Jean Jordan was a prostitute living in Manchester and
worked in the Moss Side area. She was picked up by Sutcliffe and driven to
a quiet area at Southern Cross Cemetery where prostitutes often directed
their punters to.
Jean Jordan was a Scottish-born mother of two who lived
with a lover in a flat in Hulme, Manchester
Jean lived in one of the 'problem' estates of Manchester's
Moss Side, and worked the streets for a living
Sutcliffe parked up on the grass verge and they walked into
a double hedge where he battered her 13 times with his stone loaded sock
and then probably as he did to his other victims, masturbated and fled. He
claimed after his arrest that because he had not read about it, a week
later he returned to the scene. His previous victim had been Maureen Long
who survived his assault which didn't merit any headlines in the local
papers.
The latest Ripper victim had been Jayne McDonald which
received massive publicity and he stated that this murder had affected him
greatly. Now Jean Jordan's body lay undiscovered in a hedge in Manchester,
so he returned to the scene in the early hours after leaving his mother
home from his own house warming party. He was probably hoping that the
police would have the crime scene staked out and he would walk into a
police trap. Frustrated, he pulled the lifeless body out of the hedge and
scattered her clothes about, then using a broken pane of glass from a
nearby glasshouse he cut the body with long lacerations and pulled out her
intestines.
Sutcliffe was trying to emulate the Ripper but as he didn't
know the calling cards of the Ripper he went to this extreme while his car
sat on the grass verge of a busy highway. As morning broke, this madman
drove back to Bradford, where in broad day light on a street, he murdered
Carol Wilkinson, who was walking to work.. He took Jean's handbag with him
which he was to return to the scene only days later and which was found
with the famous fiver planted in it.
Again there was no expected stake out by the police. The
bag was given to the police by an allotment holder immediately. The Jordan
murder was not regarded as a Ripper murder and had none of the Ripper's
hall marks. The fact that the victim was a prostitute and was battered
about the head were the only common links and these facts fuelled media
speculation that the Ripper may have crossed the Pennines. There the
likeness ends.
This speculation was not lost to Billy Tracey who decided
to capitalise on it as he played out his badger baiting game. He would
force the police to include it in the official score by writing to them
and including it in the count and promising another murder in Manchester
next time, a promise he could fulfil.
