How smug Yorkshire Ripper ‘thanked God' after hoaxer sent cops on wild goose-chase… while he bludgeoned 3 more victims
So the Yorkshire Ripper was delighted when detectives announced they were hunting for a Geordie over the series of murders which had terrified northern England.
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It was the summer of 1979 and the killer had claimed 11 lives, with the police seemingly at a loss over how to catch him.
Then an incredible stroke of fortune fell into their laps which seemed too good to be true.
Following three letters purporting to be from the killer, a handwritten envelope addressed to George Oldfield - the detective in charge of the case - arrived at the incident room in Leeds.
It contained a cassette bought from Woolworths, but no letter. The cassette had no writing on it, the manufacturer's label had been scraped off and forensic checks of the tape and envelope found no fingerprints.
But when detectives played the tape it contained a huge clue - the killer's voice.
The taunting message – delivered with a distinctive North East accent – said: 'I'm Jack [the killer was referred to as Jack the Ripper at the time]. I see you are still having no luck catching me.'
Detective Superintendent Dick Holland, Mr Oldfield's right-hand man, later recalled: 'I thought the Ripper was taunting us for not having caught him.
"The voice was so distinctive we felt sure that we were going to get him.'
As for the real Ripper, he couldn't believe his luck.
In the second instalment of our Beast of Broadmoor series marking 50 years since the first known attack by Peter Sutcliffe, The Sun reveals Sutcliffe's thoughts when he listened to the tape, along with millions of others across the country.
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West Yorkshire Police launched a huge publicity drive to make sure as many people as possible got to hear the voice in the hope someone would recognise it.
But while everyone else was puzzling over whether it was their relative, friend, colleague or neighbour, Sutcliffe told Britain's top amateur criminologist, Alfie James, how he was thanking God.
Factory worker Alfie, 49, has built-up a huge library of true crime material after writing to killers on both sides of the Atlantic, including Sutcliffe and Moors murders Ian Brady.
He grew close to Sutcliffe over 16 years, visiting him dozens of times in Broadmoor and Frankland Prison, speaking to him by phone almost every week and swapping around 400 letters, giving him an unparalleled insight into how the mind of one of Britain's most notorious serial killers worked.
He turned this material into the definitive biography of Sutcliffe, I'm the Yorkshire Ripper, written with Sun reporter Robin Perrie.
A central part of the story is the hoaxer, which would baffle detectives for decades.
The man behind one of the greatest mysteries in British criminal history proved to be a pathetic drunk who was obsessed with the Yorkshire Ripper case.
But at the time, detectives were convinced it was the real Ripper behind the letters and tape - to Sutcliffe's delight.
He told Alfie: 'I thought that it was diverting the police when that [hoaxer] came on to the scene. I thought, well, they can't win 'cos God's on my side directing everything.'
Alfie explained how Sutcliffe was convinced that voices in his head were from God.
He said: 'When he was a cemetery worker he heard a voice one day which he thought was coming from a grave.
'Sutcliffe described it as echoey at first and it took a while before the words formed. He thought it was a miracle, a voice from God.'
Mission to 'cleanse streets'
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The voice led him to launch a mission to 'clear the streets' of women he thought were prostitutes.
The series of attacks which followed would result in 13 women being murdered after he smashed them over the head with a hammer and stabbed them.
But the voice of God was not just directing him to kill, it was leading the police down a blind alley, according to Sutcliffe.
The tape was played on television and radio, in work places and nightclubs and was heard by millions as the hoaxer taunted Detective Oldfield.
He said: 'I have the greatest respect for you, George, but Lord, you are no nearer catching me now than four years ago when I started.
'I reckon your boys are letting you down, George. They can't be much good, can they? The only time they came near catching me was a few months back in Chapeltown when I was disturbed. Even then it was a uniformed copper not a detective.
'I'm not quite sure when I'll strike again but it will be definitely some time this year.'
The reaction from the public when they heard the three minute, 37 second tape was electric.
Dedicated telephone lines set up for people to listen to it instantly jammed due to the huge level of interest.
There were 238 officers working full-time on the inquiry at the time and 100 were tasked solely to answer calls about the tape, but even they were quickly swamped.
Eleven West Yorkshire detectives were despatched to Sunderland – where experts reckoned the accent was from - to help colleagues in Northumbria Police follow up potential leads.
Sutcliffe said: "I was quite aware that the hoaxer was misleading the police but I wasn't in a position to let them know that, of course, as my duty at the time was to a much higher entity – God.
'I said to myself, 'Thanks to God'. I believed God had used him to distract the police and get the attention off me. It was God's will.
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'I had a duty to protect the mission at all costs. I felt fully protected and at the time believed God had influenced the hoaxer.'
The letters and tape were finally revealed as a hoax when Sutcliffe – with his Yorkshire accent – was arrested in January 1981 and then convicted of the attacks and jailed for life.
