Latest / History Dark / The Yorkshire Rippers Murderous Misogyny _ The 13 Female Victims of Peter Sutcliffe

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The Yorkshire Rippers Murderous Misogyny _ The 13 Female Victims of Peter Sutcliffe · History Dark

0:01
Speaker 1: They are some of the world's most notorious killers.
0:05
Speaker 2: He enjoyed inflicting pain on people.
0:08
Speaker 1: But were these psychopaths born evil or did their mothers
0:12
Speaker 1: make them into monsters? I'm Donald McIntyre and I'm in
0:17
Speaker 1: a quest to explore how some of history's most notorious
0:20
Speaker 1: murderers were molded by their relationships with their mother.
0:24
Speaker 3: When you've got somebody who has been described as the
0:26
Speaker 3: mother from hell, that's not going to be an easy
0:28
Speaker 3: relationship for the child and the parent.
0:30
Speaker 1: I'll be piecing together events from their childhood and talking
0:33
Speaker 1: to criminologists and psychologists to try and understand what motivated
0:38
Speaker 1: their monstrous crimes.
0:40
Speaker 4: 53 stab wounds is beyond what I've experienced in my career.
0:45
Speaker 1: In this episode... For six years, Peter Sutcliffe terrorised the
0:49
Speaker 1: north of England. Nicknamed the Yorkshire Ripper by the press,
0:53
Speaker 1: he killed at least 13 women and left another seven
0:57
Speaker 1: seriously injured. Sutcliffe was a mummy's boy who, during his
1:01
Speaker 1: early childhood, literally clung to his mother's apron strings. Did
1:06
Speaker 1: this intense relationship with his mother help to turn him
1:09
Speaker 1: into one of the UK's most notorious serial killers? From
1:39
Speaker 1: Jack the Ripper to Fred West and Dennis Nielsen, serial
1:43
Speaker 1: killers have long occupied the public's imagination. We've read countless
1:47
Speaker 1: books about them and have been transfixed by the TV
1:50
Speaker 1: shows and films that delve into some of the most
1:53
Speaker 1: depraved minds humanity has ever known. But is it possible
1:57
Speaker 1: to look at the upbringing of a serial killer to
2:00
Speaker 1: find out why they committed those heinous crimes? And could
2:04
Speaker 1: it be something in a person's childhood that would lead
2:07
Speaker 1: them to kill, not just once, but over and over again?
2:11
Speaker 1: In the late 1970s, Britain was left terrified as 13
2:16
Speaker 1: women were murdered by a serial killer who came to
2:19
Speaker 1: be known as the Yorkshire Ripper. Despite a high-profile manhunt
2:24
Speaker 1: across the north of England... This cold-blooded murderer evaded capture
2:29
Speaker 1: and continued to commit his grisly crimes for over five
2:33
Speaker 1: years before finally being caught. That killer was Peter Sutcliffe.
2:43
Speaker 5: Peter Sutcliffe was an extremely callous, sexually sadistic killer. He
2:49
Speaker 5: was someone who was very much indifferent to the suffering
2:53
Speaker 5: of others.
2:54
Speaker 6: In the pantheon of British serial killers, Sutcliffe is number two.
2:59
Speaker 6: That's just by body count.
3:07
Speaker 1: I've come here to West Yorkshire to trace the journey
3:09
Speaker 1: Peter Sutcliffe took as he committed his string of vicious murders.
3:14
Speaker 1: And I want to examine his childhood to understand what
3:17
Speaker 1: it was that turned him into one of the most
3:20
Speaker 1: prolific serial killers Britain has ever seen. Peter Sutcliffe's father John,
3:26
Speaker 1: a hard-drinking womaniser, married his mother Kathleen in 1945 on
3:32
Speaker 1: a month's leave from the Merchant Navy. As a practising Catholic,
3:37
Speaker 1: Kathleen refused to use birth control and immediately fell pregnant.
3:43
Speaker 1: But the marriage was not a happy one and experts
3:46
Speaker 1: now believe it's possible that the making of a murderer
3:49
Speaker 1: like Sutcliffe can begin even before the child leaves the womb.
3:55
Speaker 3: There was abuse between the mother and father, so potentially
3:59
Speaker 3: there was domestic abuse occurring whilst the mother was pregnant.
4:02
Speaker 3: And that means there would be high levels of stress
4:05
Speaker 3: for the mother, which means that would affect how the
4:07
Speaker 3: baby was developed. Which is interesting when we look at
4:10
Speaker 3: somebody like Sutcliffe, because we know from a lot of
4:14
Speaker 3: studies that have looked at the brains of serial killers
4:17
Speaker 3: that there's often abnormalities.
4:23
Speaker 1: Peter Sutcliffe was born near this market town of Bingley
4:27
Speaker 1: in West Yorkshire on Sunday, the 2nd of June, 1946.
4:32
Speaker 1: He was a sickly, weak child, born prematurely and starved
4:35
Speaker 1: of oxygen at birth. He spent the first two weeks
4:41
Speaker 1: of his life in hospital with his mother, Kathleen, while
4:43
Speaker 1: his father, John, was told his presence was not required.
4:47
Speaker 1: It seems right from the very start he would forge
4:50
Speaker 1: a much stronger bond with his mother than his father.
4:56
Speaker 3: The mother's instinct is to care and nurture for this
4:59
Speaker 3: tiny little baby who needs her, whereas the father's response
5:04
Speaker 3: to that is he's small and he'll grow soon and
5:07
Speaker 3: he can't really form an attachment to this child who
5:10
Speaker 3: seems to be too small for him. Then, on top
5:13
Speaker 3: of that, we have that Sutcliffe's mum gets pregnant again.
5:19
Speaker 1: The following year, Kathleen gave birth to another boy, but
5:23
Speaker 1: he died three days later. leaving her even more protective
5:27
Speaker 1: of Peter.
5:29
Speaker 3: She's going to be grieving, and of course at that
5:33
Speaker 3: point is going to give all her love and attention
5:35
Speaker 3: to her boy.
