I believe one of the suspects for the identity of Jack the Ripper is the artist Walter Sickert. Apart from one of his paintings entitled "The Ripper's Bedroom" what other evidence is there to support this theory?

robboy

There has been literary work done by Patricia Cornwell, a forensic scientist turned novelist, that explores the Sickert theory. Her 'extensive' research includes correspondence matching (watermarks, coincidental dates), Sickert's availability in terms of being where the murders occurred, and something called mtDNA, which is a bit more complicated than I'm able to immediately explain. Mar 02 05, 9:19 PM

lauralee81

The book 'Case Closed' by Patricia Cornwell, I found to be very well researched, especially Walter Sickert's childhood and career. However it doesn't quite answer all the questions surrounding the Ripper case. I guess we'll never really know who he was. Mar 03 05, 6:33 AM

curlylad

robboy and lauralee81, I guess there wasn't really a definitive to my question but you both gave the same info basically that I had. Thanks for your answers that both appear to be correct! Patricia Cornwell appears to have spent a hell of a lot of time and money on this 'project' but again no absolute answer. Mar 03 05, 7:35 PM

robboy

As I'm assumed to be an argumentative and cranky trivialist, I will say that Ms. Cornwell's work is considered to be the most extensive (and expensive) single person research done to date. That doesn't mean it's more authoritative than any others, rather that she takes the time to discount several other suspects by her overwhelming amount of 'evidence' against Sickert. I can also say that I'm impressed by the lack of total evidence against her assertions, and that all many of her critics have managed to do is take issue with one or two items in her research. Mar 03 05, 8:01 PM