Yorkshire Ripper The Secret Murders

In 1981, Peter Sutcliffe, the 'Yorkshire Ripper', was convicted of thirteen murders and seven attempted murders. All his proven victims were women: most were prostitutes.Astonishingly, however, this is not the whole truth. There is a still-secret story of how Sutcliffe's terrible reign of terror claimed at least twenty-two more lives and left five other victims with terrible injuries. These crimes - attacks on men as well as women - took place all over England, not just in his known killing fields of Yorkshire and Lancashire.Police and prosecution authorities have long known that Sutcliffe's reign of terror was far longer and far more widespread than the public has been led to believe. But the evidence has been locked away in the files and archives, ensuring that these murders and attempted murders remain unsolved today.As a result, the families of at least twenty-two murdered women have been cheated of their right to know how and why their loved ones died: the pain of living with that may diminish over time, but it never fades away completely. Five other victims survived his attacks: their plight, too, has never been officially acknowledged.Worse still, police blunders and subsequent suppression of evidence ensured that three entirely innocent men were imprisoned for murders committed by the Yorkshire Ripper. They each lost the best parts of their adult lives, locked up and forgotten in stinking cells for more than two decades.This book, by a former police Intelligence Officer, is the story not just of those long-cold killings, of the forgotten families and of three terrible miscarriages of justice. It also uncovers Peter Sutcliffe's real motive for murder - and reveals how he manipulated police, prosecutors and psychiatrists to ensure that he serves his sentence in the comfort of a psychiatric hospital rather than a prison cell.

Now a major TV series ‘A masterpiece that reads like a thriller’ Time Out A gripping and probing account of the biggest criminal manhunt in British history.

“An outstanding analysis of Peter Sutcliffe, his crimes, his victims and the reasons for the failure of the police investigation.” —North Yorks Enquirer Peter Sutcliffe, The Yorkshire Ripper, remains the most infamous serial killer in British criminal history. His reign of terror saw 13 women brutally murdered and the largest criminal manhunt in British history. Just like Jack the Ripper, his Victorian counterpart of 1888, he remains a killer of almost mythical proportions, yet the locations and circumstances surrounding his foul deeds remain a subject of confusion to this day . . . until now. Using ground breaking new research together with the original police reports, newspaper descriptions and eye witness testimony, we can finally present the truth about what actually happened. For the first time in over four decades we re-examine the crime scenes and deliver the real story of the Yorkshire Ripper murders. “An extremely detailed, very comprehensive, and at just over 200 pages, not daunting to read, next important addition to any student of true crime’s library.” —The True Crime Enthusiast

It seemed the case of the notorious Yorkshire Ripper was finally closed when Peter Sutcliffe was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1981. But in the early 1980s Gordon Burn spent three years living in Sutcliffe's home town of Bingley, researching his life. A modern classic, Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son offers one of the most penetrating and provocative insights into the mind of a murderer ever written. 'A book which will, with some justice, be compared to In Cold Blood and The Executioner's Song. It's as if Thomas Hardy were also present at the writing of this account of the Yorkshire Ripper.' Norman Mailer

The Yorkshire Rippers' reign of terror is well known, but many remain unaware of the full truth behind the brutal attacks that shocked the nation many years ago. Countless crucial details of murder, manipulation and miscarriages of justice have been hidden from the public, and the true extent of the Ripper's crimes still remains hidden to this day. This book exposes the twist in the tale of the most notorious British serial killer of the last hundred years.

Much has been written about the brutal crimes of Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, and - thirty-five years after he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of thirteen women - scarcely a week goes by without some mention of him in the media. In any story featuring Sutcliffe, however, his victims are incidental, often reduced to a tableau of nameless faces. But each woman was much more than the manner of her death, and in Somebody's Mother, Somebody's Daughter, Carol Ann Lee tells, for the first time, the stories of those women who came into Sutcliffe's murderous orbit, restoring their individuality to them and giving a voice to their families, including the twenty-three children whom he left motherless. Based on previously unpublished material and fresh, first-hand interviews the book examines the Yorkshire Ripper story from a new perspective: focusing on the women and putting the reader in a similar position to those who lived through that time. The killer, although we know his identity, remains a shadowy figure throughout, present only as the perpetrator of the attacks. By talking to survivors and their families, and to the families of the murdered women, Carol Ann Lee gets to the core truths of their lives and experiences, not only at the hands of Sutcliffe but also with the Yorkshire Police and their crass and ham-fisted handling of the case, where the women were put into two categories: prostitutes and non-prostitutes. In this book they are, simply, women, and all have moving backstories. The grim reality is that not enough has changed within society to make the angle this book takes on the Yorkshire Ripper case a purely historical one. Recent news stories have shown that women and girls who come forward to report serious crimes of a sexual nature are often judged as harshly - and often more so - than the men who have wronged them. The Rochdale sex abuse scandal, the allegations against Harvey Weinstein, and the US President's deplorable comments about women are vivid reminders that those in positions of power regard women as second class citizens. At the same time, the discussions arising from these recent stories, and much of the reporting, show that women are judged today as much on their preferences, habits and appearance as they were at the time of the Yorkshire Ripper attacks. The son of Wilma McCann, Sutcliffe's first known murder victim, told the author, 'We still have a very long way to go' and in that regard he is correct. Hard-hitting and wholly unique in approach, this timely book sheds new light on a case that still grips the nation.