5:37
Speaker 4: Peter Sutcliffe was a very timid and very insecure child
5:43
Speaker 4: that was very clingy to his mother. He was forever
5:47
Speaker 4: seen ensconced inside the mother's petticoat and dress, almost hidden,
5:54
Speaker 4: clinging on. as if deeply insecure in relation to any
5:58
Speaker 4: potential separations from the mother.
6:02
Speaker 1: Throughout his early years, Peter remained a fragile and needy child,
6:06
Speaker 1: highly dependent on his mother. Over the next few years,
6:11
Speaker 1: five more siblings would arrive, two boys and three girls.
6:16
Speaker 1: John and Kathleen brought their children up as Catholics and
6:19
Speaker 1: taught them that women should be demure and decent, that
6:22
Speaker 1: men should always treat women with respect. But John had
6:25
Speaker 1: a fiery temper and strong sexual desires and failed to
6:29
Speaker 1: live up to those religious ideals. Growing up, Sutcliffe would
6:36
Speaker 1: have witnessed behavior that sharply conflicted with his mother's Catholic beliefs.
6:40
Speaker 5: Peter Sutcliffe's role models, as far as sexuality was concerned,
6:47
Speaker 5: would have been dominated by his father and his father's womanizing.
6:52
Speaker 5: He was somebody who oppressed the family, who treated his
6:55
Speaker 5: wife as a doormat. And this is not the best
6:59
Speaker 5: role model for any man.
7:02
Speaker 2: His father was being described by other siblings.
7:05
Speaker 7: As a monster.
7:06
Speaker 2: And we now know, 50 years later, the effects of
7:12
Speaker 2: witnessing domestic abuse.
7:14
Speaker 3: And the effects of witnessing domestic abuse are catastrophic to
7:18
Speaker 3: a young person. they're more likely to commit crime, they're
7:24
Speaker 3: more likely to commit domestic abuse, they're more likely to
7:27
Speaker 3: be violent, they're more likely to have mental health issues.
7:30
Speaker 3: And we know that as fact now, and that is
7:33
Speaker 3: really significant.
7:34
Speaker 7: In this case.
7:38
Speaker 1: At the age of four, Peter Sutcliffe started here at
7:41
Speaker 1: St Joseph's Catholic Primary School. And from the very start,
7:44
Speaker 1: he was mocked for his weakly stature and his noticeably
7:47
Speaker 1: skinny legs. And while the other children played boisterously in
7:51
Speaker 1: the playground, increasingly, he was the outsider, watching from the sidelines. Alone, sullen, resentful.
8:02
Speaker 2: Peter Sutcliffe had a terrible time in primary school. He
8:06
Speaker 2: was already being bullied.
8:08
Speaker 7: The boys were.
8:08
Speaker 2: Already targeting him because of his size. He had very
8:11
Speaker 2: skinny legs and he felt very ashamed of that.
8:13
Speaker 3: It was very apparent that he couldn't form relationships and friendships.
8:18
Speaker 3: So he went to senior school carrying all that emotional
8:23
Speaker 3: baggage with him.
8:26
Speaker 1: But when Sutcliffe started at secondary school, well beyond the
8:30
Speaker 1: protection of his doting mother, the bullying and persecution continued.
8:35
Speaker 3: You can imagine him walking to school every day, physically
8:38
Speaker 3: dreading going into school. And he takes all that emotion
8:42
Speaker 3: and fear and he buries it deep inside.
8:48
Speaker 1: Facing day-to-day bullying at school, Peter Sutcliffe started to play truant.
8:53
Speaker 1: Every day he'd leave the house, loudly as usual, through
8:55
Speaker 1: the back door. But then instead of going to school,
8:58
Speaker 1: he'd return back to the house when the coast was
9:00
Speaker 1: clear and sneak upstairs to the loft where he'd spend
9:03
Speaker 1: the day. The school reported Sutcliffe to his parents, who
9:09
Speaker 1: put an immediate stop to his truancy. But his time
9:13
Speaker 1: spent hiding at home was the start of a pattern
9:16
Speaker 1: of reclusiveness that was to continue in later life.
9:20
Speaker 5: Peter Sutcliffe's loner status meant that in the future, when
9:26
Speaker 5: he started to go out and kill, travel around, he
9:32
Speaker 5: could do it alone. He was quite happy in his
9:37
Speaker 5: own little space. It also enabled him to be very secretive.
9:45
Speaker 1: Though the bullying continued, Sutcliffe never played truant again. At
9:49
Speaker 1: age 15, when he left school, it appears he developed
9:51
Speaker 1: the resilience his father expected and his mother's constant pampering prevented.
9:57
Speaker 1: Did these childhood experiences sow the seeds for the serial
10:00
Speaker 1: killer he'd become? To try and understand what impact these
10:08
Speaker 1: traumatic early life events may have had on the young Sutcliffe,
10:14
Speaker 1: I'm going to meet criminologist Dr Elizabeth Yardley. What were
10:18
Speaker 1: the first indications that his relationship with his mother was
10:22
Speaker 1: not particularly normal?
10:24
Speaker 7: Well, even before he could walk, he was showing signs
10:27
Speaker 7: of being quite different from other children. So he would
10:31
Speaker 7: be very, very close to his mother. And in order
10:35
Speaker 7: to kind of start walking, he'd pull himself up on
10:38
Speaker 7: the bottom of her skirt. And this was something that
10:41
Speaker 7: other people would comment on. So Peter's grown up in
10:44
Speaker 7: a Catholic family where ideas about sin and morality were
10:47
Speaker 7: were quite entrenched, and the idea of what it was
10:50
Speaker 7: to be a respectable woman were quite rigid. And I
10:54
Speaker 7: think that was something that he kept with him throughout
10:57
Speaker 7: his life. So those values and those standards that he
11:02
Speaker 7: gets at home from his mother, who was a devout Catholic,
11:05
Speaker 7: is quite significant. Right from a very early stage, he's
11:07
Speaker 7: got this idea of his mother as a stay-at-home mum
11:12
Speaker 7: who's devoted to her family and her children. whose morals
11:16
Speaker 7: are upstanding. So he's got a very rigid idea of
11:19
Speaker 7: what mothers are and of what a woman is.
