Modern-day Jack The Ripper?

[Guest betweenthelines]

Found this on AOL's news site not too long ago:

IPSWICH, England (Dec. 13) -- Detectives hunting a serial killer were expected to identify the two latest victims on Wednesday, as police warned prostitutes to stay off the streets for their own safety.

Five bodies have been discovered in the past 11 days, and the latest discoveries -- the bodies of two women, discovered at the side of a busy road -- are believed to be two prostitutes who were recently reported missing.

Police have not officially confirmed bodies are those of Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29, but Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull said that it was a "natural assumption."

Clennell's father Brian said that he didn't know his daughter had worked as prostitute, and that he was "going through hell."

"I never knew that she lived the life that she did," Clennell told the British Broadcasting Corp. "Somebody out there must know, somebody that's doing this. He's sick, he's got to be caught. It could be somebody's father, it could be somebody's uncle, it could be anybody."

Suffolk police were already investigating the deaths of three other women -- all of whom had worked Ipswich's red-light district -- whose naked bodies were found a few miles apart. One body was found in a stream, another in a pond and a third in the woods, about 30 yards from a road.

The two bodies discovered Tuesday were lying near a busy road near Levington, Suffolk, a village about five miles south of Ipswich.

All five corpses were found within a few miles of Ipswich, a small city about 70 miles northeast of London.

Ipswich only has about 40 prostitutes working the street, said Hannah Besley, a community safety officer in Ipswich who chairs of the city's Prostitution Steering Group. When the first women went missing, most of the prostitutes -- including Clennell, who went missing after the first two bodies were discovered -- kept working, but that's no longer the case.

"It's now gotten to such a critical stage that they are terrified and last night it was very quiet -- reassuringly so," Besley said.

Forensic officers remained at the scene where the latest bodies were found, and a wide cordon had been set up to secure the area. Two protective tents had been erected to protect them from the damp weather as officers worked inside.

So far, police have only been able to determine the cause of death in one of the five cases. Anneli Alderton, a 24-year-old whose body was discovered in a wooded area on Sunday, had been asphyxiated, and likely strangled, Gull said.

Police are uncertain how 25-year-old Gemma Adams and 19-year-old Tania Nicol were killed. Their bodies were both discovered in water and Gull said that has hampered the forensic investigation.

The killings have stirred memories of the so-called Yorkshire Ripper, one of Britain's worst serial killers. Peter Sutcliffe admitted to killing 13 women, mostly prostitutes, in the 1970s. He was sentenced to serve a minimum of 30 years in prison.

His reign of terror recalled Jack the Ripper, the notorious Victorian serial killer who murdered at least five East London prostitutes in 1888. He was never caught and speculation about his identity continues.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

2006-12-13 11:06:55

[The Old Man]

Yes, I've been following this over the last few days. He's just claimed his fifth victim. Where is Frank when you need him?

[Guest SouthernCelt]

Update info (links being posted in US to UK sources)

Desperate police admit strangler is out of control

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Cops reveal how 4th woman died

[Guest betweenthelines]

IPSWICH, England (Dec. 18) - Police hunting a suspected serial killer following the murders of five prostitutes in eastern England arrested a 37-year-old man on Monday and cordoned off a group of houses.

The man was arrested at his home in Trimley St. Martin, near the port of Felixstowe, Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull said in a brief statement to reporters. He declined to say where the suspect was being held.

"He has been arrested on the suspicion of murdering all five women," Gull said.

News reports identified the suspect as Tom Stephens, who was quoted in the Sunday Mirror newspaper as saying he knew all five women, and that he had been interviewed four times under caution - meaning that he was regarded as a potential suspect - by police investigating the slayings.

"From the police profiling it does look like me - white male between 25 and 40, knows the area, works strange hours. The bodies have got close to my house," Stephens was quoted as saying.

"If new information, coincidental information, crops up, I could get arrested," Stephens was quoted as saying. He added that he was confident he would not be charged.

Trimley is eight miles southeast of Ipswich, where all five victims worked as prostitutes.

Their naked bodies were found in rural areas near Ipswich, 70 miles northeast of London, over a 10-day span beginning Dec. 2. Three were found near the main road and the rail line between Ipswich and Felixstowe; the other two were discovered near the same road south and southwest of Ipswich.

The investigation had strained the resources of England's smallest police forces, and 340 investigators were brought in from across Britain to join 160 Suffolk officers working on the case.

Earlier Monday, police announced that coroner's inquests into the deaths of Tania Nicol, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls had been postponed.

Clennell, 24, died of compression to her neck, and Alderton, 24, was strangled, a senior pathologist determined. Post-mortem examinations of the bodies of Nicol, 19, and Nicholls, reached no conclusion on the cause of death.

An inquest into the death of Gemma Adams, 25, was opened and adjourned last week. The pathologist reached no conclusion about the cause of her death.

Article courtesy of Associated Press.

[The Old Man]

For anyone following this, the accused has now been charged and has appeared in Court.

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/suffolk/6223885.stm