Netflix has finally given us a sneak peek of their upcoming docuseries telling the story of the notorious Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, and we can’t wait for it.
The show tells the story of the thirteen women who were brutally murdered by Sutcliffe across the North-West of England between 1975 and 1980. It will also delve into the ins-and-outs of the case, and how he was able to avoid being caught for so many years whilst thousands of women lived in fear.
The long-anticipated trailer for the series, aptly titles ‘The Ripper’, comes days after Sutcliffe passed away in hospital after contracting coronavirus, forty years into his life sentence in prison.
It looks into the frustrating idea that local police initially down-played the murders of sex workers, labelling them as ‘one-off’, before recognising that they were the work of one of the world’s most prolific serial killers. It also questions as the choice of response by the police, in that they suggested it was up to local women to ‘be careful’ in order to avoid being murdered, and the idea that they only took the investigation seriously when the first ‘innocent’ victim was killed. This unsurprisingly sparked public outrage. In doing so, it uses interviews with journalists, senior police officers, and members of the victims’ families, as well as real-life footage and news coverage from the early stages of the investigation.
It seems crazy, but Sutcliffe was actually interviewed on nine separate occasions on account of his numerous connections to the cases. These included a receipt left at one of the crime scenes that was traced back to coming from his workplace. On top of this, one of his co-workers actually voluntary reported him to police as a potential suspect, but the information was frustratingly lost amongst police records.
It was only after the man was arrested in 1981 on a charge of solicitation that he eventually confessed to his harrowing crimes. Throughout this, and the subsequent trial, he stuck by the claim that God himself had personally told him to murder the women, calling them ‘filth’ due to their sex work. He went as far as to say that his awful crimes were ‘cleaning the place up a bit.’
The Ripper is set to be the most complete and in-depth on-screen depiction of the notorious serial killer and the awful treatment and stereotyping that the victims received. It set to arrive on Netflix on December 16, but in the meantime check out all the new festive favourites on Netflix this month…