11:22
Speaker 1: So I think his worlds are quite divided with his
11:24
Speaker 1: relationship and intensive relationship with his mother. And then with
11:28
Speaker 1: nearly everybody else, he's kind of isolated. And then in
11:32
Speaker 1: those spheres where he should be in the community, in school,
11:36
Speaker 1: he finds himself hiding away upstairs in the attic. And
11:40
Speaker 1: so he's retreating from the rest of the world And
11:42
Speaker 1: he's advancing in a rather unusual way in an intensive
11:45
Speaker 1: relationship with his mother.
11:47
Speaker 7: I think so, yeah. When we look at the factors
11:49
Speaker 7: that are involved in the making of a murderer, those
11:52
Speaker 7: kind of community factors are important. So outside of the family,
11:56
Speaker 7: when you first start having interactions with other people, are
12:00
Speaker 7: they accepting you? Are you feeling involved? Are you feeling included?
12:03
Speaker 7: And if you're not, then that has the potential to
12:07
Speaker 7: turn into trouble at some point.
12:10
Speaker 1: Peter Sutcliffe. better known as the Yorkshire Ripper, butchered at
12:14
Speaker 1: least 13 women and attacked many more. His killing spree
12:20
Speaker 1: between 1975 and 1980 created a reign of terror for
12:25
Speaker 1: women in the north of England. A sickly, clinging child
12:31
Speaker 1: and bullied at school, Sutcliffe was an isolated adolescent with
12:35
Speaker 1: few friends. Aged just 15 and without any qualifications, he
12:40
Speaker 1: left school to start work with his father as a
12:42
Speaker 1: weaver at a local textile mill. Within a few weeks though,
12:46
Speaker 1: he left that job to start an apprenticeship at a
12:48
Speaker 1: nearby engineering works. And then a few weeks later, he
12:52
Speaker 1: left to start another job. It was the beginning of
12:55
Speaker 1: a pattern that would define his early adulthood. One of
13:01
Speaker 1: the few things Sutcliffe did stick to was his new
13:03
Speaker 1: hobby of bodybuilding.
13:07
Speaker 3: He starts taking an interest in bodybuilding. He's then got
13:10
Speaker 3: a body that symbolizes that he's got strength for the
13:13
Speaker 3: first time ever. So he's becoming something that his local
13:19
Speaker 3: community approve of, his local peers approve of. So it
13:23
Speaker 3: gives him a sense of confidence. So he starts socializing.
13:28
Speaker 3: He starts going to the pub.
13:31
Speaker 1: Sutcliffe became a regular at the Royal Standard, where he
13:34
Speaker 1: was able to show off his newfound confidence to the locals.
13:41
Speaker 1: One night at the Royal Standard, Sutcliffe saw a man
13:44
Speaker 1: chat up another woman rather forcefully. He looked on as
13:48
Speaker 1: the woman rejected the man's advances. But an increasingly agitated
13:52
Speaker 1: Sutcliffe became frustrated as the man simply wouldn't take no
13:56
Speaker 1: for an answer. And then, in an act of twisted chivalry,
14:00
Speaker 1: He intervened rather violently and punched the man to the floor.
14:05
Speaker 1: Was this the first public glimpse of the violent rage
14:09
Speaker 1: that lurked within Sutcliffe?
14:11
Speaker 4: The incident in the pub where he exercised excessive anger
14:16
Speaker 4: and force in response to a girl feeling threatened, it
14:19
Speaker 4: was certainly a precursor to what we can see happening
14:24
Speaker 4: later in terms of him not being able to contain himself.
14:28
Speaker 4: what subsequently became his murderous rage.
14:30
Speaker 3: He would have given him quite a sense of power
14:33
Speaker 3: because for the first time he's shown other people that
14:37
Speaker 3: he won't just sit there and watch what's going.
14:39
Speaker 7: On and he'll be involved. And I think that would
14:42
Speaker 7: have given him a.
14:45
Speaker 2: Buzz.
14:46
Speaker 1: The changes in Sutcliffe may have reassured his mother that
14:50
Speaker 1: her clingy son was finally able to defend himself. And
14:53
Speaker 1: his father would have hoped that Peter was turning into
14:56
Speaker 1: a more typical red-blooded young man. However, Sutcliffe's behaviour at
15:03
Speaker 1: a new workplace was anything but typical. Sutcliffe managed to
15:07
Speaker 1: hold down his first full-time job here as a gravedigger
15:11
Speaker 1: at Bingley Cemetery. His colleagues said that he displayed an
15:15
Speaker 1: unusual relish for his newfound occupation, often volunteering for overtime
15:21
Speaker 1: at the mortuary.
15:25
Speaker 6: Sutcliffe loved it. He loved working with the bodies, he
15:29
Speaker 6: loved being around death, and he takes extra shifts, earning
15:36
Speaker 6: extra money, washing bodies down. He begins to talk about
15:43
Speaker 6: the bodies, almost obsessively, to his mates in the pub,
15:47
Speaker 6: and at one point actually jumps in a grave to
15:51
Speaker 6: pull rings of a cadabra.
15:56
Speaker 1: In addition to the macabre enjoyment he seemed to take
15:59
Speaker 1: in his work, Sutcliffe also developed a new pastime. According
16:04
Speaker 1: to people who knew him, he would spend hours cruising
16:07
Speaker 1: around Bradford's red light district.
16:12
Speaker 3: He'll shout obscenities from the car, so we can see
16:16
Speaker 3: that he's starting to be really disrespectful and demeaning to
16:20
Speaker 3: women that he judges as low and as not worthy
16:23
Speaker 3: of respect.
16:26
Speaker 6: He knows those streets like the back of his hand
16:30
Speaker 6: because he trawls them obsessively. And he talks about prostitutes
16:37
Speaker 6: and he visits prostitutes.
16:39
Speaker 8: You're drawn to that that you hate. He dislikes fallen women.
