The Yorkshire Ripper's reign of terror begins (Part 1/3) | Forensic Files

[Music] West Yorkshire is a county in England that has a population of over 2 million
people it covers an area of over 2,000 kilometers squared and is formed by five cities Leeds Bradford Wakefield Kirklees
and Calder Dale each one of these cities has its own history its own identity and
its own voice during the 1970s they were all United the residents of each city were looking over their shoulders
praying they wouldn't be the next victim in one man's reign of terror the press named the Yorkshire Ripper
[Music] at 7:30 p.m. on the 29th of October 1975 Wilma McCann a resident of Leeds told
her nine-year-old daughter Sonia that she was going to town she said she'd be back later that night she instructed
Sonia not to let the younger children out of bed Wilma then left the home walking out the
back door when Sonia woke up the next morning she saw her mother hadn't arrived home she took her younger
brother to a nearby bus stop and stood there waiting as that was the stop that Wilma used to trouble Sonia and her
brother remained there waiting for their mum until a neighbor spotted them and returned them home they were wearing
school coats over their pajamas at 7:41 a.m. that morning a milkman who was making the early rounds with his brother
stopped in the carpark of the Prince Philip football fields he got out to deliver a crate of milk he spotted what
he believed was a Halloween costume of some sort he walked closer to have a better look and that's when he realized
that was the body of a woman terrified he took his brother away from the scene and ran to a nearby phone he called the
police and said he'd found a woman with her throat cut the woman was Wilma McCann her body was
found only a few hundred metres away from her home her slacks had been pulled down below her knees her blouse and
jacket had been ripped apart her bra was pulled up and her handbag was still lived around her left hand a group of
detectives along with a forensic pathologist arrived and saw that the cut throat that the milkman described was
actually a deep stab wound there were numerous other stab wounds around her body the forensic pathologist David G
determined Wilma had been murdered at the exact location she was found there was no sign of sexual assault
she performed Wilma's postmortem later that afternoon he firstly discovered two lacerations to the scalp of Wilma's head
these had been mr. the scene as they were covered by her long hair one of the lacerations wasn't severe but the other
one was 2 inches long and had fractured her skull she concluded that the attack had started Bob Wilma being struck on
the left side of her head with a blunt object she thought it was possible that the object was a hammer but he initially
favoured an adjustable spanner he determined the stab wounds came after Wilma had been struck Jay said the
attack had occurred in the very early hours of the morning most likely just after midnight and that it had lasted
only minutes dennis Hoban the head of Leeds Criminal Investigation Branch was the officer in charge of the case he
started by finding out all he could about Wilma McCann Wilma was born in Scotland and had 10 brothers and sisters
according to her mother she was brought up strictly and had to be in bed by 10:00 p.m. every night in her early
teens when her father discovered she was wearing makeup he took it from her and buried it in the garden once she
finished school she travelled to Perth Australia and worked at a hotel at 19 she became pregnant and gave birth to
her daughter Sonia soon after she met Gerald McCann from Ireland they married on the 7th of October 1968 and later
moved to Leeds where father Wilma's brothers already lived they had two more daughters and one son in February 1974
they separated apparently during their marriage Wilma went out at night a lot and slept with other men Gerald found
out grew tired of her behavior and left the house he met another woman and had another child he still saw his daughters
and son after school and as time went on he became increasingly worried about the
situation his children were experiencing at home Wilma needed money to support her children and during the evening she
left the house to go out and engage in sex work because of this her young children
home alone for long hours Wilma had also started abusing alcohol when police searched Wilma's house they found it
filthy and and neglected they also found an address book which contained a large
number of Wilma's clients detective Hoban made an appeal through the press for the clients to come forward joven
was very savvy with using the public to help solve crimes he had a great deal of
experience and had solved over 40 murders throughout his career joven was concerned that Wilma was a sex
worker the truth of the time was the public was notoriously unsympathetic toward sex workers and Hoban was well
aware of this he referred to Wilma's clients as boyfriends in the press and when appealing for help
he showed pictures of Wilma's children in an attempt to strike a chord with the public joven was able to pinpoint
Wilma's last movements after she left home at 7:30 p.m. on the 29th she visited several city center pubs where
she stayed until 10:30 p.m. at 11:30 p.m. she was seen on her own at a nightclub called the room her last
positive sighting was around 1:00 a.m. when two officers in a patrol car spotted her walking along mean wood road
other witnesses mentioned seeing her in a drunken state staggering and jumping in front of cars to try and stop them
and get a lift home a lab report confirmed she consumed between 12 and 14 measures of alcohol that night other
witnesses came forward and said they saw Wilma talking to a truck driver in response to this information
detective Hoban organized several late-night roadblocks he set up the roadblocks along the route Wilma had
taken after she left the nightclub and wasn't long before they identified the truck driver the driver admitted to
stopping and talking to Wilma but he didn't take her home when she asked for a lift
he said she was well and truly drunk fighting a white plastic container with a curry and chips a few days later
another witness came forward and said he'd seen Wilma getting into a K registered car the car was either red or
orange colored and of model similar to a Hillman Avenger AK a registration plate refers to the time
period the registration plate was issued K plates were issued between August 71 and July 72 the witness had also gotten
a look at the male driver of the car he was described as possibly West Indian or
African aged around 35 years old with a full face and a thin droopy mustache he was wearing a donkey jacket which was
popular amongst construction workers five weeks later 29 of Wilmers former clients had been interviewed and
eliminated from the inquiry and if the police were still searching for the man in the K registered car over the
Christmas and New Year period detective Hogan questions sex workers in the chapel town area of Leeds which was the
red light district where Wilma had lived and worked although Haven didn't find information
about the driver he was looking for he did receive information about a suspicious man aged around 50 possibly
Irish who drove a worn-out Land Rover and who often cruised their Chapel town area in order to help jog the memory of
potential witnesses police came up with the idea of dressing a female police officer in Wilma's clothes and then
superimposed Wilma's face from another photograph so it would be like they had a picture of her the night she was
murdered 2000 posters were printed with this image and distributed to shops around
the area of chapel team unfortunately no useful information came from this by now
the forensic pathologist David G had processed all of the swabs he had taken from the crime scene he discovered
traces of semen on the back of Wilma's trousers tests were unable to determine a blood group but the fact that semen
