Yorkshire Ripper Quotes

Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, distinctly heard the voice of Jesus telling him to kill women, and he was locked up for life. George W. Bush says that God told him to invade Iraq (a pity God didn't vouchsafe him a revelation that there were no weapons of mass destruction).

The issue which faced the jury was this: was Sutcliffe a clever criminal, aware of what he was doing and determined to avoid capture? ... In a sense, it was the wrong question. The battle that was fought out in court - the mad/bad dichotomy - both substitutes for and obscures the real dilemma raised by the Yorkshire Ripper case: is Sutcliffe a one-off, su generis as I have heard one psychiatrist describe him, someone who stands outside our culture and has no relation to it? Those who assert that Sutcliffe is mad are in essence saying yes to this question; madness is a closed category, one over which we have no control and for which we bear no responsibility. The deranged stand apart from us; we cannot be blamed for their insanity. Thus the urge to characterize Sutcliffe as mad has powerful emotional origins; it has as much to do with how we see ourselves and the society in which we live... It is a distancing mechanism, a way of establishing a comforting gulf between ourselves and a particularly unacceptable criminal.

Knowing this, one autumn afternoon in late October 1979 Peter Sutcliffe answered the front door of his home to be confronted for the sixth time by murder squad detectives who had come to interview him.

Unknown to Oldfield, the best opportunity yet to arrest the Yorkshire Ripper was about to unfold, but it happened at the very time when the investigation was at its most dangerous, depressing and muddled phase, with carelessness piled upon misfortune piled upon incompetence.

There is however the concept which Ian Fleming allowed “Goldfinger” to propound: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time is enemy action.

estimated four tons of accumulated paper was placing a considerable physical weight on the incident room floor.

How many women did the Yorkshire Ripper murder?’ Keats asked. ‘Thirteen,’ Dan answered. ‘And how was he caught?’ ‘By two police officers who arrested him for driving with false number plates,’ she answered.

society is at the mercy of a murderer without a motive

Everyone remembered Lord Lucan’s name, but hardly anyone remembered Sandra Rivett, the nanny he clubbed to death. The wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like Gabrielle Mason and her children, also mostly forgotten by the collective memory. Who could name one of the Yorkshire Ripper’s victims? Or the Wests’? The forgotten dead. Victims faded, murderers lived on in the memory, only the police kept the eternal flame alight, passing it on as the years went by.

All the major religions believe in evil and they have billions of followers, which is a pretty strong consensus to support its existence.

Ghost Wail Square by Stewart Stafford There's a place that canines shun, In The Witching Hour stark, Dogs wandering misty avenues, Flee from Pandora's Park. Nicknamed Ghost Wail Square, Once whispered as Harlot's Row, Twilight cobblestones flooded with blood, Extinguished collusion's glow. Blue bloodlust inflamed there, In scented carriages and filthy lanes, Carnivores at the butcher's block, As they scattered ill-gotten gains. At Devil's Hour, the horror peaks, Death rattle knocks on doors, As screams for mercy fill the air, No rescue missions for whores. A killer sheltered 'neath potent wings, A skittish stranger to the noose, Then sewn mouths shall speak, As festering skeletons slip loose. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

Women, eh? Can’t live with them, can’t kill ‘em. ‘Cept round Chapeltown.

The senior detective in charge of the biggest manhunt in British criminal history didn’t know how to work a tape recorder.

What if we decided to try and find him?' 'What on earth are you on about?' she said. 'How are we going to catch the Yorkshire Ripper, when the police haven't even managed to?' I sighed. Her questioning my ideas was a recent and unwelcome element to our friendship. But it was a valid point. How would we catch him? We needed some sort of plan, a way of gathering clues and putting them into order. I thought about what the policeman had said about structure, and then about Aunty Jean and her notebook, and the idea I had hardened like toffee. I knew exactly what we needed to do. 'We'll make a list,' I said. 'A list of the people and things we see that are suspicious. And then... And then we'll investigate them.

What if we decided to try and find him?' 'What on earth are you on about?' she said. 'How are we going to catch the Yorkshire Ripper, when the police haven't even managed to?' I sighed. Her questioning my ideas was a recent and unwelcome element to our friendship. But it was a valid point. How would we catch him?

As Coates explains, hedges like these “are used to respect the face needs of all participants, to negotiate sensitive topics, and to encourage the participation of others.” These interpersonal tools are especially handy for women, who almost always dive into sensitive territory at some point during their discussions. Coates collected some enlightening data on how women hedge with one another from a group discussion among female friends about Britain’s notorious Yorkshire Ripper case of the early 1980s. The speakers were recalling how, during the hunt for the perpetrator, the police asked the public to consider their family members as suspects. At one point, a woman named Sally revealed that she once thought for a second that the killer might have been her husband. The hedges in her statement are underlined: “Oh god yes well I mean we were living in Yorkshire at the time and I—I mean I. I mean I did/ I sort of thought well could it be John?” These hedges here are not representative of Sally’s indecision—she isn’t hedging or breaking off her sentences due to, as Otto Jespersen said, “talking without having thought out what [she is] going to say.” Sally knows exactly what she wants to get across. But because the topic at hand is so sensitive, she needs the wells and I means so she doesn’t come off as brusque and unfeeling. “Self-disclosure of this kind can be extremely face-threatening,” Coates explains. “Speakers need to hedge their statements.” This is true in so many situations. For instance, saying something along the lines of, “I mean, I just feel like you should maybe, well, try seeing a therapist” is a gentler, easier-to-hear way of saying, “You should see a therapist.” The latter statement, though direct, could come across as cold in the context of a heart-to-heart conversation. The hedged version is more tactful and open, inviting of the listener’s point of view, and leaves space for them to interject or share a different perspective (unlike “You should see a therapist,” which is closed off and doesn’t make room for anyone else’s input).