was...
Bullshit about this not being a ripper case and he started he said they were urging women quote to not travel alone If you can possibly help it no woman is safe until this man is caught.
Mm-hmm, which yes Yeah, this one finally officially got linked the next day with a memo out to all stations that this was a ripper killing.
Okay finally something So on November 25th, detectives in Milgarth at that headquarters received an anonymous letter.
And it read, To whom it may concern, I am writing to inform you that I have every good reason to believe I know the man you are looking for in the Ripper case.
It is an incident which happened within the last five years.
I cannot give any date or place or any details without myself being known to the Ripper or you if this is the man.
It is only until recently that something came to my notice, and now a lot of things fit into place.
I can only tell you one to two things which fit for example.
This man has had dealings with sex workers and always had a thing about them.
Also, he is a long distance lorry driver, collecting engineering items, etc.
I am quite sure if you check up on dates, etc., you may find something.
His name and address is Peter Sutcliffe, 5 Garden Lane, Heaton, Bradford.
Did Sonia write that? The letter was received by Detective Sergeant Boot and marked Action to Trace Interview Sutcliffe and Priority No.
1 when it was received, before handing it off to a policewoman to be processed with other credible leads.
Oh, great. Like, here we are. It's going to be processed.
Here we go. We got it. Like, they have a name.
Let me guess. There was a clerical era. It was ignored.
No clerical era. They just ignored it. What?
In fact, when Sutcliffe was arrested in 1981, that letter was still sitting in the same basket that it had been placed in.
It had never been touched. Oh my God. That letter was read and then it was put in a basket and never moved again.
And this is somebody, this is at least a year later and it's still sitting in the basket.
Wow. Somebody wrote in saying, I know this man could, but you need to look into this man.
Here's his name and address. And it is a name that you have spoken to at least nine other times.
Wow. And you left it in a basket? Do we ever find out who wrote that?
That letter was written by none other than Trevor Bardsall. finally this motherfucker comes around honestly trevor who was in the car when suck cliff committed that first attack on that unknown woman who was never named with the rocks in a sock yep the trevor that trevor he was ready to lead police to his former friend who he just knew was the ripper good and he said i looked back and i didn't want to think it was him but too many things lined up and i could not live he came around good Finally, when no one replied to the letter or followed up with him, Trevor actually went down to the police station himself in person, spoke to police and gave them an in-person statement about this.
They took the statement, they filed it, but they never followed up on it or even passed the statement to any senior officer.
How are you that careless? It was placed in a drawer and it wasn't seen again until after Sutcliffe was arrested in 1981.
This is why people get the balls to do things like this.
Because of this shit. This is exactly why.
And this is what the police department apologized for when he died.
20 years later. Because they were like, that was bullshit.
Actually, more than 20 years later. They were like, that was a lot of bullshit.
And we're different now. And they literally are like, I promise, like, we look into these things now.
Now, at this point, investigators were still sold on the idea that the original hoax letters and the audio message was the real Ripper.
You're spending a lot of time on, like, a random piece of paper. and a random tape like when you should really just be out on the streets talking to people and maybe looking at letters that you've already received yeah but the public and a lot of professionals were not sold at all and were questioning what the investigators were fucking thinking right so in early december 1980 jack windsor lewis who is a linguist he examined the letters himself Okay.
And he actually publicly stated that he believed the letters were very much a hoax.
And he said, even though it is definitely, in his opinion, not the real Ripper, there was a possibility that they would be able to identify the writer by his characteristics, like spelling, punctuation, weight of writing, etc.
So he actually suggested and really urged the Yorkshire police to release the full letters to the public.
Okay. Because he believed if you release that full audio and you release the letters, they are definitely connected.
This is the same person in his opinion. Sure.
So we're looking for one person who has done a really fucking shitty thing and has derailed this entire like investigation.
Yeah. So put it out there. And he said, because there's so many specific things in each of these that are very specific to this person.
He said, I think if you put them out there, someone will recognize him for that.