16:46
Speaker 8: And this was, of course, in the day that if
16:47
Speaker 8: you were a male driving a car in a red
16:50
Speaker 8: light district and you were stopped by the police, the
16:53
Speaker 8: police were more likely to give the sex worker a
16:56
Speaker 8: hard time than the John.
17:01
Speaker 1: Despite his unhealthy ongoing interest in prostitutes, in 1966, Sutcliffe
17:07
Speaker 1: started dating the woman who would become his wife. Sonia
17:11
Speaker 1: Shermer was the daughter of Czech refugees, the only girlfriend
17:15
Speaker 1: he ever introduced to his parents.
17:19
Speaker 3: He grew up in a Catholic household where a good
17:23
Speaker 3: girl and somebody who is deemed moral is a woman
17:28
Speaker 3: that should be put on a pedestal, whereas his father
17:31
Speaker 3: then would have affairs with and touch younger girls. So
17:35
Speaker 3: it was very much a divide in how women were
17:38
Speaker 3: viewed based on their behaviour.
17:42
Speaker 1: Sutcliffe viewed Sonia as one of the good girls, and
17:45
Speaker 1: she was put on the pedestal next to his mother.
17:49
Speaker 1: She stayed there until the summer of 1969, when he
17:53
Speaker 1: found out she was cheating on him.
17:57
Speaker 3: Now, Sonia had symbolized a good girl for him. And
18:03
Speaker 3: so then, when this perfect girl has cheated on him, that.
18:10
Speaker 2: Is going to be a serious affront to him.
18:13
Speaker 8: He didn't beat her. He didn't treat her badly directly.
18:17
Speaker 8: But he decided to accept revenge by making other people
18:21
Speaker 8: suffer or by going to see sex workers himself. So, again,
18:27
Speaker 8: it's this compartmentalization we see of successful serial murderers.
18:37
Speaker 1: Distraught at Sonia's betrayal, he decided to get even. He
18:41
Speaker 1: came here to what was then Bradford's red light district
18:44
Speaker 1: and picked up a prostitute in his car. For some
18:47
Speaker 1: unknown reason, they didn't have sex, but she went off
18:50
Speaker 1: with £ 5 of his cash. A few weeks later, he
18:54
Speaker 1: bumped into the same woman in a local pub. Angered
18:57
Speaker 1: that she went off with his money without services rendered,
19:00
Speaker 1: he simply asked her to return the cash.
19:02
Speaker 3: She knows lots of people in the pub and they
19:06
Speaker 3: all begin laughing at Sutcliffe. That would have been particularly
19:10
Speaker 3: because we don't know what happened. If it had been
19:12
Speaker 3: that he couldn't perform, that is going to be hugely
19:17
Speaker 3: embarrassing and humiliating to Sutcliffe. And it's going to add
19:23
Speaker 3: to that fueling anger and resentment and bitterness that he's
19:27
Speaker 3: got against the world, but more specifically against women.
19:32
Speaker 1: Sutcliffe was left reeling from what he saw as multiple
19:35
Speaker 1: betrayals by women. In his mind, they were clearly divided
19:42
Speaker 1: into either Madonnas or whores, with only his mother living
19:46
Speaker 1: up to his ideal of womanhood. Liz, we have this sense,
19:53
Speaker 1: this deification of the mother and the role of motherhood,
19:57
Speaker 1: and at the same time this developing paranoia and hatred
20:00
Speaker 1: of prostitutes. How does he get to that?
20:04
Speaker 7: I think what's going on here is when we look
20:05
Speaker 7: back at Peter Sutcliffe's story, especially the version that he tells,
20:09
Speaker 7: He's almost presenting prostitutes as the villain from quite an
20:13
Speaker 7: early stage. So he recalls this incident where he went
20:18
Speaker 7: to visit a prostitute because he wanted to get revenge
20:22
Speaker 7: on his girlfriend. And she essentially just humiliates him in
20:25
Speaker 7: front of everybody. That's his version of the story. But
20:28
Speaker 7: I think what he's doing there is creating another villain.
20:32
Speaker 7: He's saying, well, look, it's these women who are to blame.
20:36
Speaker 7: It's not me. I'm a victim. So I'd treat any
20:39
Speaker 7: claims like that with scepticism.
20:41
Speaker 1: It seems rather convenient, but to my mind, highly unlikely
20:46
Speaker 1: and simply unrealistic, where prostitutes are announcing themselves in public,
20:53
Speaker 1: in local pubs. But as you say, he's creating a
20:55
Speaker 1: narrative where he's the victim, the prostitute is the villain,
20:59
Speaker 1: and he's been wronged, and some kind of justification that
21:02
Speaker 1: in future he's entitled... to get his vengeance. It does.
21:07
Speaker 7: And I think there was too much of a readiness
21:09
Speaker 7: to just take it at face value and just assume
21:12
Speaker 7: that these stories were true. But we know how serial
21:16
Speaker 7: killers like to elaborate. We know how they like to
21:18
Speaker 7: kind of bask in glory and present themselves in particular ways.
21:23
Speaker 7: It's the way that he's looking at women at this
21:26
Speaker 7: point in his life. They're there for me. They're there
21:29
Speaker 7: to basically fulfill my needs. And I'm entitled to do
21:34
Speaker 7: what I want.
21:37
Speaker 1: In the 1970s, Peter Sutcliffe tortured and murdered 13 women.
21:45
Speaker 1: And brutally assaulted many more. In 1969, cheated on by
21:52
Speaker 1: his girlfriend, Sonia, and publicly humiliated by a prostitute, the
21:57
Speaker 1: only female who lived up to his saintly ideal of
22:00
Speaker 1: womanhood was his mother, Kathleen. But he was about to
22:04
Speaker 1: discover that even she wasn't perfect.
22:09
Speaker 3: One of the most significant points in Sutcliffe's journey of
22:14
Speaker 3: being a immature, isolated loner, awkward, then beginning to have
22:23
Speaker 3: this distorted view of what a woman should be. The
22:27
Speaker 3: most significant thing of all, the person he adores in life,
22:32
Speaker 3: who is perfection to him, his mother, who can do
22:35
Speaker 3: no wrong, he finds out something that brings that crashing down.
