For famously twisted plots, the forty-five-year-old American writer, author of detective stories Patricia Cornwell is often compared to the famous John Grisham. Patricia earned $ 150 million on novels about forensic scientist Ney Scarpetta.
Live performance
The name Cornwell is world famous, admirers of her talent can be found all over the world. But in the UK they have recently become much smaller. Mrs. Cornwell's sharp drop in popularity is to blame for a sensational show on American television. In it, the writer said that she had solved the riddle of Jack the Ripper, over which more than one generation of lovers of detective stories and bloody crimes have been racking their brains.
“I’m sure that Jack the Ripper, the same killer maniac who killed prostitutes in the Whitechapel district of London in the summer and fall of 1888, was Walter Richard Sickert,” Patricia Cornwell told TV viewers. “I’m so confident that I’m ready to risk my professional reputation.”
Jack the Ripper, who had kept London in fear for two months, dealt with five prostitutes with particular cruelty. He committed the first crime on August 31, 1888, and the last two months later on November 8.
The perpetrator was never found, although there were plenty of suspects. Many versions have been put forward since then, but they all sounded unconvincing.
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Greatest artist
The British resentment is easy to explain. Walter Sickert was a very famous English painter who lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Many experts call him the greatest British artist after the famous Turner. Born in 1860, Sickert studied with Whistler, worked with Degas and was considered the link between Post-Impressionism and British art.
Walter Sickert
In the sixties of the century before last, the name of Walter Sickert, a big fan of the theater, who often portrayed actors and scenes from performances on his canvases, was already on the lists of suspects. Two books have been written about his involvement in the murders committed by Jack the Ripper, but almost all art critics and biographers of the British artist consider this version unfounded.
The indictment against Sickert was based on the testimony of a man who called himself Joseph Sickert, the son of a painter. Joseph stated that before his death, in 1942, his father allegedly confessed that he was the famous Jack.
Everyone agreed that Sickert was just shielding the real killer, the unlucky grandson of Queen Victoria, the Duke of Clarence, known for his dissolute lifestyle. The duke was promiscuous and eventually contracted brain syphilis. One of the murdered prostitutes worked for him in the palace for some time and could try to blackmail Clarence, who loved to walk around the girls.
Patricia Cornwell moved on. She claimed that Walter Sickert did not cover up the killer, but that he himself killed Polly Nicolet, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Kelly in cold blood.
"The Camden Town Murders"
The writer of detective stories "came out" to Sickert by accident. Preparing to work on a new novel, in which Kay Scarpetta was supposed to investigate a crime a hundred years ago, she studied all the materials related to Jack the Ripper, and came to the conclusion that the killer was Walter Sickert. The investigation captivated the writer so much that she decided to dedicate her new, this time documentary book to him.
Sickert came to the attention of Patricia Cornwell after seeing several gloomy paintings he painted in 1908-1909. They depicted prostitutes, some of them alive, others - dead, and next to them was the master who, apparently, killed them.
The series was named "The Camden Town Murders", after the metropolitan area where the artist lived and in which several women of easy virtue were killed in 1907.
The writer noticed that many of the details in the Camden paintings are remarkably reminiscent of the scenes of Jack the Ripper's crimes. like Kelly's bed has a wooden headboard, while other canvases have a metal headboard The murdered woman lies in the same position as Mary Kelly was found.
In another painting from the Camden series, Sickert disfigured the face of the victim of a maniac, just as Jack the Ripper disfigured the face of Catherine Eddowes.
Psychologists say that almost all murderers-maniacs after committing crimes necessarily take away some kind of souvenir, most often a piece of clothing of the victim. So to speak, as a keepsake.
Patricia Cornwell thinks the Camden paintings were such a souvenir for Sickert.
Evidence - a red scarf
Evidence of guilt by a British painter like this. Cornwell found quite a few. She carefully reread all the versions of the biography of her suspect, rummaged through the archives for a long time and in fact found a lot of interesting things.
For example, in the memoirs of one of the admirers of Sickert's talent, Patricia read that while working on the paintings of the Camden series, the artist kept a red scarf in his studio, allegedly for inspiration. This is the same scarf, she says. which, according to witnesses, belonged to Mary Kelly and which was never found at the crime scene.
Witnesses described the man seen with the victims shortly before the murders in different ways. To this, Cornwell replies that Walter Sickert, who is in love with the theater, tried his hand on the stage and loved to change his appearance.
After the murders, the murderer instantly disappeared from the crime scene. Sickert had three studios in Whitchapel that almost no one knew about and in which he could quickly hide if necessary.
It is striking that all the evidence. collected by Patricia Cornwell, indirect and speculative. And although she is confident that she is right, without direct evidence, her version will be little different from the many assumptions about the identity of Jack the Ripper, expressed earlier.
What was DNA silent about?
The writer decided that the easiest way to convince skeptics that she was right was by analyzing Jack's DNA, which she hoped to get from the letters he wrote, and Walter Sickert's DNA from letters and other personal belongings. If experts establish their identity, then Patricia Cornwell will uncover the loudest crime of the 19th century.
In London in the second half of 1888, everyone was talking only about Jack the Ripper. The police received hundreds of letters from people confessing to the killings. Almost all of them were composed either by jokers or by madmen. Nevertheless, now no one doubts that the real Jack the Ripper sent several letters.
The British authorities have allowed Cornwell to analyze the letters that are kept in the Public Archives in London. At her own expense, she brought a whole group of experienced professionals to the UK: a graphologist, a forensic photographer to take clear pictures of the letters, and a geneticist. But in the British capital, Patricia was in for a failure. It turned out that for better preservation, all documents, including the letters of the famous criminal, were laminated by the employees of the archive. This procedure, which greatly increases the life of documents, is detrimental to DNA. No matter how hard the specialists tried, they did not succeed in finding DNA in the letters.
The writer perked up when she learned that a former employee of Scotland Yard has an unlaminated letter from Jack the Ripper, and therefore, it should have retained the author's DNA. And although DNA was not found on this letter, there was another important piece of evidence on it. The message was written on paper with a Perry & Sons watermark. a large company that traded in stationery at the end of the 19th century.
In Sickert's archives, Patricia Cornwell found mention of that. that in 1888 the artist used this particular paper. Now, of course, from such a proof of guilt, the defense would not have left a wet place, but a hundred years ago, the writer is sure, this would have been enough to send him to the gallows.
Reputation is at stake
There’s a strange story about DNA. It was not possible to find DNA not only for Jack the Ripper, but also for Walter Sickert. In her excitement, Patricia bought thirty-two paintings by the British artist and his easel. She was not even stopped by the fact that the price of some canvases reached seventy thousand dollars.
The British were particularly angry with the way the American writer dealt with the purchased paintings. While searching for fingerprints and traces of Sickert's blood, Cornwell tore some of them. Now in Britain there are proposals to call her from now on the Patricia the Ripper.
All efforts were in vain. Walter Sickert left no traces on the paintings or on the easel. However, and from this Patricia tried to benefit. The absence of traces, in her opinion, speaks of the mind and cunning of this person.
Patricia Cornwell was never able to find concrete evidence that Walter Sickert and Jack the Ripper are the same person. True, this does not prevent her from asserting that the crimes that shook London one hundred and twenty years ago have been solved. Despite the fact that the investigation has already cost her four million dollars, she intends to continue to search for evidence. After all, her reputation is at stake in the aftermath of recent loud statements.
Yuri Suprunenko. Secrets of the XX century magazine