Wearside Jack
| John Samuel Humble | |
|---|---|
| Born | 8 January 1956 |
| Nationality | English |
| Other names | Wearside Jack |
| Occupation | Labourer |
| Criminal penalty | Eight years in custody |
| Criminal status | Released |
| Motive |
|
| Conviction(s) | Four counts of perverting the course of justice (March 2006) |
Wearside Jack is the nickname given to John Samuel Humble (born 8 January 1956), who pretended to be the Yorkshire Ripper in a number of hoax communications in 1978–79.
Humble sent three letters, taunting the authorities for failing to catch him, as well as an audio-message spoken in a Wearside accent, causing the investigation to be moved away from West Yorkshire area, home of the real killer Peter Sutcliffe, and thereby helping prolong his attacks on women and hinder his potential arrest by two years.
Some 25 years after the event, a fragment from one of Humble's envelopes was traced to him through DNA, and in 2006 Humble was sentenced to eight years in prison for perverting the course of justice.
Over the course of a year between March 1978 and March 1979, Humble sent three letters claiming to be the Yorkshire Ripper. Postmarked from Sunderland, two were addressed to George Oldfield, an Assistant Chief Constable with the West Yorkshire Police who was heading the Ripper inquiry, and one to the Daily Mirror.
First letter: 8 March 1978
Written to George Oldfield
"Preston '75" was a reference to the murder of Joan Harrison. The actual Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, was never charged with this crime. It would remain unsolved until 2011, when DNA evidence from the crime scene was matched to a man named Christopher Smith.
On 17 June 1979, Humble sent a cassette to Assistant Chief Constable Oldfield, where he introduced himself as Jack and claimed responsibility for the Ripper murders to that point.
I'm Jack. I see you are still having no luck catching me. I have the greatest respect for you George, but Lord! You are no nearer catching me now than four years ago when I started. I reckon your boys are letting you down, George. They can't be much good, can they?
The cassette ended with a segment from "Thank You for Being a Friend" by Andrew Gold. The police focused on Humble's Wearside accent. Together with voice analysts they decided (based on dialectology) that the accent was distinctive to the Castletown area of Sunderland. This led to 40,000 men being investigated – to no avail as the real killer actually came from Bradford, approximately 78 miles southwest. Police also commenced a substantial publicity campaign, including 'Dial-the-Ripper' hotlines, billboards, and full page ads in newspapers. Around £1 million was invested into the publicity campaign alone.
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