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0 Katherine Kelly was seen in character as second Yorkshire Ripper victim Emily Jackson as she filmed scenes showing the moments before her brutal murder in Leeds on Wednesday for new ITV drama, The Long Shadow.
Serial killer Peter Sutcliffe murdered 13 women in a five-year killing spree between 1975 and 1980. Part-time prostitute Emily, 42, was the Ripper’s second confirmed victim – she was slayed after being picked up by Sutcliffe outside a Leeds pub on January 20, 1976.
After driving to some derelict buildings in the Manor Industrial Estate, Sutcliffe pretended his car wouldn’t start. He then picked Emily up and battered her twice with a hammer as she offered to help.
He dragged her body into a yard and used a screwdriver to viciously stab her a total of 52 times in the neck, breasts, lower abdomen and back. Her body was found on Manor Street in Leeds.
Haunting: Katherine Kelly was seen in character as second Yorkshire Ripper victim Emily Jackson as she filmed scenes showing the moments before her brutal murder in Leeds on Wednesday for new ITV drama, The Long Shadow
Former Coronation Street actress Katherine, 42, sported a curly wig, a plaid coat and white PVC boots to film scenes showing Emily soliciting for business – before recreating the moment Emily climbed into Sutcliffe’s Land Rover – and was driven to her death.
Sorcha Groundsell, believed to be playing Maria Sellars, a fellow prostitute who was the last person to see Emily alive, was seen filming alongside Katherine in the street before the Land Rover arrived.
Maria’s recollection of the fateful night, recounted in David Yallop’s book, Deliver Us From Evil, details how she was sat on a wall with Emily when she pointed at a Land Rover and said ‘What’s he looking at?’
Emily stared at the driver before realising he was a potential client and approaching him.
Ripper: Katherine recreated the moment Emily climbed into Sutcliffe’s Land Rover – and was driven to her death.
Eerie: Katherine looked eerily similar to tragic Emily (pictured R) who was murdered by Sutcliffe after being picked up by Sutcliffe outside a Leeds pub on January 20, 1976
She asked the driver ‘Are you looking for business?’ and when he responded and accepted her fee of £5, she jumped in and the car sped off.
Line Of Duty star Daniel Mays, 44, who plays Emily’s husband Sydney Jackson was also seen filming scenes in Leeds recently.
Reign of terror: Serial killer Peter Sutcliffe murdered 13 women in a five-year killing spree between 1975 and 1980
He wore a tan shirt and striped jacket, paired with chestnut flares as he filmed alongside female actresses.
It is not known who is playing Sutcliffe in the drama.
The new series has been penned by acclaimed screenwriter George Kay – known for the likes of Netflix’s hit series Criminal – the drama will follow the desperate cat and mouse hunt for Sutcliffe focusing upon the police investigation and the lives of the victims who fatally crossed his path.
Currently the biggest manhunt in British criminal history, the search for Sutcliffe lasted five years, involved over a thousand officers and changed the way the British police worked forever.
Those behind the series have meticulously researched the case and drawn upon the most extensive archive of the investigation, comprising of hundreds of case files, interview transcripts and police reports,
Some of the notorious murderer’s victims and their families reportedly cooperated in the making of the show.
Director Paul Whittington said: ‘By placing the victims, their families and the survivors at the heart of this story, George has crafted an excavation of British social history that goes far beyond the infamy.
Fatal moment: Katherien and Sorcha were seen recreating the eerie final moments of Emily
Star: Line Of Duty’s Daniel Mays, who plays Emily’s husband Sydney, was seen filming recently with Melanie Kilburn
Client: Katherine’s character Emily was approached by a potential client in the scenes
Scenes: Katherine struck a pensive pose as she recreated the chilling night
Harrowing: Katherine was seen climbing into the Land Rover in the haunting scene
Scene: The actresses were clad in vintage attire as they filmed in the night
‘His writing sensitively reveals and humanises the untold number of lives devastated by these crimes, and powerfully exposes the enduring legacy of the failings of the biggest manhunt in British criminal history. This is a vital story about class prejudice, pervasive and entrenched societal sexism and women simply not being heard that still has relevance today.’
ITV commissioned the drama after the success of true crime shows Des and White House Farm.
This crime was previously dramatised in 2000, with another ITV series titled: This Is Personal: The Hunt For The Yorkshire Ripper.
It projected the effect that the hunt had on the health and career of Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield [Alun Armstrong] and was nominated for the Best Drama Serial BAFTA in 2001.
More recently, BBC Four aired The Yorkshire Ripper Files: A Very British Crime Story in 2019, which was a documentary featuring interviews with survivors of Sutcliffe’s attacks, and the families of those who perished.
It also won a BAFTA for Specialist Factual TV in 2020.
The murders started out in Leeds, targeting sex workers, but began to creep across the whole of the North of England, to women of all backgrounds, living in all different neighbourhoods.
Transformed: Katherine looked almost unrecognisable as she filmed for the new drama
Chat: The star was seen speaking to a male actor during a gritty scene
Last chat: Maria has spoken about her final chat with Emily before her murder
As well as the 13 women murders, there were seven others who managed to escape the killer.
