What makes Patricia Cornwall so special?!?! How come SHE gets all the limelight?!?!

[c.d.]

Because Sickert was in France most of September 1888, and in any case at the time of Nichols and Chapman's murders.
But this trifling detail has nothing to bother the Bowers, I suppose...

Amitiés,
David

Hi David,

I am sure that someone will correct me if I am wrong but it is my understanding that there is evidence which would indicate that Sickert probably was in France at the time but it is not a hard and fast fact.

c.d.

[Cheyenne]

Hi there Judy,

Kudos on your response to my post...and thanks for not personally attacking, my friend!

You are absolutely right, that lots of coo-coos write taunting or confessional letters to police and others confess to police. Tons of them do it!

And so your next questions are logical, and it is reasonable when you asked, “So what if Sickert wrote letters? So what if he was obsessed with the killings?” Equally reasonable when you state that “finding MtDNA on a letter proves NOTHING other than Sickert might have had several pints too many and wrote to the cops.....full stop.”

Well, I will concede to your points to a certain extent. However, I would argue that real killers also write taunting letters and confess to police – in the name of infamy, or to prove that they are “smarter” than police. Most recently, look at BTK. On the loose for decades, BTK taunted police with letters and confessed – and ta-dah...he is the real serial killer/mutilator of so many over the years. What if police just lumped his correspondence in with that of quacks, without further investigation?? BTK may never have been caught!!

So...quacks write letters. So do legitimate killers. I would argue that this is why we should not rush to judgment re: Cornwell. We should, however, leave open the possibility that Sickert is not just a quack letter writer but a serial killer letter writer. Perhaps he is not JTR, but perhaps he is. His links to letters have to be explored further, which is why I suggest that Cornwell’s contributions are compelling, and cannot simply be ignored or brushed aside.

I am not stating that she has the answer, case closed, just that we need not yet tar and feather her...

Cheyenne

[DVV]

Hi cd,
we have a letter (dated end of Sept if I'm correct) that says something like: "WS was here (= in France) these last weeks..." I don't remember well, because I don't read Cornwell daily...
But it seems a harder fact than his presence in London!
Plus, Cornwell herself accepts the fact that he was in France, but suggests that he went and came to commit the murders... without a shadow of a proof, of course.

Amitiés,
David

[Jeff Leahy]

Yes Cornwell seems to have understood Sickert was in france. And however unlikely, makes the case that it was physically possible for him to go back and fourth unobserved. Interestingly if you read her early interveiws she also seem to understand that the JtR letters are not considered 'by many experts' to be writen by jack the ripper.

However ' If you genuinely beleive, that she beleives that Sickert is JtR....then she is NOT a 'liar' or a 'fabricator' just a poor researcher.

And following such critisism from 'so many' do not forget that she admitted she was wrong to put 'case closed' on the cover of her book and wont do so on the next....and t'boot she employed one of the worlds greatest researchers to chase some new leads for her...

Like it or not (and I'm sure she dosn't either fellow clingons) shes slowly becoming a Ripperologist....that seems to grate on some here..I just find it rather ironic.

Anyway i'm looking forward to the 'Watermark reply'

SSSHHH! I'm not here

[DVV]

The least a suspect-biased book's author must do is to prove the presence of his/her suspect in London at the time of the murders...

Amitiés,
David

[Jeff Leahy]

Actually it depends on your point of view.

We don't actually know the exact location of most JtR suspects at the time of the murders...

Mostly we are presented with the possibility that a suspect was in London at the time...you have to decide whether that possibility is good or not..

Foreinstance we don't actually know where Araon Kosminski was living at the time of the murders. However we can make some educated guess.

[Dan Norder]

Hey Cheyenne,

Let's start with the last part first: Considering how long ago Cornwell's book came out and how long and detailed the criticism of her many errors have been, how on earth can you suggest this is a "rush to judgment"? We aren't allowed to note that she's wrong until a couple of decades, or what?

