WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.819 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. We are shifting 00:00:02.819 --> 00:00:04.940 gears a bit today. Usually we're looking at the 00:00:04.940 --> 00:00:07.820 cutting edge of tech or, you know, some of history's 00:00:07.820 --> 00:00:10.720 stranger quirks. But today we need to go somewhere 00:00:10.720 --> 00:00:13.619 quite a bit darker. Yeah, we do. I want you to 00:00:13.619 --> 00:00:18.140 try and transport yourself back. Think late 1970s, 00:00:18.140 --> 00:00:22.320 specifically Northern England. It's a very, very 00:00:22.320 --> 00:00:24.500 specific time and place. And if you look at the 00:00:24.500 --> 00:00:27.800 socioeconomic backdrop, it's just grim. You're 00:00:27.800 --> 00:00:29.980 heading into the winter of discontent. You've 00:00:29.980 --> 00:00:32.380 got industrial declines, strikes, power cuts. 00:00:32.579 --> 00:00:34.920 The atmosphere was already heavy. It was. And 00:00:34.920 --> 00:00:38.479 then on top of all that, you introduce this specific 00:00:38.479 --> 00:00:41.820 predatory shadow that hung over the entire region. 00:00:42.759 --> 00:00:44.960 It's a palpable fear. We are talking about the 00:00:44.960 --> 00:00:47.420 era of the Yorkshire Ripper. And for anyone living 00:00:47.420 --> 00:00:49.320 there, especially women, this wasn't just a story 00:00:49.320 --> 00:00:52.299 on the news. It was a daily visceral reality. 00:00:52.539 --> 00:00:54.259 Absolutely. People were changing their entire 00:00:54.259 --> 00:00:56.899 lives. There were effectively curfews in place, 00:00:57.000 --> 00:00:59.280 but not for the criminals, for the potential 00:00:59.280 --> 00:01:02.460 victims. Women were being told officially not 00:01:02.460 --> 00:01:05.040 to go out at night. Which is such a profound 00:01:05.040 --> 00:01:07.140 inversion of civil liberties when you really 00:01:07.140 --> 00:01:09.340 stop and think about it. The fear was concrete. 00:01:09.519 --> 00:01:12.159 It literally changed the architecture of social 00:01:12.159 --> 00:01:14.340 life in the north of England. Now, the subject 00:01:14.340 --> 00:01:17.299 of this is Peter Sutcliffe and the numbers. They're 00:01:17.299 --> 00:01:21.040 just horrifying. convicted of murdering 13 women, 00:01:21.099 --> 00:01:24.079 attempting to murder seven others. But, and this 00:01:24.079 --> 00:01:26.790 is really crucial. Our mission today isn't just 00:01:26.790 --> 00:01:29.510 to recite a list of crimes. We aren't here to 00:01:29.510 --> 00:01:31.629 dwell on the gore just for the sake of it. No, 00:01:31.629 --> 00:01:33.670 because that's not the real story. The real story, 00:01:33.790 --> 00:01:35.489 the one that emerges when you, you know, you 00:01:35.489 --> 00:01:37.510 really analyze the official inquiries like the 00:01:37.510 --> 00:01:39.349 Byford report and you look at the investigation 00:01:39.349 --> 00:01:42.769 timelines, is about failure. It's a deep dive 00:01:42.769 --> 00:01:45.409 into how a man, who was by all accounts a pretty 00:01:45.409 --> 00:01:47.569 mediocre criminal, managed to be interviewed 00:01:47.569 --> 00:01:50.709 by police nine separate times. Nine times. And 00:01:50.709 --> 00:01:54.409 yet he remained free for five years to continue 00:01:54.409 --> 00:01:57.260 killing. That's the statistic. That's the one 00:01:57.260 --> 00:01:58.920 that just stops you in your tracks. So today 00:01:58.920 --> 00:02:02.159 we are going to unpack the systemic incompetence, 00:02:02.180 --> 00:02:04.840 the information overload, and frankly, the cultural 00:02:04.840 --> 00:02:08.020 misogyny of the era that acted as a sort of blindfold 00:02:08.020 --> 00:02:10.490 for the entire investigation. It's a perfect 00:02:10.490 --> 00:02:12.729 storm, really. You have a killer hiding in plain 00:02:12.729 --> 00:02:15.189 sight, and you have an investigation that was 00:02:15.189 --> 00:02:18.030 desperately looking for a kind of cinematic monster, 00:02:18.330 --> 00:02:20.810 a phantom that didn't exist. While the real man 00:02:20.810 --> 00:02:22.729 was just, what, driving past him every single 00:02:22.729 --> 00:02:25.990 day? In his truck or his car. A normal guy. So 00:02:25.990 --> 00:02:28.389 let's start at the source. Who was Peter Sutcliffe? 00:02:28.729 --> 00:02:30.810 You hear the name Ripper, and you immediately 00:02:30.810 --> 00:02:34.969 imagine this phantom. But he was born in Shipley, 00:02:35.050 --> 00:02:39.120 west riding of Yorkshire. June 2, 1946. On the 00:02:39.120 --> 00:02:41.599 surface, just a lad from a working -class family 00:02:41.599 --> 00:02:43.340 in Bingley. But that's the thing, isn't it? When 00:02:43.340 --> 00:02:45.139 you start to dig into the biographical data, 00:02:45.340 --> 00:02:48.719 that sense of normalcy just dissolves. It vanishes 00:02:48.719 --> 00:02:51.520 very, very quickly. The family environment was, 00:02:51.759 --> 00:02:54.719 to put it mildly, volatile. Volatile. His mother, 00:02:54.800 --> 00:02:57.479 Kathleen, was a Catholic woman, and she's described 00:02:57.479 --> 00:02:59.659 in sources as being deeply anxious. And you can 00:02:59.659 --> 00:03:01.740 sort of see why, because she was probably made 00:03:01.740 --> 00:03:04.259 that way by her environment. His father, John 00:03:04.259 --> 00:03:07.259 Sutcliffe, was a heavy drinker and a known abuser. 00:03:07.419 --> 00:03:09.120 The sources I read mentioned that his mother 00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:11.259 suffered through her pregnancy with Peter under 00:03:11.259 --> 00:03:16.280 a... That's right. Sutcliffe was actually born 00:03:16.280 --> 00:03:18.319 prematurely. He had to spend two weeks in the 00:03:18.319 --> 00:03:20.960 hospital right after birth. And that really sets 00:03:20.960 --> 00:03:23.199 a tone, doesn't it? Right from the absolute beginning. 