Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe has died on Thursday morning after turning down hospital treatment for coronavirus, reports say.
According to news reports, the 74-year-old Yorkshire Ripper, would have spent his last moments alone, with no visitors allowed due to Covid-19 rules.
Last week it emerged that Peter Sutcliffe had tested positive for the disease after returning to HMP Frankland, County Durham, following a five night stay in hospital for suspected heart problems. The murderer had been suffering for some time with a number of health problems, including obesity and diabetes.
Sources close to the Yorkshire Ripper said coronavirus could ‘finish him off’ and that he was paranoid about succumbing to the disease. It has been reported that Sutcliffe ‘found god’ several years ago and believed he would ‘go to heaven’ if he dies.
The Jehova’s Witness said he didn’t want to prolong his life ‘artificially’ and decided to turn down hospital treatment. Describing his final moments, a source told the Sun: ‘No tears were shed. His death was as pitiful as the vile life he had lived.’ Peter Sutcliffe almost 40 years locked up for murdering 13 women and trying to kill seven others between 1975 and 1980.
For more than 30 years the Yorkshire Ripper was in Broadmoor psychiatric hospital, where he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, before being moved to Frankland Prison in 2016
Timeline of the Yorkshire Ripper’s victims October 1975 – Wilma McCannm, 26, from Chapeltown, Leeds, was hit twice with a hammer and stabbed 15 times in the neck, stomach and abdomen. Her body was discovered in playing fields a few hundred yards from her home.
January 1976 – Emily Jackson, 42, was picked up by Sutcliffe outside the Gaiety pub in Leeds, taken to some derelict buildings, hit over the head with a hammer and stabbed more than 50 times with a sharpened screwdriver. A boot print was left on her thigh, which served as a clue for police.
February 1977 – Irene Richardson, 28, was hit on the head with a hammer three times and then stabbed in the neck and stomach in Leeds. Her body was found behind a sports pavilion in a park with tyre prints near the body.
April 1977 – Patricia Atkinson, 32, was picked up at The Carlisle Pub in Bradford. Sutcliffe went back to her flat and attacked her with a hammer as she walked through the door, leaving a bootprint on a blood stained sheet.
June 1977 – Jayne MacDonald, 16, was attacked as she was walking home from a night out in Leeds. She was hit three times on the head with a hammer and stabbed about 20 times in the chest and back. Her body was found in a playground by children the following morning. The shop assistant was the first victim of Sutcliffe’s who wasn’t a sex worker.
October 1977 – Jean Jordan, 20, was picked up by Sutcliffe in Manchester’s red light district, taken to a piece of overgrown wasteland near a cemetery and hit 11 times with a hammer. Her body was found 10 days later and police realised the body had been moved and mutilated after the murder.
Police found a new £5 note inside her bag and traced it back to Yorkshire hauliers T and W H Clark, who employed Sutcliffe. Detectives interviewed him twice but were convinced by his alibi that he was at a housewarming party with family.
January 1978 – Yvonne Pearson, 21, was picked up by Sutcliffe in Bradford and taken to a piece of waste ground behind an industrial site. He hit her over the head several times with a hammer as she got out of the car. As another car pulled in, Peter Sutcliffe dragged her to an old sofa, pulled our horse hairs from it and stuffed them down her throat to stop her screaming. After she stopped breathing he made a makeshift grave with soil and rubble and covered it with the sofa. Her body was found two months later.
January 1978 – Helen Rytka, 18, was picked up by Sutcliffe in the red light district of Huddersfield, hit on the head with a hammer and stabbed several times in the chest. She was the only known victim who Sutcliffe had sex with.
May 1978 – Vera Millward, 40, was picked up by Sutcliffe and driven to a car park by Manchester Royal Infirmary regularly used by prostitutes. Sutcliffe hit her three times over the head with a hammer and stabbed her dead body in the abdomen and back.
April 1979 – Building society clerk Josephine Whitaker, 19, was on her way home alone in Halifax when Sutcliffe started chatting to her and walked with her. As they cut through some playing fields he attacked her with a hammer and stabbed her with a screwdriver, 21 times in the chest and stomach and six times in the right leg.
September 1979 – Barbara Leach, 20, was murdered just yards away from her home after a night out at a pub near Bradford University. The student was hit over the head and stabbed eight times.
August 1980 – Marguerite Walls, 47, was leaving the office late and was walking to her home in Leeds when Sutcliffe spotted her. He got out of his car and ambushed the civil servant, hitting her on the back of the head with a hammer and strangling her with a length of rope.
November 1980 – Jacqueline Hill, 20, was returning to her student halls in Leeds when Sutcliffe got out of his car and began following her. He hit her on the head and dragged her to some spare land and stabbed her in the chest and eye with a screwdriver.