The Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe has died aged 74

The Yorkshire Ripper has died at 74 after refusing any treatment for coronavirus.

The serial killer became one of the latest victims of the virus after his lungs collapsed at 1:10am this morning.

He is thought to have spent his last moments alone as per the coronavirus protocols.

He spent 40 years locked up, spending most of the time in Broadmoor Prison, after he was arrested for murdering 13 women and seven attempted murders between 1975 and 1980.

Sutcliffe, who notoriously claimed he was a ‘beast’ driven by a ‘devil inside him’, led to one of the biggest manhunts of the 20th century.

A source said ‘no tears were shed’ at his final moments. They told The Sun: “His death was as pitiful as the vile life he had lived.”

A Prison Service spokesman at Frankland Prison, County Durham – where Sutcliffe was moved in 2016 – said: “HMP Frankland prisoner Peter Coonan (born Sutcliffe) died in hospital on November 13th.

“The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman has been informed.”

The news comes less than a week after reports of Sutcliffe testing positive for coronavirus in prison on November 7th. He was put in isolation and monitored closely. 

The son of Sutcliffe’s first victim – mother-of-four Wilma McCann – who was just five at the time of her murder, said the serial killer’s death would bring ‘some kind of closure’. 

He told the BBC: “The attention he’s had over the years, the continuous news stories that we’ve suffered over the years, there is some form of conclusion to that.

“I am sure a lot of the families, surviving children of the victims may well be glad he has gone and they have a right to feel like that.”