00:03:23.400 --> 00:03:25.840 It establishes a baseline of trauma. It does. 00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:28.800 And the violence, it wasn't hidden. It wasn't 00:03:28.800 --> 00:03:31.900 behind closed doors. One of Sutcliffe's own brothers 00:03:31.900 --> 00:03:34.840 recounts a Christmas argument where the father, 00:03:34.979 --> 00:03:41.289 John, just... A beer glass over his own child's 00:03:41.289 --> 00:03:43.770 head. Yes. And the brother who witnessed this 00:03:43.770 --> 00:03:45.949 was only four or five years old. Imagine seeing 00:03:45.949 --> 00:03:48.909 that. It teaches a child a very, very specific 00:03:48.909 --> 00:03:51.849 and brutal lesson. What lesson is that? That 00:03:51.849 --> 00:03:55.150 violence is how the man of the house exerts control. 00:03:55.389 --> 00:03:58.129 It normalizes physical aggression and makes it 00:03:58.129 --> 00:04:00.110 a tool for conflict resolution. It's just what 00:04:00.110 --> 00:04:02.389 men do. There was one specific incident from 00:04:02.389 --> 00:04:05.189 1970 that I found just absolutely baffling. The 00:04:05.189 --> 00:04:07.469 sources call it the affair sting. It sounds like 00:04:07.469 --> 00:04:09.289 something out of a dark psychological novel, 00:04:09.389 --> 00:04:10.949 not real life. Can you walk us through that? 00:04:11.090 --> 00:04:13.389 This is, I think, absolutely key to understanding 00:04:13.389 --> 00:04:15.909 Sutcliffe's warped view of women and sexuality. 00:04:16.839 --> 00:04:20.040 In 1970, his father, John, became convinced that 00:04:20.040 --> 00:04:22.220 his wife, Kathleen, was having an affair. Okay. 00:04:22.420 --> 00:04:25.220 So he decided he was going to catch her. He sets 00:04:25.220 --> 00:04:28.000 this elaborate trap, posing as her supposed lover 00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:31.860 to lure her to a local hotel. But the real cruelty, 00:04:32.019 --> 00:04:34.519 the psychological damage, is in the execution. 00:04:35.040 --> 00:04:37.560 He took Peter and two of his siblings along with 00:04:37.560 --> 00:04:39.910 him. He brought the kids to the stakeout. To 00:04:39.910 --> 00:04:42.029 watch. He hid them in the hotel. So when Kathleen 00:04:42.029 --> 00:04:44.509 arrives, expecting to meet her lover, the father 00:04:44.509 --> 00:04:47.269 jumps out. And in front of the children, he pulls 00:04:47.269 --> 00:04:49.870 negligee out of her handbag to shame her. It 00:04:49.870 --> 00:04:52.750 was a public ritualistic humiliation. So Peter, 00:04:52.790 --> 00:04:55.790 as a young man, is watching his mother, the primary 00:04:55.790 --> 00:04:58.050 female figure in his whole life, being completely 00:04:58.050 --> 00:05:01.209 stripped of her dignity, exposed as impure and 00:05:01.209 --> 00:05:03.569 just utterly dominated by his father. Exactly. 00:05:03.569 --> 00:05:06.870 It fuses sexuality, shame and male dominance 00:05:06.870 --> 00:05:09.740 into one single traumatic event. It's really 00:05:09.740 --> 00:05:11.680 hard to overstate the psychological impact that 00:05:11.680 --> 00:05:13.860 has on a young man's developing psyche, especially 00:05:13.860 --> 00:05:16.399 around gender roles and relationships. So outside 00:05:16.399 --> 00:05:18.339 of this, this incredible dysfunction at home, 00:05:18.540 --> 00:05:21.540 his life seemed pretty aimless. He leaves school 00:05:21.540 --> 00:05:24.620 at 15, drifts through a series of menial jobs. 00:05:24.740 --> 00:05:27.639 But then we get to what the books call the gravedigger 00:05:27.639 --> 00:05:30.420 era in the 1960s. Yeah, he worked at Bingley 00:05:30.420 --> 00:05:32.839 Cemetery. And this is where the profile really 00:05:32.839 --> 00:05:35.259 starts to darken significantly. His colleagues, 00:05:35.480 --> 00:05:39.430 the other gravediggers, noted he had a... A macabre 00:05:39.430 --> 00:05:41.240 sense of humor. Okay. That's not necessarily 00:05:41.240 --> 00:05:44.139 a crime. No, but this is he would volunteer for 00:05:44.139 --> 00:05:47.220 overtime specifically to wash the corpses before 00:05:47.220 --> 00:05:49.500 they were buried. He volunteered to wash dead 00:05:49.500 --> 00:05:51.680 bodies. Yes. That's a red flag the size of a 00:05:51.680 --> 00:05:54.720 billboard. It suggests a well, a deep fascination 00:05:54.720 --> 00:05:56.939 with the dead body, an objectification of the 00:05:56.939 --> 00:05:59.699 human form when the person, the soul is gone. 00:05:59.800 --> 00:06:03.459 It's about being able to have proximity to death, 00:06:03.579 --> 00:06:06.800 to a human body without any of the danger or 00:06:06.800 --> 00:06:09.269 complexity of interaction. Right. It's a powerless 00:06:09.269 --> 00:06:11.529 object at that point. Precisely. But eventually 00:06:11.529 --> 00:06:13.810 he leaves that job and he becomes a heavy goods 00:06:13.810 --> 00:06:16.790 vehicle driver, an HGV driver. And strictly from 00:06:16.790 --> 00:06:18.970 a criminal opportunity perspective, that career 00:06:18.970 --> 00:06:21.189 changes just everything, isn't it? It gave him 00:06:21.189 --> 00:06:25.050 two crucial things, mobility and solitude. He 00:06:25.050 --> 00:06:27.930 had a legitimate, built -in reason to be driving 00:06:27.930 --> 00:06:30.149 all across the region at all hours of night. 00:06:30.250 --> 00:06:32.470 He could move between red light districts in 00:06:32.470 --> 00:06:35.750 Leeds, Bradford, Manchester, and nobody would 00:06:35.750 --> 00:06:37.750 question why a truck driver was on the road at 00:06:37.750 --> 00:06:39.490 2 o 'clock in the morning. It was the perfect 00:06:39.490 --> 00:06:41.810 camouflage. The absolute perfect camouflage. 00:06:42.050 --> 00:06:44.370 At the same time, we're seeing these psychological 00:06:44.370 --> 00:06:47.889 warning signs really start to ramp up. The voyeurism. 00:06:47.990 --> 00:06:51.069 Yes. In his late teens, he became obsessed with 00:06:51.069 --> 00:06:54.029 spying on prostitutes and their clients. And 00:06:54.029 --> 00:06:56.029 he wasn't just a passive observer, you know, 00:06:56.029 --> 00:06:58.850 peeking through a window. He was actively stalking 00:06:58.850 --> 00:07:01.350 these interactions, following people. The sources 00:07:01.350 --> 00:07:04.329 mention a theory about a con, that he had a bad 00:07:04.329 --> 00:07:06.550 experience with a prostitute and a pimp. There 00:07:06.550 --> 00:07:08.670 is some speculation about that, yeah. The so 00:07:08.670 --> 00:07:12.339 -called lost 20 quid theory. Some analysts, and 00:07:12.339 --> 00:07:14.600 even Sutcliffe himself at times, tried to pin 00:07:14.600 --> 00:07:17.220 his entire motive on this one grievance, that 00:07:17.220 --> 00:07:19.160 he was seeking revenge for being ripped off. 00:07:19.300 --> 00:07:21.959 That feels too simple. It's far too reductive. 