Case overview
Peter William Sutcliffe (2 June 1946 – 13 November 2020), also known as Peter Coonan, was an English serial killer and HGV driver who was convicted of murdering thirteen women and girls, and attempting to murder seven others between 1975 and 1980. Sutcliffe initially attacked women and girls in residential areas, but appears to have shifted his focus to red-light districts because he was attracted by the vulnerability of women in the sex trade and the ambivalent attitude of police to women in the sex trade' safety. [1]
Sutcliffe was sentenced to twenty concurrent sentences of life imprisonment, which were converted to a whole life order in 2010. After his trial, West Yorkshire Police announced that he would be questioned about the Mysliwiec attack. Hellawell had also listed the attacks on Tracey Browne in 1975 and Ann Rooney in 1979 as possible Sutcliffe attacks, and it was to Hellawell that Sutcliffe confessed to these crimes in 1992, confirming police suspicions that he was responsible for more attacks than those he confessed to. [2]
