Walter Sickert: Whitechapel Murderer ?

[Sickert]

Answers

1) I'm not the killer. It's just what I heard.
2) Just answering the question, where did she get a sample from. Answer one of his relatives.

[Graham]

Limehouse it's the fact that he put things in his paintings that only the police and the killer knew

Such as?

And as for where the DNA came from, ever heard of Mitochondrial DNA

.

Yes. So what?

Graham

[Sickert]

Paintings

Limehouse it's the fact that he put things in his paintings that only the police and the killer knew. And as for where the DNA came from, ever heard of Mitochondrial DNA.

[Limehouse]

Hi Julie,

I think Cornwell claimed that she'd found DNA on one or more of the Ripper Letters, and that it matched Sickert's taken from God-knows-what. Even if true, it doesn't make Sickert the Ripper - it just means he probably wrote one or more of the letters just for jolly.

And I thought it'd been established that Sickert was in Dieppe at the time of at least two of the murders.

My only interest in Sickert as the Ripper is that I admire his work, and like many others feel that his reputation and memory have been sullied by linking him with the Whitechapel Murders. Everyone is, though, fully entitled to his or her opinion.

Graham

Hi Graham -

You are quite right of course - everyone is entitled to their opinion. I suppose to some Sickert is a good suspect in a Cluedo sort of way.

Sickert's DNA on one of the ripper letters eh? And who elses? It would be good to know where she got the comparative sample from - Joseph Gorman perhaps? Oh no ! I'm not getting into another DNA discussion. Oh no. Not al all!

Like you - I very much like Sickert's work - not all of which is dark and forboding.

Have a good weekend!

[Graham]

The DNA? Walter Sickert left his DNA on the vicitms? I don't think so! And what about the paintings? A man paints a picture about a murder and he is a murderer? Ms Cornwell has written dozens of books about murders - so she is a murderer too? And are all actors and actresses potential murderers because they are masters of disguise?

What about offering some evidence that Sickert was even in the country - never mind London - at the time of the murders?

Hi Julie,

I think Cornwell claimed that she'd found DNA on one or more of the Ripper Letters, and that it matched Sickert's taken from God-knows-what. Even if true, it doesn't make Sickert the Ripper - it just means he probably wrote one or more of the letters just for jolly.

And I thought it'd been established that Sickert was in Dieppe at the time of at least two of the murders.

My only interest in Sickert as the Ripper is that I admire his work, and like many others feel that his reputation and memory have been sullied by linking him with the Whitechapel Murders. Everyone is, though, fully entitled to his or her opinion.

Graham

[Limehouse]

I have always thought that Walter Sickert was guilty. What with DNA, Paintings, and him been a master of disguise, sounds good to me.

The DNA? Walter Sickert left his DNA on the vicitms? I don't think so! And what about the paintings? A man paints a picture about a murder and he is a murderer? Ms Cornwell has written dozens of books about murders - so she is a murderer too? And are all actors and actresses potential murderers because they are masters of disguise?

What about offering some evidence that Sickert was even in the country - never mind London - at the time of the murders?

[The Grave Maurice]

Yeah, and it's a very old pig.
Nice to have you with us, Sickert. But, other than having an interest in this case (like all of us), your namesake, IMO, had nothing to do with it.

[Sickert]

Flying Pigs

I just saw a pig fly past.

Sickert

[Graham]

I have always thought that Walter Sickert was guilty. What with DNA, Paintings, and him been a master of disguise, sounds good to me.

...and pigs might fly....

Graham

[Sickert]

Sickert did it

I have always thought that Walter Sickert was guilty. What with DNA, Paintings, and him been a master of disguise, sounds good to me.

[miss marple]

sickert's suspect

Hi All,

Well said, Graham and Grave MaurIce

is Osbert Sitwell's account of Sickert's account of 'The Lodger'
which might be of interest.