The Yorkshire Ripper was jailed for 20 years in 1981, with the sentence converted to a whole-life order in 2010.
Police interviewed him no fewer than nine times during their five-year investigation.
He often used the services of sex workers in Leeds and Bradford, targeting them.
Sutcliffe was finally pinched by police in Sheffield in 1981 for driving with false number plates.
Scenes: Daniel wore chestnut flares and a tan shirt as he filmed for the drama recently
Filming: Melanie Wilburn and Rebecca Hanssen were seen filming on the day – although their roles are unknown
Actor: Emmerdale star Shaun Thomas was also seen on the Leeds set
Vintage: Vans were seen parked on the street as filming continued on the drama
At that point he confessed to the killings – and claimed the voice of God ordered him to commit them. He died of Covid in prison in November 2020 aged 74.
In May, a victim of Peter Sutcliffe looked on as a TV crew shot the drama on her street in Leeds.
Marcella Claxton, 66, survived a violent ambush by Sutcliffe on her way home from a house party in May 1976. She was just 20.
Sutcliffe beat Ms Claxton over the head after mistaking her for a sex worker.
She lost the baby she had been carrying for four months and needed brain surgery.
Ms Claxton also required more than 50 stitches, The Mirror reported.
Sutcliffe murdered 13 women and tried to kill seven more during a five-year killing spree between 1975 and 1980.
Locals in Chapeltown, north-east were taken aback that the crew is filming so close to Ms Claxton’s home.
Neighbour Mercy Brown, 48, said: ‘Imagine going for a walk in the streets where you live and seeing a film being made about your attacker’s crimes.’
Fellow resident Winston Campbell, 58, said: ‘Seeing the actors brought those days back to me. It was very scary times around here.
‘I hope they do the victims justice and treat them with respect.’
Ms Claxton, who continues to get headaches and dizzy spells nearly 50 years after her attempted murder, said after the Ripper’s death in 2020: ‘I’m happy he’s gone.
‘At least now I may be able to get some closure.’
The monster who terrorised an entire country: The desperate five-year search for The Yorkshire Ripper
The Yorkshire Ripper’s five-year reign of terror sparked the country’s biggest ever manhunt – but police missed multiple opportunites to find the sadistic killer.
The first woman known to be attacked by Sutcliffe was a female prostitute who he hit over the head with a stone in a sock in Bradford in 1969. Police tracked him down the next day and told him he was ‘very lucky’, as the woman did not want anything more to do with the incident.
Sutcliffe attacked Anna Rogúlskyj on the night of 5 July 1975 in Keighley. As she was walking alone, he struck her unconscious with a ball-peen hammer and slashed her stomach with a knife. Disturbed by a neighbour, he left without killing her. Rogulskyj survived after neurological surgery.
On the night of 15 August, Sutcliffe attacked Olive Smelt in Halifax. He struck her with a hammer from behind then slashed her lower back with a knife. Again he was interrupted and left his victim badly injured but alive.
12 days later he attacked 14-year-old Tracy Browne in Silsden. He struck her from behind and hit her on the head five times. He ran off when he saw the lights of a passing car, leaving his victim requiring brain surgery. Sutcliffe confessed to this crime in 1992 but was never convicted of it.
Twelve of Sutcliffe’s 13 victims. Top row (left to right): Wilma McCann, Emily Jackson, Irene Richardson and Patricia Atkinson. Middle row: Jayne McDonald, Jean Jordan, Yvonne Pearson and Helen Rytka. Bottom row: Vera Millward, Josephine Whitaker, Barbara Leach and Jacqueline Hill
He began his killing spree in 1975, battering 28-year-old sex worker Wilma McCann to death on October 30, 1975, which followed three non-fatal attacks on women earlier in the year.
On January 20, 1976, he killed his second victim, Emily Jackson who was a part-time sex worker, Sutcliffe pretended his car wouldn’t start when he picked her up and battered her twice with a hammer as she offered to help. He the dragged her body into a yard and used a screwdriver to viciously stab her a total of 52 times in the neck, breasts, lower abdomen and back. Her body was found on Manor Street in Leeds.
On May 9, he attacked 20-year-old Marcella Claxton in Roundhay Park, Leeds. She had accepted an offer of a lift from Sutcliffe as she walked out of a party. When she got out of the car to urinate, he hit her from behind with a hammer. She survived and testified against Sutcliffe at his trial – but lost her unborn baby at four months pregnant and required multiple brain operations,
Nine months later he struck again, murdering 28-year-old Irene Richardson on February 5, 1977. Another prostitute Sutcliffe picked up, he attacked her in Roundhay Park, Leeds, where they had stopped so she could go to the toilet. As she crouched down, the killer delivered three heavy blows to her head with a hammer, then he tore open her jacket and blouse and began to stab and slash her with his Stanley knife.
Two months later, Sutcliffe killed 32-year-old prostitute Patricia Atkinson on April 23, 1977 – she was his first victim in his hometown of Bradford.
