Patricia Cornwell

[Pearberr]

Very Simple, lets take a poll

A: She is a psychomaniac, attention craving person who has put almost as much money into proving that Sickert is the Ripper, or...

B: She is a beautiful woman who has exposed the Ripper...

[Paddy Goose]

Hi !
Hope everyone had a happy Mother's day,

The excellent Primer under the Sickert tab on this website gave one caveat and I quote: "I think at best we can say that Cornwell has found some very interesting connections between Sickert and some of the Ripper correspondence, which is certainly worthy of further investigation."

Paddy

[kensei]

May I play devil's advocate?

One can rarely prove a negative, so it will probably never be proven 100% that Sickert absolutely could not have been the Ripper, any more than Cornwell had any chance of proving 100% that he was. But he does seem to have said and done things that were bound to point some level of suspicion in his direction and that, if it had occurred today in the age of "political correctness," would probably have caused quite a scandal. If he could have seen into the future, I suppose it's open to speculation whether he would have thought better of his actions or if he would have enjoyed the resultant sensationalism and been of the belief that "any publicity is good publicity."

As for Cornwell, I think it's unfair to call her a "psychomaniac." She had very successful and respectable careers in both forensics work and writing crime fiction before the Ripper got into her blood (put there not originally by her own speculations but by Scotland Yard's John Grieve). Basically, I think her insistence on Sickert being the Ripper is no different from that of any other proponent of a favorite suspect. She just had the money and the tools to make her insistence very, very loud, and for her sake I really wish she didn't react with such dismissive disdain for anyone that disagrees with her. Being more open to healthy debate would have helped her a lot.

Finally though, I hope it might be possible to discuss Sickert as a Ripper suspect without even bringing Cornwell into it, because she was not the first to suggest it.

[Victor]

One can rarely prove a negative, so it will probably never be proven 100% that Sickert absolutely could not have been the Ripper, any more than Cornwell had any chance of proving 100% that he was.

I'd have to disagree, a solid alibi (like "he was in France at the time of the murders") goes a long, long way towards proving 100% that he wasn't the ripper.

It's happened for Ostrog.

[sdreid]

C: Attractive and a good writer but hasn't solved it.

[Monty]

And the 'attractiveness' means what exactly?

Monty

[Mike Covell]

Any woman worth a few million is atrractive.....

[sdreid]

It has something to do with wanting to leave some DNA.

[Emzikle]

I think she put up a good arguement but too much of it is based on assumptions and possibilitys.
I think she genuienly believes she's right, however the way she draws conclusions she would have managed to convince herself whichever suspect she had chosen.

Emily

[Mitch Rowe]

Any woman worth a few million is atrractive.....

I hear Whoopie Goldberg is available lately. Want me try to get her number for ya?

[Dan Norder]

She had very successful and respectable careers in both forensics work [...]

No, no she didn't.That's a common error, largely because she seems to purposefully try to mislead people about her background.

She was a secretary for someone doing forensics work. She has no actual skills or background in forensics. Someone who gets coffee for someone, types up his notes, and occasionally got to watch a few procedures does not have a "very successful" career in that field.

She donates money to groups who educate others about science yet specifically avoids following science herself. Her claims about science in her books misrepresent the actual scientific conclusions her own experts reached, but they are hesitant to contradict her in public because of the money she keeps donating... and one of the people she cites as an expert who publicly agrees with her is actually now her life-partner. She surrounds herself with yes men (or, more often, yes women) to stoke her own ego. She's basically bought an undeserved reputation as an expert and uses it to fool her target audience into thinking they are getting the real thing.

[Mike Covell]

She had very successful and respectable careers in both forensics work and writing crime fiction before the Ripper got into her blood.

I thought that was Kay Scarpetta (or whatever she is called) from Cornwell's books??

[Paddy Goose]

Hello everyone,

As for Cornwell, ... the Ripper got into her blood (put there not originally by her own speculations but by Scotland Yard's John Grieve).

Has Mr. Grieve spoke of the case again?

Paddy

[Dan Norder]

Hi Paddy,

John Grieve was one of the two main experts involved in a documentary recently giving their thoughts on the Ripper murders. It had nothing to do with Sickert and instead focused on an unknown local man of foreign appearance. One is left to speculate that when Cornwell asked him about the Ripper that he responded with a suspect that would make a good fictional Ripper for the novel that Cornwell was originally planning to write at the time the two talked and not a serious suggestion. Cornwell, however, apparently fell into the same trap as a lot of people and convinced herself that her fictional Ripper had such a good premise that it *must have been* what really happened.

[miss marple]

If people actually read Sickert's writings and knew about his life, they would'nt fall for Cornwall's vicious fiction.
The connection between Sickert and the ripper is simple. Sickert was an early ripperlogist and was fascinated by the case, as were many writers and artists of the period. Sickert, a great raconnteur, was always talking about it, he had his own 'Lodger theory' and was also fascinated by The Titchbourne Claiment case,
As an artist who preferred to paint ordinary women in naturalistic, sometimes sordid settings, like his master Degas, the Ripper case would have stimulated his imagination. He was also like Degas one of the first artists to use photography as a source of inspiration.
Sickert would have thought it a great joke that he was regarded as a ripper suspect. If he had been around today, I bet any money he would have been a keen suscriber to the casebook, he was a great talker and writer and might have posted some great art up.
Miss Marple