2020: The Yorkshire Ripper Dies Behind Bars
Peter Sutcliffe terrorised the north of England for five years, murdering thirteen women and girls between 1975 and 1980 in a killing spree that left entire communities too frightened to walk home at night. Caught and convicted, he was handed a whole life sentence, a term meaning he would never be released regardless of age or health.
He spent his final decades moving between high security psychiatric institutions and prison, his notoriety never fading even as the public that once feared him grew old. He died at University Hospital of North Durham on this day in 2020, aged 74, after contracting COVID-19 while still a prisoner at HM Prison Frankland.
