Peter Sutcliffe, The Yorkshire Ripper (Patreon)

Hi Grizzlies, 

My 5th true crime book was going to be all about this baby boi, that is, until I started my YouTube channel. I am a super immersive person, so I can't do both and I find YouTube a far more enjoyable and rewarding process. 

Nevertheless, I thought I'd show you an excerpt of what I had written about his first known victim, Wilma McCann, as well as a watercolor piece I did on this bastard. Thanks for your Patreon support! 

“The women I killed were filth - bastard prostitutes who were littering the streets. I was just cleaning up the place a bit.” – Peter Sutcliffe.

Wilma (Williamina) McCann was a 28-year-old divorcee’ and single mother of four children between the ages of 2 and 7 when she went missing. Her children last saw her on the evening of Wednesday, October 29th, after she had a bath, got dressed, and kissed her eldest daughter, Sonia goodnight. Wilma had been living in Leeds since she was seventeen years old and had married Gerry McCann; the pair fought often, with Wilma being submitted to psychiatric care on several occasions from the abuse she suffered in the relationship. She had been in a cycle of abuse relationships, often drowning her sorrows in liquor, even though she still made sure to take care of her four children on her own.

On weekends, Wilma liked to go into town to blow off some stream, leaving her eldest daughter, Sonia (7) in charge at home once all the children had been safely tucked into bed. On Wednesday, October 29th, 1975, Sonia watched as her mother tucked them all into bed before heading downstairs, applying a fresh coat of lipstick using a broken piece of mirror and combing her hair back before she headed out of her Scott Hall Avenue house in Chapeltown and into the cool Autumn air. She walked confidently past the playground where she would later be found without a worry in the world; Wilma was a strong woman who spoke her mind and took determined steps in every direction she chose. That evening, she visited the Regent, the Scotsman, the White Swan, the Royal Oak, and then once everything had closed at 10:30PM, the weekday closing time, she headed to a popular drinking club, known as the Room at the Top. By 1AM on October 30th, she was ready to head home, curry sauce chips in hand, and the equivalent of 12-14 shots of liquor in her belly, which made her 30-minute stroll home a bit of a wobble. Desperate for a lift home, Wilma stuck her thumb in the air, attempting to flag down lorry drivers who only shouted profanities at her and told her to go home. A man in a lime-green Ford Capri, registration number EUA 831K, had spotted her and driven up to her, where she needed no invitation to thank him for stopping before flopping into the car. Of course, Wilma never got to tell us what really happened that night, so all we have are Peter Sutcliffe’s words, which alluded to her being a sex worker who taunted him and catalyzed his hatred for sex workers. However, there is no evidence to support his claims that Wilma was a sex worker, a grave injustice to her once the police and the media implied that she was a woman of “loose morals” who neglected her children. The police were so hard-set on finding a killer who “hated prostitutes” that it, in fact, took much longer catch him.

According to Sutcliffe, once they were driving, Wilma asked him if he wanted to do business with her. He told her that he didn’t know what she meant, which agitated her. “Bloody hell, do I have to spell it out for you?”, she said. He said that her change in tone felt harsh to him, subtly describing how his blood had started to boil and his plot for revenge set in. He drove to the Prince Philip playground, which was within 100 yards (94 m) of her home and stopped the car. She told him it would cost him “a fiver” (£5), saying, “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get on with it!” When he could not get aroused under the time pressure, he said that Wilma was infuriated, shouting, “I’m going, it’s going to take you all fucking day!” and mumbled about him being “fucking useless” as she stormed off towards her home. He felt an urge to hit her on the back of her head (the way he had attacked three other women before her) and invited her back, asking if they could have sex on the grass instead of in the car. She did not like the sound of that and continued to walk off, so he said that he jogged to his car, collected his coat and a hammer, ran up beside her and lay the coat down on the grass for her, gesturing an invitation to lie down. He said that she sat down, unbuttoned her trousers, and said that he should just get it over with. “Don’t worry, I will”, he told her, intently looking down at her head as he stood behind her, salivating at what he was about to do. He struck her twice on the head with his hammer and watched her writhe in pain before he tugged his coat out from underneath her and ran back to his car, where he sat feeling both empowered and panicked. He threw his hammer back into his toolbox and as he saw the glinting 7” (17cm) knife in it, decided that he was not going to let this victim stay alive to tell the story. He returned to her, lifted her shirt and bra and started stabbing as many vital areas as he could think of- once in her throat, three times below her left breast, twice below her right breast, and nine times near her naval. He then got back in his car and drove back to his mother-in-law’s house, where he was living with his wife, and said that he feared that the police would be knocking at his door at some point after discovering her body.

