The Yorkshire Ripper Has Died

I’ve been expecting to hear he has died ever since I heard he had covid and was refusing treatment.

Is your opinion that PS is innocent then?

Get the impression that the "opinion" in operation there is that you should never miss an opportunity to blame a woman for men's behaviour. I expect they'd have started talking about his mother if the wife didn't make a good scapegoat. I often wonder if people who think that way are conscious of it - in a case like this what they're doing is so blatant that you'd think it might bring on a moment of self-reflection.

Anyway, good riddance, and I shall light a candle for Wilma McCann, Jayne McDonald, Yvonne Pearson, Patricia Atkinson, Josephine Whitaker, Vera Millward, Jacqueline Hill, Barbara Leach, Marguerite Walls, Irene Richardson, Helen Rytka, Emily Jackson and Jean Jordan.

Is your opinion that PS is innocent then Flaxmeadow?

Jesus Christ that's a leap worthy of Skippy on steroids. Where the hell do you get that from @Flaxmeadow saying the police investigation was hampered by PS wife providing alibis for his whereabouts when he murdered his victims?!

Is your opinion that PS is innocent then

Wow that's quite a leap from me saying his wife alibied him, and it held the enquiry back!

Of course he was guilty !!! He was a fucking monster.

Is your opinion that PS is innocent then Flaxmeadow?

Great news. I hope they ran out of painkillers, and it hurt a lot.

West Yorkshire Police were absolutely appalling then and not much seems to have changed

Slightly unfair. Not all police were. Some worked extremely hard and were dedicated to catching him

What doesnt get discussed is that Sutcliffes wife alibied him as to his whereabouts numerous times. The police were held back by this as she was considered a credible witness

I lived and worked in Leeds during the Ripper years. I can still remember the fear. Walking out at night I would walk in the middle of the road which felt safer than the pavements.

I used to have to work one late night a week until 8pm. A policeman used to arrive to escort me back to my car in the multi storey car park. Those were the days!

Also a man who lived near us but originally from the north east was constantly grilled by the police because his car had been spotted in the red light area. It was on his route home but his life was made a misery until Sutcliffe was arrested. Also there was the neighbour thing of no smoke without fire.

Sometimes using your words carefully can be very powerful, even when you aren't quite sure how it works!

I don't necessarily agree with nicknames elevating the status of killers. People still call Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and Charles Manson by their names and it still has the same effect. At the end of the day they get off on the attention they get - and they're given plenty.

What would be ideal is if people just stopped talking about them altogether- how they were bought up, their motivation behind the killings, the televised interviews, the movies, the disturbing groupies who write to them and profress their ever-dying love. However, that's never going to change - people will always be morbidly curious about these things.

I think instead we need to hear more about the victims/survivors (at least the families of victims and the survivors who want the details out there). Ignore the person who did this altogether and let the law deal with them, focus on the innocent people who have suffered instead.

Red Riding! That was it

I watched a programme called The Ripper Files a while ago, in which an investigative journalist looked at the whole police handling of the case. Institutional sexism, racism, misogyny and utter contempt for prostitutes and poor women featured highly in all the actions of the police. Opportunities to stop him were missed again and again due to wilful blindness to the plight of women from police men. West Yorkshire Police were absolutely appalling then and not much seems to have changed. They still don't seem to think there was anything wrong on their handling of the case.

Those poor women.

I also watched a drama series set in West Yorkshire around the same time called Red something (with Sean Bean) and it mirrored the documentary. Corruption, misogyny, sexism, all the same.

Rip to all the victims my heart aches for their poor families 😭

News is full of it

Id rather it was mentioned and then ignored

Good.

The only shame is that it didn't happen 50 odd years earlier before he started killing women.

May his victims rest in peace, and for their families.

👏

Good.

May his victims rest in peace.

Also the names of the women who were attacked and survived.

I surprised myself by bursting into tears when I head this on the news. He filled my head with fear when I was young, and I remember my friend who was a student at the time, talking about the feeling of fear that haunted her and her friends all the time.

BBC News chanel handled it well to my surprise. They had photos of his victims all around the walls. There was an amazing interview with the son of one of the women. He called for WY Police to apologise for refering to 'innocent' victims, something they've never done. Over to you WYP.

13 women murdered. Thank you for listing their names RoyalCorgi. I'll make a donation in their memory to Nia today.