Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert by Patricia Cornwell

The original Italian version is available here.

Having written one of the worst and most ludicrous books on Jack the Ripper in 2002 was obviously not enough for crime writer Patricia Cornwell since she returned to the subject 15 years later, increasingly obsessed by her absurd belief that the murderer is the painter Walter Sickert about which she does not want to change her mind.

The writer, who certainly invested a lot of time and resources in her research, perseveres in blaming Sickert on the basis of clues such as his ability to diusguise himself, alter the tone of his voice and speak different languages. Cornwell insists that Sickert is the author of many of the letters sent by the murderer to the police and also of some of those sent by concerned citizens who advised investigators on how to proceed. Some of latter ones in particular refer to the fact that the killer could have physical deformities that made him incapable of sexual relations. But Cornwell does not explain the obvious absurdity that arises from this theory: that is why Sickert, so brilliant in escaping the police, should have sown clues that point at him.

The author also responds to the criticisms of those who maintain that Sickert cannot be the Ripper due to the banal reason that the painter was not in London during the period in which the murders took place, the author replies that Sickert was in London in those months, but the clue that she proposes is embarrassingly weak: the painter would have been in the British capital city because in that period there was a theatrical show with his favorite actress, which he surely wanted to watch.

The Handcart by Walter Sickert

In narrating the life of Sickert, the author insists on his paintings depicting scenes of violence and death, his severity towards his children and his inability to respect social rules; of course none of these makes Sickert a serial killer, but Cornwell firmly believes so. The author also underlines the similarity between many of the letters attributed to the Ripper and Sickert's style of writing, from which it emerges that the author convinced herself that the letters are authentic, while according to all the other researchers they were all fakes (perhaps excluding the one that starts with From Hell).

Cornwell also devotes a large section of the book to Sickert's health problems and in particular to a fistula for which he underwent surgery many times. According to sources close to the family, Sickert's fistula was at his anus; for unexplained reasons Cornwell believes instead that Sickert had a malformation in his penis that made him incapable of sexual relations. Again, it is not clear why she believes so, nor why this would make the painter a serial killer.

In the chapter on Polly Nichols' death Cornwell claims that Sickert's painting The Handcart (pictured above), which depicts one of the carts used to remove corpses from the streets, would have been inspired by the removal of one of the Ripper victims, since Sickert himself would have hidden in the shadows while waiting for the doctors to take the victim away. Even this theory is completely crazy and quite stupid. First of all, it is not clear what the link between Sickert's painting and Nichols's death is because the painting shows an unloaded cart in full daylight, secondly it is beyond the absurd that the murderer stained with blood and with a knife to hide remains on the scene to watch the removal of the body.

Patricia Cornwell watches closely the painting Patrol

Again, such a colossal stupidity is not enough for Cornwell who also analyzes Sickert's painting entitled Patrol (pictured left) which shows a scared-looking policewoman; according to the author this would also be a proof that the author of the painting is the murderer because the look of the policewoman would be aimed at one of the victims of the Ripper. Another completely insane assumption without a shred of evidence. Furthermore, Cornwell claims that the painting is from 1921, while according to the book Sickert: Paintings and Drawings by Wendy Baron it dates back to the 30s; in any case, Cornwell is telling us that Sickert would have painted a scene seen at least 30 years before.

But the most ridiculous of the author's claims has yet to come. Cornwell claims that Sickert intentionally left fingerprints on the Ripper letters, although at the time the fingerprinting was not used in investigations, because Sickert may have known Arthur Conan Doyle in whose novels Sherlock Holmes introduced a scientific approach into the investigation. But first off, even if this were the case, it is not clear why Sickert would have once again disseminated evidence pointing against him, secondly Cornwell also demonstrates total literary ignorance, in addition to that of common sense already amply demonstrated. Basically, in the Sherlock Holmes novels there is no scientific approach at all, but the investigator's deductions (which are based on details that the narrator does not reveal to the reader) are laughable to the modern disenchanted reader.

Unfortunately, despite the author's effort, the level of Cornwell's research is this: very low. The writer thinks that one can blame a man of serial murder on the basis of his paintings, his writing and his physical problems, throwing into the trash centuries of achievements in investigative techniques.

This book will perhaps be useful for those interested in the biography of Walter Sickert, but it is a useless waste of time for those who investigate the murders of Jack the Ripper.


Amazon Link: Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert

James Maybrick's diary

The original Italian version of this article is available here.

In 1992 a manuscript pretending to be Jack the Ripper's personal journal was made public by Mike Barrett, an unemployed former scrap metal dealer in Liverpool; the author's name does not appear anywhere, but it is clear from the context that it would be James Maybrick, a Liverpool cotton merchant born in 1838 and died in 1889 probably after being poisoned by his wife.

Barrett never fully explained where the document was kept between the death of the alleged author and its publication, at first he claimed that he was given as a present by a friend in a pub and then changed his version saying that it was Barrett's wife (who had kept it for decades) to give it to his friend so he could give it to Mike.

The text was published in a book entitled The Diary of Jack The Ripper: the discovery, the investigation, the debate, and was accompanied by an analysis by writer Shirley Harrison who supports its authenticity. The publisher of book, Robert Smith, is the current owner of the manuscript and agrees with Harrison.

The diary tells the life of James Maybrick and describes in detail the five murders in Whitechapel he allegedly committed. At the time Maybrick was considered completely foreign to the facts, the police never investigated him or found other documents indicating him as a suspect. The man is on the list of modern suspects only because of this diary.

Numerous examinations for dating have been carried out on the text but gave inconclusive results. However just reading the text is enough to realize that it contains too many absurdities and factual errors to be legitimate. First of all, Maybrick did not live in London, so it is not clear why he would have chosen Whitechapel to carry out his murders; secondly, the man had no in-depth knowledge of the area, which the actual Ripper must necessarily have. Also at the time of the murders Maybrick was fifty years old, while the Ripper's profile (for example the one written by FBI agent John Douglas) suggests that the killer was between 20 and 40 years old.

In addition to these considerations it should be noted that the book contains errors that the killer could not make. It says, for example, that after removing Mary Kelly's breasts the killer placed them on the bedside table next to the bed, but this is not true: one of the breasts was actually found under the woman's head and the other at her feet together with the liver.

The author of the manuscript also claims to be the author of many of the letters sent to the press or police during the time of the Whitechapel murders, but today most researchers claim that those letters were fakes.

One of the clues proposed by those who believe the diary is authentic is that the killer wrote FM on the wall next to the body of Mary Kelly with the victims's blood; the letters would be the initials of Maybrick's wife, Florence Maybrick, indicating that the man saw his wife in Mary Kelly while killing her. Frankly this assertion is beyond ridiculous, in the proposed images the two letters seem to be only blood stains on the wall without a precise shape. This is clearly a case of pareidolia. Moreover, no one would make a reference to his wife using the both her first and last names.

In 1995 Barrett confessed in two affidavits that the text of the diary was a forgery created by him and his wife, but retracted shortly after adding confusion to an already quite tangled situation.

In September of 2017 Robert Smith published a book that allegedly proves the authenticity of the diary. We have not read Smith's text yet, but it is more than obvious that the diary is a fake, and not even good one. Even if Smith could prove that the diary dates back to the Victorian era this may at most lead to the conclusion that James Maybrick was a mythomaniac who attributed to himself deeds he did not do.

In a nutshell, reading the diary is enough to understand that the text itself is fake. James Maybrick can surely be excluded from the list of suspects.


Amazon Link: The Diary of Jack the Ripper