Top News

A woman whose unidentified body was discovered 45 years ago may have been one of the last victims of the Yorkshire Ripper, according to the daughter of the farm where the body was found.

The skeletal remains of the victim were found behind a low wall in what became known at the Nude in the Nettles case, and a yoghurt pot lid found below her was later tested to suggest she had died in 1979.

A 999 caller who reported the location of the body in August 1981 was initially the chief suspect for the murder of the woman, believed to have been a sex worker.

But Jane Good, whose father Matt Dixon owned the land where the victim was found, has spoken for the first time about the case, saying the man who rang the police was an innocent caravan owner.

The caller to Ripon Police Station in North Yorkshire was on the phone less than a minute to report the grim discovery on August 28, 1981.

When asked for his name, he bizarrely said he could not give it for "national security" reasons and hung up.

The body was later found at the end of the driveway to Scawton Moor House, behind a broken down, moss covered wall, half way down Sutton Bank on the North York Moors, close to farmer Matt Dixon's land.

As serial killer Peter Sutcliffe was behind bars at the time, having been arrested in January 1981, suspicion fell on the 999 caller, not helped by his strange statement in reporting the body.

But Jane, 67, claims she was told by police at the time that the caravan owner was not involved in the Nude in the Nettles case and had merely discovered the body.

She says this clears the way for Sutcliffe to have carried it out and left his victim to rot.

Jane said; "It is time the Yorkshire Ripper connection is properly investigated if the 999 caller was just a passing caravaner."

The North Yorkshire Enquirer reported on the case at the time, calling the victim Hope, and pointed out she was killed when Sutcliffe was still at large.

Chris Clark, who researched the case for the website, said: "There were woods on either side of the road, a place where people stopped to picnic; it was also a lover's lane.

"For a lorry driver travelling north from Shipley in West Yorkshire to Sunderland Docks or Scarborough to get to Sutton Bank is an easy journey of 50 miles.

"This would be a regular route for Sutcliffe with truck stops in North Yorkshire at the A1 Services Boroughbridge and A168 Thirsk, where in the late 1970's prostitutes abounded, and plied their wares in the lorry parks."

From time to time a tall dark-haired man with a neatly-trimmed beard and moustache, and a strong Yorkshire accent, would come to the café in Scarborough and have something to eat and chat to the café owner.

People who saw him think it may have been Sutcliffe. He told the café owner that he was a wagon driver and as at that time there were loads of small engineering firms in the area, and other commercial businesses his arrival at the café was perfectly logical as he could park up and walk to the café.

Opposite the café was a shelter where people gathered to drink, including a woman who may have been the victim..

Jane, 67, was aged 23, at the time, believes the caller was a local caravaner who had merely discovered the body.

The caravan was seen by other locals parked overnight at the spot. The following day, the alarm was raised and the caravan disappeared.

She said: "The phone call to the police was from a man with a caravan who had nipped into the woods for a wee.

"He found the body. He sensibly did not want to get involved. It is so long ago now. But he was never a suspect. That's what I was told.

"He was a man who just happened to trip over the body but thought 'I had better report it but don't want to be kept here for the next week'.

"So he toddled off in his caravan. The day it happened the man who reported it said he had found it in a clump of rosebay willow herb."

A North Yorkshire Police spokesman said: "The DNA work did not assist in identifying the remains at Sutton Bank.

"Sadly, she remains unidentified. We remain interested in any suggestion as to the identify of the deceased."