00:07:21.980 --> 00:07:23.939 I mean, think about it. Plenty of people get 00:07:23.939 --> 00:07:26.459 ripped off or have a bad experience. They don't 00:07:26.459 --> 00:07:28.620 go on to become serial killers. Right. It can't 00:07:28.620 --> 00:07:31.339 be the whole story. Exactly. The grievance might 00:07:31.339 --> 00:07:32.879 have been a trigger, a spark that licked the 00:07:32.879 --> 00:07:36.199 fuse, but the fuel was the deep -seated misogyny 00:07:36.199 --> 00:07:37.939 in the history of violence we just talked about. 00:07:38.639 --> 00:07:41.899 He didn't murder 13 women over 20 pounds. He 00:07:41.899 --> 00:07:44.079 murdered them because of a pathological need 00:07:44.079 --> 00:07:46.920 to dominate and destroy. Let's look at his personal 00:07:46.920 --> 00:07:48.680 life because this is where the camouflage becomes 00:07:48.680 --> 00:07:52.660 so effective. He meets Sonia Surma in 1967. They 00:07:52.660 --> 00:07:55.680 get married in 1974. They buy a house in Heaton, 00:07:55.800 --> 00:07:59.490 Bradford in 1977. To the neighbors, he's just 00:07:59.490 --> 00:08:01.709 a guy paying a mortgage. He's living the seemingly 00:08:01.709 --> 00:08:04.410 normal domestic life while committing these horrific 00:08:04.410 --> 00:08:07.329 murders. But the domestic dynamic itself was 00:08:07.329 --> 00:08:10.889 fascinatingly inverted. Sonia was diagnosed with 00:08:10.889 --> 00:08:13.519 paranoid schizophrenia. So she had her own serious 00:08:13.519 --> 00:08:16.399 issues. Very serious. And by all accounts, she 00:08:16.399 --> 00:08:18.980 was the dominant force in the marriage. Gordon 00:08:18.980 --> 00:08:21.420 Byrne, who wrote a definitive biography, described 00:08:21.420 --> 00:08:23.819 Sutcliffe as being treated like a naughty schoolboy 00:08:23.819 --> 00:08:26.639 at home. So the man who is about to unleash this 00:08:26.639 --> 00:08:29.420 campaign of terror on women in the streets is 00:08:29.420 --> 00:08:32.220 completely submissive in his own living room. 00:08:32.480 --> 00:08:34.980 It's a very common paradox with these types of 00:08:34.980 --> 00:08:38.179 offenders. The violence becomes a way to reclaim 00:08:38.179 --> 00:08:40.379 the power and control that he feels he lacks 00:08:40.379 --> 00:08:43.059 at home. There were reports that he had to physically 00:08:43.059 --> 00:08:46.220 restrain Sonia during her schizophrenic outbursts, 00:08:46.220 --> 00:08:48.159 you know, pinning her arms down. That sounds 00:08:48.159 --> 00:08:50.639 incredibly stressful. It was a high -stress, 00:08:50.639 --> 00:08:53.519 volatile environment, and it was compounded by 00:08:53.519 --> 00:08:56.399 fertility issues. They suffered several miscarriages 00:08:56.399 --> 00:08:58.700 and were ultimately unable to have children, 00:08:58.940 --> 00:09:01.799 which added another layer of strain to the dynamic. 00:09:01.840 --> 00:09:04.799 So the pressure is building both inside and outside 00:09:04.799 --> 00:09:07.580 the home. And that brings us to the escalation, 00:09:07.580 --> 00:09:10.080 because the narrative that he just started killing 00:09:10.080 --> 00:09:12.720 in 1975 isn't quite right, is it? There were 00:09:12.720 --> 00:09:16.720 dry runs. The lull before the storm is critical 00:09:16.720 --> 00:09:19.639 to understanding his development. The first documented 00:09:19.639 --> 00:09:23.299 assault was actually way back in 1969. Sutcliffe 00:09:23.299 --> 00:09:25.240 was out with a friend, a man named Trevor Birdsall. 00:09:25.320 --> 00:09:27.580 They were in a minivan. Sutcliffe gets out of 00:09:27.580 --> 00:09:30.000 the van, follows a woman up St. Paul's Road in 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:32.580 Bradford, disappears for a few minutes, and comes 00:09:32.580 --> 00:09:35.779 back completely out of breath. And he told Birdsall 00:09:35.779 --> 00:09:38.059 he'd hit her. He admitted it. He said he'd followed 00:09:38.059 --> 00:09:41.120 a woman into a garage and hit her with a stone 00:09:41.120 --> 00:09:44.039 that he had inside a sock. A stone in a sock. 00:09:44.120 --> 00:09:46.740 That's a prepared weapon. That is premeditation 00:09:46.740 --> 00:09:49.620 right there. It's a crude kosh, yes. And here 00:09:49.620 --> 00:09:53.820 is the first major systemic failure. The police 00:09:53.820 --> 00:09:56.519 actually found him. The victim had been astute 00:09:56.519 --> 00:09:58.659 enough to note down the van's registration number. 00:09:58.840 --> 00:10:01.440 So they traced it and they visited Sutcliffe 00:10:01.440 --> 00:10:04.120 at his home. And he confessed to them. He admitted 00:10:04.120 --> 00:10:06.899 to hitting her, but he lied. He downplayed it 00:10:06.899 --> 00:10:08.759 and said he just used his hand, not the weapon. 00:10:08.940 --> 00:10:11.879 And because of the victim, who was likely traumatized 00:10:11.879 --> 00:10:14.940 or just wary of the whole legal process, declined 00:10:14.940 --> 00:10:17.480 to press charges. They let him go. The police 00:10:17.480 --> 00:10:20.480 told Sutcliffe he was very lucky and left. They 00:10:20.480 --> 00:10:22.200 just walked away. And what does he learn from 00:10:22.200 --> 00:10:24.389 that? He learns the lesson right there. Yeah. 00:10:24.529 --> 00:10:27.070 I can attack women. I can even get caught. And 00:10:27.070 --> 00:10:29.169 the system won't stop me. That's exactly the 00:10:29.169 --> 00:10:32.809 lesson. And it gets reinforced. Later, in 1969, 00:10:33.269 --> 00:10:36.110 he's arrested again, this time in a red light 00:10:36.110 --> 00:10:39.090 district. And he has a hammer on him, a claw 00:10:39.090 --> 00:10:41.450 hammer in his pocket. OK, so that has to be it. 00:10:41.490 --> 00:10:44.490 Man in a known prostitution area carrying a hammer. 