Skip to main content

Yorkshire Ripper


The serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, known as the Yorkshire Ripper is a prolific serial killer in England.  Sutcliffe killed and assaulted prostitutes as well as other women for about 6 years in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.  Sutcliffe would attack women from behind by hitting them in the head with a hammer.  After they were incapacitated, he would disarrange their clothes and stab them on their bare skin on the stomach, chest, and abdomen (Keppel & Birnes). 
There were several things that led to Sutcliffe being in the police files, such as: boot prints, blood type, type of car and tire impression, and a specific £5 bank note.  Also, his vehicles were on two separate lists of cars that were sighted in the vicinity of known prostitution areas where the killer attacked.  One list was for the car being sighted two times, and the other was for being sighted 3 times – double and triple sightings (Keppel & Birnes). 
A common psychological effect of serial killer cases is that law enforcement officers may not believe that the work they are doing will result in solving the case.  This leads them to not be as thorough when following up on leads since they don’t believe anything will come of the work they are doing.  During interviews, law enforcement officers didn’t believe their own systems were working, therefore they were not always as thorough as they could have been.  Sutcliffe was interviewed a total of 12 times over the course of several years by police.  Many times, when Sutcliffe was interviewed, the detectives interviewing Sutcliffe didn’t know before going that he had been interviewed already.  Upon being told that he was cleared by previous detectives, Sutcliffe was often taken on his word by detectives.  Another problem is that the investigation was focused on being exclusive with suspects, instead of being inclusive.  When Sutcliffe realized the police were onto him, he would change up his modus operandi (MO).  This led to some of the cases not being attributed to the same series of killings originally (Keppel & Birnes).
There were 13 murders and 7 assaults known to be committed by Sutcliffe.  Each case was investigated separately.  There was no clear task force leader and poor information management strategies led to prevalent clues being lost in the massive amount of information coming in on each case.  Even though the investigations were working, the lack of notes about decision that were made on the case from detectives kept detectives on the task force starting over  from scratch each time Sutcliffe’s name came up.  (Keppel & Birnes).
The most surprising aspect of the Yorkshire Ripper case is that the perpetrator, Peter Sutcliffe, was interviewed 12 times over the course of several years.  The fact that his name kept coming up in the investigation because of ground work detectives were doing was completely missed due to the information overload and poor management.  All the while, he continued attacking and murdering women (Keppel & Birnes). 




Works Cited
Keppel, Robert D., and William J. Birnes. The Psychology of Serial Killer Investigations The Grisly Business Unit. Academic Press, 2003.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ted Bundy Film Analysis

Ted Bundy is a movie that chronicled the life and crimes of serial killer Theodore Robert Bundy.   The film starts out showing Bundy as an impulsive kleptomaniac.   The movie continues with alternating scenes between fairly normal life with his girlfriend and her daughter and times where Bundy is stalking, attacking, raping and killing women.   He sometimes broke into women’s houses with a lock picking kit.   He would often attack women on the streets or trick them into letting their guard down before attacking them.   The scenes with assaults are shocking, as Bundy nonchalantly attacks and kidnaps women, usually in broad daylight.   One scene with Bundy putting makeup on a severed head in his house is particularly chilling.   When Bundy ends up moving to Utah, his killings appear to have ramped up, and he killed in multiple areas in Utah and Colorado.   Bundy picked up a woman at a shopping center, claiming to be a police officer working on a case.   When she realizes that they hav
Post a Comment
Read more

Female Leadership in Tech

Women only make up 3 out of 15 positions at Microsoft’s senior leadership and only 4 out of 14 board members (“Leadership”).   Twitter’s board consists of only 4 women out of 11 total board members and their management has 3 women out of 10 upper level management (“Our Leadership”).   By having the representation at the top of tech companies reflect the general population should be a goal.   Women are half of the population and that should be reflected in leadership at companies.   Having females in leadership opens opportunities for more women to come into the tech field.   Women are less likely to have a negative stereotype of another woman and can help close the gender gap.   Tech companies can make hiring women a priority.   They need to talk about it and hold themselves accountable for having honorable hiring practices.   Works Cited "Leadership." Microsoft , news.microsoft.com/leadership/. Accessed 1 Dec. 2018. "Our Leadership." Twitter , about.twitter
Post a Comment
Read more

Traditional Female Muslim Attire

A big part of the Muslim faith is having a modest dress (Williams et al.).  Hijab is a term that refers to the headscarf that many Muslim women wear to cover their hair, neck and ears, leaving their face out.  Hijab also refers to the concept of modesty as a whole.  There are other forms that cover up more.  The niqab covers the face also, but leave the eyes out in the open.  Also, the burkah covers the entire head and face, with a mesh veil over the eyes so that the woman may see, but her eyes are shielded.  Muslim men are also to be modest in dress.  Some Muslim men wear a jilbab – a long sleeved full robe (Williams et al.). A Muslim woman who may be asked to remove or change her traditional attire would likely be very insulted and offended.  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 protect beliefs and expressions of belief of religious nature (Benson).  Title VII protects against discrimination in workplace hiring and promotion, provide for reasonable accommodations, and protection from hara
Post a Comment
Read more