Crime author writes book about Jack the Ripper’s identity
Patricia Cornwell knew little more than the average person about Jack the Ripper until a trip to London in May 2001. A friend offered to introduce the popular crime novelist to one of Scotland Yard’s prominent investigators. Cornwell took the friend up on the offer and met John Grieve, who piqued her curiosity about England’s infamous serial killer.
She told a crowd gathered Thursday night at Penn State Fayette’s Swimmer Hall Auditorium that she was reluctantly sidetracked from writing the latest in the continuing escapades of her popular fictional chief medical examiner from Virginia, Dr. Kay Scarpetta.
Eighteen months and more than $6 million of her own money later, Cornwell believes she has put to rest a 114-year-old murder mystery. She wrote “Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper Case Closed,” which G.P. Putnam’s Sons published in November, concluding that the late respected artist Walter Richard Sickert was indeed Jack the Ripper.
“I had no idea the trail would lead where it did. I was an unwilling prisoner of that war. I did not want to do a nonfiction book. I had another Kay Scarpetta book due,” she said.
This was not what she wanted to do, but she said she could not quit once she started the investigation.
She said she did not solve the case but credited her team of investigators, and she was certain Grieve, who has since retired from Scotland Yard, could have caught Jack the Ripper had he been on the job in 1888.
Her advice from this experience was simple: “Don’t ever turn your back on what you think is right.”
Cornwell said her investigation angered people in Great Britain, and she joked about backlash from Jack the Ripper devotees and experts called Ripperologists.
“I had no idea he was such a national treasure to some people,” she said.
Fayette Campus Executive Officer Dr. Gregory Gray welcomed the audience that filled the auditorium, saying Cornwell’s visit was the culmination of an honors program for the spring semester that came out of a brainstorming session last year among faculty.
A highlight of that program was a weeklong trip to London during spring break in March. Then, there was the news that Cornwell agreed to visit campus.
Dr. Beverly Peterson said she used “Portrait of a Killer” as the main text for the honors class, Science, Technology and Society in the Age of Jack the Ripper.
“On a whim I decided to write the author, Patricia Cornwell, to tell her about the class and invite her to communicate with the students,” she said.
Thinking Cornwell might be interested in a conference call, Peterson was surprised when the author decided to visit campus and meet with the students.
“Best of all, she decided to waive her fee,” Peterson said.
She introduced Cornwell, saying she is a fan.
Cornwell was an award-winning former crime reporter for the Charlotte Observer and spent six years working for the Virginia Chief Medical Examiner’s Office and as a volunteer police officer before she wrote her first novel in 1990.
Cornwell said she writes “about an abuse of power that reveals itself in crime.”
“You do bad things because you can, because you can get away with them,” she said.
Jack the Ripper is credited with brutally murdering prostitutes Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddows and Mary Kelly in London’s Whitechapel district between August and November 1888.
Cornwell cited other victims, noting she is sorry to say there are more and the total is not known. She said there is no statute of limitations on murder, and she hoped that Sickert’s reputation was “sullied, as it should be,” by the book. She said some will never believe Sickert, who was an apprentice of the renowned American artist James McNeill Whistler, could have been the murderer, but she is convinced.
“The horrendous violence the killer perpetrated on his victims is far beyond the urban myth,” she said. “This is not an urban legend. This is not Hollywood. This is a very violent man who does not deserve to be celebrated.”
An animated, engaging speaker, she urged the crowd to ask questions and at one point stopped talking to ask a coughing woman if she was OK. After more than an hour of lecturing, she signed books and ended the visit with a private reception for the honors program students and faculty.
She talked about the limits of criminal investigation in Victorian times without modern forensic science, the psychology of psychopaths and evidence she found to link Sickert’s personal correspondence with that of Jack the Ripper, as well as physical evidence found on the letters that included mitochondrial DNA. She also spoke of the disturbing nature of Sickert’s art and aspects of his personality.
Cornwell talked about Sickert’s three marriages. She said he had a genital deformity and quoted a letter by him that said he had no children, adding it would have helped the investigation had there been a bloodline relative with whom to develop a DNA profile.
Someone asked about the text of Jack the Ripper letters to police that contain the repeated phrase, “ha, ha.” She said Sickert’s mentor (Whistler) had a recognizable way of laughing with a short “ha, ha.” She talked about Sickert’s relationship and eventual falling out with Whistler, saying she thinks the Whitechapel murders may have had something to do with the end of the relationship. One audience member commented on a royal conspiracy theory into the identity of Jack the Ripper, and Cornwell mentioned several other popular suspects. Among other questions, someone asked about motive for the murders. Cornwell said the reasons could be mixed, and she noted that the victims had vulnerability in common: They were intoxicated women who walked dark streets and would have been easy prey.
Many in the audience clutched copies of “Portrait of a Killer.” Among them were Jodi and Paul Allison of Fayette County. Mrs. Allison said she is a new reader of Cornwell’s work and bought the Jack the Ripper book about a week ago.
Carla E. Anderton of California, a professional writing major at California University of Pennsylvania, said she has read all of Cornwell’s work. She accepts Cornwell’s conclusion and is working on a novel based on her own theories and the theory that Sickert was Jack the Ripper.
“I identify myself as a Ripperologist, but I’m one in her corner,” she said.
Students of Peterson’s class waited to meet privately with Cornwell, eating and chatting while she signed books. Adam Czerniak, Nate Fullem, Megan Delmastro, Jen Dzadovsky, Kyle Pokorny, Mike Rosinski and Dan Tyger differed on whether they accept Cornwell’s conclusion. “I think it will be a mystery forever,” Dzadovsky said.
“I’ll give (Cornwell) credit for solving the case. Even though it’s circumstantial, she solved the case,” said Rosinski.