00:10:44.950 --> 00:10:47.029 That's intent. You would think so. But what did 00:10:47.029 --> 00:10:49.460 the police charge him with? What? Going equipped 00:10:49.460 --> 00:10:52.519 for stealing. They saw a man with a tool and 00:10:52.519 --> 00:10:55.740 their minds immediately went to burglar. They 00:10:55.740 --> 00:10:57.960 couldn't make the cognitive leap to sexual predator. 00:10:58.179 --> 00:11:01.240 He was fined a small amount and released. Categorization 00:11:01.240 --> 00:11:03.759 error number one. Unbelievable. So let's fast 00:11:03.759 --> 00:11:06.480 forward to 1975. The attacks begin in earnest 00:11:06.480 --> 00:11:09.659 now. And the pattern, the M .O., is terrifyingly 00:11:09.659 --> 00:11:11.980 consistent from the start. You have Anna Rogolsky 00:11:11.980 --> 00:11:15.389 in July. Then Olive smelt in August. Both were 00:11:15.389 --> 00:11:17.649 struck with hammers. Both were slashed with knives. 00:11:17.789 --> 00:11:20.129 And both of them survived, but only because Sutcliffe 00:11:20.129 --> 00:11:22.509 was disturbed. In one case by a neighbor, in 00:11:22.509 --> 00:11:25.389 another by a passing car. But Olive smelt, she 00:11:25.389 --> 00:11:27.470 gave the police a piece of evidence that should 00:11:27.470 --> 00:11:29.409 have been the key to the whole case. She heard 00:11:29.409 --> 00:11:32.009 his voice. She did. She told detectives explicitly 00:11:32.009 --> 00:11:34.570 he had a Yorkshire accent. Okay, so listeners, 00:11:34.710 --> 00:11:36.889 I want you to put a pin in that. Yorkshire accent. 00:11:37.419 --> 00:11:40.179 It seems blindingly obvious given they're in 00:11:40.179 --> 00:11:42.360 Yorkshire, but that specific detail is going 00:11:42.360 --> 00:11:44.740 to be tragically, catastrophically ignored later 00:11:44.740 --> 00:11:47.159 on. We also have the attack on Tracy Brown, a 00:11:47.159 --> 00:11:49.720 14 -year -old girl in a country lane in August 00:11:49.720 --> 00:11:53.679 of 75. Sutcliffe wasn't convicted of this until 00:11:53.679 --> 00:11:56.720 decades later when he confessed in 1992, but 00:11:56.720 --> 00:11:58.639 it proves his targets were never just sex workers. 00:11:58.759 --> 00:12:01.799 He was hunting vulnerable females, period. Then, 00:12:01.820 --> 00:12:05.919 October 1975, Wilma McCann, the first murder. 00:12:06.709 --> 00:12:10.289 A mother of four, she was the first to die. And 00:12:10.289 --> 00:12:12.769 with her, the modus operandi was fully formed. 00:12:12.889 --> 00:12:15.309 It was clinical. Describe it. He'd approach from 00:12:15.309 --> 00:12:17.330 the rear, incapacitate the victim with a hammer 00:12:17.330 --> 00:12:19.509 blow to the skull. That was to prevent screaming 00:12:19.509 --> 00:12:21.750 or any struggle. And then once they were unconscious, 00:12:22.029 --> 00:12:23.710 he would stab and mutilate the body. And the 00:12:23.710 --> 00:12:25.870 police response, it must have been massive. Oh, 00:12:25.870 --> 00:12:28.769 it was huge. 150 officers, 11 ,000 interviews 00:12:28.769 --> 00:12:31.330 conducted, thousands of statements taken. But 00:12:31.330 --> 00:12:34.549 no suspect identified. Nothing. And this is where 00:12:34.549 --> 00:12:36.809 the information management crisis really begins. 00:12:37.149 --> 00:12:41.309 They were using a manual card index system. Every 00:12:41.309 --> 00:12:44.269 single interview, every car sighting, every anonymous 00:12:44.269 --> 00:12:47.610 tip, it all generated a card. And if you don't 00:12:47.610 --> 00:12:50.230 have a way to cross -reference those cards efficiently. 00:12:50.429 --> 00:12:52.149 They're just building a paper mountain that ends 00:12:52.149 --> 00:12:54.429 up hiding the truth. The answer was in there, 00:12:54.549 --> 00:12:56.590 but they couldn't see it. The so -called reign 00:12:56.590 --> 00:12:59.950 of terror. really takes hold between 1976 and 00:12:59.950 --> 00:13:03.429 1979. The frequency is just relentless. Emily 00:13:03.429 --> 00:13:06.529 Monica Jackson, in January 76, she was stabbed 00:13:06.529 --> 00:13:10.330 52 times. The brutality was escalating with each 00:13:10.330 --> 00:13:13.350 attack. He stamped on her thigh, leaving a clear 00:13:13.350 --> 00:13:15.210 boot print, another clue that wasn't properly 00:13:15.210 --> 00:13:18.029 utilized. But then look at Marcella Claxton in 00:13:18.029 --> 00:13:21.350 May of 76. She survived a hammer attack. She 00:13:21.350 --> 00:13:23.090 was pregnant, wasn't she? Four months pregnant. 00:13:23.580 --> 00:13:25.759 She miscarried as a result of the attack. She 00:13:25.759 --> 00:13:28.279 was able to give the police a photo fit, a composite 00:13:28.279 --> 00:13:31.080 sketch. But her testimony was largely discounted 00:13:31.080 --> 00:13:34.000 by the senior officers. Why? Why would they discount 00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:36.320 a survivor's testimony? Because she didn't fit 00:13:36.320 --> 00:13:38.700 their preconceived notion of a victim. In the 00:13:38.700 --> 00:13:41.159 police's eyes at the time, she wasn't a classic 00:13:41.159 --> 00:13:43.820 prostitute. So this is where the investigation's 00:13:43.820 --> 00:13:47.159 own bias completely blinded them. They decided 00:13:47.159 --> 00:13:50.059 the killer only attacked a certain type of woman. 