The following are various pieces of evidence that supported Peter Sutcliffe's confession.
On January 8 1981, after thinking about the events of Sutcliffe's time at the Sheffield police
station, Sargeant Ring remembered Sutcliffe's visit to the toilet when he first arrived at the
station. Sargeant Ring went there and found that Sutcliffe had placed in the lavatory cistern:
ONE WOODEN-HANDLED KNIFE - Said by Sutcliffe not to have been previously used in any
attacks or murders.
Found by the police in the glove compartment of Sutcliffe car:
THREE SCREWDRIVERS - Unknown if previously used in any attacks or murders.
Found in Sutcliffe's jacket pocket at the police station:
ONE LENGTH OF ROPE - Sutcliffe admitted at the trial that he had used this piece of rope
in the murder of Marguerite Walls and the attack on Upadhya Bandara.
ONE YELLOW-HANDLED SCREWDRIVER - Used by Peter Sutcliffe to stab Jacqueline Hill, and demonstrated by Attorney General Sir Michael Havers on how he used it to stab her through the eye.
ONE HACKSAW - Said to have been used by Peter Sutcliffe to try and decapitate Jean Jordan.
SEVERAL KITCHEN KNIVES - The jury at the trial were told that recovered from a drawer in
Sutcliffe's home in Garden Lane, Heaton, were several kitchen knives, including:
ONE KITCHEN KNIFE - Used in the murder of Helen Rytka. Sutcliffe used this knife when he
stabbed Helen Rytka several times through the heart and lungs.
ONE LARGE PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER - Used in the murder of Josephine Whitaker and the murder of Barbara Leach. The screwdriver was badly worn and Sutcliffe had converted it into a bradawl and he had sharpened it before his attack on Josephine Whitaker. Near the the Woolley Edge motorway service station on the M1, about 11 miles south of Leeds city centre, Sutcliffe had thrown away the screwdriver while in his lorry. After his confession to the murders and attacks, it was retrieved by the police from an embankment next to the M1 motorway. Later the weapon was described at the trial by Attorney General Sir Michael Havers as "one of the most fiendish weapons you have ever seen".
TREVOR BIRDSALL - Peter Sutcliffe's friend who was with him at the time of, but not involved in, two of the attacks. In 1969, in Manningham, Bradford, they were parked in a vehicle when Sutcliffe left the vehicle and hit a woman over the head with a stone in a sock. When Sutcliffe returned he told Trevor to drive off quickly. In 1975, in Halifax, Sutcliffe left the vehicle they were in, using the excuse he wanted to talk to a woman they had seen, and proceeded to attack Olive Smelt.
(NOTE: Sources: Burn, Cross, Jones, Yallop, The Times, The Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Mail On Sunday. Photo source: Nigel Blundell, "Encyclopedia Of Serial Killers".)