22:43
Speaker 1: Kathleen was having a secret affair. And in 1970, in
22:49
Speaker 1: an act of gross hypocrisy, Sutcliffe's philandering father, John, posed
22:55
Speaker 1: as her lover and lured her to this hotel on
22:57
Speaker 1: the outskirts of Bingley. He brought with him his three
23:02
Speaker 1: eldest children, including 23-year-old Peter, without telling them what he
23:06
Speaker 1: had planned. When Kathleen arrived, he plunged his hand into
23:13
Speaker 1: her overnight bag and pulled out a brand new negligee
23:17
Speaker 1: that she had bought specially for the occasion. Peter was
23:21
Speaker 1: forced to watch on as the mother he loved and
23:24
Speaker 1: adored throughout all his life was humiliated as an adulteress
23:28
Speaker 1: right before his very eyes. It was a moment that
23:31
Speaker 1: must have brought his whole world crashing down.
23:34
Speaker 8: It's very interesting that Sutcliffe's father insisted on pulling out
23:42
Speaker 8: the negligee from mum's overnight bag.
23:47
Speaker 1: Almost like a visual metaphor.
23:48
Speaker 8: If you imagine someone being disemboweled and their internal organs
23:52
Speaker 8: being pulled and.
23:54
Speaker 1: Removed, it's very.
23:56
Speaker 8: Similar in a way, the way of that material essence
23:59
Speaker 8: being pulled out and withdrawn for everybody to see.
24:10
Speaker 3: The incident in the hotel is absolutely the most significant
24:15
Speaker 3: trigger of what then goes on to happen. Even the
24:19
Speaker 3: good women, even the perfect women, have become distorted in
24:25
Speaker 3: his views, that women will let you down, women will lie,
24:29
Speaker 3: women will cheat, women are.
24:31
Speaker 7: Not to be respected.
24:34
Speaker 3: And the anger that has been storing up with all
24:36
Speaker 3: these other things is becoming closer to the surface now
24:39
Speaker 3: because he's feeling anger at the one person that he thought.
24:42
Speaker 2: Would never let him down.
24:44
Speaker 1: That his mother had now fallen from grace would have
24:47
Speaker 1: intensified the rage Sutcliffe felt towards women. His visits to
24:56
Speaker 1: red-light areas became more frequent, and later that year, he
25:00
Speaker 1: was stopped in a routine police check. In the boot
25:04
Speaker 1: of his car, officers found a hammer.
25:08
Speaker 5: Before we were aware of any of Peter Sutcliffe's attacks,
25:12
Speaker 5: he was apprehended carrying a hammer near a red light district.
25:17
Speaker 5: This really should have sent alarm bells ringing and prevented
25:21
Speaker 5: such horrors that were to follow. However, Peter Sutcliffe was simply,
25:26
Speaker 5: because it seemed more probable, actually charged with going equipped
25:32
Speaker 5: to rob.
25:35
Speaker 1: In what would be the first of many narrow escapes
25:38
Speaker 1: from justice, Sutcliffe was released and left free to roam
25:42
Speaker 1: the streets.
25:42
Speaker 2: In August 1974, on her.
25:45
Speaker 7: 24th birthday, and after they'd been together for eight years,
25:47
Speaker 7: Sutcliffe married Sonia, despite her cheating.
26:01
Speaker 1: Around this time, Sutcliffe also got his HGV licence and
26:05
Speaker 1: a job as a delivery driver.
26:08
Speaker 8: Sutcliffe was a serial murderer who was able to hold
26:11
Speaker 8: down occupations, training, a marriage. He was many different things
26:17
Speaker 8: to many different people, as well as a killer. And
26:20
Speaker 8: he was able to do this with successful boxing.
26:23
Speaker 1: Of his emotions. Despite the trappings of normality, Sutcliffe was
26:29
Speaker 1: well on his way to becoming a killer. And his
26:32
Speaker 1: darker side was about to reveal itself.
26:36
Speaker 4: I think both the affair with Sonia and the subsequent
26:42
Speaker 4: exposure of his mother's relationship that his father did in
26:47
Speaker 4: the hotel, I think that those were both contributing factors.
26:51
Speaker 4: And at that point, he would have been completely destabilised.
26:58
Speaker 4: So much so that he was on, a very slippery
27:02
Speaker 4: slope towards enacting from the mind into physically acting out
27:10
Speaker 4: any impulses of murder.
27:12
Speaker 1: In late 1975, Sutcliffe's hatred of women would come to
27:17
Speaker 1: a head. The combination of perceived betrayals by his mother
27:21
Speaker 1: and his wife and the long history of humiliation stretching
27:24
Speaker 1: back to his early childhood had turned Sutcliffe into a
27:28
Speaker 1: deeply resentful and disturbed human being. A cauldron of rage
27:33
Speaker 1: bubbled beneath the surface and on the night of the
27:35
Speaker 1: 30th of October it exploded into murderous action. That night,
27:43
Speaker 1: as he was cruising the streets, Sutcliffe spotted prostitute Wilma McCann.
27:51
Speaker 1: She offers him sex for a fiver. Sutcliffe later alleged
27:55
Speaker 1: that he was enraged by her taunts and he failed
27:57
Speaker 1: to get aroused. So as Wilma unzipped her trousers, he
28:04
Speaker 1: struck her violently on the back of the head with
28:06
Speaker 1: a hammer. Sutcliffe would later claim that having hit Wilma
28:10
Speaker 1: McCann over the head once with a hammer, he then
28:13
Speaker 1: returned to his car. From there he noticed that her
28:16
Speaker 1: hand was still moving. Panicked by what he'd done and
28:19
Speaker 1: terrified that she'd survive, he went to the boot of
28:21
Speaker 1: his car, took out a knife and stabbed her in
28:23
Speaker 1: the stomach, chest and throat. Her body was found with
28:27
Speaker 1: her blouse pulled up, and her trousers pulled down. It
28:31
Speaker 1: was a truly brutal killing. The method of Wilma McCann's
28:36
Speaker 1: murder would be the start of a grisly pattern in
28:39
Speaker 1: Sutcliffe's reign of terror.
