Peter Sutcliffe was the newly-married former grave digger whose brutal reign of terror instilled unshakeable worry in the North of England as police failed to pick up the clues in their pursuit of the notorious murderer known as the Yorkshire Ripper. In all, 13 women were killed and seven more were viciously attacked, although police remain convinced the Yorkshire Ripper’s grim roll call of female victims remains higher. They were teenage girls, shop assistants, prostitutes, clerks. They were mothers, daughters, sisters, wives. And the broad spectrum of victims from various walks of life meant that no woman was safe with Sutcliffe at large. This is the timeline of Sutcliffe's twisted life: the attacks leading to his arrest and imprisonment and the name of every victim who had their lives brutally taken away by the killer:
1.
Peter William Sutcliffe was born on June 2 1946 in Bingley, West Yorkshire. He left education aged 15 and took on a series of menial jobs. His work as a grave digger was said to have nurtured an awkward and macabre sense of humour. On August 10 1974, Sutcliffe married Sonia.
2.
Less than a year after his wedding the lorry driver picked up a hammer and began attacking women, two in Keighley and one in Halifax. Anna Rogulski (pictured) was hit over the head with a hammer and her stomach slashed open in Keighley, in July 1975. She survived after extensive surgery.
3.
Sutcliffe's first fatality was Wilma McCann, a 28-year-old woman from Chapeltown in Leeds. The mother-of-four was killed in the Prince Phillip Playing Fields, near to her home on Scott Hall Road on October 30 1975. Wilma was a sex worker and her son, Richard McCann, has since called on West Yorkshire Police to apologise for the language used to describe some of the victims.
4.
Sutcliffe's second victim was Emily Jackson, 42, from Churwell, near Morley. She and Sutcliffe drove along Roundhay Road before Sutcliffe struck her with a hammer. She was killed on derelict land near Roundhay Road on January 20 1976.