"Hang Him!"

Ripper suspect controversy

In the South Yorkshire city of Sheffield on Jan. 2, two vice squad officers were making a routine night check in the red-light district when they came across a parked car with a couple huddled inside.

Running a computer search on the car's license plates, the officers discovered that the tags had been reported stolen. The police quietly arrested the driver, whose name was Peter Sutcliffe, 35, a truck driver from the West Yorkshire mill town of Bradford. Three days later, nearly all of Britain knew of Sutcliffe: he was widely --some said recklessly--suspected of being the country's most notorious criminal, the Yorkshire Ripper, the man believed responsible for murdering 13 Yorkshire and Lancashire women since 1975.

West Yorkshire police eagerly announced that Sutcliffe's arrest meant that they were finally "scaling down" their search for the Ripper. The five-year man hunt has cost more than $8 million and included the questioning of some 300,000 persons, one of whom was Sutcliffe in 1977. Like the infamous "Jack the Ripper" of 1888, the Yorkshire slayer earned his nickname by murdering and mutilating female victims. "Jack," however, apparently stopped at five victims, less than half of the deadly baker's dozen attributed to the Yorkshire Ripper. Another difference is that, unlike Jack the Ripper's victims, who were all prostitutes, four of the Yorkshire killer's victims were respectable young women.

Police would not confirm whether Sutcliffe confessed to any of the deaths. Reports circulated that they had found incriminating evidence after his arrest: a hammer and knife, similar to the Ripper's grisly tools, lying where Sutcliffe's car had been parked. At a press conference, West Yorkshire Chief Constable Ronald Gregory gave every indication that the Ripper and Sutcliffe were one.

"We are absolutely delighted with the developments at this stage," he said. Last week Sutcliffe was charged with the murder in November of Leeds Coed Jacqueline Hill, presumed to be the 13th Ripper victim.

The bearded long-distance hauler was described by neighbors as softspoken, reserved and devoted to his wife Sonia, a sometime teacher of handicrafts. His boss called him a "very sensitive man, and if anybody said anything sharp to him, his eyes would fill with tears." For much of the British public, however, there was little doubt that the police had finally caught their man. Outside the magistrate's court in industrial Dewsbury where Sutcliffe was charged, a mob of 1,000 hurled obscenities and shouted:

"Hang him! Hang him!"

The initial police and press reaction to the arrest drew criticism from some British legal experts mindful of the country's rigid contempt laws, which limit pretrial publicity. While Establishment dailies such as the London Times and the Guardian cautiously avoided any reference to the Ripper in reporting the story, other newspapers, including the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, did not hesitate to underscore the suspected connection for their readers. Britain's Solicitor General, Sir Ian Percival, in a general warning to the nation's editors, intimated that they might be liable to prosecution if their stories impeded a fair trial for Sutcliffe.

In the red-light districts of the North Country, however, a palpable sense of relief took precedence over considerations about the letter of the law. Said a streetwalker in Manchester: "It's incredible how much the atmosphere has changed.

I don't have to keep looking over my shoulder all the time." -

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