January 23, 2003

• I've Been Reading -

  
  

  Patricia Cornwell's new book, Portrait of a Killer, Jack the Ripper, Case CLosed.  {If you are planning to read it and don't want to see a spoiler, please stop reading now and go directly to the comments and eprops part of our relationship.}  It's a disturbing book.  I was first disturbed on page two when she named the killer without any indication of why she focused on this particular man.  She may have had very good reasons for picking impressionist painter, Walter Sickert as the prime candidate, but without giving us those reasons, her case begins with the unsettling feeling that we've come into the story sometime after the first commercial break.

  
  

  Unlike many of the people who have taken a stab at the Ripper case over the years, Patricia Cornwell brings strong resources from her side.  She has a background as an investigative reporter.  Through the Virginian Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine which she helped to extablish and serves as Chairman of the Board, she has access to the most sophisticated equipment that contemporary science can offer an investigation.  Finally, she has her personal assets from the sale of her very sucessful novels and has reportedly spent over $6 million to pay for the investigation (which included the purchase and destruction of one of Walter Sickert's paintings.)

  
  

  The descriptions of the murders themselves are horrific.  Ms. Cornwell includes all the details and then some.  She speculates about the degree of pain, suffering and terror the victims experienced.  She says in more than one place that the assurance the victim "died instantly" is a myth.  That even with the throat slashed and all the blood loss, the victims would have lived long enough to experience every excruciating stab and slash of the mutilations which are characteristic of the Ripper murders.  Everything she says is calculated to outrage the "juror" hearing the evidence.  Once that outrage is achieved, a natural human reaction is to demand an accounting from someone, and she posits Walter Sickert as the monster whom we should revile.

  
  

  After 114 years, there is almost no physical evidence.  What little evidence was collected in the case was disposed of more that a half century ago.  There are huge gaps in the police records as  Standard procedure called for the destruction of a detective's files upon his retirement.  There are no living witnesses who can be interviewed, no opportunity to verify alibis or shake them.

  
  

  Ms. Cornwell relies upon the letters (some long considered to be hoaxes) that were sent to the police and the newspapers, purportedly from the perpetrator of the crimes for her main evidence.  She then moves into the very controversial phsychological profile of the killer, and uses it to point to a man whom she says fits the picture.

  
  

  She does a more than credible job of linking Walter Sickert to the letters and makes a strong case that he wrote many of them.  She has matched watermarks from stationary; paints, crayon, and other artistic medium used to create the letters; and she provides analysis of the sketches included on several of the letters which seems to indicate that they were done in Sickert's characteristic style.  Moreover, the lab in Virginia tested the extant envelopes that Ripper letters were sent in.  By swabbing the adhesive gum, small amounts of DNA material were retrieved.  Comparing this material to similar DNA material retrieved from envelopes in which Sickert sent his personal correspondence, she found that Walter Sickert couldn't be ruled out as a donor.  The weakness of the DNA evidence is that after 114 years, it wasn't possible to test nuclear DNA so they had to rely on mitochondrial DNA which is significantly less precise.  It eliminates approximately 90% of the population, but 10% leaves a huge pool of possibility.

  
  

  When she moves to the psycholoical profile part, she moves off shaky ground right into quicksand.  Her profile of Walter Sickert relies heavily on details of childhood surgeries which are lost to us.  That he had surgery to correct a "fistula" (an opening where no opening should be), is not in question, but the specific type of surgery, whether or not he had any anesthesia, and the precise location of this fistula, etc. these details are unknown.  Yet, Ms. Cornwell makes sweeping assumptions and from these she builds her case.  Undoubtedly, Walter Sickert was an odd duck.  Friends described bizarre and sometimes frightening behavior.  His level of output was phenomenal as he wrote hundreds of letters a month in addition to producing sketches, drawings, and paintings.  These letters reveal a personality that argued, corrected and obssessed on details.  But, none of his letters comtain a confession.

  
  

  Also, Walter Sickert has an alibi for at least two of the murders.  According to his official biographer (who relies upon letters Sickerts mother wrote), he was in France enjoying a vacation at the beach.  Ms. Cornwell obtained train schedules and ships' logs to demonstrate that it is possible that Sickert could have beeen sneaking back and forth across the channel in order to make it appear he was out of the country, but possibility isn't proof that he did it.  She does have evidence from his own letters that he was in London during at least part of the time the biographer supposes him to have been away in the form of performance reviews he wrote about various plays and theater productions he saw.  But, the exact dates of his travels to France have never been known, and none of the reviews rule out the possibility that he was out of town on the dates of the murders.

  
  

  Her final round of evidence concerns the anaylsis of Sickerts work.  This is perhaps the most controversial part of the process.  He painted a series almost 20 years after the Whitechapel murders that are called the Camden Town Murder Series.  In some of these paintings, some art critics see striking similarities to the victims of the Ripper murders.  But, with impressionist work even the art critics are divided, is that supposed to be blood? or a shadow? is that line on her neck meant to suggest a wound, or a ribbon?  There is no question that some of the poses and features bear a strong resemblance to the crime scenes documented by police.  Is is possible that Walter Sickert somehow obtained photos?  Or did he paint from his memory of his victims?

  
  

  In the end, Ms. Cornwell makes perhaps the strongest case that can be made with the lack of evidence and the amount of time that has passed.  But, her case is not strong enough that it removes from my mind that degree of reasonable doubt.  I doubt that Ms Cornwell will be that last person to look at the Ripper Case.  The vicious nature of the crimes and the knowledge that the murderer "got away" will continue to offend our sense of justice whenever the crimes are considered.  But, we may very well have to live with the knowledge that we can never really know what happened or who did it.

  • 8:11 am
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