was discovered there told them that the killer had probably masturbated over her
after the murder newspapers described Wilma's murder as a Jack the Ripper type of crime eight weeks and five days
after Wilma's murder 137 officers had put in over 53,000 hours on the case they had visited 5,000 houses and taken
538 state and it had resulted in basically nothing they were no closer to identifying a
suspect and it was eight weeks and five days after the murder that a new victim was found at 8 a.m. on Wednesday the
21st of January 1976 a man on his way to work parked his car opposite an alley in an
abandoned area of Chapel Tina which had been marked for redevelopment when he got out of his car he glanced to his
right and saw a pair of a leg he's lying amongst trouble about 15 feet down the alley at first he believed he was
looking at a shop-window dummy but as he got closer he realized that was the body
of a woman he called the police and once more detective Hoban and forensic pathologist David gee were at the scene
they were able to determine her identity from the contents of a handbag which was
laying near boy 41 year old Emily Jackson the dress she was wearing was pulled up above her waist and some toys
she was wearing were displaced in order to show her underwear her bra had been lifted a search of the crime scene
revealed a boot impression left me boy like with Wilma there were two lacerations to Emily's head in Emily's
case both were very severe this time she favored a hammer being the weapon Emily
had suffered far more stab wounds than Wilma over 50 there was a considerable pool of blood next to a wall a short
distance away which proved the killer most likely started his attack there and then dragged Emily to where her body
light at the time she was found she concluded the killer struck Emily to the head first before stabbing her he wasn't
sure what weapon could have been used some detectives present at the post-mortem suggested a screwdriver she
planned to consult with several colleagues to make sure he got the weapon right although there were
similarities in the attack she wasn't sure if the same man who killed Wilma had killed Emily
detective Hoeven though had no doubt both Emily and Wilma worked in the same area and visited the same places
joven got to finding out all he could about Emily Jackson Emily was born in 1933 in
hemsworth a town 40 minutes away from Leeds she had five brothers and three sisters a couple of years after Emily
was born her family moved to Leeds when she was 19 she married she'd need Jackson they lived in various places
around Leeds during the first six years of their marriage they had four children
three sons and a daughter they lived in north o'clock present in Leeds where they started a roofing
business together and where they remained until the time of Emily's death their eldest son Derek died at the age
of 14 after falling from a first-floor window from then on neither sydney nor emily were the same
they started living more recklessly one day at a time and they went on having what many believed was an unconventional
marriage sydney described Emily as being sexually insatiable and that she needed
to go out and be with other men their roofing business started to fail so in order to support their family Emily
started sex work Sydney helped her and actually drove her around in their van while she was
working on Tuesday the 20th of January 1976 they'd gone out together to a pub one mile away from Chapel Tim it was a
known place where strippers danced at lunchtime and sex workers gathered at all hours while Sydney entered the pub
to have a drink Emily went to work Sydney left the club at 10:30 p.m. and he didn't see Emily on a lot of
occasions Emily took clients to their van so Sydney assumed that's where she was he took a taxi back to their house
without checking he only discovered she'd been murdered the next morning when he got a call from the police Hoban
shared this information in a press conference and appealed for witnesses who are in the area that night to
comfort the police seized Emily in Sydney's event in for an examination they realized the van was filled with
supplies for the roofing company so there was essentially no room for Emily to take a client to the van
still they completed an examination and found four fingerprints inside that could not be eliminated on the 23rd of
January two days after Emily was found Hoban appealed through the press to all sex workers who worked in the area of
Chapel town to come forward that same day the Sun newspaper ran an article with the headline Ripper hunted in call
girl murders police circled the streets talking to all known sex workers a 19 year old worker said she'd been talking
to Emily around 7:00 p.m. just before she got into a Land Rover she gave a description of the driver
whose main feature was that he had a bushy beard a photo fit was made of this description and was circulated through
the press all land rovers registered in West Yorkshire were checked there were over 1,000 police found a man who fit
the description he'd been staying in Leeds the night Emily was killed and he was known for visiting sex workers
however he strongly denied being the men who picked up Emily the police couldn't
find any evidence to suggest otherwise another witness said she saw a dark blue Transit being with old registration
plates near the murder scene around 3:30 a.m. old registration plates meaning our
issue between August 72 and July 73 a check revealed there were 329 transit vans registered in Leeds at the time 278
owners were tracked down interviewed and eliminated the remaining 51 were never traced Hoban didn't give up a Police
Range Rover with flashing blue lights and a large photograph of Emily drove through Chapel town an officer asked
through a loudspeaker for witnesses who'd seen Emily to come forward doctors were also asked to come forward with
names of patients who they believed might be capable of the murders sex workers were encouraged to give up the
names of any clients they thought were suspicious a cast was made of the boot print they found at Emily's crime scene
the results of the cast weren't encouraging and didn't reveal a lot of information
however it led police to believe that the killer might be a manual worker Tobin sent an urgent message to all
police stations in West Yorkshire with precise instructions if anyone was taken into custody
wearing similar boots and also had a vehicle with tools then they had to be held for questioning in relation to the
murders his other instruction was for all police stations to start examining records of people with arrests for
serious attacks on sex workers as for the weapons used in the attack police visited hardware shops and tried
different types of tools G checked out screwdrivers which was suggested during the Emily's postmortem
at first a screwdriver seemed like a good candidate since the stab wounds had a cruciform shape and when he first
entered the screwdriver during his testing this shape was produced but as he drove the screwdriver
deeper the cruciform shape vanished and it just became round G's colleagues around England and Ireland suggested
other tools that could produce this shape none of them convinced G by May 1976 Wilmer McCann and Emily Jackson
were officially linked as victims from the same killer police were nowhere near closer to catching him and in that same
month there was a new victim Marcella Claxton was 20 years old and originally from st. Kitts a Caribbean island she
was the victim of abuse from her father and moved to England at the age of 10 with her mother
at the time of her attacks she was three months pregnant she had two other children who had been placed into foster
care on the 9th of May 1976 she went out to a club in Leeds and 5:00 a.m. she left the club drunk as she was walking
home she saw a white car cruising the area the car pulled up next to her the driver asked if she was doing business
Marcela said she wasn't the driver got out of the car took micellar by the hand made her get into the car and told her