And he said, that's how distinct I think they are.
And even the voice. Yeah. Yeah. But they did do that eventually, but not a lot was coming from it.
Don't worry, though. They find out who it was.
And does he get in trouble? He sure does.
Good. Now, on January 2nd, 1981, Olivia Rivers had been working on the streets in Sheffield for a few hours when she came upon Peter Sutcliffe a little after 9 p.m.
Apparently Sutcliffe had actually approached her friend, but her friend had actually denied him because she told Olivia there was something in his eyes that scared me.
Wow. And she literally was like, no, I don't want your business.
Like, no, no. Olivia apparently didn't think so.
She said she wasn't scared of him. Okay.
So she got in the car. He was just talking to her, she said.
And he kept talking about his wife, and he was being strange, and she was just kind of like, uh.
So she was like, I'd really like to just get this over with and get the fuck out of your car.
Yeah, like, what are we doing here? But while they're talking and she's trying to convince him, like, can we hurry this along, a police officer pulled up behind them.
Uh-huh. Sutcliffe told Olivia immediately, you have to say you're my girlfriend.
And she was like, okay. So the police approach, Olivia knows this isn't going to work because Sutcliffe had one, he had a phony registration.
He had stolen a registration. Oh my God.
So that's bad. But the officer recognized Olivia.
Like she had been arrested a few times for solicitation and all that.
So she knew. She was like, I'm not going to say I'm your girlfriend.
They know me. She's like, I literally know that guy.
Yeah, she was like, they know I'm not. So she was just like, but she was like, that's weird.
Like, why would I need to say that? They were both arrested.
But before he was taken to the car in cuffs, Sutcliffe told Sergeant Ring, the arresting officer, I have to pee.
So Ring let him duck behind a bush and pee.
Then he came back and was arrested, which that comes back later.
Just remember that he let him pee. He let him go off into the darkness and pee.
Okay. And then come back. Okay. So Sutcliffe was interrogated for hours at the station, but it was about solicitation and about the stealing registrations.
It wasn't about anything else. Sonia was actually, like, she called the station because she heard he was arrested.
The police told her the charges were solicitation and stealing.
Ooh, honey. But because of the recent murders, police had been told that they had to report all suspicious men who were arrested in the company of sex workers to the Ripper Squad and George Oldfield.
Okay. Which Ripper squad, though? Well, I think it was like the main one.
That's the only smart thing they did was finally put that into place.
I mean, that's just fucking like, I feel like I could come up with that.
Exactly. But the next day Sutcliffe was moved to Dewsbury Station and interviewed further.
Things he said were starting to line up and George Oldfield was like, um, wait a second.
Finally. He's mentioning that he had a white Ford Corsair at one point.
He mentioned his job as a lorry driver and that his job schedule, you know, what it was.
And they're thinking about that letter and they're thinking about.
Then they started looking into the investigation and seeing that his name came up quite a few times.
Finally. And then there was something that wasn't released to the public and didn't until after this.
There was blood found on some of the victims, or excuse me, there was evidence found on some of the victims that this, that was a rare blood type.
Ah, okay. And they found it at several of the scenes, but they were never able to use it.
Uh-huh. Guess whose blood type that matched?
Peter Sutcliffe's. Peter Sutcliffe's. Who knew?
Wow. So Sergeant Ring, the arresting officer, arrived at the station that night, and he's like, holy shit, I might have caught the Ripper.
Like, that's wild. And he's like, ooh, okay.
And then he's like, oh, shit, I let him pee behind a bush before I arrested him.
Then he was like, huh, I actually think I heard metal hit the ground before he got in the police car.
So he went back to the area and looked. Why did I not even think that he discarded something?
Yeah. He looked where he peed. He found a ball-peen hammer and a large knife on the ground.
That fucker was able to ditch the murder weapons in front of the police.
And Olivia was about to be killed. Can you imagine how she felt when she realized that?
Thank goodness. That she wasn't. So now investigators... Sorry, her friend was probably like, I fucking told you.
