Read Online The Devil's Garden by Debi Marshall - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Debi Marshall
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Constable of West York-shire, Keith Hellawell, theorised that judging by the weapon used and other similar indicators in a large number of unsolved murders and attacks, 20 murders could have been the handiwork of the Ripper. For six years, Peter Sutcliffe terrorised Yorkshire residents. Of his 13 victims, eight were prostitutes and other women who had made the simple fatal decision to go out after dark. Sutcliffe's weapon of choice was the knife: the signature of his murders was repeated slashing in the area of his victims' stomachs and vaginas. Many were mutilated after death. By 1978, the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper was the biggest in British criminal history.
Frustrated by the lack of strong leads and with the killer not leaving behind evidence that offered clues to his identity, the UK police were forced to resort to slow, mechanical means: sifting through the huge number of suspects, checking the car registration numbers of vehicles regularly seen in the red-light districts and pulling the drivers in for questioning. Then, a breakthrough. A murdered street worker was found in possession of a new five-pound note, and police started the laborious task of tracing the destination of the batch of notes. At one of the 23 factories traced, Peter Sutcliffe calmly answered police questions about his whereabouts on the night of the murder, offering an alibi that police believed. He would again call on his sangfroid the following year when questioned as to why his car had been seen numerous times in a red-light district, coolly answering that he had to drive through the area to get to work. Sutcliffe again walked away from the questioning and continued to kill for another two years.
It was this, in hindsight, where police recognised they had made their biggest mistake. While Sutcliffe's vehicle registration number was in the computer at police headquarters, there was no corresponding information to link that he had also been interviewed with regard to the five-pound note. The sheer number of suspects' names that had been fed into police computers ensured that cross-checking was laborious. The errors compounded. Reducing the number of factories that could have been recipients of the five-pound note from 23 to three, Sutcliffe was again questioned. The evidence was liter-ally at the policemen's feet: during this questioning, Sutcliffe was wearing the boots he had worn when he murdered his tenth victim. An imprint of the boot mark had been taken, but police did not think to look at his boots.
Something had to give. Public disquiet had reached a frenzied pitch and a fresh approach needed to be taken. A team of examiners was established to take a fresh look at the entire evidence and the sites at which the women had been murdered. Dr David Canter, Professor of Psychology at the University of Surrey, applied his skills in locating what he termed the 'centre of gravity'. It was this that brought another breakthrough: with the aid of a computer centralising the murder areas, investigators homed in on Bradford as the city in which the killer lived. They only needed now to join the dots: Bradford; known suspects; five-pound note; evidence.
Despite the manhunt and the heightened risk of being discovered – or because of a subconscious desire to be caught – Sutcliffe went trawling for another victim. He gave police a false name when he was interrupted sitting in his car with another prostitute he planned to murder, but this time a check of his name proved that the car also had false number plates. Asking to relieve himself before he was taken in for questioning, Sutcliffe disposed of the hammer and knife behind a storage tank. He had been committing murder for six years; finally in 1981, the identity of the Yorkshire Ripper was about to be revealed. Returning to where Sutcliffe had relieved himself, an astute young police officer found the weapons he had secreted behind the tank. When Sutcliffe confessed, he gave police an insight into
Frustrated by the lack of strong leads and with the killer not leaving behind evidence that offered clues to his identity, the UK police were forced to resort to slow, mechanical means: sifting through the huge number of suspects, checking the car registration numbers of vehicles regularly seen in the red-light districts and pulling the drivers in for questioning. Then, a breakthrough. A murdered street worker was found in possession of a new five-pound note, and police started the laborious task of tracing the destination of the batch of notes. At one of the 23 factories traced, Peter Sutcliffe calmly answered police questions about his whereabouts on the night of the murder, offering an alibi that police believed. He would again call on his sangfroid the following year when questioned as to why his car had been seen numerous times in a red-light district, coolly answering that he had to drive through the area to get to work. Sutcliffe again walked away from the questioning and continued to kill for another two years.
It was this, in hindsight, where police recognised they had made their biggest mistake. While Sutcliffe's vehicle registration number was in the computer at police headquarters, there was no corresponding information to link that he had also been interviewed with regard to the five-pound note. The sheer number of suspects' names that had been fed into police computers ensured that cross-checking was laborious. The errors compounded. Reducing the number of factories that could have been recipients of the five-pound note from 23 to three, Sutcliffe was again questioned. The evidence was liter-ally at the policemen's feet: during this questioning, Sutcliffe was wearing the boots he had worn when he murdered his tenth victim. An imprint of the boot mark had been taken, but police did not think to look at his boots.
Something had to give. Public disquiet had reached a frenzied pitch and a fresh approach needed to be taken. A team of examiners was established to take a fresh look at the entire evidence and the sites at which the women had been murdered. Dr David Canter, Professor of Psychology at the University of Surrey, applied his skills in locating what he termed the 'centre of gravity'. It was this that brought another breakthrough: with the aid of a computer centralising the murder areas, investigators homed in on Bradford as the city in which the killer lived. They only needed now to join the dots: Bradford; known suspects; five-pound note; evidence.
Despite the manhunt and the heightened risk of being discovered – or because of a subconscious desire to be caught – Sutcliffe went trawling for another victim. He gave police a false name when he was interrupted sitting in his car with another prostitute he planned to murder, but this time a check of his name proved that the car also had false number plates. Asking to relieve himself before he was taken in for questioning, Sutcliffe disposed of the hammer and knife behind a storage tank. He had been committing murder for six years; finally in 1981, the identity of the Yorkshire Ripper was about to be revealed. Returning to where Sutcliffe had relieved himself, an astute young police officer found the weapons he had secreted behind the tank. When Sutcliffe confessed, he gave police an insight into
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