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

Popular posts from this blog

Scott William Cox

In November of 1990 and February of 1991, two prostitutes were murdered in the Portland area.   These two murders were solved due to the realization of a possible serial killer in an unrelated assault and different law enforcement agencies working together.   In May of 1991, another prostitute in Seattle was severely sexually and physically assaulted and thrown from the cab of an 18 wheeler truck.   The victim had to be hospitalized as a result of the attack.   Even though the victim did not want to prosecute the case, the detective in charge realized that this attack showed signs of a current or future serial killer.   Police were able to track down a man by the name Seth Scott Cutter through the employer, the trucking company.   Police felt that Cutter could be the person responsible and information about Cutter was disseminated to neighboring agencies.   An officer from a different police department recognized the suspect as a local man named Scot...

Male or Female? Issues Transgender People Face

            In “Aligning Bodies,” Judith Lorber and Lisa Jean Moore bring to light the burdens endured by people in our society that don’t necessarily fit into preconceived notions of sex and gender.   On a daily basis there are issues they must consider:   when filling out forms that ask for their sex, when going to the restroom and when showing legal documents that may not match the gender they identify with.   Transgender people may or may not have surgery on their chest and/or genitalia and/or face or other surgery and may choose to use hormone therapy.   Some people are born with ambiguous genitalia or with genitals or chromosomes of both sexes.   Yet others may identify as a gender different than their birth sex and choose to not alter their body physically.   There is a wide spectrum of people in our world that don’t neatly fit into the “F” and “M” boxes.   Society and individuals need to ...

Case Study of Serial Killer Dennis Nilsen

Dennis Nilsen is a Scottish serial killer, born in 1945.   When Nilsen was just 4 years old, his parents divorced.   He was eventually sent to live with his grandparents when his mother remarried.   At just 16, Nilsen joined the army and worked as a cook and butcher for many years.   He also briefly worked as a police officer.   Nilsen craved sexual relationships with men and feared abandonment of his lovers leaving him (Murray).   During the late 70’s and early 80’s, Nilsen took men or boys back to his apartments for sex (Dennis).   He would strangle the men to death while they slept and would wash the bodies periodically and keep them over the course of several weeks or months hidden under his floor boards.   Nilsen would bring the men’s bodies out to be with him, “watch” television with him, and lay in the bed with him.   Later, he dismembered the bodies and burned them in the garden, along with a tire to mask the smell of burning flesh....