‘’His talk like most good talk, contained in its web certain invariable strands, certain immutable monuments that could be evoked for purposes of reference, allusion, comparison and simile. The Titchbourne Case and the mystery of Jack the Ripper constituted two such monuments.
……………As for the second, apart from the intrinsic and abiding horror of that extraordinary series of crimes, it interested him because he thought he knew the identity of the murderer. He told me- and no doubt many others- how this was….
Some years after the murders he had taken a room in a London suburb. An old couple looked after the house, and when he had been there some months, the woman, with whom he used often to talk, asked him one day, as she was dusting the room, if he knew who had occupied it before. When he said ‘’No ‘’ she had waited a moment and then said ‘’Jack the Ripper !’’
Her story was that his predecessor had been a veterinary student. After he had been a month or two in London, this delicate-looking young man- He was consumptive- took to occasionally staying out all night. His landlord and landlady would hear him come in at about six in the morning, and then walk about in his room for an hour or two, until the first edition of the morning paper was on sale, when he would creep lightly downstairs and run to the corner to buy one. Quietly he would return and go to bed; but an hour later, when the old man called him, he would notice, by the traces in the fireplace, that his lodger had burnt the suit he had been wearing the previous evening, For the rest of the day millions of people in London would be discussing the terrible new murder, plainly belonging to the same series, that had been committed in the small hours. Only the student seemed never to mention them: but then he knew no one and talked to no one, though he did not seem lonely….. The old couple did not know what to make of it: daily his health grew worse, and it seemed improbable that his gentle ailing, silent youth should be responsible for such crimes. They could hardly credit there own senses- and then before they could make up their minds whether to warn the police or not, the lodger’s health had suddenly grown much worse, and his mother- a widow came to fetch him back to Bournemouth, where she lived,,, from that moment the had murders stopped… He died three months later.
Before leaving the subject, I may add in talking of this matter to my brother while I was actually engaged in writing this account of Sickert, he reminded me that the painter had told us that when his landlady had confided to him to him that morning, in the course of her dusting, the name of Jack the Ripper, he had scribbled it down in pencil on the margin of a French edition of Casanova’s memoirs which he happed to be reading at the time, and that, subsequently, he had given the book away- we thought he had said to Sir William Rothenstein. [famous critic and artist RA and part of the Wilde, Whistler circle]
Sickert had added’’ And there it will be now, if you want to know the name ‘’
Accordingly I wrote Lady Rotherstein but neither she nor Sir William remembered the book. On my consulting Mrs Sickert, she maintained that he had given the volume to Sir William’s brother Albert Rotherstein. And this proved to be the case. My friend Mr Rotherstein informed me that he had only recently lost the book during the bombing of London and that there had been several pencil notes entered in the margin, in Sickert’s handwriting, always so difficult to decipher.
Cheers Miss Marple

[The Grave Maurice]

I agree. This evening, I've been looking through, once again, Wendy Baron's Sickert: Paintings & Drawings (2006). Guys with that kind of talent don't go around killing people and, given his output, he probably wouldn't have had the energy anyway. It's too bad the libel laws don't apply after death. Someone could be putting Patricia's millions to better use.

[Graham]

Hi Miss M,

Cornwall hs created a 'fictional' charactor called Sickert.

Absolutely spot on!

And I like his works, too.

Cheers,

Graham

[miss marple]

fact not fiction

The problem with identifing any ripper suspect outsde the norm [ local,working class, history of deviant behavoir or violence] Is the tendancy to confuse fact with fiction. In fiction a 'normal mentally healthy person can be a serial killer[wheras it is deviant physopathic rare behaviour. And too many normal mentally heathy, creative, life lovers are suspects.[ poor Barnado who did so much good i include in this too]
Cornwall hs created a 'fictional' charactor called Sickert.
The real Sickert was a life lover,a handsome creative interesting, man, a social being with interests as broad ranging as food and crime. A sophistcated raconteur, adored by women,who's life passion and gift for art is complete and central to his life. Read his writing and see his humanity and sensitivity to real lwoman, not society beauties The real world he loved, like his master Degas, was the world of the streets, the music halls, newspapers, markets,The lives of the lower middle class.He reflected the society around him.
That's what artists do and have done for hundreds of years.
They are not serial killers, an artist's energy is a life force, not a destructive force.It takes up all your time too.
People seem to have a problem with this simple fact.
Cheers Miss Marple

[Sam Flynn]

I don't know too much about the Yorkshire Ripper Case, but I think that the audio tape(s) contained information that the police, at the time, felt could be known only to the killer. Hence they were taken seriously. I also think that the Geordie bloke responsible for the tapes was identified at some point, and brought to book.

John Humble, the hoaxer in question, was sentenced in 2006 and is approaching the halfway mark in an eight-year prison sentence for perverting the course of justice.