00:13:50.440 --> 00:13:54.019 Precisely. So if a victim like Marcella Claxton 00:13:54.019 --> 00:13:57.340 didn't fit that narrow profile of a street sex 00:13:57.340 --> 00:13:59.879 worker, the police assumed it must have been 00:13:59.879 --> 00:14:02.000 a different attacker. They actually split the 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:03.980 inquiry, which effectively meant they were throwing 00:14:03.980 --> 00:14:06.340 away crucial witness testimony that could have 00:14:06.340 --> 00:14:08.820 identified him. This cultural attitude, this 00:14:08.820 --> 00:14:11.679 prejudice, it really comes to a head in 1977 00:14:11.679 --> 00:14:15.059 with the murder of Jane Michelle McDonald. She 00:14:15.059 --> 00:14:17.529 was a 16 -year -old shop assistant. And this 00:14:17.529 --> 00:14:19.490 was the turning point for public perception and 00:14:19.490 --> 00:14:22.330 media coverage. The police and the press immediately 00:14:22.330 --> 00:14:25.070 labeled her the first innocent victim. Which 00:14:25.070 --> 00:14:27.190 is just such a loaded, destructive term. It's 00:14:27.190 --> 00:14:29.669 awful because it implies that the previous victims 00:14:29.669 --> 00:14:32.690 were somehow guilty. It creates the obscene hierarchy 00:14:32.690 --> 00:14:35.950 of victimhood. It reached its absolute nadir 00:14:35.950 --> 00:14:38.990 in 1979 when a senior detective, Jim Hobson, 00:14:39.110 --> 00:14:41.809 made a televised appeal. I remember reading about 00:14:41.809 --> 00:14:43.830 this. It's chilling. He addressed the killer 00:14:43.830 --> 00:14:46.909 directly on television, and he said, and I'm 00:14:46.909 --> 00:14:49.870 quoting here, he has made it clear that he hates 00:14:49.870 --> 00:14:53.330 prostitutes. Many people do. But the Ripper is 00:14:53.330 --> 00:14:57.409 now killing innocent girls. Many people do. He 00:14:57.409 --> 00:15:00.049 is validating the killer's hatred on national 00:15:00.049 --> 00:15:02.009 television. He's trying to bargain with a serial 00:15:02.009 --> 00:15:04.509 killer. He's essentially saying, we understand 00:15:04.509 --> 00:15:07.009 your motive. We might even sympathize with it. 00:15:07.049 --> 00:15:09.090 Just please restrict your killing to the women 00:15:09.090 --> 00:15:12.800 we as a society don't care about as much. It's 00:15:12.800 --> 00:15:16.220 morally bankrupt, but it also likely emboldened 00:15:16.220 --> 00:15:19.120 Sutcliffe. It fed directly into his delusion 00:15:19.120 --> 00:15:21.059 that he was on some kind of mission to clean 00:15:21.059 --> 00:15:22.759 up the streets. In the middle of all this horror, 00:15:22.940 --> 00:15:25.659 Sutcliffe makes a catastrophic error, a huge 00:15:25.659 --> 00:15:28.320 mistake. The murder of Jean Jordan in October 00:15:28.320 --> 00:15:30.799 1977. This should have been the end for him. 00:15:31.080 --> 00:15:33.580 He picked her up in Manchester, killed her, and 00:15:33.580 --> 00:15:36.019 disposed of her body. But afterwards, he realized 00:15:36.019 --> 00:15:38.039 something terrible. He'd given her a brand new 00:15:38.039 --> 00:15:40.019 five -pound note. And he knew that was a problem. 00:15:40.220 --> 00:15:43.320 He knew. He'd worked in factories. He knew these 00:15:43.320 --> 00:15:45.639 notes were traceable to specific payroll shipments. 00:15:45.759 --> 00:15:48.159 He panicked. He actually went back to the body 00:15:48.159 --> 00:15:51.139 days later, a huge risk for any killer to try 00:15:51.139 --> 00:15:53.399 and find that note. He couldn't find it. But 00:15:53.399 --> 00:15:55.960 the police did. Yes. It was tucked away in a 00:15:55.960 --> 00:15:58.440 secret compartment in her handbag. The police 00:15:58.440 --> 00:16:00.600 found it, and they realized its significance 00:16:00.600 --> 00:16:03.820 immediately. They traced the note's serial number 00:16:03.820 --> 00:16:06.659 back to the Midland Bank in Shipley and Bingley. 00:16:06.899 --> 00:16:09.529 So they had a geographical location. They did. 00:16:09.610 --> 00:16:12.710 They narrowed the suspect pool down to 8 ,000 00:16:12.710 --> 00:16:15.610 men who had received that specific run of new 00:16:15.610 --> 00:16:17.909 notes in their wages from a handful of local 00:16:17.909 --> 00:16:20.850 companies. 8 ,000 is a lot of people, but it's 00:16:20.850 --> 00:16:23.330 a list. It's finite. It's manageable if you have 00:16:23.330 --> 00:16:25.450 a system. And Peter Sutcliffe was on that list. 00:16:25.610 --> 00:16:27.490 His company had received those notes. He was 00:16:27.490 --> 00:16:29.990 interviewed. So he's sitting across from a detective. 00:16:30.750 --> 00:16:33.710 They know he got one of the notes. What happened? 00:16:33.850 --> 00:16:36.159 How did he get out of that room? He provided 00:16:36.159 --> 00:16:39.259 an alibi. He said he was at a family party on 00:16:39.259 --> 00:16:42.960 the night of the murder. And the police, they 00:16:42.960 --> 00:16:44.840 just accepted it. They didn't push. They didn't 00:16:44.840 --> 00:16:47.139 check it thoroughly. They didn't check his car 00:16:47.139 --> 00:16:49.539 tires against the tracks found at multiple scenes. 00:16:49.940 --> 00:16:52.279 They were treating these interviews as a box 00:16:52.279 --> 00:16:55.320 -ticking exercise to clear people, not an in 00:16:55.320 --> 00:16:57.519 -depth investigation to catch someone. They were 00:16:57.519 --> 00:16:59.379 just completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume 00:16:59.379 --> 00:17:01.919 of names. So he slips through the net again. 00:17:02.360 --> 00:17:05.480 A massive, massive missed opportunity. But then, 00:17:05.480 --> 00:17:07.819 as if things weren't bad enough, the investigation 00:17:07.819 --> 00:17:10.319 gets completely derailed, utterly thrown off 00:17:10.319 --> 00:17:12.480 course. We have to talk about Wearside Jack. 00:17:12.640 --> 00:17:15.119 This is the hoax that undoubtedly cost lives. 00:17:15.200 --> 00:17:16.940 There's no other way to put it. It is probably 00:17:16.940 --> 00:17:19.039 the greatest, most damaging red herring in the 00:17:19.039 --> 00:17:21.859 history of British crime. So between 1978 and 00:17:21.859 --> 00:17:23.980 1979, the head of the investigation, Assistant 00:17:23.980 --> 00:17:26.180 Chief Constable George Oldfield, starts receiving 00:17:26.180 --> 00:17:29.559 letters and, crucially, a tape. A cassette tape 00:17:29.559 --> 00:17:32.279 with a man's voice on it directly taunting the 00:17:32.279 --> 00:17:34.759 police. I'm Jack. I see you're having no luck 00:17:34.759 --> 00:17:37.319 catching me. It was chilling, but the voice was 00:17:37.319 --> 00:17:39.640 distinct. It wasn't a Yorkshire accent. It was 00:17:39.640 --> 00:17:43.000 from Wearside, specifically Sunderland in the 00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:45.460 northeast of England. A Geordie accent. That's 00:17:45.460 --> 00:17:48.759 right. An Oldfield. He didn't just buy it. He 00:17:48.759 --> 00:17:51.380 became completely obsessed with it. He