Yorkshire police are pictured searching for Wilma McCann, the Ripper’s first victim, in 1975
He picked her up and took her to a flat in Oak Avenue, where he picked up a hammer and dealt four massive blows to the back of her head. He also stabbed her six times in the stomach with a knife and tried to do the same to her back, before throwing bed linen over the top of her body and leaving.
On 26 June, Sutcliffe committed the murder which would spark national interest around his crimes. He murdered 16-year-old shop assistant Jayne MacDonald, who was the first ‘non-prostitute’ victim.
Sutcliffe spotted her in the early hours of the morning in Leeds and followed her into an adventure playground, where he struck her with a hammer on the back of the head. After she fell down, he then dragged her, face down, into the play areas and stabbed her several times in the chest and back.
On October 1, 1977, with his crimes rapidly escalating, Sutcliffe killed 20-year-old prostitute Jean Jordan, his first victim in Manchester. He beat her 11 times with a hammer in allotments next to Southern Cemetery, dumped her body and threw her bag, containing a brand new £5 note he gave her, into nearby shrubs.
Police found the bag and traced the serial number on the note back to the payroll of Yorkshire hauliers T and W H Clark, who employed Peter Sutcliffe, but when questioned he provided an alibi that he was at a party – in the first of a series of missed opportunities by police to snare him.
Harrowing: In May, a victim of Peter Sutcliffe – Marcella Claxton (pictured left as a young woman) looked on as a TV crew shot the drama on her street in Leeds. She survived a heinous attack by Sutcliffe (right) five years before he was caught
Young prostitute Yvonne Pearson, 21, was murdered on January 21, 1978. Sutcliffe took her to a piece of waste ground at the back of Drummond’s mill in Bradford, where his father worked. There he hit her several times with a hammer. He pulled her body behind an old sofa, stuffed horsehair down her throat before kicking her in the head and jumping down on her chest.
Sutcliffe was to kill three women in 1978. Ten days after Yvonne’s murder, he killed teenage prostitute Helen Rytka, 18. He beat her with a hammer several times but she remained alive until he grabbed a knife and stabbed her multiple times.
On May 16, he killed 40-year-old prostitute Vera Millward in Manchester. He took her Manchester Royal Infirmary where he attacked her with a hammer as soon as she got out the car. After killing her with the hammer blows, he then dragged her body to a spot by a fence and began to stab her with a knife.
Building society clerk Josephine Whitaker, 19, was murdered on April 4, 1979. She was approached by Sutcliffe in Savile Park, Halifax where they got chatting. He hit her from behind with a hammer and again as she lay on the ground before dragging her into the darkness after hearing voices. He then stabbed her 21 times with a screwdriver in the chest and stomach as well as in the leg. Her skull had been fractured from ear to ear.
University student Barbara Leach, 20, was killed on September 20, 1979. He spotted her while driving in Bradford and opened the car door to get out as she was walking towards him. He attacked her with a hammer and dragged her into a back yard, before stabbing her with the same screwdriver that he had used on Josephine Whitaker.
He was arrested for drink-driving in April 1980 but while awaiting trial committed two more murders.
On August 20 1980, he murdered civil servant Marguerite Wells, 47. After spotting her in Leeds, he attacked her with a hammer blow, yelling ‘filthy prostitute’. He then looped rope around her neck and dragged her into a garden when he would strangle her and strip her of all her clothing except her tights. He partially covered the body with grass cuttings and leaves before making his escape.
The Ripper’s final victim was student Jacqueline Hill, 20, who was killed on November 17, 1980. An English student at Leeds University, Jacqueline Hill had taken the bus home from a meeting with probation service workers where she had applied to become a volunteer.
Sutcliffe spotted and followed her before delivering a blow to her head as she was passing an opening. Her body was discovered on a stretch of wasteland 100 yards from where she lived. She suffered four skull fractures and cuts to her head, a stab wound to her left breast and a stab wound to her right eye.
Sutcliffe avoided detection for years due to a series of missed opportunities by police and eventually confessed in 1981 when he was brought in due to a police check discovering stolen number plates on his car.
He was questioned in relation to the Yorkshire Ripper case as he matched many of the known physical characteristics. The next day police returned to the scene of the arrest in Broomhill, Sheffield and discovered a knife, hammer, and rope he had discarded. Sutcliffe also hid a second knife in the toilet cistern at the police station.
After two days of questioning, on January 4 1981, he suddenly confessed he was the Yorkshire Ripper and described the attacks. Weeks later he claimed God had told him to murder the women and branded his victims ‘filth.’
Despite his 24-hour-long confession to the killings, Sutcliffe denied the murders when indicted at court. He pleaded guilty to seven charges of attempted murder.
In May 1981, he was jailed for 20 life terms at the Old Bailey, with the judge recommending a minimum sentence of 30 years.
He was transferred from Parkhurst prison on the Isle of Wight to Broadmoor secure hospital in Berkshire in 1984 after he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
More than two decades later, a secret report revealed that Sutcliffe probably committed more crimes than the 13 murders and seven attempted murders for which he was convicted.
And he said he was questioned in prison about 16 unsolved cases – although no further charges were ever brought.
He died of Covid in prison in November 2020 aged 74
Source: | Dailymail.co.uk
