Yorkshire Ripper - The Secret Murders: The True Story of Serial Killer Peter Sutcliffe's Reign of Terror Paperback – 19 Aug. 2021

This book is astounding and unbelievable in almost equal measure. Astounding because it draws together facts about attacks on ( mainly) women throughout the UK from the mid 1960s until the early 1980s. Over 20 of those attacks resulted in death and were classed as murder and there's an equal number of attempted murders. What's unbelievable is that despite the evidence, the majority of these attacks were not attributed to Peter Sutcliffe, popularly known as the Yorkshire Ripper.Over the years, I've followed the case with interest and following his arrest and trial was dismayed by the apparent failings of the enquiry teams. Not once, but numerous times over many years. The authors of thus book have undertaken a mammoth task, against all odds, to identify unsolved murder and attempted murder cases which could have been carried out by Sutcliffe. They have done so in a detail; but each case us presented factually, without embellishment so popular when authors cash in following a notorious series of crimes. There's no sensationalism, just cold, hard, documented fact which is then analysed in terms of whether Sutcliffe had the means, motive and opportunity to carry out the crimes. In every case, the facts speak for themselves. He was often in or near the locus, the cause of death was consistent with his MO, which he changed, knowingly. And without a shadow of doubt, the man is bad, not mad and his crimes are those of a sexual deviant.Chris Clarke and Tim Tate should be commended for presenting their findings, despite many of their requests for information and access to official data being denied on the grounds of confidentiality or not in the public interest. Given that two formal enquiries into the conduct of the police investigations have been suppressed, despite having cost multiple hundreds of thousands of pounds paid for by the taxpayer, this is as near as the lay person will get to a comprehensive and authoritative overview of what really happened.It's a story of duplicity and deceit. And that's from senior police officers ( including Chief Constables) and the Home Secretary. It's a dismal and heartbreaking story of lost opportunity, arrogance and abysmal leadership and policing. There is little positive spin to put on this. Even the then Attorney General, responsible for prosecution evidence, ended up working with the defence to get the best deal for a serial killer. This is one of those very rare true crime books which is exceptionally well written. It made me increasingly angry as the true extent of the police failings became clear. At times I was incensed and it's so sad that many of the victims and their families will never see justice and Sutcliffe brought to account for his further crimes. Unaccountable and untouchable and it's a sad fact that I not convinced that much has changed.

'The Secret Murders' is based on the possibility that Peter William Sutcliffe, The Yorkshire Ripper, was responsible for at least a further 22 deaths, and other serious assaults, which were never properly investigated and never attributed to Sutcliffe due to the inefficiency of the police force at the time.According to the book; a suppression of evidence coupled with police blunder left Sutcliffe free to continue killing. The author also makes a case that Sutcliffe was committing assault and murder for many more years than the police have ever admitted and the legal system of the time was responsible for imprisoning three innocent men. Each one wrongly accused of a crime committed by Sutcliffe and serving long prison sentences.So why the huge amount of police bungling?. Chris Clarke makes the case that Sutcliffe changed his MO and killed in different areas. It fooled the police. There was no National Crime Intelligence at that time. No central core of information to link one squad with another or one crime with the next. Different police forces seemed unwilling to work together and didn't share information. They didn't link the crimes, including attacks on men and non prostitutes, with the same killer. They had an idea, an impression, of who they were looking for, how and who he killed, anything outside of that wasn't attributed to the same murderer. He quite simply slipped through the net time and time again.The investigation was a mess. If you believe what's written here that mess extended to crucial pieces of evidence disappearing, not being presented, and a huge amount of information being intentionally witheld from the public. One of the scariest aspects raised by the book is that police handed Sutcliffe the time and opportunity to declare himself insane. He almost got away with murder because he had an opportunity to create a cover story - 'his voices'.What is for sure is that there are the families of 22 missing women out there who may have died at Sutcliffe's hands and there might be more. We'll probably never know.The investigation behind 'Yorkshire Ripper - 'The Secret Murders' is the work of Chris Clarke who joined the police force in 1966 and whose career saw him rise from the traditional role of 'bobby' to Local Intelligence Officer and a man who studied crime pattern analysis. Chris Clarke retired in 1994 and an incident which had happened to his second wife, attempted abduction, led him into an investigation which revealed a large number of unsolved murders spanning more than fifty years. This is his research into some of those murders and the story of his uncovering what might be considered a complete and absolute travesty of justice.It's very difficult to give yourself up 100% to this type of research which, no matter how good, is always biased in favour of the author. Only a public inquiry with full disclosure would reveal the real truth and bring justice to the families of the victims. Having said that; this is an interesting read and certainly offers something to think about.

This books fills you in on all the delays and slip-ups involved with catching and condemning this evil serial killer. Some of the details of injuries inflicted are extremely harrowing but it is a well written and intriguing narrative. It is a shame that not all the victims saw justice but perhaps it is best not to stir up additional stress for all those families. Heartbreaking.

As a woman who lived through the time of fear as a teenager this brought back shocking memories of the news of the day when we came home straight from school, never ventured out alone and lived from daily headline to headline. This book catalogues the literally blow by blow account of Britain 's most prolific killer in thorough detail and casts the very real shadow of police ineptitude and subsequent cover up. Children in the USA who learned of JFK 's death in school will be dead before the Warren Commission files become accessible to the public in 2075 - I can only hope to be alive in 2045 when the full unredacted version of the Ripper police enquiries are made available.A solid read for any real life conspiracy theorist.

At last the real story, tragic as it is brutal and well written. He is truly a monster, not a mad man!!!

This is a decently written account of the authors version of the crimes of Peter Sutcliffe (The Yorkshire Ripper). As others have documented prior to this piece, there is no question Sutcliffe committed many more attacks on women that the 20 that he was convicted for in 1981. Many of the 'confirmed' cases have been documented elsewhere and this book adds little to the accounts of those incidents. These authors, however, cast a much wider net and, in so doing, try perhaps a little too hard to convince us that Sutcliffe was responsible for a number of murders of young women in the late 1960s-1970s for which there is very little clear evidence.The description of scientific evidence is particularly poorly written. The authors erroneous description of what a blood-group secretor is being notably inaccurate and misleading. Sutcliffe was a non-secretor (meaning he did not secrete his blood-group antigens in saliva or semen), and thus police had no idea what his blood type was until after his arrest since he never left any blood evidence at any crime scene and testing of his semen would have revealed no result. About 20% of the population are non-secretors so it is not particularly rare and was one reason why blood typing as a forensic tool was exceptionally limited.I also think that the authors need to stretch Sutcliffe's MO to enable the more unlikely killings to be included in his series runs contrary to modern opinions regarding serial killers signatures. Sutcliffe clearly incapacitated his victims using a blunt instrument first, always attacked from behind, and only proceeded to use other weapons if time permitted and, in most cases, after the victim was mortally injured. If he engaged with his victims it was never in a threatening or aggressive way, quite the opposite in fact, and he attacked almost all of his canonical victims outside with only one exception, when he was taken into the victim's flat (which she used pretty exclusively for sexual encounters). Murders where no incapacitation via blunt force trauma occurred, particularly those involving either ligature strangulation or a bladed object as the method of primary attack, seem highly unlikely to be the work of Sutcliffe. Thus most of the London murders can be disregarded and I do not believe any of those are connected to the Yorkshire Ripper.Again, a decent read, just not as sensational as the authors would lead you to believe.

An enjoyable read that highlighted an incompetent UK police force at that time.A well managed and efficient police force would have solved this tragic event sooner and saved many un-necessary deaths.