staked 00:17:51.380 --> 00:17:54.160 his reputation on it. He decided, based solely 00:17:54.160 --> 00:17:56.880 on this tape, that the Ripper must have a Geordie 00:17:56.880 --> 00:17:59.859 accent. So what did that mean for all the suspects 00:17:59.859 --> 00:18:01.900 who had Yorkshire accents? Like, for instance, 00:18:02.079 --> 00:18:04.680 Peter Sutcliffe. They were deprioritized. They 00:18:04.680 --> 00:18:06.480 were moved to the bottom of the pile. If you 00:18:06.480 --> 00:18:08.720 didn't sound like the man on the tape, in Oldfield's 00:18:08.720 --> 00:18:11.660 mind, you weren't the Ripper. End of story. And 00:18:11.660 --> 00:18:13.359 this is where that crucial piece of evidence 00:18:13.359 --> 00:18:15.799 from Olive Smelt, the survivor who explicitly 00:18:15.799 --> 00:18:18.299 told them he had a Yorkshire accent, was just 00:18:18.299 --> 00:18:22.079 thrown out. Ignored. Did anyone try to warn Oldfield? 00:18:22.160 --> 00:18:24.759 Were there no dissenting voices? Oh, yes. The 00:18:24.759 --> 00:18:27.380 FBI's behavioral science unit and several dialect 00:18:27.380 --> 00:18:29.960 experts listened to the tape, and they all said, 00:18:30.079 --> 00:18:32.619 this feels like a hoax. The psychology is wrong. 00:18:32.720 --> 00:18:34.759 The real killer wouldn't taunt you in this specific 00:18:34.759 --> 00:18:38.079 way. They warned him. But Oldfield had terminal 00:18:38.079 --> 00:18:40.819 tunnel vision. He ignored the experts. He was 00:18:40.819 --> 00:18:43.220 convinced he knew better. And just to be absolutely 00:18:43.220 --> 00:18:46.599 clear for you listening, Wearside Jack was not 00:18:46.599 --> 00:18:49.369 the killer. Not even close. Decades later. In 00:18:49.369 --> 00:18:52.869 2005, advances in DNA technology identified the 00:18:52.869 --> 00:18:55.690 hookser. He was a man named John Samuel Humble, 00:18:55.789 --> 00:18:58.710 an alcoholic from Sunderland who was, by his 00:18:58.710 --> 00:19:00.970 own admission, just bored and seeking attention. 00:19:01.210 --> 00:19:04.529 He had zero connection to the murders. But his 00:19:04.529 --> 00:19:07.009 prank diverted massive police resources for over 00:19:07.009 --> 00:19:09.509 a year, during which Sutkle continued to kill. 00:19:09.900 --> 00:19:12.319 It's just infuriating to even think about. Meanwhile, 00:19:12.460 --> 00:19:14.759 the major incident room is physically, literally 00:19:14.759 --> 00:19:17.059 collapsing under the weight of its own incompetence. 00:19:17.059 --> 00:19:18.880 That's not an exaggeration. They had to reinforce 00:19:18.880 --> 00:19:20.599 the floor of the building because the filing 00:19:20.599 --> 00:19:23.059 cabinets full of index cards were so heavy. We 00:19:23.059 --> 00:19:25.259 are talking about millions of handwritten cards. 00:19:25.440 --> 00:19:27.880 And Sutcliffe was in those files. Multiple times. 00:19:28.200 --> 00:19:30.359 He was in there for the five -pound note investigation. 00:19:30.799 --> 00:19:33.839 He was in there because his car, a Ford Corsair 00:19:33.839 --> 00:19:36.700 and later a Sunbeam Rapier, was spotted in red 00:19:36.700 --> 00:19:39.180 -light districts hundreds of times. He was even 00:19:39.180 --> 00:19:41.160 in there because his old friend, Trevor Birdsall, 00:19:41.299 --> 00:19:43.240 had become suspicious and reported him to the 00:19:43.240 --> 00:19:45.579 police. But the dots were never connected. The 00:19:45.579 --> 00:19:47.759 system had no cross -referencing capability. 00:19:47.920 --> 00:19:51.680 It was all manual. Card A, regarding a car sighting 00:19:51.680 --> 00:19:54.440 in Leeds, didn't automatically link to Card B, 00:19:54.460 --> 00:19:56.859 regarding the five -pound note in Bingley. It 00:19:56.859 --> 00:19:58.859 was complete information paralysis. They had 00:19:58.859 --> 00:20:00.880 all the pieces of the puzzle, but they're in 00:20:00.880 --> 00:20:02.759 a million different boxes. And while the police 00:20:02.759 --> 00:20:05.400 are chasing this ghost in Sunderland, Sutcliffe 00:20:05.400 --> 00:20:08.319 kills Josephine Whitaker. He kills Barbara Leach. 00:20:08.759 --> 00:20:12.160 In 1980, he kills Marguerite Walls and then Jaclyn 00:20:12.160 --> 00:20:14.779 Hill, a university student. The terror is at 00:20:14.779 --> 00:20:17.359 its absolute peak. And yet the capture, when 00:20:17.359 --> 00:20:20.200 it finally comes, is so utterly mundane. It's 00:20:20.200 --> 00:20:23.569 the definition of an anticlimax. January 2nd, 00:20:23.569 --> 00:20:26.809 1981. It's not some brilliant piece of detective 00:20:26.809 --> 00:20:30.089 work that catches him. It's a probationary constable, 00:20:30.150 --> 00:20:33.470 a rookie named Robert Hides, on patrol in Sheffield. 00:20:33.690 --> 00:20:36.730 He sees a rover with false number plates parked 00:20:36.730 --> 00:20:39.130 in a driveway. A simple traffic stop. That's 00:20:39.130 --> 00:20:42.190 what it came down to. A traffic stop. Sutcliffe 00:20:42.190 --> 00:20:44.950 was in the car with a prostitute, Olivia Revers. 00:20:45.509 --> 00:20:48.240 He's arrested for the false plates. But even 00:20:48.240 --> 00:20:50.720 then he almost gets away with it. He almost destroys 00:20:50.720 --> 00:20:53.720 the evidence. At the scene he asks the police 00:20:53.720 --> 00:20:56.220 if he can have a pee break. He asks to go behind 00:20:56.220 --> 00:20:58.400 a storage tank or something. An oil storage tank 00:20:58.400 --> 00:21:00.700 near where they were parked. He goes behind it. 00:21:00.960 --> 00:21:03.279 And while he's pretending to urinate, he quietly 00:21:03.279 --> 00:21:05.819 drops his hammer and a knife into the undergrowth. 00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:07.839 And the arresting officers didn't see him drop 00:21:07.839 --> 00:21:09.819 them. Not at that moment, no. They take him to 00:21:09.819 --> 00:21:11.720 the station. The case should have ended there, 00:21:11.799 --> 00:21:14.200 with him getting out on bail. But a sergeant, 00:21:14.220 --> 00:21:16.660 Robert Ring, just had a hunch. Something didn't 00:21:16.660 --> 00:21:18.599 feel right. He decided to go back to the scene. 