The Long Shadow Part 2

[naomi24]

Telling the story of the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper.  I watched the last in the series last night and the outcome was quite shocking.  One of his victims who survived his attack was awarded a fairly small amount in compensation, but lost her benefits because of it, and the detective who worked on the case sold his story to the newspapers for far more than she was awarded.  Sometimes there really is no justice.

 

Excellent series though.  It held my interest to the end.

[naomi24]

Why would she be sedated?  She had no idea he was a killer until the police knocked on her door.

[anneasquith]

Yep, right again Naomi .

[ladybirder]

She's a real odd one isn't she?  What a pair.  

This is quite an interesting read about her life.

https://www.hellomagazine.com/film/505140/the-long-shadow-where-is-yorkshire-ripper-peter-sutcliffe-wife-now/#

[naomi24]

Thanks for that LB.  She is certainly odd.   I can't imagine how she's stayed in that house.  I would have to move.   Strange that he started his killing spree only a couple of months after they married.  

[Redhelen72]

there is a school of thought that he actually carried out rapes and murder before they were married but it has not been 'proven'

[Peter Pedant]

They were determined that the fake tape was genuine and the guy had a jordy accent. 

no or yes- - this is confirmation bias - you have plan A in your mind and you dont change it when information comes to light refuting it

see wiki - long article.

 

[Canary42]

We, the general public, put the understaffed police under enormous pressure via the mucky media when these sort of cases arise, small wonder they clutch at straws like the tape.

In their place (without the enormous benefit of hindsight) would you have done any better ?

[brainiac]

George Oldfield, who was in charge of the investigation and so in thrall to the idea that the tape and letters were genuine, claimed that they contained information that only the real killer could know.  This was clearly false, as any proper examination of them would have shown - everything in them was available from the extensive press coverage.

 Oldfield's insistence that the tapes and letters were genuine wrecked the latter stages of the investigation. Little wonder died a broken man at the age of 61.

[zebo]

I think a lot of criticism now is from people who don't realise how not having computers to correlate data hampered this, and many other investigations, the final episode showed how the police were dashing around pulling cards from files to join the dots. Not sure if it's true but wasn't one outcome of the Ripper investigation the development of HOLMES, the national police system where information if routinely logged and the computer looks for connections.

I recall his capture, my late OH looked at the photo and said 'F***, that's Pete from the graveyard', he'd worked with him as a student in the early 70s!