Crime Library - A Serial Killer

Who Is Peter Sutcliffe ? : Peter William Sutcliffe (born 2 June 1946 in Bingley, United Kingdom) is an English serial killer who was dubbed The Yorkshire Ripper. Sutcliffe was convicted in 1981 for murdering 13 women, and attacking several others. He is currently serving life imprisonment in Broadmoor Hospital. Sutcliffe began using the name Peter William Coonan at some point after his conviction.

Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering the following 13 victims:

1. Wilma McCann ( Age 28 ) : Killed on 30 October 1975. Body found at Prince Phillip Playing Fields, Leeds

2. Emily Jackson ( Age : 42 ) : Killed On 20 January 1976. Body found at Manor Street, Leeds

3. Irene Richardson ( Age : 28 ) : Killed On 5 February 1977. Body found at Roundhay Park, Leeds.

4. Patricia Atkinson ( Age : 32 ) : Killed On 23 April 1977. Body found at Flat 3, 9 Oak Avenue, Bradford .

5. Jayne MacDonald ( Age : 16 ) : Killed On 26 June 1977. Body found at Adventure playground, Reginald Street, Leeds.

6. Jean Jordan ( Age : 20 ) : Killed on 1 October 1977. Body found at Allotments next to Southern Cemetery, Manchester.

7. Yvonne Pearson ( Age : 21 ) : Killed On 21 January 1978. Body found at Under a disused sofa on waste ground off Arthington Street, Bradford.

8. Helen Rytka ( Age : 18 ) : Killed On 18 January 1978. Body found at Timber yard in Great Northern Street, Huddersfield.

9. Vera Millward ( Age : 40 ) : Killed on 16 May 1978. Body found at Grounds of Manchester Royal Infirmary.

10. Josephine Whitaker ( Age : 19 ) : killed on 4 April 1979. Body found at Savile Park, Halifax.

11. Barbara Leach ( Age : 20 ) : Killed on 20 September 1979. Body found at Back of 13 Ashgrove, Bradford .

12. Marguerite Walls ( Age : 47 ) : Killed on 20 August 1980. Body found at Garden of a house called "Claremont", New Street, Farsley, Leeds

13. Jacqueline Hill ( Age : 20 ) : Killed On 17 November 1980. Body found at Waste ground off Alma Road, Headingley, Leeds

Early Life : Sutcliffe was the son of John and Kathleen Sutcliffe. Reportedly a loner at school, he left Silcoates School at the age of 15 and took a series of menial jobs, including two stints as a grave-digger during the 1960s. Sutcliffe worked at the factory of Baird Television Ltd. between November 1971 and April 1973 on the packaging line, but left when he was asked to go on the road as a salesman. After leaving Baird's, he worked nightshifts at the Britannia works of Anderton International from April 1973. In February 1975 he took redundancy, used the pay-off to gain an HGV licence on 4 June 1975, and began working as a driver for a tyre firm on 29 September of that year. However, he was sacked for poor time-keeping on 5 March 1976. He was unemployed until October 1976, when he found another job as an HGV driver for T & WH Clark (Holdings Ltd.) on the Canal Road Industrial Estate, between Shipley and Bradford.

Sutcliffe frequented prostitutes as a young man, and it has been speculated that a bad experience with one (during which he was allegedly conned out of money) helped fuel his violent hatred of women.

He first met Czech-born Sonia Szurma on St Valentine's Day in 1967 and they married on 10 August 1974. His wife suffered a number of miscarriages over the next few years, and eventually the couple were informed that she would not be able to have children. Shortly after this she returned to a teacher-training course. When she completed the course in 1977 and began teaching, the couple used the extra money to buy their first house, in Heaton, Bradford, where they moved on 26 September 1977, and where they were still living at the time of Sutcliffe's arrest for the murders in 1981.

THE notorious Yorkshire Ripper now has been classified low risk and recommended for release from a high-security psychiatric hospital, reports say.
Broadmoor Hospital’s doctors have told lawyers representing the Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, who murdered 13 women and tried to kill seven others that he is no longer dangerous.

Peter Sutcliffe Now : According to a source close to Sutcliffe, the medics will support his bid to get out of Broadmoor as they believe he is effectively cured as long as he keeps taking his medication.

And if the Ministry of Justice, headed by Jack Straw, agrees with their verdict, he will be moved to a medium-security unit.

