Finally The Yorkshire Ripper is dead at 74: Serial killer Peter Sutcliffe who murdered 13 women in reign of terror during 70s and 80s dies in jail of Covid after refusing treatment

 

The Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe died this morning at the age of 74 after refusing treatment for coronavirus.    

The frail serial killer, who murdered at least 13 women in the 1970s and 1980s, died at the University Hospital of North Durham. 

His lungs failed overnight and he was pronounced dead at 1.10am, with no visitors by his bedside because of coronavirus restrictions.

The Ripper had previously signed 'do not resuscitate forms' - while friends said he astonishingly believed he would 'go to heaven' after his death because he had become a Jehovah's Witness. 

Marcella Claxton, who was attacked by Sutcliffe and left needing more than 50-stitches after being over the head with a hammer, welcomed today's news. 

She told MailOnline: 'I'm happy he's gone. I've thought about what he did to me every day since and although the news that's he's died brings those horrible memories back at least now I may be able to get some closure.

'I'm hoping it will bring me a little peace knowing he's no longer with us.' 

Sutcliffe was returned to HMP Frankland around ten days ago after a five-night stay in a local hospital with heart problems. 

However on his return to the jail's  medical isolation unit Sutcliffe began to complain again of shortness of breath and chest pain, later testing positive for covid-19 on November 7.    

Sutcliffe was being monitored in isolation at the jail over the weekend when his health began to deteriorate and he was readmitted to hospital on Sunday before dying this morning.  

On his first visit he spent five nights there, from November 3, and was discharged after testing negative for Covid - he had complained of covid-19-like symptoms on admission to hospital. 

The Prison Service did not release a cause of death but a spokesman said: 'HMP Frankland prisoner Peter Coonan [born Sutcliffe] died in hospital on 13 November. The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman has been informed'. 

A source told The Sun: 'No tears were shed. His death was as pitiful as the vile life he had lived.'   

Today families of Sutcliffe's victims reacted to news of his death - which comes 45 years after he began his vile killing spree that would terrorise the north of England for half a decade. 

Richard McCann, the son of Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe's first recognised victim, Wilma McCann, told BBC Breakfast: 'I'm surprised how I feel this morning.

'It brings me some degree of closure, not that I wished him dead, far from it.

'Every time we hear a news story about him, and my mum's photo is often shown, it's just another reminder of what he did.

'One positive to come from this is that we'll hear much less about him and no more reminders about what happened all those years ago.'

He appealed to West Yorkshire Police to make a formal apology for the way in which his mother and other victims of Sutcliffe were described by officers in the 1970s.

He said he wanted the force 'once and for all' to 'apologise to the families, who are still around, for the way in which they described some of the women as 'innocent', inferring that some were not innocent - including my mum.

'I'd invite them to make that apology. They were innocent and it would set the records straight.'

Mr McCann added: 'I want her to be remembered as the mother of four children, the daughter of her parents.

'She was a family woman who, through no fault of her own, was going through adversity and made some bad decisions, some risky decisions. She paid for those decisions with her life.'  

The family of another Ripper victim Olive Smelt were also relieved that Sutcliffe had died and hit out at him being allowed to live in 'luxury' for so many years.

Mrs Smelt was attacked by Peter Sutcliffe in August 1975 - Sutcliffe's second victim.

The aged 46, she was struck twice on the head with a hammer and slashed with a pickaxe near her home in Halifax, West Yorkshire.

She survived the attack but passed away in 2011.

Daughter Julie Lowry said: 'I think it's about time, Sutcliffe should have died a long time ago.

'He's taken a lot of people's lives away from them. I'm not sad, not at all

'It's a bit of closure. We've had to live with what he did all our lives. Not just us but all victims and their families, people whose lives he affected and destroyed.

'I think he's been kept in luxury for how many odd years, so I won't shed a tear or share any grief at this news.'

Marcella Claxton, whose family had moved to Leeds from the West Indies when she was 10, was attacked by Sutcliffe after she had left a late-night house party in Leeds in May 1976. 

Although she survived, she lost the baby she was four months pregnant with.

today she welcomed news of Sutcliffe's death but said she was still suffering from the effects of the attack 44 years on.     

Former detective Bob Bridgestock said he hoped some victims would find peace following this morning's news. 

'Today is about the families and they won't shed a tear for him, but it will bring back some terrible memories for them,' he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

'For those that were attacked and survived, it will give them a little bit of peace knowing that they don't actually have to hear about him after today any more.'

Bridgestock said Sutcliffe was a 'brutal' killer who would be 'detested' way after his death, and acknowledged mistakes were made in the search for him.

'Peter Sutcliffe wasn't a very intelligent killer, he was just brutal. It fits, in my mind, into the likes of (Myra) Hindley and (Ian) Brady and the likes of Robert Black - serial killers who will be detested way after they've gone.

'I've walked with my dog this morning and people have said: 'Good news, good riddance,' and that's what a lot of people will be thinking about (it).'

Mr Bridgestock was one of the first officers on the scene when Josephine Whitaker was murdered by Sutcliffe in 1979.

He said hindsight was a wonderful thing, but senior officers on the case 'wore blinkers on the investigation'.

'The police weren't capable but (back) then the ability of the police was limited, the reviews have shown how limited they were.

'I can remember Josephine Whitaker's murder, being in pouring-down weather with another officer, waiting over an hour for some kind of tent to come and try to protect her, to preserve the scene.

'We use the tarpaulin from a nearby wagon, because it took an hour to get some kind of structure there to protect her. And it's those kind of things that, fortunately, changed rapidly after he was caught.' 

John Apter, chairman of the Police Federation, urged people to remember Sutcliffe's victims.

He tweeted: 'Lot's of breaking news about the death of convicted murderer Peter Sutcliffe. I understand why this is news worthy, but my ask of the media is lets show the faces of those he killed, not him. The 13 women he murdered and the 7 who survived his brutal attacks are in my thoughts.'