Who Was the Yorkshire Ripper, Subject of New True Crime Series ‘The Long Shadow’?

Only a few years after the death of the so-called Yorkshire Ripper, the true-crime series The Long Shadow, premiering on Sundance Now and AMC+ on Thursday, March 21, presents the “definitive depiction of the desperate five-year hunt” for the serial killer as his killing spree continued. That investigation was also the subject of the recent Netflix docuseries The Ripper, but if you don’t know the story already — and you don’t mind spoilers for The Long Shadow’s cat-and-mouse manhunt — read on for the terrible backstory.

The Yorkshire Ripper was the press’ appellation for Peter Sutcliffe, an English serial killer who died at age 74 in 2020. Per The Guardian, a spokesperson for Boris Johnson said that the United Kingdom’s then-prime minister’s thoughts were “with those who lost their lives, the survivors, and with the families and the friends of Sutcliffe’s victims.”

Brian Booth, the chairman of the West Yorkshire Police Federation, spoke more bluntly: “The monster who murdered so many innocent women in and around West Yorkshire should rot in hell.”

At the time of his death, Sutcliffe was serving 20 life sentences in prison for the murder of 13 women in Leeds, other areas of West Yorkshire and Manchester and the attempted murder of seven others. Those 13 women, whom Sutcliffe killed with hammers and screwdrivers between 1975 and 1980, came from all walks of life and ranged in age from 16 to 42, according to The Guardian.

Police expended 2.5 million hours on the investigation and even interviewed and released Sutcliffe nine times as they missed clues that could have pinpointed him as the killer.

One woman who survived a run-in with Sutcliffe provided an accurate composite image of Sutcliffe, for example, but police didn’t think he was her attacker. Sutcliffe was also arrested in 1969 for carrying a hammer in a red-light district. Plus, a friend of Sutcliffe’s sent an anonymous letter trying to expose him. And hoax correspondence claiming to be from the killer fooled George Oldfield, who was then the assistant chief constable of West Yorkshire police.

As the investigation continued, police urged women to stay out of public spaces after dark, spurring a “Reclaim the Night” protest in Leeds and a dozen more across England. “No Curfew on Women — Curfew on Men,” one protest sign read, per LeedsLive. Activists have held Reclaim the Night protests around the world in every decade since, as The Mancunion reports.

Finally, police arrested Sutcliffe in 1981 when he was found with false plates on his car, and investigators found screwdrivers in the car’s glove compartment and a knife and hammer nearby, per The Guardian. Sutcliffe confessed, telling a detective inspector, “It’s all right, I know what you’re leading up to. The Yorkshire Ripper. It’s me. I killed all those women.”

Sutcliffe explained to psychiatrists that he had heard voices telling him to kill and that he believed the murders were God’s will, and prosecutors were convinced Sutcliffe had paranoid schizophrenia, according to the Belfast Telegraph. Those prosecutors were ready to accept Sutcliffe’s pleas of not guilty of murder and guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. But a judge disagreed and sent the case to trial, where a jury convicted Sutcliffe of 13 charges of murder.

During that trial, Sutcliffe said it was “just a miracle [police] did not apprehend [him] earlier,” as “they had all the facts,” The Guardian reports.

Written by George Kay (Hijack) and directed by Lewis Arnold (Broadchurch), The Long Shadow will premiere stateside on Sundance Now and AMC+, with the first two episodes streaming on Thursday and additional episodes added weekly.

In the seven-episode series, Toby Jones (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) plays Detective Chief Superintendent Dennis Hoban, Michael McElhatton (Game of Thrones) plays Chief Constable Ronald Gregory, and David Morrissey (The Walking Dead) plays the aforementioned Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield.

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“Through the eyes of [Sutcliffe’s] many victims — the survivors, the mothers and fathers, and the many children — we understand that the emotional effects and shockwaves these crimes caused will last through the decades,” AMC Networks says about the series.

The Long Shadow debuted across the pond last year and won the approval of critics. The Telegraph’s Anita Singh called it “a considered, unsensational handling of a story steeped in tabloid headlines, made all the more chilling by the fact that we know what is to come,” and The Times’ Carol Midgley said that “putting the focus solely on the victims means we see everything from their perspective, not just as silent black-and-white mugshots in a wretched gallery.”

The Long Shadow, U.S. Premiere, Thursday, March 21, Sundance Now & AMC+