About Peter Sutcliffe
Peter William Sutcliffe (2 June 1946 – 13 November 2020), also known as Peter Coonan, was an English serial killer who was convicted of murdering thirteen women and attempting to murder seven others between 1975 and 1980. Press reports dubbed him the Yorkshire Ripper, an allusion to the Victorian serial killer Jack the Ripper. Sutcliffe was sentenced to twenty concurrent sentences of life imprisonment, which were converted to a whole life order in 2010. Two of his murders took place in Manchester; all the others took place in West Yorkshire. Criminal psychologist David Holmes characterised Sutcliffe as being an "extremely callous, sexually sadistic serial killer". Sutcliffe initially attacked women and girls in residential areas, but appears to have shifted his focus to red-light districts because he was attracted by the vulnerability of prostitutes and the ambivalent attitude of police to prostitutes' safety. After his arrest in Sheffield by South Yorkshire Police for driving with false number plates in January 1981, he was transferred to the custody of West Yorkshire Police, who questioned him about the killings. Sutcliffe confessed to being the perpetrator, saying that the voice of God had sent him on a mission to kill prostitutes. At his trial he pleaded not guilty to murder on grounds of diminished responsibility but was convicted of murder on a majority verdict. Following his conviction, Sutcliffe began using his mother's maiden name of Coonan. The search for Sutcliffe was one of the largest and most expensive manhunts in British history. West Yorkshire Police faced severe criticism for their failure to catch Sutcliffe despite having interviewed him nine times in the course of their five-year investigation. Owing to the sensational nature of the case, investigators handled an exceptional amount of information, some of it misleading, including hoax correspondence purporting to be from the "Ripper". Following Sutcliffe's conviction, the government ordered a review of the Ripper investigation, conducted by Inspector of Constabulary Lawrence Byford, known as the "Byford Report". The findings were made fully public in 2006 and confirmed the validity of the criticism of the force. The report led to changes to investigative procedures that were adopted by all British police forces. Since his conviction, Sutcliffe has been linked to a number of other unsolved crimes. Sutcliffe was transferred from prison to Broadmoor Hospital in March 1984 after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. The High Court dismissed an appeal by Sutcliffe in 2010, confirming that he would serve a whole life order and never be released from custody. In August 2016, it was ruled that Sutcliffe was mentally fit to be returned to prison, and he was transferred that month to HM Prison Frankland. In 2020, Sutcliffe died in hospital from COVID-19. Sutcliffe's first documented assault was against a prostitute he encountered while searching for another woman who had deceived him out of money. Sutcliffe's first confirmed murder victim was 28-year-old Wilma Mary McCann, a mother of four from Scott Hall, on 30 October. In order to move her twenty yards from the place of the attack up the driveway and into a high-walled garden, Sutcliffe first tied a length of rope around Walls' neck and tightened it.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.