I waited for my mum to pick me up at the bus stop… I never saw her again: Heartbroken son of Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe’s first victim Wilma McCann shares emotional statement on 48th anniversary of his mother’s murder
- Richard McCann was just five when he searched for his mum with his sister Sonia
- It later emerged Wilma had been the first of 13 victims of the Yorkshire Ripper
The son of the Yorkshire Ripper’s first victim Wilma McCann revealed how he remained haunted by the circumstances of his mother’s murder as he posted a poignant message on the anniversary of her death.
Richard McCann was just five years old when he walked to a bus stop with his sister Sonia, then seven, to search for his mother on a dark and cold October morning in 1975 after she had failed to come home.
But Wilma, 28, never arrived and instead the siblings were collected by a police officer.
Their mother’s body had been discovered just 100 yards away from the family home in Leeds after she was attacked with a hammer and stabbed 15 times in the chest, neck and abdomen.
It later emerged Wilma had been the first of 13 victims of one of Britain’s most notorious serial killers – Peter Sutcliffe.
Wilma, 28, (pictured) was discovered just 100 yards away from the family home in Leeds after she was attacked with a hammer and stabbed 15 times in the chest, neck and abdomen
Pictured, Peter Sutcliffe killed 13 women during his spree, including Wilma, and was dubbed ‘The Yorkshire Ripper’
Richard, now 53, relived the events that would change his life forever in an emotional message on social media posted around 7am.
Writing on X, which was formerly Twitter, he said: ‘Always a difficult morning on 30th October. 48 years ago, right now, my sister Sonia and I were sat at the local bus stop waiting for mum to arrive.
‘We never saw her again.’
He accompanied the post with a heartbreaking image from ITV1’s harrowing true-crime drama The Long Shadow which focuses on Sutcliffe’s victims and the loved ones they left behind.
The heartbreaking scene was recreated in the opening episode of the seven-part series which concludes tonight.
It shows Richard and Sonia dressed in duffle coats over their pyjamas as they waited in vain for their mother to arrive.
Richard added in his post: ‘It wasn’t light as dramatised on ITV recently. It was cold and dark. RIP Mam.’
He added a hashtag spelling out the words ‘her name was Wilma McCann.’
Richard, who works as an inspirational speaker and presentation skills coach, described the moment in his bestselling book about his ’stolen childhood’ called Just a Boy.
A selection of newspaper front pages from January 5, 1981, the day Sutcliffe made his first appearance in court, where he was charged with 13 counts of murder
A composite of 12 of the 13 victims murdered by Sutcliffe. Victims are: (top row, left to right) Wilma McCann, Emily Jackson, Irene Richardson, Patricia Atkinson; (middle row, left to right) Jayne McDonald, Jean Jordan, Yvonne Pearson, Helen Rytka; (bottom row, left to right) Vera Millward, Josephine Whitaker, Barbara Leach, Jacqueline Hill
He outlined how the police officer came to collect him and Sonia on the fateful morning and took them to Beckett’s Park Children’s Home.
He wrote: ‘As we came in with the policeman, the staff seemed to be expecting us.
‘We were given cups of hot chocolate and taken to a room with a television. After a while, once we were settled in comfortably, the policeman came back in to see us. He felt more like a friend by now.
‘He sat down and said he had something to tell us. “Your mum has been taken to heaven”, he said. “You won’t be seeing her any more”.’
The tragedy had a devastating impact on the siblings’ lives which Richard said was compounded by the attitudes of police as many of the victims, like his mother, were sex workers.
ITV released a harrowing drama about the heinous crimes of serial killer Sutcliffe called The Long Shadow
Sutcliffe, under a blanket, arriving at Dewsbury Magistrates Court charged with the murder of 13 women and attempted murder of seven others in 1981
He wrote of his mother’: ‘She was described as a prostitute, but that wasn’t the mum I knew.
‘So I tried to block out how she had really died. All of us did not talk about it. We were not encouraged to.
‘When I went to live with my dad and his new girlfriend we were told to call her mum. We didn’t go to my mother’s grave until I was 16.’
Tragically Sonia was found dead aged 39 in her Leeds home just days before Christmas 2007, after taking her own life.
She had suffered years of torment following her mother’s murder and had been battling alcohol addiction in a rehabilitation centre.
Two years before her death Sonia – who has been described as Sutcliffe’s final victim – told a BBC documentary: ‘I think most people remember the number 13 – for the number of women he killed. But what about the children – there’s 25 of them and no one remembers them.’
Speaking in 2020, Richard criticised the way police had described his mother and some of Sutcliffe’s other victims.
He said: ‘My mum was more than just a “good time girl” or a “woman of loose morals”, as she was described by the police.
‘I hate the things that they said about some of the women, including my mum.
Sutcliffe is taken to Frimley Park Hospital from Broadmoor Hospital for eye blindness treatment in September 2015
Police examine the common land where Josephine Whitaker was found dead on May 14, 1979 in the midst of the Ripper’s killing spree
‘It’s like they seem to forget the person behind that black and white mugshot that I hated for years.’
Wilma’s horrific murder came after Sutcliffe had attacked three women earlier that year.
The women – Anna Rogulskyj, Olive Smelt and Tracy Browne – had all miraculously escaped with their lives.
On the night of October 29, Wilma, a single mother-of-four, had said goodnight to her children and then headed out drinking.
She was seen at four pubs before ending up in a drinking club which she was seen leaving after 1am looking for a lift home.
Sutcliffe was passing in his car when he stopped to pick her up. He parked up at nearby playing fields where he savagely murdered Wilma before dumping her body – the start of a reign of terror which left women fearing to go out alone after dark.
It was five years before Sutcliffe was caught after a chance encounter during a routine police patrol in Sheffield.
In 1981 Sutcliffe was sentenced to a whole life order. He died aged 74 in Broadmoor Hospital in November 2020.
Kept in chains until shortly before his death, an inquest revealed Sutcliffe had refused to be shielded before catching coronavirus.
It was only after Sutcliffe’s death that West Yorkshire Police Chief Constable John Robins apologised to the victims’ families on behalf of the force.
He said: ‘On behalf of West Yorkshire Police, I apologise for the additional distress and anxiety caused to all relatives by the language, tone and terminology used by senior officers at the time in relation to Peter Sutcliffe’s victims.
‘Such language and attitudes may have reflected wider societal attitudes of the day, but it was as wrong then as it is now. A huge number of officers worked to identify and bring Peter Sutcliffe to justice and it is a shame that their hard work was overshadowed by the language of senior officers used at the time, the effect of which is still felt today by surviving relatives.
‘Thankfully those attitudes are consigned to history.’
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