00:21:18.839 --> 00:21:21.240 And he found them. He shines his flashlight behind 00:21:21.240 --> 00:21:23.400 the tank, and there they are. The hammer and 00:21:23.400 --> 00:21:26.279 the knife. The Ripper's toolkit. If that sergeant 00:21:26.279 --> 00:21:28.420 doesn't go back on that hunch. Sutcliffe walks. 00:21:29.069 --> 00:21:31.589 He almost certainly gets bailed on a minor theft 00:21:31.589 --> 00:21:33.930 charge for the plates and walks away to kill 00:21:33.930 --> 00:21:35.990 again. It was that close. When they get him to 00:21:35.990 --> 00:21:38.609 the station and they strip search him, they find 00:21:38.609 --> 00:21:42.529 a detail that is just so bizarre, but so telling. 00:21:42.630 --> 00:21:46.170 It completely undermines his later defense, the 00:21:46.170 --> 00:21:48.390 V -neck sweater. This is one of the most chilling 00:21:48.390 --> 00:21:50.549 details of the whole case. He was wearing a V 00:21:50.549 --> 00:21:53.190 -neck sweater, but not as a shirt. He was wearing 00:21:53.190 --> 00:21:56.339 it upside down as pants. His legs were through 00:21:56.339 --> 00:21:58.799 the sleeves. Why? What was the purpose of that? 00:21:59.039 --> 00:22:01.960 The V -neck opening exposed his genitals. But 00:22:01.960 --> 00:22:04.059 the crucial part was the elbows of the sweater. 00:22:04.200 --> 00:22:06.539 They were padded. By wearing it on his legs, 00:22:06.700 --> 00:22:09.140 the padding from the elbows was positioned perfectly 00:22:09.140 --> 00:22:11.599 over his knees. So it was padding for his knees. 00:22:11.680 --> 00:22:13.859 Yes, it was to protect his knees and keep them 00:22:13.859 --> 00:22:16.059 comfortable while he knelt over his victims to 00:22:16.059 --> 00:22:18.579 mutilate them. That speaks to a level of practical, 00:22:18.740 --> 00:22:22.319 rational, cold -blooded planning. Exactly. It 00:22:22.319 --> 00:22:25.180 completely contradicts the idea of some frenzied, 00:22:25.180 --> 00:22:27.819 chaotic killer who has lost touch with reality. 00:22:28.240 --> 00:22:31.180 He was methodically planning for his own physical 00:22:31.180 --> 00:22:34.279 comfort during the act of murder. He confesses 00:22:34.279 --> 00:22:36.619 pretty quickly after they find the weapons, but 00:22:36.619 --> 00:22:39.900 he offers up a motive. He claims God sent him 00:22:39.900 --> 00:22:42.500 on a mission. a voice he heard from a gravestone 00:22:42.500 --> 00:22:44.839 while he was working as a gravedigger. The divine 00:22:44.839 --> 00:22:47.880 mission defense. He claimed the voice of a Polish 00:22:47.880 --> 00:22:50.900 man buried in the cemetery. A man named Brunasaw 00:22:50.900 --> 00:22:53.599 Zapolsky spoke to him from the grave and commanded 00:22:53.599 --> 00:22:56.079 him to kill prostitutes to remove them from the 00:22:56.079 --> 00:22:58.299 earth. Which sets up the central question for 00:22:58.299 --> 00:23:01.799 the trial in May 1981. It's the classic question. 00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:05.279 Is he mad or is he bad? That was the entire trial. 00:23:05.720 --> 00:23:08.119 The defense argued for manslaughter on the grounds 00:23:08.119 --> 00:23:09.920 of diminished responsibility. They brought in 00:23:09.920 --> 00:23:12.019 psychiatrists who said he had paranoid schizophrenia 00:23:12.019 --> 00:23:15.140 and wasn't in control of his actions. The prosecution, 00:23:15.380 --> 00:23:17.220 led by the attorney general himself, Sir Michael 00:23:17.220 --> 00:23:20.519 Havers, argued he was a cold, calculating, sadistic 00:23:20.519 --> 00:23:23.279 killer who was using madness as a ploy, as a 00:23:23.279 --> 00:23:25.640 shield to avoid a murder conviction. And the 00:23:25.640 --> 00:23:28.220 jury sided with the prosecution. They did. They 00:23:28.220 --> 00:23:31.000 found him guilty of murder on all counts. He 00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:33.079 was sentenced to 20 concurrent life sentences. 00:23:33.519 --> 00:23:36.180 The judge recommended a minimum of 30 years, 00:23:36.319 --> 00:23:39.299 but in 2010, that was reviewed and changed to 00:23:39.299 --> 00:23:41.740 a whole life order, meaning he would never be 00:23:41.740 --> 00:23:44.359 released. After the trial, the government knew 00:23:44.359 --> 00:23:47.359 it had to figure out what went wrong. The investigation 00:23:47.359 --> 00:23:50.039 had been a national embarrassment, a disaster. 00:23:50.200 --> 00:23:52.759 They commissioned the Byford Report. This report 00:23:52.759 --> 00:23:55.880 is the definitive, brutal account of the systemic 00:23:55.880 --> 00:23:59.200 failure. It was written in 1982, but kept largely 00:23:59.200 --> 00:24:02.759 secret from the public until 2006. It laid everything 00:24:02.759 --> 00:24:05.319 bare. It confirmed that Sutcliffe was interviewed 00:24:05.319 --> 00:24:08.220 nine separate times, but it also revealed something 00:24:08.220 --> 00:24:10.819 truly heartbreaking about his old friend, Trevor 00:24:10.819 --> 00:24:13.160 Bird Saul. The friend from that very first assault 00:24:13.160 --> 00:24:16.750 back in 1969. The very same. In November 1980, 00:24:17.049 --> 00:24:18.890 just a couple of months before the final arrest, 00:24:19.250 --> 00:24:21.769 Birdsall's suspicions had grown so strong that 00:24:21.769 --> 00:24:23.950 he sent an anonymous letter to the police. It 00:24:23.950 --> 00:24:26.250 said, I suspect Peter Sutcliffe of being the 00:24:26.250 --> 00:24:27.890 Yorkshire Ripper. He gave the name and the address. 00:24:28.170 --> 00:24:30.410 What happened to the letter? It was lost in the 00:24:30.410 --> 00:24:32.690 paperwork backlog. It was buried in the paper 00:24:32.690 --> 00:24:35.470 mountain and never acted upon. And it gets worse. 