Yorkshire Ripper killed teen in the Midlands, claims writer
Sutcliffe in frame for 1972 murder of Judith Roberts, 14, which left innocent man in jail
THIS week marked 50 years since the murder of Midland schoolgirl Judith Roberts. The 14-year-old’s body was found partially hidden under hedge clippings and plastic fertiliser bags.
It is not merely one of the region’s most high-profile unsolved crimes, it is also one of the gravest miscarriages of justice.
Soldier Andrew Evans was wrongly convicted of the killing in 1973 and served 25 years. He received £750,000 from the Home Office in 2000.
The monster responsible has never been found.
But one man has no doubts over his identity.
Judith, a bright, academic Tamworth teenager, is yet another victim of Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, says former police intelligence officer Chris Clark.
He – and co-author of his forthcoming book Tanita Matthews – have no doubts.
And the reasons are outlined in the 76-year-old’s new book Mark Of A Serial Killer, to be released in October.
They have trawled national archives, studied pathology reports and sifted through transcripts of Evans’ trial.
They have spoken to the victim’s family and have recruited an independent pathologist to go through the case.
Mr Clark, now living in County Durham, has concluded Judith, daughter of a headmaster, is monster Sutcliffe’s unknown victim.
The Ripper died in 2020 aged 74 while serving life for the murder of 13 women and the attempted murder of seven more.
Judith’s death fits Sutcliffe’s modus operandi like a glove.
From the village of Wiggington, she was abducted while pushing her bicycle along a country lane. She was dragged to a nearby field and battered to death.
Mr Clark’s findings are beyond compelling.
On the evening of the schoolgirl’s death – June 7, 1972 – Sutcliffe was making the mammoth trek to visit his future wife at a Bexley Heath hospi
tal. He would then return to Bingley, West Yorkshire, where he worked night-shifts on the Baird TV Company assembly plant.
Back then, a spur road off the M1 took motorists to within a stone’s throw of the crime scene, Comberford Lane.
Tellingly, Sutcliffe drove a grey Ford Escort at the time, loaned to him by his fiancée’s mother.
There are, says Mr Clark, four eye-witness accounts of a grey Escort seemingly trailing Judith during her fateful final journey to local shops.
The author said: “At 7pm, a farm labourer, who lived in a tithe cottage overlooking the field where Judith was found, saw a grey Ford Escort being backed into the field and the boot came up.
“He thought it was unusual. The vehicle was of immense importance, but very little was made of it in the press. For me, that car clinched it.”
The terrible injuries have uncanny echoes of The Ripper. The mark left by a blow to the back of Judith’s head matches the impression left by a walling hammer
used to kill Sutcliffe victim Yvonne Pearson in 1978.
And a “Y” shaped injury on Judith’s face is a near carbon copy of the mark Sutcliffe left on Josephine Whitaker, a 19-year-old building society clerk slain in 1979. The serial killer inflicted it using an adapted Phillips screwdriver.
Details of the state of Judith’s clothing match those of Ripper victim
Irene Richardson, 28, who was dis
covered on Soldiers Field, Leeds, in 1976.
Mr Clark said: “People think Sutcliffe was a prostitute attacker. That is not the case. He chose prostitutes because they would very easily enticed into his car. He basically attacked lone women.
“One of his earliest victims, Tracy Brown, was a 14-year-old schoolgirl attacked on a farm road. She survived. There was a housewife left in a doorway.”
Mark Of A Serial Killer, published by Adam Wood Mango Books and costing £10 paperback, will be released on October 7.
The vehicle was of immense importance, but very little was made of it in the press. For me, that car clinched it. Chris Clark