Yorkshire Ripper’s favorite book and movie revealed in new letters

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The Yorkshire Ripper has read The Shawshank Redemption over 50 times and dreamed of escaping, like his hero. The book came out in 1982, a year after Sutcliffe was jailed for life

Evil Peter Sutcliffe was obsessed with The Shawshank Redemption jailbreak story, his letters reveal.

The Yorkshire Ripper has read Stephen King’s short story more than 50 times and dreamed of escaping, like his hero.

The book, titled Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, came out in 1982 – a year after Sutcliffe was jailed for life for the murders of at least 13 women.

The hit film version, starring Tim Robbins as the ingenious imprisoned banker Andy and Morgan Freeman as his friend Red, was released in 1994.

In newly emerged letters, serial killer Sutcliffe, who was detained at Broadmoor Hospital, Berks, and Franklin Prison, Co Durham, wrote to a correspondent: “My favorite book is the Shawshank Redemption.” In 1992, using a hacksaw blade provided by fellow countryman Ronnie Kray, Sutcliffe attempted to escape Broadmoor by trying to cut through the metal bars on his cell window.

The same letter revealed that the Ripper’s favorite song was the doo-wop band The Impalas’ Sorry (I Ran All the Way Home), which had “great significance” to him and his estranged wife, Sonia.

He wrote of their married life: “Sonia used to cook delicious Czech meals at home, fantastic.”

The correspondence will be in The Ripper Letters, a book edited by Rory Everett. Some notes were sent weeks before Sutcliffe’s 2020 death from Covid, aged 74.

Mr. Everett said: “The book is the first of its kind, being verbatim from the brain of the Ripper.”