Sutcliffe, known by the UK press as the 'Yorkshire Ripper,' was arrested in 1981 for killing 13 women and plotting to murder seven others between 1975 and 1980 throughout a reign of terror in northern England.
The killings came into play to the public and the government authorities, and The New York Times reported at the time that the lengthy investigation had been a "source of considerable embarrassment to the police."
The Associated Press had said that Sutcliffe served much of his sentence at a psychiatric facility and was transferred to Frankland prison, in northeast England, in 2016.
"It is difficult to find words that are adequate in my judgment to describe the brutality and gravity of these offenses," Leslie Boreham, the judge, stated on the day of his sentencing. "I express the hope that, when I have said life imprisonment, it will mean precisely that."
Sutcliffe's Death
The UK Ministry of Justice confirmed Friday that British serial killer Peter Sutcliffe died in hospital aged 74 after transmitting Covid-19.
As the cases surge for months, European nations have tried to postpone the spread of the infection through identified restrictions adopted to escape the demanding national lockdowns imposed in the spring.
He was already dealing with chronic health problems until testing positive for Covid-19. However, the Prison Service did not specify the cause of the death as it is "rightly a matter for the coroner."
"HMP (Her Majesty's Prison) Frankland prisoner Peter Coonan (born Sutcliffe) died in hospital on 13 November. The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman has been informed," a Prison Service spokesperson had stated.
An apology given by police
Amid their pursuit, Sutcliffe had been interrogated several times by authorities, however, a string of failures and a hoax that caused investigators to focus their hunt for a suspect in the wrong region of northern England enabled him to continue murdering unsuspected.
After the authorities stopped the car he was using; he was eventually arrested in January 1981, having learned the registration plates being stolen. Street worker Olivia Reivers had been picked up as a passenger by him.
Sutcliffe was imprisoned at the Old Bailey in London in May 1981 for 20 life sentences, with the prosecutor seeking a minimum sentence of 30 years.
On Friday, West Yorkshire Police Chief Constable John Robins gave a "heartfelt apology" to the women who escaped Sutcliffe's attacks and the families of the victims for the vocabulary in use at the time of the investigation by senior officers.
Closure to the family's victims
Robins also admitted that police discrepancies had been committed when they investigated the cases of Sutcliffe.
"The investigation into offenses committed by Peter Sutcliffe was, at the time, the largest ever conducted by a UK police force and was subject to two exhaustive reviews in the immediate aftermath," Robins stated.
"Failings and mistakes that were made are fully acknowledged and documented. We can say without a doubt that the lessons learned from the Peter Sutcliffe inquiry have proved formative in shaping the investigation of serious and complex crime within modern-day policing."
Sutcliffe's death could give "some kind of closure" to victims' families, Robins said. "The news today will bring back some very sad memories for a lot of them. And we should remember the victims, not the killer," he added.
