Netflix's The Ripper has quickly become the most popular show on the streaming service, as it retells the police investigation into the murders of Peter Sutcliffe AKA 'the Yorkshire Ripper'. However, viewers were surprised to spot Coronation Street actor Bruce Jones on the show, who discovered one of Peter's victims when he was just 24 years old.
MORE: Netflix's new true-crime doc The Ripper slammed by victims' families
Speaking about finding the late 20-year-old Jean Jordan, Bruce - who played Les Battersby on Corrie - explained that he had been working on his allotment in Manchester in 1977 when the life-changing discovery took place.
WATCH: Have you seen The Ripper yet?
"I was getting all the old bricks to lay a base," he said. "And I'd only realised later on that I’d rolled my wheelbarrow over this girl. She was cut in the most horrendous ways a person could cut someone. I'd run to the phone box across the road, and rung 999. They were there within minutes. I had to describe it all."
The actor then went into details about the horrific injuries that Jean had suffered, and broke down into tears at the memory of the awful discovery.
Bruce opened up about his experience
Viewers were surprised to see him on the show, with one tweeting: "I'm watching The Ripper, Netflix's documentary on Peter Sutcliffe aka The Yorkshire Ripper. I had no idea that Bruce Jones (Coronation Street's Les Battersby) discovered one of the victims in 1977. I can't imagine how badly that would affect a 24-year-old."
Another added: "Bruce Jones (Les Battersby) has just appeared on the second episode of The Ripper, on Netflix. How many of you knew he discovered one of the victims?"
The series looks at the investigation into the murders
Have you watched the four-part series yet? The official synopsis reads: "For five years, between 1975 to 1980, the Yorkshire Ripper murders cast a dark shadow over the lives of women in the North of England. It was a time of national hysteria. 13 women were dead and the police seemed incapable of catching the killer. No one felt safe – and every man was a suspect.
"Chronicling the twists and turns of the largest police manhunt in British police history, this evocative four-part series re-examines the crimes within the context of England in the late 1970s: a time of radical change, de-industrialisation, poverty, masculinity and misogyny, all of which contributed to the Ripper evading capture for so long."
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