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Peter Sutcliffe met the love of his life Sonia in a Bradford pub in 1966 when he was working as an undertaker.
They married in 1974 and he remained obsessed with her until the day of his death, still naming her as his closest relative.
And even though he divorced the serial killer in 1994 and remarried in 1997, his ex-brother-in-law, Carl Sutcliffe, hopes Sonia will organize the funeral. She is also expected to inherit her ex-husband’s possessions.
Carl recounted how his older brother remained totally obsessed and “in love” with Sonia, even after he was locked up and she moved out and remarried.
When Sonia’s mother died, Sutcliffe asked Carl to attend the funeral as her representative. Carl says that when he returned to Sonia and Sutcliffe’s old married home for the wake, he was shown a room full of strange works of art.
He told the Mirror: “Sonia told me, ‘Oooh, come see this room.’ He led me upstairs and there is a room full of paintings that Peter had done. One with his head on.
Peter’s head was on top of a soldier and she was a gala woman. Some of them were battle scenes, the Battle of Waterloo, that kind of period.
“If you looked, Sonia’s head was in one of them and Peter’s in the other.
“He loved to paint.”
Sonia never sold her marital home in Manningham, Bradford, despite not living there. The house they bought in 1977 for £ 16,000 is now worth around £ 250,000 but, if Sonia sells it, Sutcliffe’s share could go to benefit the families of the victims.
Sonia returns to the semi-detached house to calmly tend the garden.
The daughter of Ukrainian and Polish refugees, Sonia Szurma met Sutcliffe at a nightclub pub at the Royal Standard in Bradford’s red light district in 1966. A year later they got engaged. They were married on August 10, 1974 and Carl said that his brother was totally in love with his new wife.
But less than a year later, trucker Sutcliffe took a hammer and began attacking women, two in Keighley and one in Halifax.
A year later, he murdered his first victim Wilma McCann, a 28-year-old mother of four.
When Sutcliffe was finally arrested and unmasked as the serial killer in 1981, Sonia supported him. When she first saw him at the Dewsbury Police Station after his arrest, Sonia asked, “What the heck is going on Peter?” He replied, “It’s me, love. I am the Yorkshire Ripper. I killed all those women. “To which he apparently replied,” Why the hell did you do that, Peter? “
Journalist Sheron Boyle recounted Sonia’s words yesterday upon learning that her husband was the murderer, tweeting that she had said: “Oh, Peter, how could you? Even a sparrow has the right to life. “
Sonia has never given an interview, but was quoted on the Sheffield Star by a journalist who had spoken to her during the trial.
She allegedly told him: “Of course I am by your side. Otherwise, he would not have attended the trial. “
When he arrived at the Old Bailey, Sonia would crouch on the floor of a taxi, but she would say, “It was worth seeing and letting him know I was there. It was really worth it. “
The Sheffield Star report continued, quoting her as saying: “I know she’s going to be gone for a long time. I don’t know where he’s being held … but I certainly won’t be able to visit him every week. “Sonia, a pottery teacher, said:” Someone might try to catch me. If it happens, come in. I wish I was a starling and could fly away from everything.
“I have thought of a new identity, but I don’t know whether to change my name because I have never used my married name much.”
She said: “I never suspected anything, not even when the police first took me to the Dewsbury Police Station to see him after his arrest. I didn’t think about it and even laughed and joked.
“I thought it would clear up soon and that we would both go home.
“Peter had been questioned before, but everyone was being questioned in the Bradford area. It was nothing unusual. Then Pete broke the news to me at the Dewsbury station. He nodded and said, ‘I am my love.’ She couldn’t believe it of him … he had been so normal at home. At home we had mentioned the murders once or twice, only in passing. “
She recounted how going to London for the trial brought back memories of a visit to Sutcliffe 10 years earlier.
She added: “I was a dreamer in love. We were so happy. “
Sonia also discussed a 20-minute visit with Sutcliffe at Brixton prison a week before the end of the trial.
(Image: REX)
She said, “He seems to be holding up quite well. But I can’t see inside his head. I can’t say what state he’s in. “He had told her to make” a new life. “But she said,” I support him. I wouldn’t be here and wouldn’t have visited him if I didn’t care. I’ll keep seeing him wherever he goes. I know he’s going to be gone for a long time, but I don’t want to look too far. “
After her incarceration, Sonia visited Sutcliffe on Broadmoor every month. But her visits are believed to have ceased after she remarried in 1997. She now lives with her husband, barber Michael Woodward, in a converted mill.
Sonia lost second place in four months after Sutcliffe’s arrest.
Her father Bodhan Szurma said at the time: “She has been through absolute hell. Her health has suffered and she cannot sleep at night, what matters most to my daughter is what she feels in her heart inside her. He has to face people when this is all over. “
Savile, seen at Broadmoor in 1991, as Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe meets boxer Frank Bruno, who was visiting to open a new gym.
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