PETER Sutcliffe murdered thirteen women during a terrifying rampage across the North of England in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Many of his victims were sex workers, which led the media to brand him The Yorkshire Ripper. Here’s everything you need to know about the women that Peter murdered.
Wilma McCann
Wilma was Peter’s first victim, whom he murdered on October 20, 1975.
The mum-of-four was reportedly seen leaving her home at 7:30pm, before heading to a pub for a night out with some friends.
She is believed to have been picked up by Peter in his car, who then killed her in the Prince Philip Playing Fields just five minutes away from her house.
After a search involving 150 officers from the West Yorkshire Police and 11,000 interviews, the authorities still had no idea about who might have killed Wilma.
Emily Jackson
Emily Jackson was just 42-years-old when she was murdered by Peter on January 20th, 1976.
She was working as a part-time sex worker when Peter drove her to an area near Manor Street Industrial Estate.
Like Wilma, she was killed by a hammer and then stabbed with a screwdriver.
Emily was then found by a workman the next day.
When Peter died in November 2020, Emily’s son Neil told Yorkshire Live: “I’m quite happy with the news.
“It should have been 42 years ago – they should have hung him.”
Irene Richardson
Like Emily, Irene was a sex worker who was killed with a hammer by Peter but her death came almost a year after Peter had claimed his second victim.
She was a mum-of-three who was last seen near the Gaiety Pub, which was the same pub that Peter had kidnapped Emily.
Irene was killed on February 5, 1977, in Soldier’s Field before being found the next morning by a jogger.
This time, the police were able to start building a case as tire marks belonging to Peter were found at the site and the killer’s patterns were beginning to become clear.
Patricia Atkinson
Patricia was Peter’s fourth victim, but the first to be killed in his hometown of Bradford.
This forced the police to consider that the killer may be operating in a larger area than Leeds.
Patricia, known by friends as Tina, met Peter in the Red Light District before being killed with a hammer in her flat on Oak Avenue.
A boot print matching the one left near Emily’s body was found at the scene.
Tragically, Patricia’s body was found by a friend who visited her the next morning.
Jayne MacDonald
Jayne was just 16-years-old when she became Peter’s youngest victim.
She had been working as a shop assistant in Grandways Supermarket in Leeds before her death on June 26, 1977.
Jayne was returning from a night out when Peter followed her home and killed her.
Her body was found by a group of school children the next morning, who came across her body in the playground.
Jayne’s death caused another shift in the investigation, which had largely focused on Peter’s targeting of sex workers.
Three years later, the killer’s identity was still unknown which led Jayne’s mother to challenge the murderer’s friends and family to “turn him in”.
She added: “This man is a coward, but the biggest coward of them all is the person shielding him.
“It is his mother, wife, sister or indeed a male, they should put themselves in the position of we women who have lost someone they loved.
“It makes my stomach churn to think that someone is saving his neck.”
Jean Jordan
Jean was Peter’s first victim to be killed outside of West Yorkshire.
He met Jean in Moss Side, Manchester, on October 1, 1977, before killing her.
She was found eight days later by a local worker named Bruce Jones, who fans of the show Coronation Street may recognise as Les Battersby.
A £5 note, which Peter had given Jean under the pretense of wanting to hire her as a sex worker, allowed the police to determine which bank branch the killer had visited.
For the first time, Peter was a true suspect but his alibi cleared him of suspicion.
Yvonne Pearson
Peter’s crime spree continued into 1978, when he murdered 21-year-old prostitute Yvonne Pearson.
He killed Yvonne in his home town Bradford, on January 21, leaving her two-year-old Colette and five-month-old Lorraine without a mother.
They had been staying with a neighbour on the night that she was driven to a waste ground and killed.
Her body was hidden with a sofa and wasn’t found until March 26, just over two months after her disappearance.
Helen Rytka
By the time of Helen’s death, Peter was being referred to by the media as “The Yorkshire Ripper”.
He murdered Helen on January 31, 1978, just over a week after he murdered Yvonne.
Helen was only 18-years-old when she was killed in a timber yard but it took days for her body to eventually be found.
She had been working as a prostitute at the time of her death, just like her twin sister Rita.
Vera Millward
Vera lived in Hulme in Manchester, where Peter was only known to have struck once.
She was a mother-of-seven who had serious health problems, including only having one functional lung.
Vera was killed just outside Manchester Royal Infirmary, before her body was found the next day.
She had left home to meet a regular client, but instead got into Peter’s car on May 16, 1978.
Josephine Whitaker
Josephine worked as a clerk in Halifax, before Peter killed her with a screwdriver on April 4, 1979.
She was the tenth person to be killed by The Yorkshire Ripper, but her case was another turning point for the police.
A boot print, matching the ones left at Patricia Atkinson and Emily Jackson’s murders, was found next to her body which confirmed that the killer had struck again after a year of silence.
Barbara Leach
Barbara was a student at Bradford University and was just 20-years-old when Peter murdered her.
She left a shared home belonging to some friends in Grove Terrace on the night of September 1, 1979, when Peter began following her.
Barbara was then dragged into an alley and stabbed, but it took two days for her to be reported as missing.
Marguerite Walls
Marguerite left her office in Leeds later than usual on August 20, 1980, since she was preparing to go on holiday the next day.
The civil servant walked home through Farsley, which she knew was a brightly-lit way home.
However, unbeknownst to her, Peter had begun following her.
After killing her with a hammer and rope, Peter hid her body in the grounds of Claremont House where she was later discovered by some gardeners.
Jacqueline Hill
Peter’s final known victim was Jacqueline Hill, who was a student at Leed University.
The Yorkshire Ripper murdered her just 100 yards from her flat, with the hammer and screwdriver that now typified his crimes.
Her body was found a day later.
Peter’s killing spree ends
Peter was stopped by police on January 2, 1981, and was taken in for questioning due to a suspicion that he might have information about the Yorkshire Ripper case.
After only two days of questioning, he confessed to being the killer and his crime spree was brought to an end.
Peter had been terrorizing women since 1969, when he committed his first crime – the assault of a female prostitute.
While in custody, he referred to his murder of Helen Rytka as being motivated by an “urge to kill any woman”.
He added: “The urge inside me to kill girls was now practically uncontrollable.”
The psychology behind Peter’s chilling motive has been debated for years by psychologists, with some pointing to his brother’s allegation that their abusive father would whip his children with a belt.
According to Harper’s Bazaar, he also posed as his wife’s lover and brought his children, including Peter, to a hotel to watch her affair being exposed.
By the age of 15, Peter was working as a graveyard digger which he was said by colleagues to enjoy too much and had also developed a voyeuristic fascination with prostitutes.
He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia before being sent to Broadmoor Hospital in March 1984.
Peter stayed in Broadmoor until 2009, when he tried to appeal his sentence.
It was decided that he would remain in custody, but a transfer to HM Prison Frankland was reportedly approved in 2016.
He died from a diabetes-related illness in November 2020
