Wicked Beyond Belief: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper

Rating:
Summary: excellent but flawed
Review: An incredibly detailed and almost exhaustive account of the hunt for Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper. The most expensive and intensive investigation in British history.

The book offers in agonising detail the heroic efforts, bad judgements and fatal mistakes made by the Ripper Squad during Sutcliffe's reign of terror. These accounts are dealt with fairly, horror when horror is needed, praise when praise is due. One can't help but `feel' for those involved in, and scarred, by the hunt.

As a reader of numerous Bio's I didn't find the book a slow starter at all - the information given was the exact amount required. Also, i lived in 'Ripper Country' during the terror and the book accurately portrays the fear that gripped the area.

On the downside, I felt the book aimed towards those who believe Sutcliffe was never mentally ill and offers many arguments (strong, yet flawed) as to why. Rather than leaving personal opinion in the hands of the reader, `our' minds are made up for us during its concluding chapters.

Aside, excellent and most informative journalism.

Rating:
Summary: Exhaustively researched book on horrific UK serial killer
Review: Investigative journalist Michael Bilton, over the course of many years of intense study & exploration, has done a superb job in investigating, collating and then detailing the facts behind one of the worst serial killers of modern history, the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe.

Sutcliffe terrorized Northern England for a period of approximately five years between 1974 and 1979 brutally killing thirteen young women, and assaulting many others before finally being caught and sentenced to multiple life sentences. Bilton has conducted probing interviews with many of the key detectives, medical examiners & legal practitioners involved in the investigation. Additionally, Bilton clearly details how the investigation became hopelessly bogged down by the sheer volume of information flooding into the police, the lack of proper cross referencing of the intelligence, and how clashes of ego's and pride between senior police officers in various jurisdictions further hampered the investigation. His book also clearly outlines the impact of computer technology and DNA related forensic science on 21st century criminal detection, and how these tools could have greatly benefited the Ripper investigation if they'd been available in the mid-1970's.

Bilton's book does get laborious and slow in some places, however the slow nature of the pace is often a reflection of the frustrations and plunging morale of the officers pursuing a faceless monster for many years. The book not only chronicles the damage inflicted by the Ripper onto his victims and their grieving families, but how the investigation took a crippling toll on the personal lives of the police officers involved. For enthusiast's of true crime stories, Bilton's attention to detail is excellent, and his book is easily the most comprehensive and well researched publication on the Yorkshire Ripper murders.

Recommended reading for crime fans !!

Rating:
Summary: Exhaustively researched book on horrific UK serial killer
Review: Investigative journalist Michael Bilton, over the course of many years of intense study & exploration, has done a superb job in investigating, collating and then detailing the facts behind one of the worst serial killers of modern history, the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe.

Sutcliffe terrorized Northern England for a period of approximately five years between 1974 and 1979 brutally killing thirteen young women, and assaulting many others before finally being caught and sentenced to multiple life sentences. Bilton has conducted probing interviews with many of the key detectives, medical examiners & legal practitioners involved in the investigation. Additionally, Bilton clearly details how the investigation became hopelessly bogged down by the sheer volume of information flooding into the police, the lack of proper cross referencing of the intelligence, and how clashes of ego's and pride between senior police officers in various jurisdictions further hampered the investigation. His book also clearly outlines the impact of computer technology and DNA related forensic science on 21st century criminal detection, and how these tools could have greatly benefited the Ripper investigation if they'd been available in the mid-1970's.

Bilton's book does get laborious and slow in some places, however the slow nature of the pace is often a reflection of the frustrations and plunging morale of the officers pursuing a faceless monster for many years. The book not only chronicles the damage inflicted by the Ripper onto his victims and their grieving families, but how the investigation took a crippling toll on the personal lives of the police officers involved. For enthusiast's of true crime stories, Bilton's attention to detail is excellent, and his book is easily the most comprehensive and well researched publication on the Yorkshire Ripper murders.

Recommended reading for crime fans !!

Rating:
Summary: The Payoff is towards the end...
Review: Wicked Beyond Belief by Michael Bolton is an expose of The Yorkshire Ripper through the eyes of the police and investigators who worked on this biggest manhunt in British History. Anyone aspiring to become a police officer or an investigator should read this book. It is crammed pack with investigative methods and forensic procedures. Not only was The Yorkshire Ripper one of the worlds most chilling mass murderers, but he got away with murdering and attacking women over a period that lasted ten years because of bad policing.

The case of The Yorkshire Ripper is a three act story. It is about a serial killer who brought the middle of England to a stand still at night, the citizens gripped in fear for years on end and afraid to go out alone. It is also equally, if not more so, about the establishment of a single Yorkshire police body that combined the talents of different police squads from the towns where the Ripper was at work. It is also about the mistakes that where made during the Rippers legal hearing which led to his convicted and "diminished responsibility" on the grounds of insanity.

The Yorkshire Ripper terrorized Leeds, Manchester, Brandford, Halifax and Huddersfield. He may have murdered more than thirteen women and attacked scores of others. The total number of murders and assaults will never been known. The Yorkshire Ripper picked up prostitutes, hit them with a hammer over the head and left them to die, or as in most cases - he mutilated their bodies using special killing instruments that he shaped from screwdrivers which he always drove around with. He did not take any souvenirs but he did mutilate the woman in a sexual way. This led many detectives working on the case to believe that he was mainly only interested in killing prostitutes and so a huge manhunt began which involved questioning prostitutes, setting up monitors in the red light districts and trying to trace a car that matched the killers tire prints. The Yorkshire Ripper was not long before he started to turn on teenage girls, female doctors, secretaries, school teachers and women walking home alone at night.

Trouble for the investigators was brewing since the beginning. The fact that the murders had taken place over various different police jurisdictions meant that the crimes where not linked until at least three women where murdered, but there was also scores of other near-fatal attacks that where never connected. They had the killers name already in their database of suspects to go through and several photofits of the suspect from witnesses. The Yorkshire Rippers car was also on a list of another 140,000 vehicles to be checked. Later as the evidence against the Ripper began to mount up they eventually zeroed in on their man on no less than seven different occasions. Unfortunately bad management and organization in the incident room left the prime suspects file go unnoticed for years. Hundreds of thousands of homes, vehicles and businesses where searched and suspects vetted. A punters £5 became the center of the enquiry and a letter and voice tape recording from the Ripper drove a media blitz upon the people of Yorkshire. LOOK AT HIS HANDWRITING! LISTEN TO HIS VOICE!

Read about detectives cracking under the stress and having heart attacks - learn what new victims emerged after the trial - listen to detectives talk about their conversations with the Ripper during routine interviews before he was captured - read about how his friends fingered him out to the investigators only to be ignored - Learn about the never-mentioned-before "KILLING UNIFORM" that the Ripper wore while stalking his pray. Read about how this demonic device never found its way into the courtroom as damning evidence which suggested that the Rippers claims of insanity where a hoax and that he planned his sexual murders meticulously.

The book is slow to start because it goes into a lot of detail about the areas where the attacks took place and the investigators, including their family background. So it is very slow to start, but around 250 pages in it really starts to get cracking. There is still much that the detectives on the case are not talking about and the Yorkshire Ripper himself has also told a lot of lies. However the end of the book does give the whole chain of events from the Rippers own mouth so you get that side of the story too. Overall a very good book but it is long slog to get through the detectives backgrounds before the case begins.