A 32 year-old divorcee with three daughters who did not
share her Bradford flat.
The only victim known to be killed in her own home
Tina Atkinson's flat
Tina Atkinson was a prostitute who rented a flat near her
soliciting pitch because she was afraid of being the next Ripper victim
She would not get into a car because the police had warned prostitutes
that the Ripper was a motorist because of the tyre tracks found at the
scene of the last murder two months earlier, that of Irene Richardson.
This was Bradford. The Ripper murders to date were in Leeds but
nevertheless the Bradford prostitutes were all conscious of their
vulnerability to the Ripper.
Tracey came to Lumb Lane for his next victim, the area most
associated with prostitutes in Bradford and an area he knew well. There
was not so much police activity here. With the claw hammer in his inside
pocket he probably had a drink in the Carlisle pub where, clean and well
dressed and wearing his half sovereign gold ring he would have been able
to stalk his drunken prostitute victim when she left the pub alone.
It was late on Saturday night, the pub was full and
everyone was the worse for wear with alcohol. The well dressed Tracey
followed Tina from the pub and in the dim light and the relative quiet of
the street he arranged to go to her flat only five minutes walk away.
Tina felt perfectly safe because he did not have a car and
was an Irishman rather than a Yorkshireman. When he stepped through the
door of her flat, Tracey, the experienced pimp battered her senseless with
the hammer and fearing she might have a pimp in the flat he probably
searched the living room for any other person. Then he proceeded to
perform his ritual slaughter. Tina was sexually assaulted and the presence
of B blood semen confirmed this. He used the claws of the hammer to rip at
her flesh.
At first the pathologist thought it was a wood chisel but
each claw is like a chisel. All prostitutes were afraid of sexually
transmitted diseases and Aids and they always gave their customers a
condom to wear before allowing them to penetrate them for this reason and
also of course to save them the obvious trouble of washing themselves
thoroughly after every bout of sex. The likelihood of one recent customer
sharing the same rare blood group as the Ripper and having unprotected sex
is a very long shot.
The Ripper was one customer who could promise a girl big
money and not use a condom. However, somebody noticed him because shortly
after the discovery of the body, the police again put out a major request
to trace the same elusive stocky bearded man resembling the man who was
last seen talking to Emily Jackson.
This was the No 1 suspect who was never traced. Peter
Sutcliffe's statement about how he killed Tina Atkinson is reminiscent of
his statement about the murder of Yvonne Pearson, which he knew all about.
He clearly didn't know what he was talking about in this case and was
being prompted by police here and there. He saw lots of red blood when he
murdered Carole Wilkinson in broad daylight later that year.
