Is this the Yorkshire Ripper’s ashes being thrown into the Atlantic?
THE Yorkshire Ripper’s dying wish was for his ashes to be scattered ‘somewhere nice and sunny’.
And, two years after the serial killer’s death, a photograph seems to show a woman carrying out that wish on a beach in Lanzarote.
The informal ritual apparently took place at a rocky cove last week, when a female friend threw the ashes of Peter Sutcliffe into the Atlantic off Playa de los Pocillos, a popular beach on the Spanish island.
Whether he wanted them scattered there or if the location was chosen at random by the mystery woman is not clear.
It is likely that half of Sutcliffe’s remains are elsewhere, as his ashes were divided by his brother Mick following the notorious killer’s death from Covid in November 2020, aged 74.
Sutcliffe had been serving a life sentence in HMP Frankland in County Durham for murdering 13 women and attempting to murder seven others between 1975 and 1980. He was cremated in secret, unbeknown to relatives, and the ashes were then sent to his brother at his home in Bingley, West Yorkshire, in a plastic bag inside a box.
Mick Sutcliffe, who was in very poor health with lung disease and has since died, had said he could not scatter his brother’s ashes as the location was ‘too far for me to go’.
He did not specify where this location was. As a result, he divided the ashes into two piles, boxed them up and sent them by special delivery to two friends.
He said at the time: ‘Peter wanted me to scatter them but it was too far for me to go, so I divided them up between two of his friends.
‘They were two people who were regularly in touch with Peter and he considered them to be his friends.’ The woman who threw the ashes into the Atlantic was said to be a regular jail visitor.
She has not been named, but told The Sun: ‘I made a promise to Peter to scatter his ashes somewhere nice and sunny while I was on my travels.
‘I know people will think it is appalling, but as far as I’m concerned I was carrying out the wishes of a dying old man. He wanted to be in a better and happier place.
‘It was a nice moment and, at the end, I was engulfed by a wave which I felt like was Peter acknowledging it.’
Sutcliffe, who died with Covid, was also suffering from heart disease and diabetes.