Yorkshire Ripper tests positive for coronavirus after five days in hospital
Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe has tested positive for coronavirus and is in isolation in prison.
The serial killer spent five nights in hospital with suspected heart issues before returning to HMP Frankland, County Durham, on Tuesday.
Yesterday Sutcliffe, 74, was diagnosed with Covid-19 by prison medics after reportedly showing symptoms yesterday.
A prison source told the Sun: ‘The results were turned around quickly because of the danger of him spreading it.
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‘The worry for him is that he ticks so many of the danger categories for coronavirus.
‘He is already in ill health, he is overweight and he is old. If things go downhill for him, it could be very, very serious.’
Last week, Sutcliffe, from Bradford, was reportedly chained to a bed in hospital after suffering a suspected heart attack.
Before he was rushed to the private room in University Hospital of North Durham, the killer was said to be terrified of catching coronavirus and was convinced he had it.
The Ripper, who is serving life for the murder of 13 women across Yorkshire and the North West between 1975 and 1980, has struggled to breathe and slept badly in the week leading up to his visit to the cardiology ward.
He tested negative throughout his stay at hospital, which fellow inmates say he was ‘hugely relieved’ about.
Sutcliffe suffers from diabetes and was blinded in one eye after he was stabbed repeatedly with a pen in Broadmoor in 1997.
He spent 32 years in the high-security psychiatric hospital before returning to prison in 2016.
Then in 2018 the vision in his right eye went after an injection meant to clear the blurriness caused by his diabetes went wrong.
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