they were going to rent a park to have sex once they got to the park he asked her to take off her clothes and gave her
five pound micellar then told him she needed to go to the toilet she walked to some nearby bushes that were in the park
in heed Marcela stayed there until she believed the man had gone about ten minutes later she returned to the spot
she was at with the man to collect her shoes when she bent over to pick them up she received several blows to her head
she was knocked to the ground Marcela pretended to be unconscious the men stopped hitting her got into his car and
drove off before he left Marcela said he'd masturbated in front of her and told her don't phone the
police once she thought he was gone she took off her underwear and held it against
her head which was bleeding profusely she managed to crawl towards a telephone box that was a hundred metres away where
she dialed triple Noren after the call she stayed in the telephone box waiting she slumped down to avoid being seen
luckily she did was only a short time later she saw the driver once again circling around the park with his car at
one point he stopped and walked over to the place where he had attacked Marcela he looked around in different directions
then walked back to his car and left Marcela said he came back to see if I was dead he didn't see me so he kept on
driving Marcela was taken to hospital where she was treated for eight severe lacerations to her scalp needing 52
stitches she was discharged six days later she lost the child and for years she suffered headaches and blackouts
since Marcella had seen her attacker and could identify him she was scared he'd come back for her sometime after leaving
the hospital she went to the Goethe pub which was the same pub where Emily had been the night she was moved Marcella
said that the man who attacked her walked into the pub that not took a look around and then left the moment she saw
he was leaving she told the friend she was with and they ran after him but he was already gone the description
Marcella gave to the police was of white man with dark hair a beard and a moustache Marcella was never included as
an official victim in the investigation because she had no stab wounds however when another victim appeared in
the same place they needed her help Irene Richardson was born in Glasgow Scotland she had six sisters and three
brothers they were rapport but loving family as a small child Irene was shy she enjoyed music and loved to laugh
when she got to secondary school she took up smoking skipping classes and turned into a bit of a rebel as years
passed her brothers and sisters moved away and settled in different places Irene waited until she was seventeen and
then ran off to London she stayed there for five years and didn't communicate with anyone from her family during that
time her father passed away and because no one knew where Irene was they were unable to tell her Irene had two
children she was unable to provide for them so they were put into foster care Irene then moved to Blackpool where one
of her sisters was working in November 1970 she met George Richardson a man who'd worked as a barman and there's a
plasterer they got married in June 1971 after six months of dating they set up a
home in Blackpool and had two daughters Irene and Emmie in 1975 when baby Irene was two years
old and Amanda had only just been born Irene decided to leave her home in Blackpool without saying a word
George reported her missing he feared the worst however some months later RN contacted
him and told him she was in South Kensington London working in a hotel George moved to South Kensington to see
if they could make things work but in April 1976 Irene left again George was unable to cope and their two girls ended
up in foster care whilst back in London Irene met Steven Brae a man who'd escaped Leicester
prison without telling Steven she was married to George Irene left with him to Leeds in October 76 they moved from
boarding house to boarding house in the chapel town area Steven got a job as a doorman in a nightclub and Doreen worked
as a cleaner at a YMCA hostel she started using Bray's last name and they even organised to get married on the
22nd of January 77 but near the Steven Noreen turned up they had drifted apart and were no longer seeing each other
Irene had been failing to turn up to work at the hostel for days she suddenly appeared one day and to request that an
advance on her wages because she had bills to pay Irene then disappeared for several days again before returning to
the hostel to get her shoes and her overalls and to apologize for her behavior she said she was in a bad
situation and had to run away from him in for close to two weeks Irene had no money no job and no place
to go she lived on the streets and spent some nights sleeping in a public toilet
some people she knew allowed her to use their bathroom to take a shower in the first days of February 77 a woman
who are in a boarding house in chapel town and who had rented a room to Irene and Steven previously allowed Irene to
stay there free of charge just for a few days until she got back on her feet on Saturday the 5th of February 1977 28
year-old Irene told a friend that you'd planned on going to see Stephen Bray at the nightclub where he worked located
one mile away from Chapel town she left the boardinghouse at 11:15 p.m. and briefly visited a friend who lived a few
blocks away she stayed there until 11:30 p.m. just before midnight a car pulled up alongside her the male driver offered
her money in exchange for sex Irene agreed and got into his car at 7:50 a.m. the next morning Sunday the
6th of February a 47 year old accountant who was out jogging through Roundhay Park saw Irene's body lying face down he
approached her slowly and later was quoted as saying I brushed the hair to one side and then I saw the blood on her
neck her eyes were glazed and staring she was obviously dead and I ran to one of the houses to call the police
detective Dennis Hoban who was in charge of the first two murders now attended the scene as an assistant
the new officer in charge was detective Jim Hobson David G remained as the forensic pathologist the scene was
immediately taped off and a 35 feet long black plastic screen was put up to conceal Irene's body from on lookers
football matches that had been scheduled to start that morning on the fields in the park had to be cancelled as officers
were performing a fingertip search throughout the entire park a fingertip search is where officers get on their
hands and knees and touch everything on the ground with their fingertips to try and find anything useful that could be
considered evidence police located tire tracks that ran from the roadway and stopped close to Irene's body
Irene's handbag was lying open a few feet away from her on her right foot her boot had been left on her boot and sock
were missing from her left foot her clothing was intact from the waist up however her pants are being removed the
killer had placed a coat on top of her Irene had been stabbed in the post-mortem G found three
lacerations - Irene's head these blows were extremely severe causing much more damage than just a fracture as had been
the case with the previous victims again G believed the killer struck Irene with
one blow to the head and immobilized her then he hit her two more times and dragged her from where the tire tracks
ended to where she was found he then stabbed her she believed the weapons used in this attack were most likely a
hammer and a very sharp knife G had no doubt that this murder was linked to Wilma McCann's and Emily Jackson's
although the new detective in charge Jim Hobson wasn't completely sure about this
and he started several different lines of inquiry as a first step he arranged for George Richardson to come from
Blackpool so he could positively identify or Irene her late husband the night she was a sex worker or would even