00:24:36.170 --> 00:24:38.329 Birdsall was so concerned that he went to the 00:24:38.329 --> 00:24:40.730 police station the very next day to report his 00:24:40.730 --> 00:24:44.119 suspicions in person. That report was also lost. 00:24:44.380 --> 00:24:47.700 You're joking. I'm not. The system was so completely 00:24:47.700 --> 00:24:50.700 broken that a direct tip -off, naming the killer 00:24:50.700 --> 00:24:52.980 from someone who knew him well, was simply swallowed 00:24:52.980 --> 00:24:55.140 by the bureaucracy. Sutcliffe spent the rest 00:24:55.140 --> 00:24:57.519 of his life in prison. He was eventually moved 00:24:57.519 --> 00:25:00.119 to Broadmoor High Security Psychiatric Hospital 00:25:00.119 --> 00:25:02.680 after finally being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia 00:25:02.680 --> 00:25:06.349 in 1984. And his time inside was not peaceful. 00:25:06.509 --> 00:25:09.009 It was incredibly violent. He was a target. One 00:25:09.009 --> 00:25:11.049 inmate attacked him with a broken coffee jar. 00:25:11.329 --> 00:25:14.329 Another, in 1997, stabbed him in both eyes with 00:25:14.329 --> 00:25:16.910 a pen, blinding him in one eye. He lived in a 00:25:16.910 --> 00:25:19.190 constant state of fear, which is a grim irony 00:25:19.190 --> 00:25:21.150 given the fear he inflicted on a whole generation 00:25:21.150 --> 00:25:23.410 of women. He was eventually transferred back 00:25:23.410 --> 00:25:25.470 to a regular prison and died in November 2020 00:25:25.470 --> 00:25:28.190 from a combination of health complications, including 00:25:28.190 --> 00:25:30.970 COVID -19. Before we close out, we have to touch 00:25:30.970 --> 00:25:33.359 on the unsolved mysteries. because the official 00:25:33.359 --> 00:25:37.000 count is 13 murders. But the Byford report itself 00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:40.660 states that it is, and I quote, improbable that 00:25:40.660 --> 00:25:43.079 Sutcliffe simply stopped attacking women between 00:25:43.079 --> 00:25:47.440 1969 and 1975. Serial killers don't just take 00:25:47.440 --> 00:25:49.640 a six -year break. It's not how their compulsion 00:25:49.640 --> 00:25:52.019 works. There's a whole list of what some call 00:25:52.019 --> 00:25:54.500 the secret murders, attacks that bear all his 00:25:54.500 --> 00:25:58.529 hallmarks. A man named Fred Craven in 1966. Gloria 00:25:58.529 --> 00:26:01.650 Wood in 1974. And the absolute tragedy of Carol 00:26:01.650 --> 00:26:04.710 Wilkinson in 1977. This is where the police's 00:26:04.710 --> 00:26:06.950 tunnel vision destroyed another life entirely. 00:26:07.410 --> 00:26:10.230 A man named Anthony Steele was convicted of Carol 00:26:10.230 --> 00:26:12.690 Wilkinson's murder. He was intellectually disabled 00:26:12.690 --> 00:26:15.490 and coerced into a false confession. He served 00:26:15.490 --> 00:26:17.890 20 years in prison. But he was innocent. Completely 00:26:17.890 --> 00:26:20.410 innocent. He was exonerated in 2003. All the 00:26:20.410 --> 00:26:22.609 evidence now points to Sutcliffe. He worked near 00:26:22.609 --> 00:26:25.190 the crime scene. The M .O. was identical. Anthony 00:26:25.190 --> 00:26:27.349 Steele lost decades of his life because the police 00:26:27.349 --> 00:26:28.960 were under so much pressure that they arrested 00:26:28.960 --> 00:26:31.680 the wrong man just to clear the books. So after 00:26:31.680 --> 00:26:33.759 all of this, what does it all mean? What is the 00:26:33.759 --> 00:26:36.140 legacy of this case? Well, in terms of policing, 00:26:36.480 --> 00:26:39.559 it changed everything. The catastrophic failure 00:26:39.559 --> 00:26:41.980 of the card index system led directly to the 00:26:41.980 --> 00:26:44.819 development of HOMES, the Home Office Large Major 00:26:44.819 --> 00:26:47.980 Inquiry System. It's the computer database that 00:26:47.980 --> 00:26:50.880 British police forces use to manage major investigations 00:26:50.880 --> 00:26:53.779 to this day. They realized they could never, 00:26:53.819 --> 00:26:57.259 ever rely on paper and human memory again. And 00:26:57.259 --> 00:26:59.440 what about the social legacy? It sparked the 00:26:59.440 --> 00:27:01.900 Reclaim the Night movement. Women in the late 00:27:01.900 --> 00:27:04.500 70s were absolutely furious that the official 00:27:04.500 --> 00:27:07.480 police solution to male violence was women, stay 00:27:07.480 --> 00:27:10.539 inside, lock your doors. They marched in their 00:27:10.539 --> 00:27:13.180 thousands to say, no, men are the problem. Curfew 00:27:13.180 --> 00:27:15.019 the men. We have a fundamental right to be safe 00:27:15.019 --> 00:27:17.950 in public spaces. It was a watershed moment for 00:27:17.950 --> 00:27:20.109 feminist activism in the UK. You know, I think 00:27:20.109 --> 00:27:22.210 the most provocative takeaway for me from all 00:27:22.210 --> 00:27:23.990 this is about the myth of the killer. We want 00:27:23.990 --> 00:27:25.609 them to be criminal geniuses. We want them to 00:27:25.609 --> 00:27:27.950 be Hannibal Lecter. We do. Because if they're 00:27:27.950 --> 00:27:30.509 evil geniuses, it somehow excuses the fact that 00:27:30.509 --> 00:27:33.359 we couldn't catch them for so long. But Sutcliffe 00:27:33.359 --> 00:27:36.140 wasn't a genius. He was a mediocre man. He was 00:27:36.140 --> 00:27:39.099 a bad driver. He was a sloppy criminal. He left 00:27:39.099 --> 00:27:42.380 clues absolutely everywhere. The traceable banknote, 00:27:42.420 --> 00:27:45.240 the boot prints, the car sightings. He wasn't 00:27:45.240 --> 00:27:48.599 a mastermind. He wasn't even close. He was protected 00:27:48.599 --> 00:27:51.559 by a system that was incompetent, that was overwhelmed, 00:27:51.740 --> 00:27:53.640 and that was fundamentally prejudiced against 00:27:53.640 --> 00:27:56.539 the very women he was killing. He didn't outsmart 00:27:56.539 --> 00:27:58.599 the police. The police outsmarted themselves. 00:27:59.160 --> 00:28:01.119 And that is a very heavy thought to leave you 00:28:01.119 --> 00:28:03.680 with. How many other average men get away with 00:28:03.680 --> 00:28:05.720 terrible things, not because they are brilliant, 00:28:05.859 --> 00:28:09.299 but because we as a society are looking in completely 00:28:09.299 --> 00:28:11.599 the wrong direction? It's a question that is 00:28:11.599 --> 00:28:14.119 unfortunately still just as relevant today. Thank 00:28:14.119 --> 00:28:16.839 you for listening to this deep dive. Stay curious, 00:28:16.960 --> 00:28:19.579 stay skeptical, and we will catch you on the 00:28:19.579 --> 00:28:19.940 next one.