Exclusive
RIPPER DOC
Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe talks from beyond grave in chilling documentary about vile murders
YORKSHIRE Ripper Peter Sutcliffe will be heard talking about his crimes from beyond the grave in a bombshell documentary about the fiend and his vile murders.
Serial killer Sutcliffe – who died from Covid aged 74 in November, 2020 – admits to unsolved attacks and talks about his arrest in chilling recordings set to be aired on Channel 5 on Tuesday.
4
4
And the programme, presented by investigator Mark Williams-Thomas, also demolishes the Ripper’s claims he “heard voices from God” which sparked his savage and cowardly attacks.
In one chilling taped confession on the show Sutcliffe - who killed 13 women and attempted to murder seven more admits he planned to kill call-girl Olivia Reivers, 24, who he was with when finally arrested in January 1981.
Asked if he was going to attack her, he says: “Of course I was, that was the whole point. I didn’t pick them up for any other reason.”
Reivers had a narrow escaped after on-duty cops in Sheffield, south Yorks arrested Sutcliffe for being in a car with false number plates. They later realised he could be The Yorkshire Ripper and found a hammer and a knife he had thrown away at the scene during his arrest.
Most read in News
The arrest brought to an end a reign of terror which saw married lorry driver Sutcliffe savagely attack his victims in sexually-motivated and cowardly “blitz” attacks from 1975 to 1980.
In another from beyond the grave confession, Sutcliffe admits to an earlier attack on schoolgirl Tracy Browne, 14, in August 1975 in Silsden, West Yorks.
It came two months before his first acknowledged murder, when he killed occasional street worker Wilma McCann, 28, in Leeds in October 1975.
Speaking in a halting voice and getting her age wrong, he says: “I saw this Tracy Browne; she didn’t look 15, she looked 19 or 20.
“She was all dressed up. She was walking slowly up this lane.
“I thought, ‘she’s probably one of those prostitutes’ because I had it in my head that Silsden must be full of prostitutes.
“I hit her with a branch or something, threw her over a wall and I climbed over the wall and was thinking of bumping her off.”
He claimed a voice inside him told him, ‘stop stop, it’s a mistake’.
“I said, ‘I’m sorry, you’ll be alright, I’ll be off now.”
Sutcliffe – who carried out his first known murder two months later when he killed Wilma McCann in Leeds in October 1975 – also callously says Tracy was “not seriously injured”.
'STOP, STOP'
In fact, Tracy suffered a fractured skull in the attack and needed life-saving brain surgery.
And forensic tests showed the fiend was likely to have carried out the assault with a claw hammer, like the one used in later killings.
Tracy – attacked after a day out with her sister, who had walked ahead of her – survived and gave police an accurate description of Sutcliffe.
But her case was not added to the Ripper files because she was not a prostitute, and West Yorkshire police wrongly assumed he only targeted street workers.
In the programme – called The Ripper Speaks and which this journalist helped to make – Sutcliffe is heard talking in prison recordings made before his death.
In one, he also admits to an attack on Marcella Claxton in Leeds in 1976.
It is another assault he was not convicted of, and survivor Marcella also provided an accurate description of him which was disregarded by bungling police because she was not a street worker.
In the show, a source ‘Brenda’ is heard asking him: “Did you attack Marcella Claxton, that black girl?”
He replies: “Yeah, yeah.”
Another shocking recording sees the serial killer talk about his fifth victim – 16-year-old shop assistant Jayne MacDonald, who was killed after a night out in Leeds.
The June 1977 murder – in which Jayne was bludgeoned with a hammer, stabbed repeatedly, and had a broken bottle thrust into her chest – sparked a wave of public revulsion. She was not a call-girl and was shockingly described at the time as The Ripper’s first “innocent” victim.
In a taped conversation, ‘Brenda’ asks Sutcliffe if he had regrets over this killing.
And he replies: “Yes I did, yeah. She was at the wrong place at the wrong time, sadly you know.
“I didn’t believe that she wasn’t a prostitute.”
Shockingly, he adds: “What was she doing out at 1.30am in a prostitute area; I didn’t know how old she was, I had no idea you know.
“I did feel it later on (guilt) when I convinced myself she wasn’t a prostitute you know.”
I hit her with a branch or something, threw her over a wall and I climbed over the wall and was thinking of bumping her off
Sutcliffe
The show also features an interview with actor Bruce Jones, who played Les Battersby in Coronation Street.
He found Ripper victim Jean Jordan’s body on waste ground in Manchester – after Sutcliffe switched from Yorkshire to evade police in October 1977.
And he says he saw Sutcliffe, who returned to Manchester after the murder to search for a £5 note he left with her which he realised could be traced to his firm’s payroll. He also mutilated and moved her corpse.
Bruce says: “I was looking at Jean and there was this face in the bushes – black hair, black beard and black eyes.
“I looked him straight in the eyes.”
Sutcliffe, who had wed wife Sonia in 1974, was finally arrested by chance in January 1981. He confessed to being the Ripper and admitted: “What a beast I am.”
He confessed to the murders and attacks in gruesome detail over days of questioning. But in his Old Bailey trial he claimed he had heard “voices from God” from a headstone in a crematorium in Bingley, West Yorks, telling him to kill.
Although doctors said he was schizophrenic, Judge Mr Justice Boreham refused a manslaughter plea and insisted on a murder trail before a jury.
It declared him “bad not mad” and Sutcliffe was handed 20 life sentences and never freed.
In the programme’s tapes, Sutcliffe moans that his judge was “biased” and calls him an “ignorant slob”.
The fiend harboured hopes of release up to his death – and is heard on the show moaning about how long he was held behind bars.
He says: “I’ve been a model prisoner you know.
“I start me 40th year on 3 January – it’s long enough for anybody isn’t it?
“I’d be a model citizen out there you know.
“They should have a bit of compassion, such a long sentence – ridiculous really.”
He also blames his later actions on a 1965 motorbike crash which he claims left him unconscious for two days – although he didn’t go to hospital.
'UTTER RUBBISH'
But his younger brother, Carl Sutcliffe tells presenter Williams-Thomas – an ex-Surrey Police detective – the Ripper’s defence was “utter rubbish”.
Carl adds: “He talked to me about all sorts, so I’m sure he would have mentioned a talking headstone.
“What he actually said was, ‘If I play insane, I will be out in 10 years and they will put me in a nutty house.”
And forensic psychiatrist Dr David Ho tells the programme Sutcliffe – who lived at home in Bradford with Sonia while he committed his killings – would not have been able to hide his schizophrenia if he was suffering from it.
He says: “By the time schizophrenia grabs a person, it’s going to be obvious.
“It’s unlikely a person with severe schizophrenia will be able to continue life as normal.”
He adds: “I understand some of the victims were stabbed 50 times. Given the nature of some of the wounds, that leans towards psychopathy, not schizophrenia.”
Programme presenter Mark Williams-Thomas said: “This programme is victim-focused and reveals new and important information.
“We sought to turn the tables on Sutcliffe and target him for clear explanations and new evidence about his offending.”
Sutcliffe was moved from Broadmoor to high-security Frankland Prison, County Durham in 2016.
He suffered from diabetes, heart problems, being overweight and bladder problems.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
And he died at the University Hospital of North Durham alone and gasping for breath on Friday, November 13 2020, after contracting Covid-19.
The Ripper Speaks: The Lost Tapes airs at 10pm on 8th Feb, Channel 5.
4
4
Topics