Yeah, she's like, I knew I felt something with this guy.
Never doubted that girl's intuition. Don't doubt your gut.
Or your friends. Don't doubt your gut. And if your friends feel something, at least listen to it.
So now investigators are like, wow, um...
So maybe he is our guy. And soon they discovered that all his alibis were shit and they fell apart.
Wow, imagine if you had just followed up on the first one.
And Sonia gave them the real deal on where he actually was on nights he claimed to be home.
She was like, oh, no, he wasn't. Like they were like, Sonia, he said that he was home on these days.
And she's like, fuck, no, he wasn't. Oh, good.
Yeah, she was like, I'm not going to sit here and lie for you.
He's like, fuck you. I thought you meant like she had lied in the past.
Oh, no. And I was like, what? As far as I could tell, she told what she knew.
Yeah, that's it. Then she didn't know other stuff.
No, when he said he was home with Sonia on the night he was arrested, she was like, no, he called me and said he was working late.
Like she was like, I'm not going to bullshit for you.
Yeah, because she finds out what he's arrested for.
She's like, fucking gloves are off, brother.
So after days of being interrogated and the murder weapons being found and finally things starting to fall into place.
Jesus Christ. Sutcliffe, he's still getting hammered, investigated.
He finally looked at Detective Inspector John Boyle, who is the acting head of the Ripper Squad at this point, and said...
I think you're leading up to the New Yorkshire Ripper.
And he said, and the detective was like, what about the Yorkshire Ripper?
And Peter leaned back in the chair, looked at him and said, well, that's me.
So this fucker literally was like, guys, it's me.
Like even they weren't like, we know it's you.
It's like you had to. He was the one who had to say it.
Are you kidding me, everybody? He made an almost 24 hour confession of all his crimes.
Wow. Now, during this whole thing, he denied ever sending those letters or the audio.
Yeah. And he said he never communicated to the press or investigators.
He was like, I didn't want to get caught.
Oh, so he never did send letters. He never sent any of them.
Oh, okay. Those were not him. I thought you had said that he did send some of his own.
No. They thought he did. And they were really, that third letter especially, they really thought was him.
The first two, they were like, that's a hoax.
I was convinced it was a hoax. I was like, yeah.
That third one, they were really looking at, but it was not him.
He claims he didn't send anything. I mean, it does make sense.
He doesn't want to get caught. Yeah. And he also said Joan Harrison, the Preston 75 that was mentioned in the letters that they claimed responsibility for, he said that was not one of my victims.
Okay. And honestly, like, why would he deny one if he really did it?
Yeah. He admitted all the rest. Uh-huh. And investigators still believed he was the killer of Harrison and actually were pretty convinced he had a partner for a little while.
Oh. He didn't. Okay. And he wasn't. Okay.
They did eventually remove her name from the official victim list, but it took a while.
They found her killer. This even kind of contradicted their own belief during the original parts of the investigation, because they interviewed Sutcliffe, like I said, over nine times, and they said his voice and handwriting didn't match the letter and tapes.
So that was enough for them to rule him out.
But now they're still trying to say... that, like, the guy who wrote the letters and did the auto tape is a ripper.
Like, they were still holding on to that idea.
Even when he said he didn't do it, they were like, you wrote those letters and you sent that audio.
But then there were things in the files that said Sutcliffe's words, like, voice and handwriting did not match.
Did not match. so how are you those are two conflicting ideas guys like right figure it out y'all the identity of the letter writer and tape sender went unknown until 2005. wow more than 25 years later damn your ass was already out of high school yep it was a man named john humble and his attorney said he was a substance abuser who thought the whole thing was just a joke oh yeah that's silly he was charged with perverting justice and that guy He went to jail for eight years.
Good. He definitely should have gone for longer as far as I'm concerned.
Definitely. And during... This is wild. During this time, Sutcliffe wrote him a letter in jail.
That should not be allowed. And it's wild.
