Peter William Sutcliffe

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Peter William Sutcliffe (today Peter William Coonan , born June 2, 1946 in Bingley ) is a British serial killer who murdered at least 13 women between 1975 and 1980 and injured seven others, some of them life-threatening. Dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper by the tabloids , the man was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1981.

Life

Sutcliffe was born in the north of England. At school he had a reputation for being a loner. He did various odd jobs, including as a grave digger. In 1974 he married Sonia Szurma, whom he had known for eight years. Shortly thereafter, he took a job as a truck driver.

crime

On July 5, 1975, Sutcliffe committed his first verifiable act. Sutcliffe hit Anna Rogulskyj with a hammer and stabbed her. When a neighbor noticed the crime, he fled. Anna Rogulskyj survived the attack. After two other similar attacks on women, he committed his first known murder on October 30, 1975. In Leeds , he hit Wilma McCann with a hammer and stabbed her with 15 stab wounds. Although police conducted 11,000 interrogations, Sutcliffe was not caught.

In the years that followed, Sutcliffe committed other murders in West and South Yorkshire counties, as well as in the neighboring counties of Greater Manchester , Durham and Lancashire . Some of his victims were prostitutes . 1978 police received letters of a free rider , with Jack the Ripper were signed. This is how the name Yorkshire Ripper came up.

The police interrogated Sutcliffe for the first time in 1977 together with 5,000 other suspects and a second time in 1979 among 300 suspects, but were unable to convict him on either occasion. On January 2, 1981, he was arrested in Sheffield for driving a car with forged license plates. In his car was the prostitute Olivia Reivers. Since the police discovered him to be a knife, hammer and rope, and since many other characteristics were true, he was soon associated with the Yorkshire Ripper . After two days, he confessed to the deeds, claiming that God had commanded them. Sutcliffe's trial began in May and lasted only two weeks. He was declared sane and sentenced to life imprisonment, with the recommendation that he should be pardoned after 30 years at the earliest, i.e. in 2011.

Detention

While in prison, Sutcliffe swapped his last name for his mother's maiden name, Coonan. In 1997 he lost an eye when a fellow inmate tried to murder him.

Since at Sutcliffe paranoid schizophrenia was found he was out of the 1984 Parkhurst prison in the forensic psychiatry of Broadmoor Hospital admitted. In 2008, Sutcliffe began a case against his life sentence on the grounds that his human rights were compromised by the fact that his pardon was never officially established. His lawyer called for his mental health to be re-examined. The UK High Court ruled in 2010 that these crimes did not include punishment other than life imprisonment with no prospect of parole. This view was also upheld by an appeals court, with Sutcliffe arguing that his disturbed mental state was not properly taken into account in reaching a verdict. An attempt to appeal this decision to the Supreme Court was also denied.

In 2015, psychiatrists determined that he no longer had schizophrenia and recommended that he be transferred from Broadmoor Hospital to normal prison. The decision was made by the Justice Minister. In the same year he became a member of Jehovah's Witnesses . In August 2016, Sutcliffe was returned to normal prison. His mental state should continue to be monitored there so that he can be admitted to a clinic again if necessary.

Murder victim

  • Wilma McCann, 28 years old, October 30, 1975, Leeds
  • Emily Jackson, 42 years old, 20th January 1976, Leeds
  • Irene Richardson, 28 years old, 5th February 1977, Leeds
  • Patricia Tina Atkinson, 32 years old, April 23, 1977, Bradford
  • Jayne McDonald, 16 years old, June 26th 1977, Leeds
  • Jean Bernadette Jordan, age 20, 1st October 1977, Manchester
  • Yvonne Pearson, 21, January 21, 1978, Bradford
  • Helen Rytka, age 18, January 31, 1978, Huddersfield
  • Vera Millward, 41, Manchester, 16 May 1978
  • Josephine Whitaker, age 19, April 4, 1979, Halifax
  • Barbara Leach, age 20, September 2nd 1979, Bradford
  • Marguerite Walls, 47 years old, 20th August 1980, Farsley / Leeds
  • Jacqueline Hill, age 20, 17th November 1980, Leeds

Victims who survived seriously injured

  • Anna Rogulskyj, 36, July 5, 1975, Keighley
  • Olive Smelt, 46 years old, August 15, 1975 in Halifax
  • Tracy Browne, 14 years old, August 27, 1975 in Silsden
  • Marcella Claxton, 20 years old, 9 May 1976, Leeds
  • Maureen Long, age 42, July 10, 1977, Bradford
  • Marilyn Moore, 25 years old, 14 December 1977, Leeds
  • Upadhya Bandara, 34 years old, 24 September 1980, Leeds
  • Theresa Sykes, age 16, November 5, 1980, Huddersfield

literature

TV documentary fiction

Red Riding Trilogy (German: Yorkshire Killer ):

  • Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974. Director: Julian Jarrold.
  • Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1980. Directed by James Marsh.
  • Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1983. Directed by Anand Tucker.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jo Adentunji: Yorkshire Ripper will not be given parole, high court rules. In: The Guardian . July 16, 2010, accessed December 1, 2015.
  2. ^ Yorkshire Ripper begins legal bid for freedom. In: The Guardian. May 14, 2008, accessed December 1, 2015.
  3. ^ Alan Travis: Yorkshire Ripper must never be freed, appeal court rules. In: The Guardian. January 14, 2011, accessed December 1, 2015.
  4. ↑ Yorkshire Ripper loses attempt to challenge sentence. In: The Guardian. March 9, 2011, accessed December 1, 2015.
  5. ^ Yorkshire Ripper should be returned to prison, say psychiatrists. In: The Guardian. December 1, 2015, accessed December 1, 2015.
  6. ↑ Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe 'enjoys specially-arranged baptism service in Broadmoor after becoming a Jehovah's Witness'. In: Dailymail. February 8, 2015, accessed October 30, 2017.
  7. ^ Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe 'moved back to jail'. In: The Guardian. August 25, 2016. Retrieved August 25, 2016.
  8. ↑ TV station: channel4, UK 2009: channel4.com

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Sutcliffe, Peter William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Yorkshire Ripper
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British serial killer
DATE OF BIRTH June 2, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Bingley