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What Makes a Killer

S1 Ep3: Peter Sutcliffe, The Yorkshire Ripper

What Makes a Killer

Audioboom Studios

Documentary, True Crime, Society & Culture, History

4.41K Ratings

🗓️ 14 November 2019

⏱️ 54 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In his five-year reign of terror, Peter Sutcliffe brutally murdered 13 young women across the North of England. During the investigation, Sutcliffe was interviewed nine times by police - narrowly escaping capture each time. When he was finally apprehended in January 1981, it brought an end to a manhunt that had both terrified and captivated the nation.

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Code: WHAT

Original music by Ben Krejci and Daniel Birch.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

What makes a killer contains graphic details of sexual assault and violence and is not intended for all audiences?

0:07.0

Listener discretion is strongly advised.

0:19.0

It's October 30th, 1975 in the chapel town area of Leeds in Yorkshire. 28-year-old Wilma McCann is walking home after spending the evening out. It's not a far walk

0:25.4

from home, but it's late, so she tries to flag them down.

0:39.0

Eventually, a lime green truck with a black roof pulls over.

0:45.0

The driver agrees to give her a lift.

0:48.0

To make ends meet, Wilma has been working as a prostitute.

0:55.0

She agrees to have sex with the driver.

0:58.0

The truck drives to a playing field just 100 yards from Wilma's home and parks.

1:04.0

The man suggests they go into the field to have sex.

1:10.0

Wilma gets out first and begins walking up the hill into the field.

1:17.0

The man reaches for his toolbox on the back seat and pulls out a hammer. He gets out of the truck, takes off his coat, and

1:27.1

drapes it over the hammer. Then he walks toward the field where Wilma is waiting.

1:33.4

When the man reaches the field,

1:42.2

he lays his coat on the grass for Wilma.

1:45.0

As soon as she sits down, he strikes her on the head with a hammer, twice.

1:52.0

He walks back to the truck where he exchanges his hammer for a knife.

1:57.0

He returns to the woman lying in the field and proceeds to stab her repeatedly to death.

2:07.0

In his five-year reign of terror, Peter Sutcliffe brutally murdered 13 young women across the north of England.

2:18.0

It was a case that haunted the British public.

2:21.0

For years, women and girls felt that simply leaving their homes at night

2:26.0

meant taking their lives in their hands.

...

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