This guy is a dick of the highest order.
He doesn't have... He definitely has blood on his hands for what he did.
Yeah, absolutely. Because he derailed the investigation.
In a huge way. And those last three murders...
He should feel all the guilt for this. Absolutely.
But Sutcliffe acts like, because of him, those three girls died.
No, no, no, no, no, no. No, that's not the case.
He absolutely has guilt. Led to it. And he derailed the investigation, and he had a hand in that happening, in Sutcliffe not being caught.
But his hand was not... Murdered those girls.
Yeah, his hand was not holding a hammer.
And it's like, and this is just one of those things where Sutcliffe is removing blame from himself and acting fucking high and mighty.
It's John and it's God. Exactly. So in this letter, so according to the Sunderland Echo, he wrote, you could have saved those three women, John.
You have blood on your hands. Oh, fuck off.
Are you shitting me? I do not need this now or ever again.
The same thing will happen when you're released.
I hope you get some treatment for your problems, John, because you are very ill indeed.
Be strong. God will look after you. And he ended, your friend, Peter.
I don't have words. Are you looking in the mirror when you say any of this?
Just, like, to be that unaware. That... Just off on a different planet.
Just, I have no responsibility for these.
On the planet of narcissism. John Humble. blame is owed on him.
He derailed that investigation. Anybody who does hoax shit during stuff like this, blood on your hands.
Absolutely. But you are not a murderer. No.
You did not actively do it. And for the murderer to think he has some kind of high and mighty stance over that.
No, we can all sit there. Yeah, of course.
And we can say he has blood on his hands, but you, sir, are the fucking murderer.
You shut the fuck up and sit over there.
Exactly. Like, are you kidding me? You have no high ground here.
Get out of here. None. So that's ridiculous.
But as for the murder of Joan Harrison, like I said, her killer wasn't finally found, but not till 2011.
Oh, my God. They were able to use DNA evidence to trace the crime to Christopher Smith, who was a violent sex offender and criminal from Leeds.
He actually died in 2008. But in his apartment, they found a letter that said, I can't go on with my guilt.
I have lived with it for over 20 years. I am truly sorry for all the pain I have caused.
Wow. So unfortunately, he escaped the justice he deserved, but at least a name was put to the crime.
And hopefully Joan's family can at least have that.
Yeah. Do you know if that's the only woman he killed or is known to have killed?
I think that's the only one that I know of, but I didn't look further into that case.
Right. But maybe I will just look into that case for that.
Yeah. So on Monday, January 5th, 1981, that's when the news went public in Sheffield that they had arrested a man in Sheffield that they believed to be the Yorkshire Ripper.
Chief Constable Gregory told the media, we are absolutely delighted about the developments at this stage.
And he said that they were immediately scaling down the search for the Ripper because they believe this was him.
Now Sutcliffe was held at Armory Jail in Leeds, and he was indicted for 13 murders and seven attempted murders.
Oh, God. He pled guilty, but his defense was going to be that he was temporarily deranged and would be putting forth a defense of diminished capacity.
Yeah, I'm so sure. Now, he was very with it, very open, very detail-oriented when he was interrogated by the police, but as soon as he got a defense attorney... suddenly he was hearing voices and he was not understanding and not getting it.
It was a very clear shift. And he played right into it.
He said he was given a divine mission from God to kill sex workers.
And he said, I would have kept going if I wasn't caught.
He was interviewed 11 times by a doctor, Dr. Hugo Milney, I believe it is, but it was a defense team doctor.
And he testified that he had a schizophrenic illness is how he referred to it.
Mm-hmm. Now, just to be clear, Sonia was diagnosed with schizophrenia when she went through her time when she was trying to go through school and had like kind of a breakdown.
Sure. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but she was managing her symptoms and she was going to therapy and she was thriving.
Yeah. You know, but so this is interesting because so what they think later is that Peter was her primary caregiver throughout that whole thing.
Uh-huh. He knew what the symptoms of schizophrenia are.