It remained an intriguing aspect of the story until former security guard John Humble, from Sunderland, was arrested in 2005 thanks to a familial DNA breakthrough when his brother was arrested and his sample matched that from one of the hoax envelopes.
Humble was jailed for eight years and died aged 63 at his home in South Shields in July 2019.
Delays caused by the hoax allowed Sutcliffe to murder three more women - Barbara Leach, 20, Marguerite Walls, 47, and Jacqueline Hill, 20.
Bradford University student Barbara was attacked with a hammer after walking past Sutcliffe. She was then dragged into a backyard and stabbed with a screwdriver, her body left covered with an old piece of carpet.
The killer hit civil servant Marguerite over the head with a hammer repeatedly before tying rope around her neck and strangling her with it, then removed her clothes, leaving her in just her tights.
Sutcliffe dragged the body of Jacqueline, his final victim who he'd stabbed repeatedly in the chest and eye with a screwdriver, to a patch of wasteland and removed her clothes.
Former Det Supt Bob Bridgestock, part of the Ripper squad, said lives "could have been saved" were it not for the hoax, adding: "We don't know what Humble's reasons were for doing what he did.
"But he really frustrated, hindered and distracted the inquiry.
"After the tape there were another three women killed. Perhaps lives could have been saved if it hadn't been for him."
Pen pal motivation
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It was one of the many fascinating aspects of the Yorkshire Ripper story which encouraged Alfie to contact Sutcliffe to find out more in 2004.
Alfie said: 'Sutcliffe was the silent killer really at the time because there wasn't much information coming from him.
'Ian Brady never shut up about himself, the Krays' story had been told again and again, and there had been books about Charles Bronson.
'But there was not much from Sutcliffe so I decided to write to him to find out things for myself.
'He replied and it went from there.
'He would talk to me about everything, not just the crime stuff, but stuff he'd done growing up as a kid, all aspects of his life and the case.
'For me it was the chance of a lifetime to get this information from somebody who fascinated lots of people because of what he had done.
'We all wanted to know why, and people want to know about all aspects of the case, including the hoaxer, and I was able to get that information from him.'
Face-to-face with victim
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Another incredible moment which Sutcliffe, who died in 2020 aged 74, told Alfie about was when he passed one of his victims in the street while shopping with wife Sonia.
Mum-of-three Maureen Long was attacked after a night out in Bradford in July, 1977, when Sutcliffe tricked her into getting into his car by pretending to be a taxi driver.
He hit her over the head with a hammer after parking near a factory and stabbed her five times.
But he was disturbed and fled, leaving Maureen seriously injured but alive.
Sutcliffe was shocked to later read that his latest victim had survived – and even more horrified when he passed her while shopping in Bradford's Arndale Centre with his wife Sonia.
He immediately recognised her, but was then filled with relief: 'She didn't even remember me.
'I saw her in town when I was shopping with Sonia, we walked right past her and I looked her in the face but she didn't show any sign of recognition. She didn't even remember who I was.'
Who are the UK's worst serial killers?
THE UK's most prolific serial killer was actually a doctor.
Here's a rundown of the worst offenders in the UK.
British GP Harold Shipman is one of the most prolific serial killers in recorded history. He was found guilty of murdering 15 patients in 2000, but the Shipman Inquiry examined his crimes and identified 218 victims, 80 per cent of whom were elderly women.
After his death Jonathan Balls was accused of poisoning at least 22 people between 1824 and 1845.
Mary Ann Cotton is suspected of murdering up to 21 people, including husbands, lovers and children. She is Britain's most prolific female serial killer. Her crimes were committed between 1852 and 1872, and she was hanged in March 1873.
Amelia Sach and Annie Walters became known as the Finchley Baby Farmers after killing at least 20 babies between 1900 and 1902. The pair became the first women to be hanged at Holloway Prison on February 3, 1903.
William Burke and William Hare killed 16 people and sold their bodies.
Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe was found guilty in 1981 of murdering 13 women and attempting to kill seven others between 1975 and 1980.
Dennis Nilsen was caged for life in 1983 after murdering up to 15 men when he picked them up from the streets. He was found guilty of six counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder and was sentenced to life in jail.
Fred West was found guilty of killing 12 but it's believed he was responsible for many more deaths.
Relieved, Sutcliffe would continue attacking women until his arrest in Sheffield in January 1981 as he prepared to commit yet another assault.
He was jailed for life and sent to prison until he was transferred to Broadmoor in 1984, when it was decided he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.
Sutcliffe would spend 32 years at the top security hospital alongside the country's most dangerous killers and rapists.
But it would have been much shorter if his audacious escape bid had succeeded.
'I'm The Yorkshire Ripper' by Robin Perrie and Alfie James is published by Mirror Books and is available in paperback and as an ebook. Buy it on Amazon now.
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