Top cop Chris Gregg reveals how police tracked down John Humble, 20 years after he faced justice for the most infamous hoax in British criminal history
The alcoholic loner behind the infamous taped message which derailed the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry tried to hide his voice when he was arrested.
The former detective who brought ‘Wearside Jack’ to justice told how John Humble ‘kept nodding’ in his first interview with police, knowing that the mere sound of his voice would give him away. It was only when he was told that a ‘one in a billion match’ had been made to his DNA from a tiny sample of saliva taken from one of his hoax letters to cops that he finally confessed. The Mirror interviewed retired police chief Chris Gregg to mark the 20th anniversary of the investigation into the most infamous hoax in British criminal history.
Humble, then aged 50, agreed to read out a transcript of the original tape sent to police; it was ‘chilling’ for Chris, who heard it again for the first time in a quarter of a century. The hoax by Humble, who died in 2019 aged 63, cost the lives of three women after his ‘I’m Jack’ tape and three separate letters – one to the Daily Mirror – diverted the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry away from the real killer.
With the nation horror-struck as the Ripper’s murder spree went on, Humble sent detectives a two-minute recorded message and letters that hobbled the police inquiry in 1978 and 1979. Peter Sutcliffe was jailed for life in 1981, but the identity of the hoaxer remained a mystery for another 24 years.
A cold case review conducted by West Yorkshire Police in 2005 finally brought a breakthrough thanks to advances in forensic science and the tiny sample from one of the hoax envelopes. It was matched with the police record of the DNA of Humble, who had been arrested for being drunk and disorderly in 2001.
It led cops straight to the door of the former security guard who lived with his brother in the Ford area of Sunderland, just a couple of miles from where voice experts said the hoaxer was from. He was arrested and brought to Yorkshire to be interviewed by a team led by Chris, the new head of West Yorkshire Police CID.
As Humble read the transcript of the 1979 recording which he had sent to derail the entire Yorkshire Ripper inquiry, Chris knew he had ‘got his man’. The former Det Chief Supt told the Mirror: “Humble had quite a remarkable memory; he took himself back to when he made it, it was an incredible moment to hear him read it out.
“He had made it 1979 and yet to listen to it again all those years later was just extraordinary because it was exactly the same. He took himself back in time to when he did it and it was quite remarkable to hear it again.”
The ‘voice of the Ripper’ tape left its mark on the families of the victims of the real killer Peter Sutcliffe. Chris recalled: “I remember being outside court after Humble had been jailed with Richard McCann, the son of Yorkshire Ripper victim Wilma McCann. He told me: ‘The voice of the killer was always the voice on that tape, because I was a child, that was how I felt about it’.
“Those last three Ripper victims may not have died had it not been for Humble, it proved to be tragic, he did something that he never needed to do. We had a stroke of luck with that piece of the old envelope being found, but you make your own luck.”
Humble, who died in 2019, had initially refused to let detectives hear his voice in interview, nodding his head to answer questions, knowing his first spoken words were likely to confirm his identity. But he was then told about the DNA match to the envelope which he had sealed more than 25 years earlier.
The discovery of the envelope was down to the sheer determination of Chris Gregg. He had been part of the hunt for the Wearside Jack which had cost £6m and the lives of Barbara Leach: 20, from Bradford, who was killed in September 1979; Marguerite Walls: 47, from Leeds, murdered in August 1980, and Jacqueline Hill: 20, from Leeds, the Ripper’s last victim in November 1980. Sutcliffe was finally arrested eight weeks later.
The cold case review was begun by Chris after he was appointed head of CID in 2004. He brought a breakthrough thanks to advances in DNA technology and a sample of saliva from the third hoax letter seal, which was sent to the police.
The second one, post marked Sunderland, 10am, 13 March 1978, was sent to the ‘Chief Editor, Daily Mirror Publishing Office, Manchester (0161 STD Code) Lancs.’
Chris, 68 now and retired from the force, was determined to solve the case after working on the original Yorkshire Ripper investigation. He recalled: “I told the two detectives to accumulate all the Sutcliffe material to bring into a major crime store and establish what happened to letters and tapes. First port of call – do you have letters and tape?
“There was a drawer at the old police forensic labs in Wetherby which was still marked Ripper letters. But it was empty. The letters were tracked, the three of them all went to the London forensic lab and they had used a chemical which had a destructive quality.
“The papers did not just turn purple, but black, they had to fumigate the lab afterwards, but it proved that those letters were destroyed in the fingerprint process.” He went on: “Not to be deterred, I knew from my experience, in high profile unsolved cases, scientists would keep snippets of exhibits, cut out garments in a murder for example, and save them for advances in science.
“So it was not a far fetched idea to think it may have happened with Wearside Jack.” He wrote to the Head of Lab in Wetherby and asked ‘can you categorically say there is nothing left from the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry?’
Months later, he received a call ‘out of the blue’ to say they had found a 3cm seal from letter No 3, to the police, the last one to the force. It was perfectly preserved between two glass slides; they were covered in dust. But the seal inside quickly gave the ‘one in a billion match’ to Humble. It solved a crime which made headlines around the world.
Chris said: “It was one of the most defining moments of my career. If we had not found him, I am convinced that he would have taken that secret to the grave. He had not told a living soul what he had done.”