Peter William Sutcliffe

[Scottyboi]

Hope he was battered everyday in prison the piece of shit.

 

[Dirty Harry]

Liked the pathologist, although you’ve got to worder what possesses anyone to choose that as a career path. Burying corpses I can sort of get my head round, but mutilating them?

Always said/thought there’s a fine line here , I’ve seen them at work firsthand, now I’m not squeamish in the grand scheme of things, but to see how they go about their business in such a compassionless and matter of fact way, well , I struggle to connect with that .

 

[FantasyIreland]

Always said/thought there’s a fine line here , I’ve seen them at work firsthand, now I’m not squeamish in the grand scheme of things, but to see how they go about their business in such a compassionless and matter of fact way, well , I struggle to connect with that .

I guess after the initial few bodies,you become emotinally detached and conditioned,it then becomes the 'norm'.I expect you just put on your apron and switch on professional mode.

I agree though,that won't be for everyone ;-)

 

[stonerblue]

Every time i see his full name thread title it pisses me off. change it to 'sutcliffe' i say. He should get no fucking respect even in the written word.

 

[FantasyIreland]

Watched the Netflix doc and didn't see anything i hadnt before,it was well done but hardly revealing.It made more of an impact on the Mrs who was too young to remember the terror he brought to the North West.

As a young un,i rememeber being worried for my Mum,it was an awful period that should have ended much sooner.

 

[Dirty Harry]

I guess after the initial few bodies,you become emotinally detached and conditioned,it then becomes the 'norm'.I expect you just put on your apron and switch on professional mode.

I agree though,that won't be for everyone ;-)

I suppose there is that mate , but I still think there’s something a bit odd to have that mindset to even do the first few, from what I witnessed, whilst their skill set is beyond question, it’s as much the way they go about their job once the incisions, cutting, weighing etc have been done that raised an eyebrow, flopping the organs into a Poundland bucket, then pouring them back into the body and sewing it up like a potato sack without any kind of empathy or feeling whatsoever, I pack my shopping better at Aldi.

One thing I’ve always wondered though, is if most are atheists, I suppose I could understand it with that belief, would make more sense to me anyway, but I guess that’s another question for another time .

 

[mackenzie]

Watched the Netflix doc and didn't see anything i hadnt before,it was well done but hardly revealing.It made more of an impact on the Mrs who was too young to remember the terror he brought to the North West.

As a young un,i rememeber being worried for my Mum,it was an awful period that should have ended much sooner.

They should have concentrated on that 5 pound note. It enabled them to narrow it down but then they seemingly gave up when nobody interviewed said "Yeah, you've got me Guv."
The wild goose chase for a Geordie after that was understandable,, but to ignore a colleague saying "this guy works at one of the firms and is a ringer for the photofit" just because he didn't have a Geordie accent was beyond belief really.
It led to further deaths and was absolutely negligent.

 

[petrusha]

They should have concentrated on that 5 pound note. It enabled them to narrow it down but then they seemingly gave up when nobody interviewed said "Yeah, you've got me Guv."
The wild goose chase for a Geordie after that was understandable,, but to ignore a colleague saying "this guy works at one of the firms and is a ringer for the photofit" just because he didn't have a Geordie accent was beyond belief really.
It led to further deaths and was absolutely negligent.

I agree that the five pound note should have led to Sutcliffe's arrest, though probably not immediately. There were actually two phases to that part of the inquiry, and both brought the police to Sutcliffe's door. The first time, late in 1977, they saw him twice but at that point he was one of a few thousand men who, to the police's knowledge, could have received the fiver. At that stage, there probably wasn't so much evidence against him that he stood out.

But as time went on, it should have become obvious that he was worth a serious look: he was a dead ringer for the Marilyn Moore photofit; he was one of a fairly small number of men whose car had been logged not only in the red-light areas in the nearby cities of Bradford and Leeds but also across the Pennines in Manchester; he'd owned vehicles that could have been fitted with tyres having the treads found at various murder scenes; he had a prior criminal conviction for being found in a red-light area in possession of a hammer (the prosecution was for the old offence of "going equipped to steal", so officers assumed the circumstances were relatively innocuous without ever really checking); and he had a shoe size that could have matched the boot prints left at at least two murder scenes, plus wore work boots of the right type at a number of his interviews.

All that coupled with the fact that he could have received the five pound note should have pointed to him being a pretty compelling suspect. Unfortunately, there were four index cards in the system for Sutcliffe so the evidence against him was presumably spread across those disparate entries and nobody was able to see the weight of that evidence in a single bloc.