That means he would skip the high-security step of the mental hospital process and be given much more freedom.

He would then be allowed on to the streets to begin rehabilitation into society.

The source said: “If Jack Straw rubber-stamps it Peter will be packing his bags.”

Sutcliffe believed he was on a “mission from God” to kill prostitutes but not all of his victims were sex workers.

His 13 victims were list above with their images..

He was jailed in 1981 but transferred to Broadmoor in 1984 after being ruled mentally ill. He refused treatment until 1993, when the Mental Health Act Commission said it should be given forcibly.

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Terrorist Leader Laden On A Wine Bottle

A TASMANIAN winery has launched a new range of wines with labels featuring terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

Another label reproduces an image that surfaced from the torture scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, of a hooded prisoner with electric wires attached to his hands.

The wines are being produced by the Moorilla winery, owned by millionaire gambler David Walsh, in Hobart's northern suburbs.

The images are taken from political graffiti from the streets of Hobart and Melbourne.

The stencil image of bin Laden goes next to a graffiti message reading "all you need is love".

Beneath the torture image are the words "Iraqi liberation".

Moorilla has previously produced an erotic sex-and-death themed "Muse" wine series.

Moorilla winemaker Conor Van der Reest said, the temporary and contemporary nature of street art suited the drink-now ethos of the new "Praxis" wines.

"It's not a question of us trying to confront people," Mr van der Reest said. "It's more a chronicling of stuff that's current, either in art or world events."

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Top 10 Most Terrible Courthouse Murders

 


Merced, California (2008) : The unarmed security guards, metal detectors, and x-ray machine at the entrance of the Merced County Courthouse could not stop Robert Eaton. “Mr. Eaton is a rather sizable individual, standing at 6′4″ and 240 pounds. So he had a full head of steam heading down the hallway with two rather large knives in his hand,” said Sheriff Mark Pazin. Eaton was carrying one knife in each hand as he ran past security, nearly 100 yards down a hallway into a courtroom. Judge Brian McCabe was at the far end of the room when authorities said Eaton ran in waving the weapons. At that point, deputies began shooting, killing Eaton. It is not known exactly why Eaton stormed the courthouse, but he had driven his car into the courthouse just over a year before.



Reggio Emilia, Italy (2008) : An Albanian man opened fire in an Italian courtroom, injuring his estranged wife and killing her uncle before being killed himself by armed police. Three other people were wounded in the shoot-out during the divorce hearing. Klirimi Fajzo managed to smuggle a handgun through tight security as he and his wife Vyosa attended the hearing. Fajzo began arguing violently with her relatives before shooting her and her uncle.



Las Pinas, Philippines (2007) : Roberto Tubale shot his wife, Lolita, and her lawyer, Rebecca Basa, as they waited for a hearing to start. Both victims were shot in the head and later died. Lolita had filed for an annulment. In the ensuing commotion, Tubale was able to escape the courthouse. It is unclear how Tubale was even able to enter the compound without his weapon being detected by the security guards. He was apprehended several hours later without incident.



Istanbul, Turkey (2006) : A gunman opened fire on judges in Turkey’s highest administrative court killing one and wounding four after shouting “God is great!” and “We are God’s ambassadors!” Police and witnesses said the attacker was a lawyer who was incensed over a ruling further restricting Islamic dress in Turkey.



Seattle, Washington (2005 ) : Perry Manley didn’t want to pay child support, and the seeming unfairness of a system that hounded him to turn over his hard-earned cash to his ex-wife had made him angry and obsessed over a 15 year period. In the end, his obsession is apparently what got him killed, in what his friends believe was a last-ditch effort to draw attention to his cause. Manley was shot to death the day after Father’s Day, by two Seattle police officers inside the secure foyer of the federal courthouse. In one hand, he clutched a defused fragmentation grenade. Manley, dressed in camouflage and carrying a backpack strapped across his chest, walked into the courthouse shortly before noon and tried to inch along a small ledge that rings an indoor reflection pond in an apparent attempt to avoid the metal detectors. Eric Robertson, U.S. Marshal for the Western District of Washington, said security officers saw he was holding a World War II-era hand grenade and confronted him. Security officers summoned police and spent more than 20 minutes trying to persuade him to surrender. He placed papers he apparently wanted to present to a judge on the floor and used both hands to cup the grenade to his body. Police fired twice after he “made a furtive movement with the grenade.”