resort to those measures he said she was sick she just couldn't settle down traces of semen were found
on the inside of Irene's coat this time they were able to determine the blood type
Type O Hobson's sent a message out requesting all West Yorkshire police divisions and surrounding forces keep a
lookout for anyone coming into custody with blood-stained clothing he also ordered officers to visit local dry
cleaners and to make house-to-house inquiries a hundred officers were assigned this task and in the following
weeks numerous men were questioned in several items of clothing were examined including shoes and raincoats different
tools including hammers and knives were also examined but they found a no matches
a partial fingerprint that was discovered on one of the bus tickets that Irene had inside her purse couldn't
be eliminated Roundhay Park was known as a place that couples visited in their cars to have sex officers started
visiting the park of a night and approaching couples asking if they had seen anything or anyone suspicious the
morning after Irene's body was found one newspaper headline read Jack the Ripper
horror three days later detective Hobson made an appeal through the media for any information as to the
whereabouts of Marcello Claxton it was now ten months since her attack in Rio de park Marcela had since moved and
police were unable to locate her the media didn't just ask for anyone who'd seen her but they described her attack
as a carbon copy of Irene's and for that reason they said Marcela could hold vital clues that could help
crack our eggs case Hobson's supported this spot saying that both attacks had a lot of similarities like the fact that
both women had been attacked with a blunt object from behind both had been picked up in Chapel Town for sex and
both of them had been taken to the same place Roundhay Park Marcela came forward
that day and again gave the description of her attacker the next morning Hobson briefed the
media with the description however it wasn't the exact same description that Marcela had given before Thompson said
the man was aged between 25 and 35 years old he was 5 feet 9 inches tall of medium build with dark wavy hair at the
time of the assault he was wearing a dark suit with a multicolored shirt and tie one more priority Hobson had at this
stage was taking sex workers off the streets over the next few months police arrested and issued cautions to
more than 100 women in Chapel town before a sex worker was arrested and charged they were entitled to two
cautions so what Hobson hoped was that by giving out cautions that would frighten women from coming out to the
streets of working he said he wasn't really interested in arresting anyone he was just trying to
protect people it didn't really work so Hobson encouraged the workers to at least let a friend or someone know where
they were Hobson also placed officers in trouble down to write down the registration
numbers of men that were cruising the area the surprising thing was that Hobson revealed all of this to the media
they knew about all of the wounds Irene suffered they knew about the arrest and courtrand strategy they knew officers
were writing down registration numbers in chapel town and they knew the squad was checking a possible connection with
another murder that happened in Preston Lancashire an hour and a half away from Leeds Jayne Harrison was 26 years old
she'd become addicted to morphine and alcohol and in order to support those habits she turned to sex work Joan was
killed in a garage in Preston after suffering several blows to the head she'd been wearing two bras and these
were both unfastened her trousers had been removed and so had her boots but there were differences between this
murder and the others there were no stab wounds many of Joan's injuries were thought to have been done by kicking and
not with a weapon there were signs of sexual assault and her handbag along with other possessions were missing the
possibility of Joan's murder being related to the others was considered by all Hobson and other detectives however
they eventually ruled it out there were too many differences Hobson believed that the greatest lead
they had in Irene's case with the tire tracks at roundhay park Hobson started what was called a
tracking inquiry the aim was to find out what car was at the park that night and
who it belonged to in order to do this they had to use the tire tracks to identify the car
basically the tracks at the park would have a certain measurement this measurement would then be compared with
all the makes of tires and since not all tires fit all cars they would eventually
narrow down that list of potential cars this tracking inquiry started the day Irene was found and by 5:15 p.m. the
next day they had a list ready of models of cars that could have used the toys the list totaled around one hundred
Hobson then instructed the officers working in chapel town to check all of the parked cars so they drove past that
night the officers were instructed to write down their registration number end of the tire details onto a card he also
instructed for checks to be conducted at scrap yards and auctioneers these checks
lasted for six weeks but after that time it had to be abandoned the amount of cars parked on the street and at
auctioneers and scrap yards was endless and they were getting nowhere with it instead Hobson decided to consult an
expert in the tire industry this had some effect the list of potential models of cars was haft from 100 to 50 Hobson
then got approval to do a math screening within the West Yorkshire police area there were two searches carried out a
computer records search with the police national computer and a manual search with the vehicle licensing officer in
1977 not a lot of data was kept in the government computer so a big part of the search had to be manual
with the math screening they learned that the amount of cars that had to be examined numbered 53,000 a large amount
of officers were assigned to the mammoth task of going through every one of those
cars Patricia Atkinson was born in Thorpe Edge Bradford she had two brothers at the age
of 16 she met Raymond Mitra at a dance hall and after months of dating they got married on the 1st of april 1961 they
stayed with Patricia's parents for a short period of time before moving close by to Manning in which is known as
Bradford's red-light district they had three daughters in Patricia's mid 20s she suddenly felt like she hadn't done
any real living and started going out often in this period she cheated on Raymond numerous times it was for this
reason that they separated and got back together repeatedly before finally one day
Patricia left the house for good Patricia was first convicted for sex work in 1975 in 1976 Raymond divorced
her and kept custody of their daughters Patricia rented a small flat in Oak Avenue Manningham
close by to the red-light district and she started a relationship with Robert Henderson on Saturday the 23rd of April
1977 33 year-old Patricia went yet to the regular bars she always visited she ended up at the Carlyle Hotel Patricia
was an alcoholic and had spent most of that day drinking a stripper had been booked the dance at the Carlyle Hotel
but failed to turn up so Patricia climbed on the stage and stripped herself this resulted in an argument
with the manager and she left the Carlyle at 10:15 p.m. Patricia visited the international club
in Lund Wayne until 11:00 10:00 p.m. after that she was seen staggering drunk through Church Street to st. Mary's Road
in Manning him the next day Robert became concerned that he hadn't heard from his girlfriend at 6:30 p.m. he went
to her flat and knocked on the door he didn't get a response so he forced his way into the flat and
patrícia on the bed robert rented a caretaker of the building and made him call the police at 8:00 p.m. the head of
Bradford's detectives John de Mol was at the scene as soon as he saw Patricia he knew she was a Ripper victim
the blows to Patricia's head had again escalated in force hasn't been the case since Wolman McCann's murder her jeans