Regarding your claim that mDNA means Sickert would be in the 10% of people who might have written a letter, that only works if we can prove that the mDNA on the letters were from the letter writer, which we can't. You insist that it must be, despite the fact that Cornwell's tests found multiple samples of mixed DNA. The one that was least degraded was in the 10% that might be the same as mDNA on a Sickert letter. Why do you assume that the least degraded one would be the letter writer?It's far more likely that more recent DNA would be least degraded, and considering the number of people who have touched the letters in question it could be anyone.

Your argument seems to be that if 10 sets of different people's fingerprints were found on a window and only one of them wasn't too smudged to be completely useless for testing that you should just assume that one must have been the person who opened the window to rob a store instead of other people who touched the window for completely innocent reasons. And if you find that that one fingerprint is still too blurry to use for an individual match and you discover that it has featured limited to ten percent of the population, that isn't useful in the slightest either. Finding out that one of the ten people who touched a window can't be ruled out as belonging to the ten percent of the population that is, say, homosexual, doesn't mean that the person who robbed the store was a homosexual, or even anything remotely close to that.

The later mDNA test on the exact same letter Cornwell was pointing at to try to make her claims ruled that the person in question was female. Note that I said nobody has tested the letter against any other suspect, not that it wasn't tested at all. It was tested in general to see what features it had, and the only DNA on it that could be examined came from a female. Again, if you assume that the usable mDNA came from the letter writer, than the letter writer clearly was not Sickert, and if you admit that the mDNA could have come from someone other than the letter writer then the test is completely pointless. These tests were performed by Professor Ian Findlay in Australia and published around the world. If you aren't familiar with them you should do some reading on the topic from sources other than Cornwell for a change.

You need to stick to what the science actually supports instead of just wishful thinking, and the science behind the DNA testing in no way supports any sort of link between Sickert and the letters.

Peter Bower's claims about a supposed paper match have, in fact, been disputed by several experts. They say there is no scientific basis for the claims he made. It's been covered in more detail in the more active Cornwell thread on these boards already. If you refuse to accept that, take it up with them. I think it's pretty obvious that outside experts are going to be more reliable than an expert hired specifically for the purpose of trying to come up with any sort of rationale to support what his millionaire client wants to believe. Whether he's a hired gun saying ridiculously implausible things just to get a big paycheck or if he's a well-meaning guy who convinced himself he could conclude something not supported by the evidence based upon wishful thinking and confirmation bias, who am I to say? But I do know that no other expert has agreed with him and several disagree, which is all I need to know.

You ask how any of us can know when a letter was written -- well, we can certainly narrow it down by postmark. We don't need to know an exact date it was written to know when it was mailed. All the evidence suggests that the letters were written by people other than Sickert, and several of them in several different locations on days when Sickert wasn't even in the country. No evidence exists to support the idea that he sent a bunch of letters through multiple post drops in order to try to create some complicated alibi. If all the evidence points one way and no evidence points the other, we have to go with what the evidence says instead of just jumping aboard some fantasy trip of highly implausible maybes and could-haves just to protect your emotional investment in Cornwell's theory.

If you want to believe Cornwell found something important, by all means believe whatever you want, but the evidence and independent experts agree that there's nothing there.

[Cheyenne]

Hey downonwhores (sorry friend, don’t know your name...),

Here’s where I get the 90%+ rate of exclusion, or to answer your question, “how can it be 90% accurate?” For some fascinating reads to that end, see:

Edward K. Cheng, Mitochondrial DNA: Emerging Legal Issues, Journal of Law and Policy 99, 105 (2005) (stating that rate of exclusion is between 93 and 96%).

Margaret A. Berger, Expert Testimony in Criminal Proceedings: Questions Daubert Does Not Answer, 33 SETON HALL L. REV. 1125, 1135, n.14 (2003) (suggesting that mtDNA excludes 96%).

Constance L. Fisher, et al., Lab. Div., Fed. Bureau of Investigation, Publication No. 01-05,
Mitochondrial DNA: Today and Tomorrow, p.3 n.8 (2001) (reporting that mtDNA excludes 93%).

*********

I know you were asking Stewart, but (and this is a simple aside), Begg’s “The Facts” book is fantastic!


