[Shooter 2.5]

I'm glad you asked that question.
A forensics scientist named Patricia Cornwell thinks she may have solved the Jack the Ripper case. She spent 4 million dollars of her own money and even found DNA between one of "Jack's" letters and a painting that an artist named Walter Sickert painted.
This artist was a real sick person. He painted one work that matched one of the crime scenes and the photographs of that particular crime scene were never released to the public.
She even traced his travels to France and murders started to happen while he was in the same city.
Cornwell even found out that later "suicides" may have been attributed to him. One suicide involved a cut neck from ear to ear.
She's supposed to have written a book and it's release date should be in the fall.

[ContentiousObjector]

FORENSICS SCIENTIST?

She is a hack writer who pumps out lame mystery novels, and she didn't find DNA, she discovered a letter written by Sickert that was written on the same type of paper,

Silkert was a sick bastard, but there isn't any real evidence other than being a dickless (seriously) mysoginist,

Experts on the topic have dismissed her work in it's entirety, and really she didn't discover Sicker as a suspect, he was discussed as a suspect after a weird painting he did in 1910 that depicted a brutal murder in Camden,

This is a rebuttle written by an expert on the topic, and posted in a JtR newsgroup,

It just reaffirms how people brush over the facts to make the story fit their theory!

I have a feeling that if you were to speak with Ms. Cornwell, she would brush over that little tidbit and say something about how no one knows for sure that Joseph was Walter's son, or something to that affect. Anyway, Joseph already admitted that the story he told Knight was made up.

And, in regards to the fine writing paper, lots of people would have had access to it. Even if you say that 1% of the London population had access to that paper, it would still be too many people to solely implicate Sickert.

Wolf wrote an excellent article for Ripper Notes (and it is posted here in the Dissertations) entitled "The Art of Murder"... if you haven't read it yet, then please do! As always, Wolf says it much better than I could ever try.

It's funny... one of my friends that knows of my interest in Jack the Ripper made a comment to me the other day; she said that at this point, whoever Jack was, it must be someone famous because that is all the information we have now. And in a way, she's right. We lost so much information in the blitz, and celebrities are researched and documented much more than nobodys. Which is why we have Royal Conspiracies, and accusations against famous writers and painters, and other persons of note (famous or infamous). I almost feel sorry for them!

I think that if Cornwell had done a little more research before ripping up a bunch of paintings (and boy, is the art society going ape over that!) and spending that much money on testing, she would have realized that she still would not have concrete proof that Sickert was the Ripper. For instance

1. How many people handled the paintings? Earlier fingerprints could be obscured by new ones.
2. What is the likelihood of finding DNA on anything that is so old and has been handled so much? I know they have pulled DNA from mummies, but this is different. They pulled body tissue from the inside or drilled for pulp in the teeth, and the mummies were, for the most part, undisturbed or sparingly handled.
3. Sickert changed the names of his paintings frequently. "The Camden Town Murder" painting was originally called "What Shall We Do For Rent?" or something like that, and it had an even earlier title as well. It is not clear that the woman is dead, and she doesn't look like Kelly in the picture. Her arms are not posed the same, for one thing. I know that there are others that Cornwell claims look like the murder victims, but I just don't see it.
Anyway, enough of this chattering! Have a great day!

Warm regards,
Divia deBrevier