were pulled down to below her knees and her underwear had been pulled down her t-shirt had been pulled up and her bra
unfastened there was a boot print in blood on one of the sheets next to her as this murder had happened in a
different jurisdiction to the others a different crime scene examiner was used she believed Patricia was struck in the
head as she entered her room due to the blow she lost consciousness and fell to the floor the killer then moved her body
next to the bed where there probably was another blow to the head after that the killer maneuvered
Patricia's body on top of the unmade bed by climbing on it and dragging her up and this is how a bloody shoe impression
was left on the sheet once Patricia's body was on the bed further blows were delivered and then the stab wounds the
postmortem was carried out by David G who had performed the other post mortems he confirmed a pattern and a link to
Patricia's case to the other attacks similar head injuries similar movement of clothing no signs of sexual assault
and multiple stab wounds caused by different instruments in a search of her flat police found a diary listing 50 of
Patricia's clients DOMA went to the media and requested all of the men to come forward and be interviewed since
Patricia took her clients to her flat the place was filled with different fingerprints many could be eliminated
from the investigation however there were nine different sets that couldn't the boot impression was thought to come
from a Dunlop of Wellington boot since the sheet was crumpled the exact size was hard to determine but there was
a possibility that it could match the boot impression found at Emily Jackson's murder scene when following Patricia's
movements on her last night doe mall found out that she was a frequent user of taxis even for only
short distances so he ordered that every taxi driver in Bradford be interviewed there were 1200 in total other sex
workers were also interviewed it was at this point that Barbara Miller a 36 year
old came forward and said that she'd been attacked two years prior in Bradford it happened in March 1975
around 9:30 p.m. a man in a Land Rover drove her to a quarry in the Bolton Woods area of
Bradford once they got there he told her to get out of the vehicle but she refused so the man dragged her out
punched her in the stomach chest and face then he banged the back of her head against the car he drove off when she
got up and started the flight back the description she gave was of a man aged 35 to 14 years old five feet eight
inches tall blue eyes a stocky build and untidy ginger hair along with a full ginger beard and a moustache he also had
a possible Irish accent with a slight Birmingham dialect he had a scar on his left hand and a blue and red tattoo the
police more than anything were interested in the fact that he had a Land Rover and a ginger beard
already in Emily Jackson's case in Leeds a witness had seen her getting into a Land Rover so for the next three months
90 police officers in Bradford had concentrated on this lead they made 2300 house-to-house inquiries
checked 1920 for cars and took 2161 statements all of that led nowhere at this point the investigation was
making national headlines and was talked about constantly on radio and television
newspapers and media outlets from all around the country sent reporters to get in debt stories of what was happening
after Patricia's murder Georgia Oldfield the assistant Chief Constable meaning the second in charge of the entire West
Yorkshire Police said that if there was a new Ripper murder he would be taking charge as he was the most senior
detective in the force Jane MacDonald was born in Leeds she had three sisters one brother and
two parents who all loved her dearly she left high school at the age of 16 and got work in the shoe department at
Greenway supermarket on Roundhay Road she was sweet cheerful and someone who loved a life in every way she liked
about dancing and rollerskating and the loved clothes shopping her parents kept a close eye on her and
she'd promised them that when she went out at night she wouldn't walk alone she lived only six doors away from Wilma
McCann so her family were well aware about the murders and the closeness of them on Saturday the 25th of June 1977
Jane went to a German themed Harbor located in the centre of Leeds there she met Mike Jones an 18-year old local boy
at 10:30 p.m. the pub closed and Jane left with Mark and his friends they walked through Leeds center and a bit
later Mike's friends left them alone they purchased some food and at midnight Jane realized she'd missed the last bus
to return home mark told her they could go to his sister's house and she would take her home they walked up York Road
towards Chapel town when they got to Mark's sister's house her car wasn't there so it wasn't an option
that continued walking to San James hospital and entered the garden from the nurses home they stayed there for around
45 minutes then they walked back towards hare hills and when they reached Beckett's street they split up mark had
to return home too and it was now 1:30 a.m. that will close the grand waste supermarket where Jane worked so Jane
was familiar with the area and didn't mind being left alone they said their goodbyes and promise to see each other
that Wednesday Jane continued through Becket Street at 1:40 a.m. she was seen walking in the direction of Roundhay
road and at 1:45 a.m. she was seen walking through Chapel town close to her home at 2:00 a.m. a woman who lived in
near an adventure playground in chapel town said she'd heard banging and scuffling followed by what sounded like
a Scotsman mouthing obscenities during the day two young children who were at the playground found a Jane's body as he
had previously stated Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield took charge he attended the scene along with David G
and detective Hobson Jane had been found in abandoned land just in front of the playground surrounded by rubbish
old tin cans and broken bottles her clothes were out of place and she was missing one shoe in the post-mortem she
found three semicircular lacerations to her scalp along with fractures to the skull and
the many stab wounds like in the other murders she determined that Jane had been struck on the back of the head
first then dragged to where she was found death had occurred sometime before 3:00 a.m.
Jane's murder didn't just change the face of the investigation because Oldfield was now leading it it also
changed the response from the public as initially feared by detective Hoban back
when he was leading the investigation of rumen McCann's and Emily Jackson's murders a lot of the public at the time
showed little sympathy for sex workers but Jane was a 16 year old girl who had just left school Jane's father later
described how he'd found out the police came in and said are you the father of Jane McDonald I said yes I'll kill her
when she comes home because she didn't phone last night they said you may not have to and that's
as much as I knew he went on to say that whoever was responsible had basically killed their entire family the day after
Jane's body was found graffiti was sprayed on a nearby wall that red hanging the ripper Oldfield's way of
leading this investigation was with detail he wanted everything written down to the very last minute detectives spent
several days piecing together Jane's last hours they were able to break them down to the minute a large map was
placed in the incident room where they were conducting Jane's investigation Oldfield wanted to identify every single
person who'd been in Janesville sinabi at the time it was estimated that around 200 people were around Jane as she
walked home that night and around 50 were close to her when she was murdered Oldfield one in every single one of
those people interviewed and eliminated in order to do this Oldfield placed a free phone service in