The following morning, Wilma’s eldest daughter, Sonia, woke up at 5.25AM frightened when she realized that her mother was not home yet. Even though she had sometimes struggled to get up in the mornings after a night out, the children had never woken up without her home. Sonia woke her brother, 5-year-old Richard (who was to turn 6 in a week) up, leaving their younger siblings, Donna and Angela asleep, trying to think up in their little minds where their mother could be. The pair decided to head out to look for her, walking out of their back door along the hedges, as she had taught them to do, and along the outskirts of the foggy playground towards a bus stop, where they waited for her for approximately one hour. Ten buses later and no sign of their mother, they started to realize that there was a reason to feel that sinking feeling of dread and headed back home, wishing upon every star that they would find her there, arms folded in retort for leaving the house. Once home, they wondered if perhaps their mother was hiding somewhere, so they searched the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, cupboards, and entire house looking for clues. She was nowhere to be seen. In a state of survival, they began to prepare breakfast (cereal with powdered milk) and started to get ready for school, as they always had. After breakfast, police lights glinting in the window caught their eye and once, again, they headed out towards to park, eager to see if they had found their mother.

Wilma’s body was discovered by Alan Routledge, the neighborhood milkman, and his 10-year-old brother, Paul at 7.41 AM. She was found as her killer had left her: pants down, top and bra up, and covered in stab wounds and skull fractures. Her hair that had been so neatly combed back the night before was now matted in drying blood, and the back of her trousers was splattered with semen (a detail that Sutcliffe had left out in his narrative of events). As the children approached the scene, their eyes protected from the horror by the thick fog still whispering along the ground, the police asked them who they were. “We are Sonia and Richard McCann”, they said, innocently explaining that they were looking for their mother, who had not returned home after a night out yet. Instinctively, the police officers knew to walk them back home, to radio in for help, and to search the home for clues of the woman’s identification. One of Wilma’s ex-boyfriends had burned all of her photographs, so they didn’t have much to go on, except for the description that the children were able to offer. Sadly, it was later confirmed that it was their mother’s body that was found on the field, and by the end of the day a car had come to collect the children and drive them to Beckett Park Children’s Home, where they learned that their mother had been” taken to heaven” and would not be returning. A somber photograph of all four children clutching a toy was taken and printed in the media, a sad sight of the extensive damage that one man had done to a family, a community, and to these little hearts, which were shattered forever. Richard McCann said, “My childhood ended that day”; he was only five years old.

Wilma’s eldest daughter, Sonia Newlands, took her own life in 2007 due to the trauma and deep depression she had suffered because of her mother’s murder and the press coverage surrounding the horrific case, where the victim was painted as a prostitute and played up against more “innocent” victims who were not. Wilma McCann, like all of us, was not perfect, but that cannot ever translate to being someone who deserved to die, especially not at the hands of a brutal sexual sadist who was an extreme coward at heart. Richard McCann reached a psychological breakpoint too, almost taking his own life, but found purpose in helping others who had suffered loss and trauma like he and his siblings had. He authored his own books, titled “Just a Boy”, “The Boy Grows Up”, and more, and founded a company, iCan Academy, which helps to assist people in gaining confidence and improving their communication skills, particularly after suffering hardships in life. He is a renowned motivational speaker based in Leeds who has delivered more than 3000 motivational talks worldwide. His mother would be extraordinarily proud of him.

Wilma was buried in Lawnswood Cemetery in Leeds on January 21st, 1976. Rest in peace, Wilma McCann (1948 - 30 October 1975). Age 28. And rest in peace, Sonia McCann Newlands (1968- December 2007). Age 39.

This case got me quite upset! There was a lot of botched police work because women who were seen as "loose" had far less value in society, and therefore it seemed that the loss of their lives was not so important at the time. And sometimes women were labelled as prostitutes when they were not even close to being that- they were maybe out later than one "might expect a lady to be" but I really didn't like the amount of victim blaming that went on in this case. 

Well, Happy new week to you! 

- Gisela.