British serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, more popularly known as the Yorkshire Ripper, died in a hospital at 74 after being diagnosed with COVID-19.
“[Her Majesty’s Prison] Frankland prisoner Peter Coonan (born Sutcliffe) died in hospital on 13 November,” a spokesperson for the United Kingdom’s Prison Service said on Friday. “The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman has been informed.”
Sutcliffe was born in Bingley, West Yorkshire in June 1946. He worked as a truck driver and a gravedigger until he was convicted in 1981 for the murders of 13 women and the attempted murders of seven others between 1975 and 1980, according to CNN. He was serving a life sentence in prison.
Sutcliffe was moved from a maximum security prison in north England’s Durham County to the University Hospital in North Durham this week after he became “gravely ill with coronavirus,” according to 9 News — the same hospital he was taken to two weeks ago after suffering a suspected heart attack. Sutcliffe refused treatment.
Before serving time in the maximum security prison, Sutcliffe spent a number of years in the Broadmoor Hospital, a high-security psychiatric hospital, addressing underlying mental-health illnesses. In 2016, he was deemed stable enough to serve the rest of his sentence in prison.
Sutcliffe confessed his crimes to police in 1981 but contested the charges in court. He claimed during his trial that he was on a mission from God to kill prostitutes.
“After that first time, I developed and played up a hatred for prostitutes in order to justify within myself a reason why I had attacked and killed Wilma McCann,” Sutcliffe later told police. McCann was his first victim, a mother of four who was found “battered with a hammer and repeatedly stabbed.”
Sutcliffe was sentenced to 20 life terms at the Old Bailey. The judge recommended a minimum 30-year sentence.
Bob Bridgestock, a former police officer who worked on the Yorkshire Ripper case, said Friday that Sutcliffe’s death would bring “some kind of closure” to the victims’ families.
“The news today will bring back some very sad memories for a lot of them. And we should remember the victims, not the killer,” he added.
