UK’s ‘Yorkshire Ripper’ serial killer Peter Sutcliffe dies

London: The British serial killer is known as the “ Yorkshire Ripper “, a man who instilled terror and fear across northern England in the 1970s, died Friday at a hospital there. He was 74.
Peter Sutcliffe, a former gravedigger, was serving concurrent life sentences for killing 13 women in Yorkshire and northwest England between 1975 and 1980.
British media reported he had refused treatment after testing positive for COVID-19 and was suffering from several underlying health conditions. His death will be investigated by the coroner.
Sutcliffe’s barbaric attacks on young women were compounded by the police incompetence that allowed him to evade arrest and continue killing. The manhunt for the Ripper was one of the biggest the country had ever known, with some 2.5 million hours spent trying to catch him. Documentaries have chronicled how stubborn UK investigators stuck to their theories, missing key leads, ignoring contradictory evidence and wasting time in the hunt for the killer.
Although he was interviewed nine times in the investigation, Sutcliffe was only caught after being found with a prostitute in his car.
He was arrested on January 2, 1981, in the English city of Sheffield, and later confessed, although he denied it at his trial. He was convicted on May 22, 1981, at London’s Central Criminal Court of 13 counts of murder, seven cases of attempted murder and was sentenced to 20 concurrent life terms.