Yorkshire Ripper’s penpal reveals her fears

Mar 7 2010 by Sophie Doughty, Sunday Sun

After he was jailed police asked Olive to help with their investigations by visiting Sutcliffe in prison to see if she could get him to admit the truth about his accomplice, and other killings he is suspected to have been involved in.

She and her husband Arthur, who died in 1991, went to speak to him together.

“He wouldn’t admit to being up here,” said Olive. “We were just trying to get the truth out of him.”

After that, Olive and the Ripper exchanged more than 500 letters as she constantly pushed Sutcliffe for the truth.

As he became more frustrated with her efforts he began to call her “The Dragon of the North East,” she claimed.

One day, she received a sinister note from him with a cut-out cartoon picture of a dragon and the words “silence is golden” written on the back.

“I know he was trying to frighten me,” she said. “But I never worried about it because I knew he was locked-up. But I don’t think I would like him to know where I live if he got out.

“I shudder at the thought of him walking the streets.”

Sutcliffe, now 63, murdered 13 women between 1975 and 1981. When he was sentenced, he was told he should serve at least 30 years.

This week he learned he would be granted legal aid to fund a team of leading barristers in his High Court battle to be released.

He claims psychiatrists have said he is almost cured and no longer poses a risk to the public.

But Olive has never believed the Ripper’s pleas of insanity.

The great-grandmother believes him to be a cold-blooded killer, who could kill again.

“How can anyone be sure he won’t kill again?” she said. “So many people released from Broadmoor have gone on to kill again. He is just a cold-blooded murderer.

“And where does he hope to live if he gets out? Who would want him living next to them?”

“He is one of the biggest liars you will ever come across. I don’t believed he just killed 13 women. He travelled up and down the country.”