Yorkshire Ripper Faces New Trial Over Additional Murders

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Yorkshire ripper Peter Sutcliffe faces new trial over additional murders discovered

Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe is to face a new trial for previously unaccounted for murders before he was arrested in 1981. 

A cold case police investigation uncovered at least 13 additional attacks carried out by the ripper during his serial killing spree in the 1970’s.

Dailymail.co.uk reports:

Now, it has emerged police have already visited at least two women who survived unsolved violent attacks that were carried out during the time when Sutcliffe was at large.

A relative of one of the women told The Sunday Mirror: ‘Police knocked on the door and told her she was on a list of possible victims.

‘They asked her to give a new statement and took a DNA sample. They said science has evolved and that they were looking at 13 other cases.

‘They were asking a lot of questions and we’re glad about that. The police were telling her he could end up back in court.’

The relative added the woman was attacked around 40 years ago – and claims as soon as Sutcliffe was jailed they knew he was the one responsible for the brutal attack, which left the woman ‘traumatised’.

The Sunday Mirror reports the investigation is thought to be based on censored files in a top-level 1982 government report which was not published until 2006 which said Sutcliffe was ‘probably responsible’ for many more attacks he did not admit to.

Sutcliffe has been in Broadmoor for more than three decades after he was given 20 life sentences in 1981. As well as the 13 women he killed, he tried to murder seven more in a five-year spree.

He used weapons including a hammer, screwdriver and knives to mutilate women across the north of England.

Dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper, Sutcliffe believed he was on a ‘mission from God’ to kill sex workers.

Since Sutcliffe’s conviction, various reports have indicated he may have killed many more women than those whose deaths featured in the 1981 trial.

The case remains one of the most notorious of the last 100 years and the assessment of what went wrong in the investigation is still having an impact on major police inquiries to this day.

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