Patricia Cornwell

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

There is no question about it.

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

So that was easily and quickly taken care of.

And again - there is no point in trying to nail Sickert to any of the Ripper letters - unless for pure curiousity - since it is genrally accepted that the Ripper himself most likely didn't write any of them.
It is totally irrelevant if Sickert wrote any of them or not - if he did, he would just be one of 600 frauds who conceived fake letters from the killer.
Cornball missed this whole point - I would hate others to repeat that nonsense approach.

All the best

[Jenni Shelden]

To be fair Jeff,

we gave the woman a pretty fair hearing when she published her book - a book she had no need to publish at all if she was unsure of anything - a book backed by a multi million dollar advance if i reember correctly.

She squandered the chance to gain respect when she published that bs

that said maybe her seconbd edtion will be amazing

but i dont hold my breath.

Alson, by calling us all she didnt exactly ender us now did she?

Jenni

[truebluedub]

Hi everyone,
Cornwell's most interesting research only duplicated Jean Fuller's. Also for someone so hung up on science she does not appear to have done anything approaching a literature review (see her errors in naming victims, not knowing Abberline had a suspect). She also does not appear to have a formal methodolology for analysing Sickert's paintings other than looking at them. Even we mere social scientists have a lot sounder scientific tendencies than she does.
Kind Regards,
Chris Lowe

[anna]

I vote........A......also.

[Dan Norder]

"Psychomaniac" is overly harsh, but otherwise, yeah, definitely A.

[dazz78]

The problem with Cornwell wasn't much so the book itself, though it was a load of cobblers in my humble opnion, but the BBC documnetary (think it was the BBC) that was made to help promote it, or was made shortly after it. The hatred for that man that she spewed was alarming.

Especially at the very end as she is watching a projection of the aged Sickert with children and family gathered around him and she is sitting there in a darkened room shaking her head in disgust. Its a classic example of 'lucky the dead can't sue!'

Plus the fact she bought up some of his paintings and then cut them up.

[Jeff Leahy]

Plus the fact she bought up some of his paintings and then cut them up.

No she did not. This is simply a myth. One of the paintings she bought was damaged in transportation...she made an insurance claim...she was hardly likely to have caused that damage herself and made that claim...it would be fraud.

Jeff

[dazz78]

Oh, ok, my mistake then on that part.

[Christine]

I certainly don't think she's a psychomaniac...I'm not even sure what that means. I do think she's rather proud of herself, perhaps even to the point of narcissism. I think perhaps you have to be a bit over the top to be a successful writer. It takes a lot to get started, and now that she's made it, she gets a lot of people telling her how amazing she is and how profound are her insights into murders and murderers.

I was looking at the "Abberline in the Movies" thread and it was noted how many crummy Ripper movies have been made on the royal conspiracy theory. As plot lines go, I have never been that impressed by the royal conspiracy. Sure, it's got old Queen Vicky, and she's always good for a laugh. And everybody loves a secret message in a picture.

But it's got too many characters, the victims are not sympathetic (Why blackmail Eddy? I thought he was their friend? Why not help Annie if they have some power over Eddy?), the plot is incredibly convoluted and hard to follow, there are about a million places where you find yourself saying "JUST LEAVE TOWN YOU IDIOT!" or one of many other easy solutions, and it takes an awful lot of disbelief to believe that the Masons casually put on their aprons and kill and mutilate just to summon up Jah-bel-on. And ANY plot that needs a psychic revelation, no matter how obtuse or indirect the author makes it, should be hung by the neck until dead.

And of course there are many lesser problems.

Cornwell's mistake, as I see it, is to see this whole thing as a plot, not as a true crime. If she were writing this story, you can bet that the oddball painter would turn out to be the one whodunit. He'd manage to disguise his handwriting and post all those cool letters, and he'd leave not only clues, but DNA on his painting, and some would-be collector would test it without his permission. He'd have a malformed penis, not an ordinary ucky anal fistula. And finally the lady cop would buy some dignity for the homeless streetwalkers at last.

Whatever else you say about it, I think it would make a better movie than From Hell.

[perrymason]

Jeff,

Ive stayed out of this since early on because I could see that you had some agenda with this area of discussion. I can see by the resulting pages that you do, but I admit I cant figure the core here.

Do you have some relationship to this author, or to this authors marketing plans, some relationship to a suggestion that Sickert wrote some Ripper letters, or is this just standing up for a complete stranger with no other motives than clearing her name in this field of study.

I am curious since you have been hostile towards almost every poster, including the worlds leading authority on the Ripper crimes. Who I may say posted a fine explanation of his position, and not in a way to disparage anyone.

Im not challenging you, just wondering if you felt like addressing your motives.

Regards.

[caz]

It's certainly possible. I was honestly surprised that she even bothered to hire Keith Skinner to do any fact checking based upon her previous history. I do consider that to be a great step forward, and I've said as much on these boards in the past and at the Whitechapel Society meeting I was at last October. But it's certainly not enough to undo all of her past actions yet, especially not when we have yet to know what the end result will be. I doubt she has him trying to find evidence proving beyond a shadow of a doubt he was in France on the night of a key Ripper murder.

