Peter Sutcliffe, one of Britain’s most notorious serial killers, died on Friday aged 74, after contracting COVID-19, the UK Ministry of Justice said Friday.

Nicknamed ‘Yorkshire Ripper’, Sutcliffe was convicted in 1981 of murdering 13 women and attempting to murder seven others in northern England after a reign of terror that is still seared on the public memory.

He received 20 life sentences and was ordered to serve at least 30 years in prison, but in 2010 a High Court judge ruled that he was never to be released.

“HMP Frankland prisoner Peter Coonan (born Sutcliffe) died in hospital on November 13, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman has been informed,” the Ministry of Justice said in a statement, as per AFP inputs.

Truck driver Sutcliffe, who was assessed to have had paranoid schizophrenia at the time he committed his crimes, had spent time after his sentence at a high-security psychiatric facility.

But he was transferred to HMP Frankland, near Durham, northeast England, after his mental state was deemed stable enough.

He was attacked in jail, losing the sight in his left eye, and had underlying health conditions including heart trouble and diabetes linked to his ballooning size.

He tested positive for COVID-19 but according to British media reports, he refused treatment. No immediate cause of death was given.

Sutcliffe carried out his first killing in October 1975. The victim was 28-year-old Wilma McCann, a mother-of-four and sex worker. She was battered with a hammer and repeatedly stabbed.

“After that first time, I developed and played up a hatred for prostitutes in order to justify within myself a reason why I had attacked and killed Wilma McCann,” Sutcliffe later told police, as per CNN reports.

But it was only six years later, in January 1981 that he was arrested and finally in May that year he was jailed for 20 life terms at the Old Bailey, with the judge recommending a minimum 30-year sentence.