In relation to my "Missing" blogpost in which I focused partly on The Yorkshire Ripper's marital home in Bradford, I received the following comment from Debbie Williams:-
"In 1980 I'd just started studying at Sheffield University. I still remember the fear we felt as The Ripper had murdered a student at Leeds University. The student union organised transport to take us back to our halls of residence and my parents paid for taxis, rather than let me walk home. We were jubilant and so relieved when Peter Sutcliffe was caught, frightening close to the University campus. Looking back, I wonder if Sutcliffe would have been caught sooner if most of his victims hadn't been prostitutes?"
I remember that time very well. I had joined a Workers Educational Association course in creative writing in The University of Sheffield's Arts Tower. There were posters on every floor urging women to take their safety seriously. Don't go home alone/Take taxis at night etc.. And this was all because of the terror that The Ripper was causing.
It affected my wife Shirley who was a young hospital nurse at the time. Fortunately, she had a little car to bring her home but various levels of anxiety were experienced by all female hospital workers whose shift patterns meant they often left work at nighttime.
Throughout his deadly campaign, there had never been a known attack here in Sheffield. Nearly all of his unfortunate victims were bludgeoned to death up in West Yorkshire - Bradford, Leeds, Huddersfield and Halifax. He killed thirteen women and severely injured several others. One of his survivors recalled him shouting, "Filthy prostitute!" as he struck her.
The fear in Sheffield was pretty strong even though nobody had been attacked here but up in Bradford and Leeds the levels of fear must have been off the scale. Female university students had been targeted in addition to prostitutes whose lives are just as precious anyway.
The Yorkshire Ripper was finally captured by accident in a dark office car park off Melbourne Avenue just a mile and a half from this keyboard. It was January 2nd 1981 and he had driven 24 year old Olivia Reivers there. He had his trademark ball-pein hammer in the boot (American: trunk) of his car. Whatever might been about to happen was stopped by a pair of policemen slowly cruising down the avenue in a squad car. They did a vehicle check and discovered that Sutcliffe's car was displaying false number plates. He was promptly arrested.
The next day one of those police officers returned to the arrest scene and found the hammer in bushes where The Ripper had been allowed to urinate before being taken to the local police station. Then, thankfully, the clues were joined up and after forty eight hours Sutcliffe admitted who he was.
Sutcliffe and Sonia on their wedding day in 1974
from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/Uqj2r6B