Hi Dan,

To be fair, she shouldn’t have him doing that, any more than she should have him trying to find evidence proving beyond a shadow of a doubt he was not in France on any of the murder nights. Researchers, paid or otherwise, should ideally be totally free - nay, actively encouraged - to go where the evidence takes them, wherever that may turn out to be. They shouldn’t be trying to prove or disprove someone's hunches. Nor should they be expected to ignore any evidence that leads in directions that may be unpalatable to people with other ideas.

If, in the course of the research, Sickert’s precise whereabouts were to be established, making it physically impossible for him to have been murdering unfortunates or posting certain ripper letters on the relevant dates, I can’t see Keith being contract-bound, duty-bound, or even egg-bound , to keep quiet if Cornwell were to carry on with her claims regardless.

Yes, I know what Sturgis says. Shall we list the points he makes even with the caveat that 'Bower has not - as yet - published his findings in full.'

1. The brands used for both Sickert's and the 'Ripper' letters were common enough.

2. His [Bower's] claims, however, tend to raise rather more questions than they answer.

3. That all these sheets [Gurney Ivory Laid] should have been trimmed down with the same guillotine blade seems scarcely surprising as they were all produced by the same small manufacturer.

4. Regarding the 'cut pattern' of the guillotine blade any variance from uniformity can only have been within a relatively narrow span - five degrees of error perhaps, maybe ten?

5. Without the evidence of the whole batch it is simply impossible to tell.

6. There would not though, surely, have been [3,000 to] 4,480 [the number of quires] different positions of blade and paper. Neither each cut nor each quire would have been unique, as Bower seems to assert.

7. 'Most would have been pretty much the same. And given the difficulties involved in micro-measuring a friable organic material such as 100-year-old paper, it is legitimate to wonder just how accurately it is possible to measure even the limited differences that did occur.'

8. 'Other forensic examiners remain sceptical of his very emphatic conclusions.'

9. 'Kim Hughes of Documentary Evidence Ltd, discussing the case in general terms, felt that it would be very difficult for any expert to go beyond a statement that separate sheets of paper came from the same batch and had been cut by the same blade. Allowing for the division of the batch into quires, such a finding would leave the chance of direct connection between Sickert's 'Gurney Ivory Laid' letters and those in the PRO [Ripper letters] at around 1 in 3,000: a very long way from Bower's assurance of an exact match.'

10. The handwriting of the two compared 'Ripper letters' looks nothing like Sickert's handwriting.

11. The Sickert letters date to late 1889 or early 1890.

Hi Stewart,

Many thanks for this. It certainly helps to confirm my own impressions from the Tate, where I listened to Bower’s claims and then heard the objections from the floor. I came away with more questions than answers as to how he managed to narrow the letters down so finely. If he had many more sheets from the same batch for comparison purposes, and could demonstrate that the cut edge of each set of 24 sheets was measurably different from that of every other set of 24, I don't know why Jeff thinks he would not have been free to say so. It would have done wonders for his case and Cornwell's cause.

Failing that, Bower could presumably have conducted experiments of his own using a guillotine, to ascertain whether or not the cut edges of one small set of sheets could be readily distinguished from the next.

I’m always wary of experts who reach a ‘very emphatic’ conclusion without caveats, and without explaining to us non-scientists, in simple terms, what measures they took to rule out anything that could invalidate it. So I too remain to be convinced that Sickert was responsible for a single ripper missive.

I'd also love to see a time line which includes the dates of Sickert's known whereabouts and the posting details of every ripper letter Cornwell claims he sent.

Love,

Caz
X

[Jenni Shelden]

Be careful what you wish for - it might come true.

anyway, Patricia Cornwell is a dear lady who never did anything wrong ever, and her books are a teastament to how good she is at everything she has ever done concerning jack the ripper and she has admitted to all her mistakes publically and corrected them because her book is about a famous dead man who did nothing wrong and she is an angel. And it would only be because we were homophobic woman haters that we might even be vaguely inclined to say otherwise

And Peter Bower is a god among men

i am glad we have cleared this up and now we can get on with our lives whilst avoiding ever returning to this nonsense.
Because no one ever has had any agenda in ripperology

Jenni

[j.r-ahde]

Hello you all in this discussion!

I just couldn't help making an analogy with Pete Best and our Pats... Ooh, sorry, Patricia Cornwell!

What, a former Beatle-drummer and a detective-story writer/self-claimed ripperologist?!

I think they have the same thing in common;

if they would admit some hard-boiled facts about their claims, they would make themselves non-convincing...


All the best
Jukka

[caz]

Hi Jenni,

Could I ask who or what you were actually addressing in your post? You began as if you were addressing the wish I expressed in the final sentence of my post (which I would love to come true, and expect it will one day). But the rest became a complete non sequitur as far as I could make out, especially this bit of sarcasm which didn't seem to make any sense in the context of the latest posts:

i am glad we have cleared this up and now we can get on with our lives whilst avoiding ever returning to this nonsense.

So I'm more than a bit confused, although it wouldn't be the first time.

Love,

Caz
X

[Jenni Shelden]

Caroline,

i think we are far beyond any point whereby i would expect you to profess understanding anything i say by now arent we?

So dont worry, blue dadda de dadda do dadda de dadda doo

Love as always

Jenni