Wicked Beyond Belief: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper [Paperback]

Michael Bilton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2003

For over 20 years, the dark secrets of the biggest criminal manhunt in British history have remained a closed book—until now. Wicked Beyond Belief is a powerful indictment of the calamitous investigation that logged two million man-hours of police work. Its revelation of crucial new evidence relating to Sutcliffe’s meticulously planned methods caused newspaper headlines, and it argues convincingly that his crimes were far more extensive than admitted. With exclusive access to the detectives involved, pathologist’s archives, and top-secret reports, Michael Bilton’s expose is as riveting as any thriller.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A masterpiece that reads like a thriller."

About the Author

Michael Bilton is a former Sunday Times investigative journalist and an award-winning documentary film maker. He won an Emmy for his documentary on the My Lai massacre and got rave reviews for his book 'Four Hours in My Lai' which was published 8 years ago and which has sold over 350,000 copies so far.

Product Details

• Paperback: 640 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK (August 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0007169639
• ISBN-13: 978-0007169634
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 4.1 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #188,756 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Exhaustively researched book on horrific UK serial killer, April 21, 2004

By 

P. Ferrigno "firehouse444" (Melbourne, Victoria Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wicked Beyond Belief: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper (Paperback)

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.

( October 2005 Update - UK police have charged a 49 year old Sunderland man over the infamously misleading audio tapes & letters sent to Chief Inspector George Oldfield at the height of the "Yorkshire Ripper" investigation. Oldfield took the tapes as being genuinely sent by the Ripper, and the investigation went off in entirely the wrong direction by seeking a man with a Geordie accent...which Peter Sutcliffe did not possess. The Sunderland man will face court shortly )

Recommended reading for crime fans !!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive account of an incompetent police investigation, January 2, 2006

By 

Tregmonster (London, England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wicked Beyond Belief: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper (Paperback)

Given the number of books that have been published about the Yorkshire Ripper, Bilton's book 'Wicked Beyond Belief' is a welcome breath of fresh air as it does not dwell on the horror and gruesome details of the Ripper murders, or the motivations of Peter Sutcliffe, but rather it looks for the first time at the bungled police investigation and why West Yorkshire Police couldn't catch the Yorkshire Ripper for 5 dark years.

Bilton is well positioned to write a book such as this as he was a local reporter when the Yorkshire Ripper's murderous campaign was taking place and knew many of the detectives involved at the time, some of whom were on the verge of nervous breakdowns due to their inability to catch the elusive Ripper.

One of the great strengths of the book is that it draws attention to the gross incompetence of West Yorkshire Police in conducting the Ripper investigation without sounding wise after the event or self-righteous. At times whilst reading the book, I found the incompetence of the investigation to be literally jaw-dropping. This wouldn't be so bad except with each missed lead, failure to follow-up a clue or police pursuit of a red herring, more innocent women were being gruesomely murdered. Some facts that stand out from the book are:

-Peter Sutcliffe was interviewed 9 times by the police and let go to kill again.

-There were 3 different files for Peter Sutcliffe in the police investigation, each with a slightly different spelling of the name and therefore each assuming him to be a different man.

-Sometimes, when police were questioning Sutcliffe, the officers interviewing thought they were questioning him for the first time, unaware that he had been questioned by police several times before.

-In 1979, a junior detective, after questioning Sutcliffe fingered him as a prime suspect and wrote a report explaining his suspicions and recommending Sutcliffe be brought in for further questioning. The report was lost in the mountain of paperwork.

-The descriptions given by the survivors of Sutcliffe's attacks were largely dismissed by the police as 'unreliable'.

-West Yorkshire Police were warned that the 'Wearside Jack' letters and tape with the Sunderland connection were most probably a hoax, yet continued to pursue this line of enquiry for 18 crucial months whilst the real Ripper, with a West Yorkshire accent went on killing.

-By 1980, the then Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher, was so incensed that the Yorkshire Ripper was still at large after he claimed his 13th victim, that she threatened to go to Leeds and take personal charge of the investigation herself until the Ripper was caught. She was talked out of this by the Home Secretary.

-A Home Office task force despatched to West Yorkshire to help with the investigation worked out after only 2 weeks on the case that the killer lived in Bradford, something West Yorkshire Police hadn't been able work out after spending 5 YEARS on the case.

-Even when Sutcliffe was finally caught, the police didn't search Sutcliffe properly allowing him to hide a knife in the police station and didn't discover his special garment or 'killing kit' until 2 days after his arrest. This garment was worn when Sutcliffe went looking for prey and proved that Sutcliffe killed for sexual gratification and could have thrown out his plea of schizophrenia in court, yet the garment was never produced as evidence during his trial.

In criticism of this worthy book I would say that it was a little too long and could be dry in places. For example, why spend an entire chapter on the career of Detective Inspector Dennis Hoban of Leeds CID, someone who didn't seem to have much to do with the Ripper case and died 2 years before the Ripper was caught? Or why describe in detail all the banking procedures for trying to trace the £5 note clue? I found those particular pages bordering on the tedious.

The only other question mark I have is why was the author totally disinterested in Sutcliffe himself? Although I acknowledge that the book is about the police investigation and not the murderer, I don't think you can discount the killer entirely from the picture. In the book, Sutcliffe is a shadowy figure who is finally collared at the end and doesn't seem to have any motive for his depraved crimes other than he is 'wicked beyond belief'. Call me fussy, but I would have liked a little more explanation than this.

However, I don't wish to detract from the book as overall I found it to be very interesting. Bilton brings to light some important new evidence, notably the warnings that the 'Wearside Jack' Sunderland connection was probably a hoax and the 'killing kit' that Sutcliffe wore when cruising in his car looking for victims. At times the book is disturbing, especially the descriptions of the modus operandi of the Ripper. Another thought-provoking aspect of the book is that the police, the organisation that the public put so much faith in when confronted by such a public danger, can get such a big and important investigation so wrong year after year.

The book ends on a more optimistic note by pointing out that with today's technology, a similar killer would be caught very quickly. DNA testing, computers, geographical profiling and CCTV mean that people can't hide from the authorities the way that Peter Sutcliffe could in the late 1970s.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Payoff is towards the end..., November 25, 2003

By 

OverTheMoon ([e-mail]) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wicked Beyond Belief: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper (Paperback)

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.