by John Zenoni
Another interesting and intriguing docuseries from Netflix is ‘The Ripper.’ This is a very well done series about the horrific time in the late 70’s, early 80’s when the murderer known as the Yorkshire Ripper stalked and killed women in England.
The thing about real life crime shows like this that fascinates me - as I'm sure it does others - is I want to know what could make a person commit such hideous and horrific crimes. Is it the way they were brought up? Things that they were exposed to at some point in their life? Something someone said or done to them when they were young? Well, if you listen to the father of the convicted killer in this series, the man lived what appeared to be an absolutely normal life. According to the father, his son was someone you never would have suspected of doing such a thing. Now whether or not the father was being truthful in his interview is something I guess we have to take for granted but it is fascinating. I could not imagine being the parent of Peter Sutcliffe (the convicted killer).
The series is only 4 episodes long but in my opinion it's packed full of great information, insight, pictures and video of the events happening at that time.
I will say - talking about advancement over the years - that I was amazed at some of the comments and actions made toward women back then, by not only law enforcement or authorities but men in general. In fact, the women got so frustrated and fed up with them having to be told to live in fear and change their lives and habits that they protested on many occasions! There is good insight as well about the protests that took place.
The other piece I found intriguing was that some women actually survived the attack! What's bad is that the very first victim - that we know of - lived and tried to get the police to take her attack serious but it wasn't! She was basically pushed to the side and after Sutcliffe was arrested her story was finally taken seriously. But too little, too late - so many other women lost their lives.
Finally, the biggest blunder is how the authorities handled the case. Sutcliffe had actually been interviewed at least 9 times and he had been pulled aside so many times at work by the police, his co-workers actually nicknamed him ‘The Ripper’ at work! Absolutely sickening to know they could have had this man locked up before another life was taken but he was overlooked many times as a suspect. Very good series in my opinion!
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