28:41
Speaker 3: He would strike them on the back of the head
28:43
Speaker 3: with one or two blows of a hammer.
28:50
Speaker 2: He then would stab them in the stomach, stab them
28:53
Speaker 2: in the neck, so it was a high level of anger,
28:56
Speaker 2: it was frenzied. It was sadistic.
28:59
Speaker 3: He would always leave them with their bottom half exposed
29:02
Speaker 3: by lifting up their skirt and, in some cases, exposing
29:06
Speaker 3: their breasts. And this says a lot about how he
29:09
Speaker 3: disrespected the women.
29:11
Speaker 2: That he was murdering to leave them in that vulnerable state.
29:21
Speaker 4: It's more than coincidence that the moment that he achieves
29:26
Speaker 4: his HGV license, that this really does give him a
29:31
Speaker 4: free hand to really exploit the vulnerability of many women
29:37
Speaker 4: who were on the streets. whether prostitutes or not in
29:41
Speaker 4: such a way that he became very skilled at identifying
29:44
Speaker 4: vulnerability and exploiting it in order in his own thinking
29:50
Speaker 4: to kill off and clean up the badness that existed.
30:00
Speaker 1: Three months later, Sutcliffe killed again. His second victim was
30:08
Speaker 1: another prostitute, 42-year-old Emily Jackson. As with Wilma McCann, she'd
30:15
Speaker 1: been hit over the head with a hammer and her
30:18
Speaker 1: clothes pulled up. She'd been stabbed 51 times. Over the
30:25
Speaker 1: next nine months, Sutcliffe would kill a further three women
30:28
Speaker 1: in Leeds and Bradford. Each time, his victims, usually sex workers,
30:32
Speaker 1: would be hit over the head with a hammer before
30:34
Speaker 1: being stabbed in the stomach, chest and throat. By this stage,
30:38
Speaker 1: the media had dubbed him the Yorkshire Ripper.
30:46
Speaker 9: As each homicide occurred, police strength was increased. I can
30:52
Speaker 9: say that there was no stone unturned, really, trying to
30:57
Speaker 9: get to the killer. because all we wanted to do
31:01
Speaker 9: was just get back to normal everyday policing. But while
31:05
Speaker 9: this monster was on the loose, that was totally impossible.
31:13
Speaker 1: Despite a massive manhunt, Sutcliffe continued to remain under the
31:17
Speaker 1: police's radar. Then, in October 1977, about a year after
31:22
Speaker 1: his first murder, he traveled to Manchester, where he killed
31:25
Speaker 1: for the sixth time. This time his victim was 21-year-old
31:29
Speaker 1: Jean Jordan. He bashed her over the head with a
31:32
Speaker 1: hammer before stabbing her to death, leaving her body in
31:35
Speaker 1: the bushes and then returning to Bradford. But when he
31:38
Speaker 1: returned home, it suddenly dawned upon him that he left
31:41
Speaker 1: behind a vital clue at the scene of the crime.
31:46
Speaker 1: Sutcliffe had paid Jean with a £ 5 note from his
31:49
Speaker 1: pay packet and realised that police might be able to
31:52
Speaker 1: track it. About a week later, he returned to the
31:56
Speaker 1: scene of the murder... but was unable to find the
31:59
Speaker 1: potentially incriminating fiver. Sutcliffe was right to be nervous. The
32:04
Speaker 1: police did find the note in Jean Jordan's purse after
32:08
Speaker 1: the attack. Just two weeks later, Greater Manchester Police established
32:12
Speaker 1: that the note was paid to an employee from one
32:15
Speaker 1: of 34 local firms. And it wasn't long before they
32:18
Speaker 1: were knocking on Peter Sutcliffe's door. But for the second time,
32:23
Speaker 1: the killer would evade capture. and it was his mother
32:27
Speaker 1: and his wife Sonia who were to save him. Though
32:30
Speaker 1: both had fallen from grace in his eyes, they provided
32:34
Speaker 1: him with an alibi for the night of Jean's murder.
32:37
Speaker 8: I think one of the reasons why Sutcliffe's own mother
32:40
Speaker 8: and Sonia as well gave him an alibi when he
32:43
Speaker 8: was questioned about the attack is because the image of
32:47
Speaker 8: the Ripper around the country was so vicious and evil
32:54
Speaker 8: that no mother.
32:56
Speaker 1: or partner would.
32:57
Speaker 8: Have believed that their husband or son or boyfriend could
33:02
Speaker 8: have been capable of such crimes.
33:03
Speaker 5: He would have probably felt really all-powerful. And perhaps he
33:09
Speaker 5: was never really going to get caught and that he
33:13
Speaker 5: could almost do anything.
33:15
Speaker 1: Thanks to the women in his life, Sutcliffe was literally
33:19
Speaker 1: getting away with murder. The next year, he killed another
33:25
Speaker 1: three women with his trademark brutality. The panic on northern
33:30
Speaker 1: streets was palpable.
33:32
Speaker 9: Clearly, no female was safe. There was sort of like
33:36
Speaker 9: a gothic gloom about the area. Women even held marches
33:44
Speaker 9: demanding that men were put on curfew so they could
33:50
Speaker 9: go out and about. without fear of being attacked.
33:57
Speaker 1: The Ripper's grim tally was up to nine, but in
33:59
Speaker 1: November 1978, Sutcliffe's war against womankind was brought to a
34:04
Speaker 1: temporary halt when his beloved mother, Kathleen, died.
34:10
Speaker 3: This is going to be really significant for Peter Sutcliffe.
34:12
Speaker 3: This is the woman that he adored. This was the
34:16
Speaker 3: center of his universe for many years, but it was
34:19
Speaker 3: also the woman that had let him down badly a
34:22
Speaker 3: few years earlier.
