A former Sunderland chairman was identified as a Yorkshire Ripper suspect after a hammer was found in his car.
Peter Sutcliffe earned the mantle with the brutal murder of 13 women and attempted murder of seven more across Yorkshire, Lancashire and Greater Manchester between 1975 and 1980. His killing spree triggered one of the biggest manhunts in British history.
Numerous suspects were interviewed by police before Sutcliffe was finally apprehended, tried and given a life sentence. One of them went on to be a leading football chairman, Sir Bob Murray, who owned Sunderland between 1986 and 2006.
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Murray makes the startling revelation in his autobiography, which will be released on October 12. At the time of the Ripper’s murderous rampage, he was working in Yorkshire.
In the book, Murray, who hails from County Durham, recalls how police arrived at his place of work to interview him. Years later, John Humble – dubbed ‘Wearside Jack’ – was convicted of a hoax which conned detectives into looking for someone with a north-east accent.
A hammer found in Murray’s car became an item of “significant interest”. The hammer had been given to him by his father to help him change a wheel on his car. Murray describes the spotlight on him before Sutcliffe’s arrest as “quite intense” and called it an “awful time”.
Murray, 77, was at the helm when Sunderland finished seventh in consecutive Premier League seasons at the start of the century. In the book, called I’d Do It All Again, recalls his life in the game, with proceeds going to the Foundation of Light charity, which he founded.
The Ripper case has been back in the spotlight recently due to an ITV series, The Long Shadow, which focuses on the stories of the victims, their families and the police officers at the centre of the five-year hunt to find Sutcliffe.
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