The Yorkshire Ripper is said to be seriously ill in hospital after refusing treatment for coronavirus despite his heart condition.
Peter Sutcliffe, 74, was taken back to top security HMP Frankland, Co Durham, on Tuesday after a five night stay in hospital.
On his return to the prison’s medical unit, he apparently began to complain of shortness of breath and chest pain.
He tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday leading to his re-admission to the University Hospital of North Durham on Sunday.
The notorious serial killer is now understood to be gravely ill due to complications caused by the virus.
Sources described him as ‘overweight’ and with ‘serious pre-existing health conditions’. “Given his age, Covid could easily finish him off,” said one.
Sutcliffe was given 20 life terms in 1981 for murdering 13 women and trying to kill seven more in a spree between 1975 and 1980 across Yorkshire and Greater Manchester.
He was initially sent to Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight.
Three years later the former trucker and gravedigger, who believed he was on a mission from God to kill sex workers, was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and moved to Broadmoor.
In recent years, Sutcliffe has suffered from angina, diabetes and near-blindness following an attack by a fellow inmate.
Last week, he told friends that he was having ‘difficulty breathing’ and ‘could barely sleep’. Sutcliffe was ‘terrified’ of Covid-19, and had refused any prison visitors during the pandemic.
“My eyesight is getting worse – I’m bumping into people,” he told one friend.
“I’ve been completely blind in one eye for 20 years and the other one is deteriorating at a fair old rate.”
Sutcliffe was moved to HMP Frankland in 2016 after psychiatrists said he was stable enough for jail.
The Ministry of Justice said they could not comment on individual prisoners.