34:24
Speaker 1: How much of Sutcliffe's murderous misogyny can be traced back
34:27
Speaker 1: to his relationship with Kathleen? And what impact would her
34:31
Speaker 1: death have on her son, the Yorkshire Ripper? Sometime after
34:35
Speaker 1: he committed a number of murders, his mother dies. And
34:41
Speaker 1: this was the beacon of light. This was the focus,
34:46
Speaker 1: locus of the tension and sense of femininity for many years.
34:51
Speaker 1: And she dies. What impact does that have on him
34:54
Speaker 1: and his need to kill?
34:56
Speaker 7: I think it's going to be quite devastating for him
34:58
Speaker 7: because she's always been his protector. He was hiding behind
35:02
Speaker 7: her skirts when he was a young boy. She was
35:04
Speaker 7: such a powerful figure in his life. And for her
35:08
Speaker 7: not to be there, I think it is quite important
35:11
Speaker 7: because he hasn't got that kind of validation that you
35:13
Speaker 7: always have from her. And she was always a presence
35:15
Speaker 7: in his life. Even after he left home and he
35:18
Speaker 7: got married, she was still very much there in the
35:19
Speaker 7: background and they were very close.
35:21
Speaker 1: This driving sense, this need for sexual gratification and murder,
35:26
Speaker 1: which you can't separate in this particular dynamic, is he
35:30
Speaker 1: becoming addicted to it? Does he need to push things further?
35:33
Speaker 1: He's never sated with one killing, he has to move
35:35
Speaker 1: on to another.
35:36
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think that's very much the case with Peter Sutcliffe,
35:38
Speaker 7: and we see this with a lot of serial killers.
35:41
Speaker 7: They develop a modus operandi, which does change over time.
35:45
Speaker 7: And they feel the need to kind of up the ante,
35:48
Speaker 7: especially when we're dealing with murderers who are psychopathic. So
35:52
Speaker 7: one of the key psychopathic traits is a proneness to boredom,
35:56
Speaker 7: a need for stimulation. And even in killing, they're getting
36:00
Speaker 7: bored and they're needing to mix it up a bit.
36:02
Speaker 1: To add that intense sexual desire and drive, highly sexualised,
36:08
Speaker 1: highly driven, obsession with graveyards, femininity... and fallen women prostitutes.
36:16
Speaker 1: That is an extraordinary cocktail. It's very rare we see
36:19
Speaker 1: that distilled in the mind of one person.
36:22
Speaker 7: It is, it is. Peter Sutcliffe is just such a
36:25
Speaker 7: toxic mix of all of those individual factors that we
36:28
Speaker 7: might see in people who only kill once or in
36:31
Speaker 7: other serial killers who don't kill as many people as
36:34
Speaker 7: he did. He really is an exceptional character.
36:38
Speaker 1: By the time his mother died in 1978, Sutcliffe had
36:42
Speaker 1: truly earned his nickname the Yorkshire Ripper. He'd slaughtered nine
36:48
Speaker 1: women and sexually assaulted many more. Vast police resources and
36:55
Speaker 1: manpower were deployed, but an arrest seemed no closer. A
37:00
Speaker 1: pall of fear hung over the north of England. After
37:06
Speaker 1: the death of his mother, it would be another year
37:08
Speaker 1: before Sutcliffe would kill again. During this time, an elaborate
37:12
Speaker 1: hoax by a man with a Sunderland accent would redirect
37:16
Speaker 1: the police's focus from West Yorkshire to the northeast of England.
37:21
Speaker 1: This would now free Sutcliffe to resume his murderous rampage.
37:26
Speaker 9: We got two letters and a tape originating from Sunderland.
37:36
Speaker 9: And at that time, we believed that because of some
37:40
Speaker 9: of the information contained in the letter and the tape,
37:47
Speaker 9: that he was the perpetrator. That completely diverted the inquiry
37:52
Speaker 9: from its true course. We began looking for a Geordie
37:57
Speaker 9: male who originated from that particular area.
38:01
Speaker 6: They're personal in the sense that the man writing and
38:07
Speaker 6: recording these tapes speaks directly to the lead detective and
38:13
Speaker 6: taunts him. It wasn't the first or the most important
38:16
Speaker 6: blind alley, but it would derail the investigation for some
38:21
Speaker 6: time to come.
38:24
Speaker 1: Yet again, fortune had favoured the Yorkshire Ripper. With police
38:29
Speaker 1: thrown off the scent, Sutcliffe must have felt he could
38:32
Speaker 1: kill with impunity.
38:35
Speaker 5: Peter Sutcliffe's personal success of getting away with so many
38:40
Speaker 5: murders for so long will have emboldened him. He will
38:44
Speaker 5: have become slightly more reckless, more blasé, and want to
38:48
Speaker 5: actually get away with more on each crime. Unfortunately, sequentially,
38:54
Speaker 5: the police failed to actually identify him.
39:02
Speaker 1: The Ripper's killing spree continued with two more murders. 19-year-old
39:09
Speaker 1: Josephine Whittaker..... and student Barbara Leach. Sutcliffe wasn't just targeting prostitutes,
39:21
Speaker 1: but any woman he could find.
39:24
Speaker 9: He diverted his activities to non-red light areas because it
39:28
Speaker 9: was quite apparent that things were getting a bit too
39:31
Speaker 9: hot for him there and he would sense the police presence.
39:36
Speaker 9: Because although not particularly intelligent, he was the animal cunning.
39:43
Speaker 1: The Yorkshire police narrowed down the list of suspects to
39:46
Speaker 1: 241 men. Sutcliffe's name is on it. He is questioned
39:52
Speaker 1: but released. Not long afterwards, he came to police attention
39:57
Speaker 1: yet again after a covert operation to identify curb crawlers.
40:02
Speaker 1: Andrew Lapchu was one of the officers sent to Sutcliffe's house.
40:06
Speaker 9: We did not know he'd been seen before. Searched his car,
40:11
Speaker 9: found nothing untoward. We spoke about his habits, whether he.
40:19
Speaker 9: Associated with prostitutes, which he denied. But there were certain
40:25
Speaker 9: things struck us, for example, his general demeanour. He wasn't
40:30
Speaker 9: helpful in answering questions.