the incident room so that people with any leads or possible sightings could call he spoke publicly in every way he
could he said he needed people to come forward who were there that night he asked local churches and community
leaders for assistance in making people talk after these appeals a woman and her
10 year old boy who lived in Chapel Town contacted the incident room both of them had been riding down
registration numbers from cars the woman started doing this after a man in a car
pestered her there were hundreds of registration numbers that she had written down and they were given to
officers to check out Oldfield thought this was a wonderful idea and he asked the other residents in the area to do
the same at the very least he requested people write down registrations of the cars they thought looked suspicious all
were curb crawling Oldfield also made the decision to bring the documentation and files of all five murders together
into one room up to this point the files of each murder were kept in different rooms and officers were instructed just
to focus on that one murder now they'd be able to see all the information together a Detective Chief Inspector was
placed onto every shift inside the incident room and their role was to check all incoming statements up until
now our officers had mostly been working through action and not so much through paperwork Oldfield aimed to change that
making sure everyone understood his instructions everything was to be written down to the very last detail he
wanted to make sure nothing was missed out of house-to-house inquiries the occupants of 679 homes in 29 streets
were seen and interviewed nearly 3,700 statements were taken and checks were made on all men taken into custody for
offences of violence Oldfield also organized the seminar with 25 psychiatrists from Yorkshire in order to
get assistance from mental health hospitals about patients who could be considered suspects this turned out to
be unsuccessful once again sex workers were questioned about their regular clients and asked
about the violent ones but the police were faced with a problem they persisted with the plan of arresting and
cautioning sex workers to try and get them off the streets they had even charged many of them who had already
received two cautions this didn't create a great environment for the sex workers
to want to talk to police not too many were forthcoming with information detective Hobson who was still working
the investigation but was just no longer in charge started a covert operation in
chapel town he had officers recording registration numbers of cars that were trying to pick up women these lists
could later be revisited if there was another murder Hobson had already tried a similar
operation when he was in charge of Irene Richardson's murder and believed it was
the most useful strategy they had Oldfield made a further appeal through the media he said the public had the
power to decide what sort of society they want if they want murder and violence then they will keep quiet if
they want a law-abiding society in which that woman folk can move freely without
the fear of attack from the likes of the individual we're hunting then they must
give us their help officers were working in average of 13 hours per day arriving
at 9 a.m. and leaving between 10:00 p.m. and midnight they had a 10:00 a.m. briefing every day
to see how the house-to-house inquiries were going while most of the officers were in the big incident room
Oldfield was in another office with detective dick Holland who he appointed second in charge of the investigation
detective Holland reviewed all the paperwork from the other offices and assigned further actions to follow up
he filtered through everything and sent the essential information to Oldfield still the paperwork began to pile up
quickly and on most nights Oldfield stayed up late with a bottle of whisky going over at the remaining paperwork he
slept in the police station so he was ready to go at first hour in the morning in another media address Oldfield said
there is no doubt in my mind that he will strike again the big questions are when where and who is going to be his
next victim marine long was 42 years old she lived in a small town located between Leeds and Bradford she was
separated from her husband but still maintained a good relationship with him and on Saturday the 9th of July 1977
two weeks after Jane's murder she met up with her ex-husband in a pub in Bradford
she had four pints of beer with him and left around 11:00 10:00 p.m. she went on
her own to the mecca Ballroom in Manningham Lane she was a regular at the place marine loved going out dancing she
stayed there until 2:00 a.m. but doesn't remember much from that point on she remembered going to the cloakroom at the
club but nothing further a hot-dog men who had to stand outside the club saw her leave and walked to Bradford Center
at 3:15 a.m. a security guard who worked at a factory on bowling back Lane heard
his dog bark he went to take a look at the direction where the dog was barking and he saw a car without lights driving
off fast out of Mount Street he was sure the car was a Ford Cortina and marked two with a black roof he said it looked
like there was something heavy in the boot of the car at 8:30 a.m. people from a gypsy caravan site near bowling back
Lane heard shouts of help coming from somewhere nearby they caught the police they found
Maureen in an abandoned open land site with rubbish all over marine was struggling to even move marine said all
I remember was trying to pick myself up I kept falling and then I wondered what was wrong with me and I kept falling
back and I was trying to pull myself up falling back again then I was screaming and I heard this dog barking someone
said oh you're all right and that's all I remember when you get hit about the back of the
head you can't remember things if I hadn't had beer that night I'd have died of hypothermia all her clothes were
displaced her bra had been pulled down to her waist her tights and pants pulled to her knees she was rushed to hospital
Angie along with Oldfield and Holland saw her after she was treated Maureen had a
large fracture to her skull five stab wounds to the front and side of her body in her left shoulder one of the stab
wounds had pen traded her liver she also had three broken ribs her hand injuries were so
severe that she required specialists in neurosurgery marine spent nine weeks in hospital before being discharged she
eventually remembered that a man gave her a lift and she gave the following description a fair-haired white male
aged around thirty five years old thick set over six feet tall and he was driving a white car the man police had
in mind was a taxi driver they had already been interviewing taxi drivers after Patricia atkinson's murder
there was one in particular who stood out to police his name was Terrence Hawkshaw and his physical appearance was
similar to all the previous descriptions given he was 36 years old six feet tall
weighed about 95 kilos or 210 pounds had long hair brushed back and a boyish face
on the night Maureen was attacked he'd been seen near the mecca Ballroom and he drove a white Ford Cortina with a black
vinyl roof on top of that he was known for letting sex workers have sex with clients in his taxi police checked his
taxi receipts and they discovered he'd been close to the areas when several of the attacks took place
Oldfield arranged for him to be questioned thoroughly he was kept for 36 hours at the detective training school
in Wakefield a city 20 minutes away from Leeds Terrance lived with his mother and
police searched the home they found he had two hammers both were examined along with his taxi but police found nothing
linking him to the murders during the 36-hour questioning of Terrance Oldfield tried to convince him that he might have
a split personality and for that reason he might have committed the murders but couldn't remember them for a while
Oldfield ordered a team of 12 detectives to follow Terrance's every move Oldfield
