RIPPER: NYE’s “Hope” goes national

RIPPER: NYE’s “Hope” goes national

by TIM HICKS and CHRIS CLARK

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Introduction

Regular readers of the NYE will be aware that it has run a series of articles on serial killer Peter Sutcliffe (also known as “The Yorkshire Ripper”) and the murders and attempted murders he committed, but for which he was never charged.

These articles by retired Police Intelligence Officer Chris Clark and the NYE’s crime correspondent Tim Hicks, and other information generated by Chris, have now been integrated and published in a book “Inside the Mind of The Yorkshire Ripper: The Final Investigation”.

Inside the Mind of The Yorkshire Ripper: The Final Investigation

“Yorkshire Ripper” Peter Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attempting to murder 7 others between 1975 and 1980, in West Yorkshire and Manchester. The police always conceded that he had other victims, butthe full number is unknown and official police estimates are sealed until 2045.

TV dramas and documentaries continue to keep his victims in the public eye, including ITV’s “The Long Shadow”. A major ITV documentary The Playboy Bunny Murders is due to be aired on the third anniversary of Sutcliffe’s death on the 13^th of November 2023. Chris is interviewed in this documentary, which covers the murders of Eve Stratford, Lynne Wheedon, Elizabeth Paravicini and Lynda Farrow in London between 1975 and 1979.

In the book, we have analysed Sutcliffe’s life and his pattern of offending. In particular, because his attacks were vehicle mounted, we have identified the route packages he routinely travelled and correlated clusters of unsolved attacks on women which fit Sutcliffe’s movements and modus operandi with them. We show that Sutcliffe’s crimes were not limited to Yorkshire but spread across the UK and Europe, not just using his car, but also his employer’s lorry.

Our conclusion is that Sutcliffe probably committed at least 49 murders, 29 attempted murders and 7 abductions in attacks across England, in Scotland and in Europe from 1964 onwards. Many of his previously unknown victims male and female are revealed for the first time.

The book narrates the impact of Sutcliffe’s crimes on the victims, their families, the police officers that performed the investigation, those victims that were never acknowledged and those men that were wrongly accused of being The Ripper. It also methodically analyses the police failures, both in the original investigation and in more recent cold-case investigations in the UK and internationally.

The police failed to deliver justice for the victims’ families, and the media has failed to hold the police to account for this failure. We hope that by bringing more of the facts of the case into the public domain and by telling the victims’ stories, they can obtain some form of closure and the book will act as a catalyst for reform of the way the police service investigates serial killers.

Tim can be heard narrating part of the book covering what we believe was Sutcliffe’s first murder in 1964 by clicking on the link here.

NYE goes National

The book has already started to raise a storm of controversy and has now been covered in this excellent Mirror article by Sanjeeta Bains

The full online article can be read here.

The Murder of “Hope”

In the book, we cover Sutcliffe’s attacks in North Yorkshire, including the case of an unknown woman whose body was found at Sutton Bank just off the A170 in 1981. The case became known as “The Nude in the Nettles” and is Scarborough’s greatest murder mystery.

The NYE has allocated her the name “Hope”, being more dignified than the somewhat flippant and undignified “Nude in the Nettles” nickname other media organisations use. She had been dead since about 1979. Medical students reconstructed her face, which is shown below:

By making appeals for information we have tracked down a number of witnesses that have identified:

• Hope was probably an alcoholic sex worker that operated out of a bus stop in Victoria Road Scarborough.
• Serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, also known as “The Yorkshire Ripper”, regularly delivered to Scarborough and often took his breaks in a café on Victoria Road opposite the bus stop.

We are both pleased to have generated some national publicity for the case, which we hope may yet lead to “Hope’s” identification. The local businessman mentioned in the above article is long term NYE contributor, Alderman Norman Murphy of Scarborough.

“Inside the mind of the Yorkshire Ripper. The Final Investigation” is published by Ad Lib, on the 23^rd of November 2023 RRP £9.99. It is available to order now.

It is a tough book to read covering a brutal subject, but if you want to know the full story of Sutcliffe’s crimes, you should buy it and read it.

NYE Appeal for information

If you knew “Hope”, or if you saw Peter Sutcliffe in Scarborough, please contact the NYE using our contact email address news@nyenquirer.uk. All information will be treated in the strictest confidence.