40:33
Speaker 1: His suspicions aroused, Lapchew did further checks back at HQ.
40:38
Speaker 1: But in the 1970s, there were no computers, and in
40:41
Speaker 1: the police's antiquated filing system, A vital index card with
40:45
Speaker 1: information about Sutcliffe's previous arrest carrying a hammer had gone missing.
40:52
Speaker 1: Another chance to stop the killer ended in failure. To
40:56
Speaker 1: this day, the mistake troubles Lapdew.
41:00
Speaker 9: We'd done all we could, but there's still that nagging
41:04
Speaker 9: feeling at the back of the head that three more
41:08
Speaker 9: women died after I'd interviewed Sutcliffe. And that's going to...
41:13
Speaker 9: Nag me to me grave.
41:18
Speaker 1: In the summer of 1980, Peter Sutcliffe was stopped by
41:21
Speaker 1: a police patrol car for speeding. When it became apparent
41:24
Speaker 1: that actually he was driving while drunk, he was arrested.
41:28
Speaker 1: One of the police officers recognized Sutcliffe's name from the
41:31
Speaker 1: Ripper investigation and informed the incident room, only to be
41:35
Speaker 1: told that Peter Sutcliffe was already eliminated from the inquiry.
41:39
Speaker 1: It was the closest he'd come to getting caught. On
41:46
Speaker 1: the 17th of November, 1980, Peter Sutcliffe killed for the
41:50
Speaker 1: last time. His final victim was 20-year-old student Jacqueline Hill
41:55
Speaker 1: from Leeds. In the aftermath of the murder, the media
41:59
Speaker 1: clamour for an arrest reached fever pitch, and under direct
42:02
Speaker 1: pressure from the Prime Minister of the day, Margaret Thatcher,
42:05
Speaker 1: the West Yorkshire Police put together a super squad dedicated
42:09
Speaker 1: to catching the Yorkshire Ripper. Ah, the Dream Team.
42:16
Speaker 9: Probably the top police brains in the country, and their
42:20
Speaker 9: aim was to review the evidence and consider other aspects,
42:28
Speaker 9: other avenues of inquiry. Now, these were very senior men,
42:34
Speaker 9: good brains, no doubt about that.
42:37
Speaker 1: But all of this hard work by the police did
42:39
Speaker 1: not put an end to Sutcliffe's terrible crimes. In the end,
42:43
Speaker 1: the breakthrough came by chance.
42:47
Speaker 6: The ultimate arrest of Sutcliffe is almost entirely accidental. He's
42:56
Speaker 6: seen in Sheffield's red light district and the number plate
42:59
Speaker 6: is run. The police say, that number plate doesn't match
43:03
Speaker 6: that car, so we'll nick him. They nick Sutcliffe with
43:10
Speaker 6: a known prostitute in the car and at that point
43:14
Speaker 6: they think they've got a curb crawler. He says, actually,
43:19
Speaker 6: I need to go and have a pee. And they
43:22
Speaker 6: say yes. And he wanders off up an alley, ostensibly
43:26
Speaker 6: to have a pee, but in fact to get rid
43:30
Speaker 6: of some of the tools of his killing kit that
43:34
Speaker 6: were in his car.
43:38
Speaker 1: A name check revealed the nine times Sutcliffe had been
43:41
Speaker 1: interviewed in connection with the Ripper investigation. Alarm bells rang
43:46
Speaker 1: out and the police went back to check the site
43:49
Speaker 1: of the arrest. There they discovered a hammer, a weapon.
43:57
Speaker 1: Back at the station, they showed Sutcliffe what they discovered.
44:01
Speaker 1: Confronted with the hammer, the weapon he intended to use
44:04
Speaker 1: again to kill, Sutcliffe crumbled and confessed. Finally, his killing
44:13
Speaker 1: spree was over. Kathleen was not alive to see her
44:20
Speaker 1: son get his comeuppance, but does she bear the responsibility
44:23
Speaker 1: for making him the monster he was? Would Peter Sutcliffe
44:29
Speaker 1: have been a serial killer without the behaviour of his mother?
44:34
Speaker 7: Well, it's very difficult to isolate his mother from the equation,
44:37
Speaker 7: but I think she did lay the foundations for the
44:40
Speaker 7: serial killer that he became, because those early years are
44:43
Speaker 7: so crucial, and what we learn... about other people is
44:46
Speaker 7: often what we see in our own family.
44:49
Speaker 1: What kind of mother was Peter Sutcliffe's mother?
44:51
Speaker 7: I think she was an uber mother. So she was
44:53
Speaker 7: the exaggerated performance of the mother role. She really did
44:57
Speaker 7: cosset him and she really did instill in him this
45:01
Speaker 7: idea of who women are and how they should behave
45:03
Speaker 7: and this very kind of idealistic version of womanhood. So
45:07
Speaker 7: I think she's incredibly central here. And most people aren't
45:10
Speaker 7: going to go and commit serial murder. Most people who
45:13
Speaker 7: feel that need to be in control as an adult
45:15
Speaker 7: will often take it out on themselves, will see things
45:18
Speaker 7: like addiction, things like behavioral problems. But for some people,
45:22
Speaker 7: that will manifest itself in a desire to harm others.
45:26
Speaker 7: And that's what we see with Peter Sutcliffe.
45:33
Speaker 1: On the 22nd of May, 1981, Six years after he
45:37
Speaker 1: murdered his first victim, Peter Sutcliffe was convicted on 13
45:41
Speaker 1: counts of murder and a further seven counts of attempted murder.
45:45
Speaker 1: During the trial, he tried to claim diminished responsibility on
45:49
Speaker 1: the grounds that he was a paranoid schizophrenic on a
45:52
Speaker 1: divine mission that drove him to kill. But the jury
45:55
Speaker 1: rejected that claim and the judge, Mr. Justice Boreham, handed
46:00
Speaker 1: down 20 life sentences with a recommendation that he serve
46:03
Speaker 1: at least 30 years in jail. who remains incarcerated to
46:08
Speaker 1: this day.