Cheyenne

[Jeff Leahy]

Peter Bower's claims about a supposed paper match have, in fact, been disputed by several experts. They say there is no scientific basis for the claims he made. It's been covered in more detail in the more active Cornwell thread on these boards already. If you refuse to accept that, take it up with them. I think it's pretty obvious that outside experts are going to be more reliable than an expert hired specifically for the purpose of trying to come up with any sort of rationale to support what his millionaire client wants to believe. Whether he's a hired gun saying ridiculously implausible things just to get a big paycheck or if he's a well-meaning guy who convinced himself he could conclude something not supported by the evidence based upon wishful thinking and confirmation bias, who am I to say? But I do know that no other expert has agreed with him and several disagree, which is all I need to know.

Hi Cheyenne,

Yes Norder keeps making these claims but when ask to give the names of these supposed experts and where exactly they disagree with Peter Bower he fails to do so. I suggest you look back at my post quoting Mathew Sturgis, Norder is clearly quoting from him and you can see what Sturgis actually says...

Peter Bower has never pubished his finding in full due to copyright problems (which I gather soon clear) so his results have never been fully examined by any other expert...what other experts have expressed is 'Surprise at his claims'.

Norder likes to through around the word 'Scientific' but I out-lined how an expert forms his opinion in my other post...I'm not certain paper analysis is a science...certainly Peter Bower is not a professor as Norder sometimes alludes to. He forms his opinions through years of experience and study. He examins things in fine detail under a micro scope...he does not use chemicals and the like.

And again the idea that an expert of Peter Bowers standing would give Patricia Cornwell results she required because she paid him, is UTTERLY RIDICULOUS. I have met Peter Bower, he is a gentleman and a man of honour. Its what he does for a living and he gets paid..are you going to say all his other work is useless because he got paid...are you going to say I'm a bad Cameraman because I like to be PAID for what I do?

And again I remind you all that Peter Bowers results have never been published in full and no expert has ever studied his results....

I suggest you ask "Captain Mannering" hear to prove what he is claiming about Peter Bower...

Which he can not.

Yours Pirate

'Dont tell'im Pike'..'get that light out'

PS Norder claims not to be able to read my posts so please do not quote me.

[DVV]

Ah, Peter and Sally... two experts from the same family...both working for one rich and famous novelist...
Undisputable - since I'm poor like Jack.

[Jeff Leahy]

Ah, Peter and Sally... two experts from the same family...both working for one rich and famous novelist...
Undisputable - since I'm poor like Jack.

Do you work for a living DVV..or are you on hand outs?

I fail to understand when earning an honest living became a crime anywhere...?

How many of you do jobs..are good at what they do..and expect to get paid?

Personally I don't trust anyone who cant make money at what they do....it probably means their not very good.

Now try presenting a sensible argument against Peter Bower..

Many thanks

Pirate

[DVV]

You certainly insult yourself with such a post, and there is nothing to impress me.
If you want cheap philosophy like yours, I'd say that life is "shum-shir", sometimes up, sometimes down.
Anyway, your bank account is none of by bizness, but even if you're poor like Job, I'm sure you're clever enough to realize that 2 experts from 1 family working for one biased researcher like Cornwell have enough to make you raise an eyebrow.

[Jeff Leahy]

I do not deny sir, that life has its ups and downs, there is no crime in being honest and poor also, I merely say, it is no crime to earn an honest living and to profit by your talents..

Peter Bowers talents can not be denied..he sir is a Gentleman..

I ask you to support your claims that he is 'NOT'..with hard evidence..

or apologuise

Pirate

[DVV]

Sorry Pirate, but it's rather up to Bower and Cornwell to prove us that Sickert is the Ripper.
And they did not.
Again, a clever guy like you does not fint a little bit extraordinary that 2 persons from the same family (father and daughter? Husband and wife? I'm not sure now) work as experts for the same rich and biased researcher?

[Jeff Leahy]

No it is Not..Peter Bower only has to justify what he has claimed..

which I assume will happen when his work is published.

If Sickert did write the letters, and I will wait until the facts are presented to me, that does not make Sickert the Ripper..far from it..most unlikely.

In the mean time, be a man Sir..and stop insulting a man of honest Reputation who's earning an honest living...

If you have evidence that Bower, or his wife, gave false witness, present your evidence!

or apologuise

Pirate