liked Hobson's idea of maintaining a covert operation and recording the registration numbers of men that toured
the red-light area of Chapel Tina oldfield enlarged that strategy and ordered officers to do the same thing in
Manningham Bradford's red-light area however Oldfield did order a stop to Hobson's previous operation the tracking
inquiry Hobson had started that when he was leading Irene Richardson's murder there was still 20,000 cars to examine
of the 55,000 that were on the list Oldfield was concentrated on the description that the security guard from
Laureen Long's attack had given he'd mentioned a Ford Cortina mark to this model wasn't on the list of the possible
models that the tracking inquiry had produced that told Oldfield the killer had ever changed cars for the tracking
inquiry method had failed them and he didn't have the manpower to continue it there were too many different lines of
inquiry happening at the same time with too many men dedicated to each of them so the tracking inquiry was the first
thing Oldfield put a stop to officers were already looking at all the Ford Cortina is registered in West Yorkshire
3,000 were located the owners were interviewed and eliminated when they were done interviewing Ford Cortina
owners Oldfield came back to the lead of the ginger bearded men in the Land Rover
that was seen in Wilma McCann's in Emily Jackson's cases the squad received 117 tips of men who looked like that and who
drove that car they were able to trace 56 of them up to this moment 300 officers had worked three hundred and
forty three thousand hours 175 thousand people had been questioned twelve thousand five hundred statements had
been taken and 101 thousand vehicles had been checked still the police were no closer to
identifying the killer and now we're about to have another victim in a new city Manchester is one of the biggest
cities in England it is located about one and a half hours northeast of Leeds just outside West Yorkshire in October
1973 16 year-old gene Jordan ran away from her home in Scotland and moved to Manchester she lived on the streets
until Allen royal a 20 your old chef spotted her on his way home from work he bought her a cup of
tea and something to eat soon after that they started a relationship and Jean moved in with Alan
first they lived in a small flat in South Manchester then they had two sons so they needed somewhere bigger they
moved to a larger flat near Manchester City Centre with time gene and Alan grew tired of each other and they started
going their separate ways although they still lived together the couple ran out of money and Jean turned to sex work she
worked at Mossad Manchester's red-light area and at Cheatham Hill at 9:30 p.m. on Friday the 1st of October 77 20 year
old Jean left her son's aged 3 and 1 with a babysitter while she went out to get cigarettes Jean never returned nine
days later on the 10th of October two men were looking for disused bricks on an abandoned land site when they saw
jeans body two miles away from their home as the murder happened in Manchester Oldfield had no jurisdiction there in
charge of this scene was Jack Ridgeway the Detective Chief Superintendent of central Manchester Jean was found naked
and her clothes were scattered around her there was evidence the killer had returned to the scene to move her at the
post-mortem they determined Jean had eleven injuries on her head and each of them had caused a fracture on her skull
she had several injuries over her entire body thought to be caused by a hammer as
well as many stab wounds it was determined the blows with the hammer had come first and the stab wounds were
inflicted after death marks on Jane's neck indicated the killer had tried the sawed off her head Ridgeway kept this
secret at the time as he thought it was one of those details that only the killer would know again there was no
sign of sexual assault after the post-mortem Ridgway arranged a meeting with Oldfield in Leeds Oldfield
had previously given a presentation about the Ripper murders to all senior detectives in northern England Ridgeway
had seen that presentation and he had no doubt Jean was a ripper victim when Ridgeway met with Oldfield and told him
about genes murder he said - Oldfield looked as though he didn't want to know a thing about it
Oldfield told Ridgeway I think we should keep this thing quiet for the time being
Ridgeway didn't have a problem with that since the Ripper murders were so high-profile and he didn't want to deal
with the media at that particular moment but as Ridgeway was driving back to Manchester he was shocked to hear a
radio announcement that said West Yorkshire Police had linked June Jordans murder with the Ripper murders when he
arrived back in Manchester Ridgeway had to deal with the press immediately unlike the West Yorkshire Police
Ridgeway gave away very little detail about the crime he even refused to confirm the link with the Ripper murders
all he said was that there were similarities that same day Alan royal appeared in the police
station and said his wife had been missing for a week Jean used to disappear for days and hitchhike to
Glasgow so when Alan arrived home on the 1st of October he wasn't surprised that
she wasn't there he actually hadn't been worried at all until he heard about the
murder and saw the description of the woman sounded a lot like Jean police conducted a search of Alan and Janes
house that came up empty handed however Alan told them that a faithful leather handbag was missing the handbag
hadn't been located by police at the crime scene so they printed notices about the murder specifically mentioning
the handbag and requested that people be on the lookout for it on Saturday the 15th of October a man found the handbag
about 50 meters away from where Jane's body was discovered Ridgeway drove in a hurry to the scene
and search through the handbag he found a new five-pound note reader I believed this note was the reason the
killer had returned to the murder scene and moved genes body at the time 5-pound
was the usual fee sex workers charged if the killer had given genius note then it
could incriminate him Ridgeway believed the killer thought about this after the murder and returned
to the scene to try and find it he obviously didn't find jeans handbag so he took off her clothes to see if she
had it on her Ridgeway believed that when the killer couldn't find the note he tried to decapitate her in order to
make the killing look different with this in mind Ridgeway was sure the best shot they had was to find the owner of
the note in order to do this he first had fingerprint specialists examine it they were unable to produce a
fingerprint so the next step was the trace the note using the serial number Ridgeway organized an operation to
follow the note from the moment it came out of a central bank to the moment it landed at a local branch whilst that was
going on other police arranged for a profile to be drawn up at the killer they believed the Ripper was probably
from West Yorkshire certainly had a good knowledge of Leeds and Bradford and had
possibly developed a psychological hang-up about sex workers either at the hands of one or possibly because his
mother was one in Bradford the chairman of the National housewives Register expressed the following opinion I'm sure
we would not have had a Ripper if brothels had been made legal an agreement to this statement came from an
unexpected source Ronald Gregory West Yorkshire is chief constable odd fields boss Gregory said
sex work legalized in some way would eliminate a lot of the vicious attacks in the streets sex workers were warned
to take care and not to stand alone and not to take lifts from people they didn't know unfortunately many women
couldn't afford to take this advice and the Ripper would kill again to be continued next week
I'm Jack I say was the lovely no look at him a I have the greatest respect for you George
good lord the one only of catching me now than four years ago when I started [Music]
you