The second part of the five pound note inquiry reduced the number of potential recipients to only 241, which was a phenomenal effort by the investigators responsible. It led to more interviews for him in January 1980, and it's at this point that I really think he should have been caught. This was a fantastic clue - the killer basically had to be (and indeed was) on that list of 241 names. They should have thrown massive resources into looking at every even mildly credible suspect on the list, and that would surely have led them finally to take a serious look at Sutcliffe.

Unfortunately, they were still hung up on the north-east angle, so I don't think the senior officers' hearts were really in it in terms of pursuing that aspect of the investigation. In addition, when identifying who of the 241 had previously come to the attention of the inquiry and who had prior criminal records, Sutcliffe was ignored even though he should have featured on both lists (the Laptew report still hadn't been finally filed with the relevant index card by that point, more than six months after the interview in question). Sutcliffe then killed at least two more women and attempted to murder at least another two before he was finally caught.

I recently listened to a three-part podcast on Spotify in which the Daily Mail's crime correspondent interviewed the now-retired DCS Chris Gregg, who caught Wearside Jack and, early in his career, had been a young detective working on the Ripper investigation. Gregg also featured in the Netflix documentary.

He said that police had at the time what they called a D-list, with seven or eight names on it of the leading suspects. Every time there was an incident, the whereabouts of these men had to be checked as a matter of priority. Gregg said that Sutcliffe wasn't ever on that list and, indeed, was never regarded as one of the top forty suspects. I'd be interested to know who was on that D-list and what caused them to be such strong suspects (though regrettably we'll never find this out).

 

[mackenzie]

I agree that the five pound note should have led to Sutcliffe's arrest, though probably not immediately. There were actually two phases to that part of the inquiry, and both brought the police to Sutcliffe's door. The first time, late in 1977, they saw him twice but at that point he was one of a few thousand men who, to the police's knowledge, could have received the fiver. At that stage, there probably wasn't so much evidence against him that he stood out.

But as time went on, it should have become obvious that he was worth a serious look: he was a dead ringer for the Marilyn Moore photofit; he was one of a fairly small number of men whose car had been logged not only in the red-light areas in the nearby cities of Bradford and Leeds but also across the Pennines in Manchester; he'd owned vehicles that could have been fitted with tyres having the treads found at various murder scenes; he had a prior criminal conviction for being found in a red-light area in possession of a hammer (the prosecution was for the old offence of "going equipped to steal", so officers assumed the circumstances were relatively innocuous without ever really checking); and he had a shoe size that could have matched the boot prints left at at least two murder scenes, plus wore work boots of the right type at a number of his interviews.

All that coupled with the fact that he could have received the five pound note should have pointed to him being a pretty compelling suspect. Unfortunately, there were four index cards in the system for Sutcliffe so the evidence against him was presumably spread across those disparate entries and nobody was able to see the weight of that evidence in a single bloc.

The second part of the five pound note inquiry reduced the number of potential recipients to only 241, which was a phenomenal effort by the investigators responsible. It led to more interviews for him in January 1980, and it's at this point that I really think he should have been caught. This was a fantastic clue - the killer basically had to be (and indeed was) on that list of 241 names. They should have thrown massive resources into looking at every even mildly credible suspect on the list, and that would surely have led them finally to take a serious look at Sutcliffe.

Unfortunately, they were still hung up on the north-east angle, so I don't think the senior officers' hearts were really in it in terms of pursuing that aspect of the investigation. In addition, when identifying who of the 241 had previously come to the attention of the inquiry and who had prior criminal records, Sutcliffe was ignored even though he should have featured on both lists (the Laptew report still hadn't been finally filed with the relevant index card by that point, more than six months after the interview in question). Sutcliffe then killed at least two more women and attempted to murder at least another two before he was finally caught.

I recently listened to a three-part podcast on Spotify in which the Daily Mail's crime correspondent interviewed the now-retired DCS Chris Gregg, who caught Wearside Jack and, early in his career, had been a young detective working on the Ripper investigation. Gregg also featured in the Netflix documentary.

He said that police had at the time what they called a D-list, with seven or eight names on it of the leading suspects. Every time there was an incident, the whereabouts of these men had to be checked as a matter of priority. Gregg said that Sutcliffe wasn't ever on that list and, indeed, was never regarded as one of the top forty suspects. I'd be interested to know who was on that D-list and what caused them to be such strong suspects (though regrettably we'll never find this out).

Thank you for taking the time to post that.
Fascinating stuff.

 

[mike1923]

An undertaker lent me a 1930’s Rolls Royce FOC for my wedding in 2008. Absolutely brilliant gesture.

Weird thing to do for a living, though. Don’t envy them.

Steady business though