Jean Jordan - Yorkshire Ripper Victim
Jean Jordan was generally accepted as the first of Peter Sutcliffe's victims outside of West Yorkshire.
Jean was murdered in the Greater Manchester Police area on the 1st October 1977. Jean Jordan was a known prostitute. Her body was found on a disused allotment in Chorlton-cum-Hardy on the 10th October, nine days after her death.
Jean had been killed by hammer blows to the head after which she had been stabbed in the body. An unusual and curious feature of this case was that there was evidence that the killer had returned to the scene some eight days after the murder, stripped the body and inflicted further injuries including an attempt to decapitate it.
On the 15th October, Jordan’s handbag was found 189 ft away from the body. It contained a new £5 Bank of England note which was thought to have been paid to the victim by the murderer. The recovery of this note some two weeks after the death marked a significant new stage in the series inquiry.
Chief Superintendent Ridgway of the Greater Manchester Police took charge of the investigation and recognised immediately the possibility of a link with the crimes in West Yorkshire.
Weight was added to this initial suspicion when it was discovered that the £5 note recovered from Jean Jordan’s handbag was probably from a consignment of £25,000 (i.e. 5,000 £5 notes) delivered to the Manningham, Shipley or Bingley branches of the Midland Bank on 29th September 1977. A team of detectives from Greater Manchester moved to the West Yorkshire area and, accompanied by West Yorkshire officers, undertook extensive inquiries to trace the person to whom the recovered £5 note had been paid.