He knows what the outbursts would be, what the quiet periods would be.
He knows how to imitate that. He knows what it looks like.
He's been doing this for years. That his wife actually suffered from that.
Yeah. And he's using that for his own gain.
I think he's just an asshole who likes to kill women.
I'm pretty sure that's what it is. Let's be real.
But again... They were going with the, they believed he could be schizophrenic or have schizophrenic tendencies.
And they said that he was only killing women because he had hallucinations.
Okay. But the prosecutor, Attorney General Sir Michael Hargreaves, he was like, no, I think these psychiatrists prompted him a lot during these interviews.
And they had recordings of it and they were like, yeah, I'm pretty sure you led him to that.
Yeah. Yeah. Conclusion. And it's very clear.
And he actually said all doctors do it. And he said, but some prompt a little harder than others.
And you did. Yeah. He also pointed out that in the hours and hours of interrogations and interviews that this side of him never came out.
Right. But suddenly after getting a defense team, he's a different guy with a different motive.
Like, no. Imagine that. And again, they said he's convincing portraying someone with schizophrenic symptoms because he spent years living with a wife who was being treated for those symptoms.
Sure. And he himself had to help her manage them.
Uh-huh. So, no. The Crown was like, fuck that.
That's so fucked up. And maintained that he was just a cold-blooded, calculated murderer who had made this up because he knew he was going to, and this is literally a quote, by the way.
Yeah. This is a quote from the Crown. He was a cold-blooded, calculated murderer who has made this up because he knew he was going to go to the quote-unquote loony bin for 10 years instead of 30 years in prison.
As further evidence, the prosecutor said that one of the defense's witnesses, Dr. Hugo Milne, actually acknowledged that he had caught Sutcliffe lying several times.
Dude, you're going to sign off on that? And so he said, yeah, I guess it's pretty possible that he was lying about the hallucinations too.
Yeah, if you caught him, if there's a precedent for lying, my guy.
And finally, they pointed out, okay, if he's on this God-given mission to kill sex workers, what about the ones that weren't sex workers?
Yeah. And the defense was like, well, he had mistaken those women for sex workers.
Jesus Christ. First of all, explain, and they literally were like, explain to me.
Why? How? How? Yeah. What was going on? Was it Jane in her gingham skirt, 16 years old?
Ridiculous. Like, what was it? What exactly?
And what was it that made you think the other ones, when you didn't initially walk up to them and strike a deal, what made you think those were?
Yeah. What exactly is it? Is it a pair of pants that they're wearing?
Is it a certain skirt they're wearing? Is it some way they wear their hair?
What is it? No, it's their women. Explain it.
But yeah, it was ridiculous. So... Basically, it just came down to the fact that Sutcliffe confessed.
He confessed lucidly, clearly. He did not mince words.
He did not say that he was having God hallucinations telling him to do this.
And they also reiterated all the facts of him being completely different until that defense team got in his way.
And after a six-hour deliberation, the jury voted 10 to 2 in favor of convicting Sutcliffe on 13 counts of murder.
Good. So on May 22nd, 1981, he was sentenced to life in prison.
Bye. The judge spoke right to him. Love that.
I always love that. And he said, quote, he was recommending, quote, an unusually long period of incarceration because I believe you are an unusually dangerous man.
I hope that when I have said life imprisonment, it will mean precisely that.
So, yeah. So he's sent there for life. And in the years following his conviction and sentencing, he actually bounced back and forth between Parkhurst Prison and Broadmoor Hospital.
So he was treated for certain things. He also became kind of a target from other inmates.
In 1997, his cellmate stabbed him in the eye.
So that's interesting. Sonia Sutcliffe stayed in the house that they lived in on Garden Lane, but she did file for divorce, and they were divorced by 1994.
She got remarried. I kind of love that she got the house.
She just stayed in the house. She's like, that's my fucking house.
That was her dream house. Yeah, she's not going to let that man ruin it for her.
And again, he ended up confessing to things that they hadn't initially, like... like attached to him before.