Case 37: The Yorkshire Ripper (Part 1)

[Part 1 of 3]

West Yorkshire is a county in England that has a population of over 2 million people. It covers an area of over 2,000 km² and is formed by five cities: Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Kirklees, and Calderdale. Each one of these cities has its own history, its own identity, and its own voice.

But during the 1970’s, they were all united. The residents of each city were looking over their shoulders, praying they wouldn’t be the next victim, in one man’s reign of terror who the press named, “The Yorkshire Ripper.”

CREDITS

Narration – Anonymous Host Research, writing – Victoria Dieffenbacher Writing – Anonymous Host Production, scoring – Mike Migas Additional scoring – Andrew Joslyn

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RESOURCES

For all credits and sources please visit https://www.casefilepodcast.com/case-37-yorkshire-ripper-part-1

Brief Summary

The episode details the Yorkshire Ripper murders and the police investigation into multiple victims, highlighting the challenges faced by law enforcement.

Key points

The Yorkshire Ripper's Reign of Terror. In the 1970s, residents of West Yorkshire lived in fear of becoming victims of the Yorkshire Ripper.
Wilma McCann's Last Night. Wilma McCann leaves home on the night of her murder, never to return.
Discovery of Wilma's Body. A milkman discovers the body of Wilma McCann, marking the beginning of a chilling investigation.
Public Sentiment on Sex Workers. Detective Hoban faces challenges in gaining public support due to societal views on sex workers.
Marcella's Attack and Aftermath. Marcella survives a brutal attack and lives in fear of her assailant returning.
Irene's Disappearance. Irene leaves her family and is reported missing by George, fearing the worst.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

The truth of the time was the public was notoriously unsympathetic toward sex workers.

Detective Hoban's struggle to gain public support for the investigation.

5:54WatchNov 19, 2018

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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