UK’s ‘Yorkshire ripper’ serial killer Peter Sutcliffe dies of coronavirus
- Sutcliffe was serving concurrent life sentences for killing 13 women between 1975 and 1980
- The former grave digger, who was arrested in 1981, had refused treatment after testing positive for Covid-19
The British serial killer known as the “Yorkshire Ripper,” a man who instilled terror and fear across northern England in the 1970s, died on Friday at a hospital there. He was 74.
Peter Sutcliffe, a former grave digger, was serving concurrent life sentences for killing 13 women in Yorkshire and northwest England between 1975 and 1980.
Sutcliffe’s barbaric attacks on young women were compounded by the police incompetence that allowed him to evade arrest and continue killing.
It was just a miracle they did not apprehend me earlier – they had all the facts
The manhunt for the Ripper was one of the biggest the country had ever known, with some 2.5 million hours spent trying to catch him. Documentaries have chronicled how stubborn UK investigators stuck to their theories, missing key leads, ignoring contradictory evidence and wasting time in the hunt for the killer.
Although he was interviewed nine times in the investigation, Sutcliffe was only caught after being found with a prostitute in his car.