Killer's Case Files

Peter Sutcliffe (The Yorkshire Ripper)

Peter Sutcliffe was born to a working class family in Bingley, West Riding of Yorkshire on 2nd June, 1946. His parents were John William Sutcliffe and his wife Kathleen Frances, a native of Connemara. Kathleen was Catholic and John a member of the choir at the local Anglican church of St Wilfred's, but the children were raised in the Catholic faith. Reportedly a loner, Peter left school aged 15 and had a series of menial jobs, including two stints as a gravedigger in the 1960s. Between November 1971 and April 1973, he worked at the Baird Television factory on a packaging line. He left this position when he was asked to go on the road as a salesman. 

After leaving Baird Television, Peter worked nightshifts at the Britannia Works of Anderton International from April 1973. In February 1975, he took redundancy and used half of the £400 pay off to train as a heavy goods vehicle (HGV) driver. On 5th March 1976, Peter was dismissed for the theft of used tyres. He was unemployed until October 1976, when he found a job as a HGV driver for T & W.H. Clark (Holdings) Ltd. on the Canal Road Industrial Estate in Bradford. 

Peter, by some reports, hired prostitutes as a young man, and it has been speculated that he had a bad experience during which he was conned out of money by a prostitute and her pimp. Other analyses of his actions have not found evidence that he actually sought the services of prostitutes but note that he nonetheless developed an obsession with them, including "watching them soliciting on the streets of Leeds and Bradford". 

Peter met Sonia Szurma on 14th February 1967; they married on 10th August 1974. Sonia suffered several miscarriages, and they were informed that she would not be able to have children. She resumed a teacher training course, during which she had an affair with an ice-cream van driver. When Sonia completed the course in 1977 and began teaching, she and Peter used her salary to buy a house at 6 Garden Lane in Heaton in Bradford, into which they moved on 26th September 1977, and where they were living at the time of Peter's arrest. 

Through his childhood and his early adolescence, Peter showed no signs of abnormality. But one of his brothers admitted that their father was an abusive alcoholic, stating that their father once smashed a beer glass over Peter's head for sitting in his chair at the Christmas table, after arguing, when the brother was 4 or 5 years old. Their father used to whip them with a belt. later, in part related to his occupation as a gravedigger, he developed a macabre sense of humour. In his late adolescence, Peter developed a growing obsession with voyeurism, and spent much time spying on prostitutes and the men seeking their services. 

Leeds was the hotspot of Ripper activity, with 6 murders and 4 attacks in the city. Peter's first and last murders also occurred in Leeds.

Peter's 13 known murder victims were Wilma McCann (Leeds 1975), Emily Jackson (Leeds 1976), Irene Richardson (Leeds 1977), Patricia "Tina" Atkinson (Bradford 1977), Jayne MacDonald (Leeds 1977), Jean Jordan (Manchester 1977), Yvonne Pearson (Bradford 1978), Helen Rytka (Huddersfield 1978), Vera Millward (Manchester 1978), Josephine Whitaker (Halifax 1979), Barbara Leach (Bradford 1979), Marguerite Walls (Leeds 1980) and Jacqueline Hill (Leeds 1980).

He is also known to have attacked 10 other women: a woman of unknown name (Bradford 1969), Anna Rogulskyj (Keighley 1975), Olive Smelt (Halifax 1975), Tracy Browne (Silsden 1975), Marcella Claxton (Leeds 1976), Maureen Long (Bradford 1977), Marilyn Moore (Leeds 1977), Ann Rooney (Leeds 1979), Upadhya Bandara (Leeds 1980), and Theresa Sykes (Huddersfield 1980). Marcella was 4 month pregnant when she was attacked, and she lost the baby she was carrying.

1969

Peter's first documented assault was of a female prostitute, whom he had met while searching for another woman who had tricked him out of money. He left his friend Trevor Birdsall's minivan and walked up St. Paul's Road in Bradford until he was out of sight. When Peter returned, he was out of breath, as if he had been running. He told Trevor to drive off quickly. Peter said he had followed a prostitute into a garage and hit her over the head with a stone in a sock. According to his statement, Peter said,