Atlanta, Georgia (2005 ) : After a 51-year old female sheriff’s deputy, 5′2″ Cynthia Hall, removed his handcuffs so that he could change into civilian clothes in preparation for a court appearance, defendant Brian Nichols attacked the deputy and took her side arm. According to hospital sources, the deputy suffered bruising to her brain and some fractures around her face. After the attack, her condition was reported as critical, but she survived. Nichols then crossed over to the older part of the courthouse via a skybridge, where he entered the private chambers of Judge Rowland W. Barnes. While there, he encountered another deputy, overpowered him and also took his weapon. Nichols then entered Barnes’ courtroom from a door behind the judge’s bench, where Barnes was presiding over motions in a civil trial, and shot him in the back of the head. Nichols then shot Julie Brandau, the court reporter, and as he made his escape from the courthouse he shot Sgt. Hoyt Teasley, a pursuing deputy. Barnes and the court reporter died at the scene and the deputy was pronounced DOA at Grady Memorial Hospital. During his escape Nichols tried to carjack at least three vehicles, ending up in a multi-level parking structure for Atlanta’s Underground tourist area. He first took a tow truck at gunpoint outside the courtroom. Later he hijacked a Honda Accord from Don O’Briant, a reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Nichols pistol-whipped O’Briant in order to gain control of the car. Nichols eventually surrendered peacefully to a SWAT team.



Jenin, the West Bank (2002) : An angry mob stormed into a Palestinian courtroom and shot dead three defendants who had just been convicted in a murder trial. The men were cornered in the toilet of a makeshift courtroom in the West Bank town of Jenin, as police tried to hide them. The gunmen then fired dozens of bullets at the three men and dragged their bodies into the street. The defendants had been convicted of the murder of a Palestinian security official. The defendants had been given prison sentences instead of death, which angered the mob.



Sonora, California (1993) : Ellie Nesler shot and killed her son’s accused molester in a courtroom in Sonora, California, during the trial. She served 3 years of a 10-year sentence, and was released after an appeal based on jury misconduct. She later went back to prison after a conviction on drug charges, for which she served more than 3 years.



Warren, Pennsylvania (1954) : "In a Warren, Pa. courtroom last week, Norman Moon, 26, an electrical construction worker, convicted of failure to support his wife, stood up to hear his sentence. “Have you anything to say?” asked Judge Allison Wade, 51. “No,” murmured Moon sullenly. Then he reached under his coat, pulled out a .45-cal. automatic and fired wildly at District Attorney Myer Kornreich. Kornreich fled from the courtroom and Moon turned toward the bench. Judge Wade jumped to his feet, shielding himself with a chair. “Don’t shoot,” he begged. “I’m not going to sentence you.” Moon fired twice. The judge staggered, clutched his chest and stumbled from the bench. “He shot me, he shot me,” he gasped. In front of the empty jury box, he fell to the floor and died. The killer waved his pistol at the frightened spectators, ran into the street and got into his car. Just outside town, two state troopers spotted him and began a careening cross-country chase. After six miles, Moon was forced to stop when one of his tires was shot out. As the police approached him with drawn revolvers, Moon jumped from his bullet-riddled car, put his pistol to his throat and fired, ripping out part of his tongue. This week he was expected to recover and stand trial for murder. Said a policeman at Connellsville, his home: “It should never have happened. That boy has never been in trouble in his life.”



Nashville, Tennessee (1917) : From The New York Times March 1, 1917: “E.G. Tompkins and Will Hoffstetter were killed and Jim Hoffstetter and Mrs. W. A. Bevington, a bystander, were wounded in the Davidson County Courthouse this morning at the trial of a case in the circuit court in which Tompkins is suing the Hoffstetters for alleged alienation of his wife’s affections. After his wife received a divorce Tompkins filed suit for $50,000 damages against the Hoffstetter brothers, and their sister, Miss Emma Hoffstetter, alleging that they had embittered his wife against him. The case was postponed today because of Tompkins’ counsel withdrawing. As the party was leaving the courtroom it is alleged Tompkins drew a pistol and shot Will Hoffstetter in the abdomen. Another shot struck Jim Hoffstetter in the arm. A third struck Mrs. Bevington, a bystander, in the leg. Before he fell, Will Hoffstetter stabbed Tompkins. The persons involved are farmers and live near Donelson.”

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