So they believe the number could be even higher.
Like we don't even know that. And in December of 1981, Lawrence Byford was actually put on to lead an investigation into the investigation.
So he had to look at it. And he concluded that the investigators had made many errors, countless, he said, and they engaged in very poor practices that he said absolutely stopped them from stopping him earlier.
Yeah, absolutely. And he said the poor communication between these departments was the number one error that they had.
In the five years that he was active, again, he was interviewed at least nine times officially.
He was known to be in these areas. He drove the cars that these people saw him in.
But they set up all these different fucking evidence rooms everywhere.
And none of them were going. There was no cataloging across the department.
So crazy. Things were thrown in a basket and ignored.
Like... It's ridiculous. It's also nuts that that was just five years.
Yeah. Five years. Because just like sitting listening to this story, I'm like, this sounds like it was like a 15-year-long period.
Yeah. And he also pointed out that them putting so much emphasis on those letters and that audio tape significantly, significantly hindered them stopping him before he killed the final three victims.
I totally believe that. And he actually said Sutcliffe was never regarded as suspect because of undue reliance on the Sunderland letters and tape, which served to eliminate him.
It's outrageous. Like, at the end of it, it really was like this investigation cost a shit ton of money and it almost let him go.
Yeah. Like, it almost let him go. A shit ton of money, so many lives.
What would have happened had he not been pulled over with Olivia?
Exactly. Exactly. And in November of 2020, Peter Sutcliffe was diagnosed with COVID.
And he died at University Hospital in North Durham.
He was 74 years old. I hope it was fucking brutal.
And it was after his death that the police force apologized to the victim's families for how the case was handled, how their loved ones were spoken about in the press.
The force chief at the time, Chief Constable John Robbins, said the language used at the time was, quote, as wrong then as it is now.
He said, quote, on behalf of West Yorkshire police, I apologize for the additional distress and anxiety caused to all relatives by the language, tone and terminology used by senior officers at the time in relation to Peter Sutcliffe's victims.
Such language and attitudes may have reflected wider societal attitudes of the day, but it was wrong, is wrong then as it is now.
A huge number of officers work to identify and bring Peter Sutcliffe to justice, and it is a shame that their hard work was overshadowed by the language of senior officers used at the time, the effect of which is still felt today by surviving relatives.
He said, luckily, those attitudes are co-signed to history, and our approach...
Excuse me, consigned to history. And our approach today is wholly victim focused, putting them at the center of everything we do.
Good. Now, Richard McCann, who I spoke of before, Wilma McCann's son, who was five at the time.
Like I said, he was the one who really like he headed this up to get that apology.
He wanted her. He said for her to be described as anything other than an innocent victim is just unacceptable.
Of course it is. And he was quoted as saying, my mom and all those other women were completely innocent and deserve to live.
Mm hmm. And with that, the Yorkshire Ripper is dead.
The police department apologized. And hopefully some of these family members got any kind of peace from it.
You would hope for them. That is the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe.
Wow. Good fucking written, is what I say.
Another dissertation from Alina Urk. Oof.
That was truly so, so just anger producing.
Like I'm so angry. Truly, truly, truly, truly.
The fact that so many lives could have been saved if they had just organized that even slightly.
Yeah. Even just like cut down a couple of those.
Truly. Posts and everything. It's outrageous.
And I also I have to thank our like really good friend, love of our lives, David White, for helping me with this.
He's a badass. With this research because he's such a badass and this was such a daunting task.
So I just got to thank him because he's a fucking trooper.
He's a gem and a half. Yeah, he's a fucking trooper for helping out with this, and I thank him.
He's the, he's the lul. He is. The love of our life.
He really is. The lul. Lul. And so is Mikey.
Yeah, and Mikey. Yeah. You know? We just love, we love some people.
We have so many luls. We do. Um, well, yeah, so with that being said, we hope that you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it weird. So weird that you're one of our luls.
Yay. Uh-huh. If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
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