Yvonne
Pearson grave (1957 - 21st January 1978)
Here I am at a grave containing
five bodies, one being one of Peter Sutcliffe’s victims. Her body was in poor
condition as it laid outside for two months. She was murdered in Bradford but
she was a Leeds lass and her family wanted her buried here. Thankfully I knew
from a fellow grave geek exactly where this grave was and, on the way home from
the east coast, I veered off the M62 and found this Catholic church just east
of the city. The cemetery reaches back quite a way from the main road and
Yvonne is buried as far back as you can get, almost as though she doesn’t
matter. Though five people are buried here the ground is strewn with weeds and it
receives no love.
Yvonne was a 21-year-old prostitute and on
Saturday 21st January 1978 she
left her two children with a neighbour and walked to The Flying Dutchman pub to
prepare herself to make some quick money. Though she was due in court on a
charge of soliciting and expecting to go to prison she went looking for punters
with money and sexual desires. Cruising around in his red Corsair was Peter Sutcliffe
with a hammer secreted under his seat. Earlier that day he'd helped his parents
move stuff into a new house, refused a drink and went looking for someone to kill.
His dad and brother they he'd gone home to his wife Sonia but his blood was up.
He’d only attacked someone 37 days before (she survived) and wanted another go.
He saw Yvonne when he braked hard to avoid a car
backing into the road. He saw her flash of blonde hair and she asked if he was
looking for business. She got in the car not knowing she’d be dead within twenty
minutes. Sex for £5 was agreed and they drove to a patch waste ground at the
back of a mill (where Sutcliffe's dad worked.) Yvonne got out of the car but
before she could lie on the back seat Sutcliffe had walloped her head twice
with his hammer. Suddenly another car pulled in and Sutcliffe dragged his
moaning groaning victim to a discarded sofa. To stifle her groans he yanked
some stuffing from the sofa and stuffed it down her throat while pinching her nose
hard. After a while he released his grip to see if she’d died. She was still
making a noise so he blocked her nostrils again. The car drove away and
Sutcliffe - latter admitting his was seething with rage - pulled Yvonne’s
trousers down, opened her top to see her breasts and then kicked her in the
head repeatedly. At some point he leapt onto her chest with both feet. He
arranged her clothes in his typical fashion - bra and sweater yanked up and
lower clothing yanked down. He threw soil, rubble and turf on her, shoved the
sofa around her and left.
When Yvonne didn’t come home the next day it was
thought she might be lying low to avoid her court appearance. The police
checked derelict areas and contacted other police forces but drew a blank.
Weeks later someone saw an arm sticking out from under the old sofa (it had probably
been pulled out by a dog.) He guessed it was a tailor’s dummy but the putrid
smell made him call the police. Oddly a month-old copy of the Daily Mirror seemed to have been placed
in Yvonne's arms but Sutcliffe later denied he’d returned to the body.
As I was taking photos of the grave I spotted a
middle-aged man on the horizon. He was loaded down with shopping bags but had
stopped to watch me as I did lots of saluting and pointing for the benefit of
these photos. He was even leaning forward as though he'd forgotten his glasses.
The bags looked heavy and eventually he came down the path. I let him pass
through the gap to get onto the housing estate but he kept his eyes locked to
the ground.
It didn’t seem odd that Yvonne was buried here at
the back end of the cemetery. Her last words had been “Shall we get into the
back?” [of the car] and here she was in a pauper’s grave at the back of a long
cemetery in Leeds.
Yvonne is buried at the far back end
of the churchyard...
The murder location...
