[ad_1]
Richard McCann (right), son of Wilma McCann, victim of the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe.
Source: PA
THE SON OF the first recognized victim of the Yorkshire Ripper said he approached the serial killer’s brother to “offer my condolences” after hearing the news of his death.
Richard McCann was only five years old when his mother, Wilma McCann, was murdered in 1975.
He revealed that he had been in contact with one of Peter Sutcliffe’s brothers, Carl, following the news that the killer had died in prison today.
McCann told the BBC: “I called you when I received the news to offer my condolences.
“Carl Sutcliffe approached me many years ago when he read about my trip; He approached me compassionately and I felt the same.
“I know he obviously did some horrible things, but he was still his brother so I felt like he wanted to call him.”
He said the news of Sutcliffe’s death had brought him “some degree of closure” but that he had never wished him dead, nor was he celebrating the news.
He said, “Every time we hear a news story about him, and my mother’s photo is often shown, it’s just another reminder of what he did.”
He said “one positive thing” about Sutcliffe’s death is that “we will hear a lot less about him and no more reminders of what happened so many years ago.”
Wilma McCann, a mother of four, was just 28 when she was killed on playing fields in Chapeltown, Leeds, just yards from her home.
Wilma McCann, mother of four, whose body was found by a milkman on playing fields near her home on Scot Hall Avenue, Leeds
Source: PA
Her son said he was terrified after his mother’s death and when Sutcliffe killed Jayne MacDonald, who also lived on his street.
McCann said: “I was convinced as a child, without having had any therapy of any description, that he was out there and that he was going to kill me.”
He added: “It really affected me. I was ashamed that they associated me with Sutcliffe and all his crimes and possibly that it had to do with the way many people in society looked down, the police and some media, describing some of the women as innocent and others not so much. innocent.
“I’m sorry to insist on this, but I’ve had to live with that shame all these years.
“There is only one person who should have felt any shame, although I doubt he felt it, and that was Peter Sutcliffe.”
Source: AP / PA Images
Excuse
McCann appealed to West Yorkshire police to formally apologize for the way officers described his mother and other Sutcliffe victims in the 1970s.
He said he wanted the force “once and for all” to apologize to the families, who are still close, for the way they described some of the women as ‘innocent’, inferring that some were not innocent, including me. mother”. .
“I would invite them to apologize.”
He said, “They were innocent and I would clarify things.”
McCann added: “I want to be remembered as the mother of four children, the daughter of her parents.
No news is bad news
Support the magazine
your contributions help us continue to deliver the stories that are important to you
Support us now
“She was a family woman who, through no fault of her own, was going through adversity and made some bad decisions, some risky decisions.
“She paid for those decisions with her life.”
Retired detective Roger Parnell, who worked on the Ripper investigation, rejected allegations that officers “cared no less” about victims of prostitution.
He told BBC Radio 5Live: “We certainly did, I can assure you we did.
“These women were wives, they were mothers, they were sisters. And the investigation did not change with the murder of Jayne MacDonald.
“We were all determined from the beginning to catch the perpetrator of all these murders.
“When I found out this morning that Peter Sutcliffe had died, I couldn’t care less, to be honest.”
Parnell said: “The senior officers at that time…. they simply swallowed hook, line, and sinker with Wearside Jack tape.
“A lot of us field officers, DCs, and sergeants don’t buy this, to be honest.
“We let our thoughts be known, but they ignored us.”
[ad_2]