Somebody's Mother, Somebody's Daughter [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION Between 1975 and 1981 thirteen women in the north of England were murdered by Peter Sutcliffe; a further seven women are formally recognized as having survived his attacks. During the four decades of his imprisonment - before his death in November 2020 - scarcely a week went by without some mention of him in the British media. Most of us are familiar with Sutcliffe's face and tabloid title - the 'Yorkshire Ripper' - but would struggle to name his victims. While this is often the case with serial murders, the women who died at Sutcliffe's hands have suffered considerable posthumous denigration. Relegated to a monochrome grid of faces and stripped of individuality, they are usually defined by a single dynamic: 'good-time girls' or prostitutes, and those who were 'respectable'. With few exceptions, this is how they have been presented ever since the first confirmed Yorkshire Ripper murder, of Wilma McCann, in October 1975. Unlike Sutcliffe, who is noteworthy only in terms of his criminality, each woman who died at his hands was more than the manner of her death, despite being defined by it publicly. Some had complex lives full of secrets, while others were newly independent, studying at university or embarking on a career. All had families and friends who mourned them deeply. The women who lived are, as survivor Mo Lea phrases it, members of 'an exclusive club you don't want to be part of. They faced gargantuan challenges in the years ahead: repeated surgery on injuries that left them with everything from memory loss to