Peter Sutcliffe (1946-2020) *74

also known as Peter William Coonan, was an English serial killer who was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper (an allusion to Jack the Ripper) by the press. On 22 May 1981, Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attempting to murder seven others. He was sentenced to 20 concurrent sentences of life imprisonment, which were converted to a whole life order in 2010. All except two of his murders took place in West Yorkshire; the others were in Manchester.

Sutcliffe initially attacked women and girls in residential areas, but appeared to have moved to red-light districts because he was attracted by the vulnerability of prostitutes. Sutcliffe had allegedly regularly used the services of prostitutes in Leeds and Bradford. He carried out murders over five years, from 1975 to 1980. After his arrest in Sheffield by South Yorkshire Police for driving with false number plates in January 1981, he was transferred to West Yorkshire Police, who questioned him about the killings. He confessed to being the perpetrator, saying that the voice of God had sent him on a mission to kill prostitutes. At his trial, Sutcliffe pleaded not guilty to murder on grounds of diminished responsibility, but he was convicted of murder on a majority verdict. Following his conviction, Sutcliffe began using his mother's maiden name of Coonan.