The police reports made shortly after the crimes were
committed were unambiguous in the Ripper murders. There is no suggestion
of a link with the Ripper investigation in this police report. Sutcliffe
was looking to assault a prostitute in the Ripper's favourite killing
ground in Leeds in order to associate himself as the Ripper.
Police Photofit of Marilyn Moore's attacker, 'Dave'
This attack was all about the fiver. The Manchester police
had only just taken statements from Sutcliffe in Bingley, Bradford only a
few weeks earlier in connection with the Jordan murder in Manchester and
the fiver they knew was planted by the killer who returned to the scene on
two occasions after the murder. The papers reported that they were going
home shortly. They hadn't arrested him and he was in a panic to be noticed
as the Ripper. Now in the Ripper's territory, he went out of his way to
give Marilyn Moore a good look at himself and gave her his name as Dave,
as well as a description of his car.
The only problem for him was that it was the Leeds police
that were responsible for this assault and it was not linked in any way to
the Jordan murder in Manchester. Marilyn remembered what he looked like
and gave a very good description of Peter Sutcliffe and his car. The
Jordan murder was the sole responsibility of the Manchester police and
they wanted to catch the Yorkshireman who planted the brand new fiver on
their victim.
This was an assault in Ripper territory which was to be
lumped in with the Rogulsky and Smelt attacks after the police included
the Jordan murder in the Ripper frame as a result of the Ripper's letters.
This was "the gray area" that George Oldfield referred to in 1980.
Sutcliffe walked into the Gaity pub in Chapletown in 1980 desperately
looking for Marilyn. She reported that she saw her attacker in the pub, to
the police, but at that stage, they knew Sutcliffe was the copy cat, and
they didn't want him until after the expected arrest of Billy Tracey. She
was ignored in the PR game that was being acted out. The police were going
to be world famous with the dramatic arrest of the bloody Ripper on the
job. The mad copy cat killer couldn't be allowed to spoil their party.
