PETER Sutcliffe received twenty life sentences in 1981 for murdering thirteen women in the north of England, and attempting to murder seven others.

The lorry driver from Bradford was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper because he mutilated his victims using a hammer, a sharpened screwdriver and a knife, making him one of Britain’s most notorious mass murderers.

Sutcliffe’s horrifying crimes and the blood-curdling butchery of serial killers Reginald Christie, Doctor Harold Shipman and Fred West, and many more from the blood-soaked archives of murder, will be the subject of a Halloween fright night at Darwen’s Library Theatre tomorrow.

Retired murder squad detective Trevor Marriott’s show ‘The Evil Within – The World’s Worst Serial Killers’ sheds fresh light on the murders that shocked the world, including hundreds of photographs from the original crime scenes, many not shown in public before because of their gruesome nature.

But be warned, Marriott’s macabre murder show is not for the faint-hearted.

“It can be a very moving and upsetting experience because the audience, show a lot of emotion, gasping when they hear the full details of these atrocities,” said Marriott. “It can be very disturbing, but serial killers were disturbing, evil people who had no compassion for their victims.

“I portray the killers as the monsters they are, but I also show the suffering and anguish victims must have endured, and the agony of the families who had their loved ones taken in a such a violent way.”

The Yorkshire Ripper case was one of the largest murder hunts by a British Police Force, but, added Marriott, the five year investigation was littered with errors, and bad decisions, allowing Sutcliffe the opportunity to kill and kill again.

He said: “Sutcliffe was interviewed nine times, and the information overload, plus many false leads just overwhelmed them.

“If it wasn’t for DNA, now the biggest weapon in the police’s arsenal, Sutcliffe could still be running about today.”

Marriott, who conducted a lengthy cold case investigation into the unsolved Jack the Ripper Murders in Whitechapel, added: “I think the child murderers – like Ian Brady and Myra Hindley – have had the biggest impact on the public simply because their heinous crimes were committed against youngsters.”

  • The Evil Within – The World’s Worst Serial Killers – October 31. Darwen Library Theatre. £12, £10 conc. 01254 706006.