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Donald Souden
Inspector
Username: Supe
Post Number: 203
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 06, 2004 - 5:17 pm: |       |
Dan,
Sickert and the Ripper both wore shoes -- are you sure? Wow! I'll bet Sickert was also fluent in "shoemakers' cant." It seems the guy could do anything. It's no wonder he was such a mediocre artist since he was much too busy being a stupor mundi. Actor, linguist, man of letters, serial killer. It was a full life without ever even putting brush to canvas.
Don. |
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 711
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 07, 2004 - 8:53 am: | |
Hi, Donald & Dan
Failed artist, failed actor, failed serial killer, a Jack wannabe? At least he keeps us occupied, doesn't he? 
All the best
Chris |
M.Mc.
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 06, 2004 - 8:20 pm: | |
Shoes? This is starting to sound like the O.J. Simpson case what with the shoes and all. I sat through that whole case wonding what crazy clue both sides where going to come up with next. This Cornwell-Sickert as JTR is about as bad. What's next? Is someone going to get that Miss. Cleo woman to see if O.J. Simpson was W.R. Sickert in a past life?  |
Mark Starr
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 06, 2004 - 7:16 pm: | |
Walter Sickert was a man of immense personal charm, intelligence and natural talents. Sir William Rothstein, Sickert's friend, said: "[Sickert] had so much, you know: wit, talent, looks, charm. It all came so easily to him. And he didn't realize how lucky he was." With Sickert's remarkable erudition in painting, the theater, literature and languages, he was a fascinating conversationalist and a colorful artistic personality. A devoted following of acolytes -- principally Marjorie Lilly, Robert Eammons, Lilian Browse, Wendy Baron and Cicely Hey -- succeeded in creating an image of Sickert as a goofy, eccentric English painter who momentarily may have explored some dark corners but mostly turned out post-Impressionist portraits of the rich and famous, and picturesque landscapes of Dieppe and Venice. Sickert based his artistic credo on Edgar Allen Poe's ideas of art for the sake of beauty, and beauty is wherever you find it -- even in the depths of existence. His followers lapped it up. Sickert's periods of dressing up as Jack the Ripper and the Camden Town Murderer didn't bother his friends a bit. Although some mentions of Jack the Ripper begin to creep into the biographies by Lilly and Eammons, Sickert was not a police suspect during his lifetime. (The existence of Sickert's painting 'Jack The Ripper's Bedroom' was unknown to everyone except Cicely Hey until after Hey died, decades after Walter Sickert had died.)
However, on at least one occasion, even Sickert's disciple Marjorie Lilly seems to have been shocked by Sickert's views on thieves -- which Sickert let slip in an unguarded moment during a heated discussion after a young couple had stolen some canvas and supplies from a nearby room. Lilly recounts the following of Sickert: "He was expressing the gravest disapprobation of these thefts when a friend of the delinquents began to defend them. 'After all,' she declared, 'everyone has a right to exist.' 'Not at all," retorted Sickert. 'There are people who have no right to exist. I'd butter their slides for them.'"
It is in this first-person Sickert quotation, as related by Majorie Lilly, that you will find the key explanation of Walter Sickert's crimes as Jack The Ripper. If you blinked you might have missed it. But there it is, as stark and cogent as it can possibly be expressed.
Patricia Cornwell claimed the driving force behind the murderer's violent hatred toward prostitutes stemed from a fistula on his penis that disfigured his sex organ, made him impotent and incapable of an erection -- thus stifling and perverting his sex drive. Maybe.
Many psychological experts on Jack The Ripper -- from Kraft-Ebbing who diagnosed the Ripper's problem as degenerative sexual peversity to
modern-day FBI profiles who lump Jack together with Ted Bundy and the Green River Killer -- view Jack as a sexual psychopath. Maybe.
I think Walter Sickert murdered prostitutues for many reasons. But his primary motivation had to be that some people had no right to exist -- and that included prostitutes as well as thieves. He had many other motivations as well. He wanted to demonstrate to himself his own superiority over everyone -- and that meant not only outwitting the symbols of authority, such as the police, it also meant taunting them and humiliating them, as Sickert did in his Ripper letters. In order to humiliate the police, he had to commit murders and get away with them. He chose prostitutes to kill because they had no right to exist and they were easily available. [Thieves, on the other hand, would have been next-to-impossible for Sickert to find when and where he could kill them undetected and with no risk of a struggle.]
Of all the famous murderers in modern times, I think Sickert most closely resembled Leopold and Loeb in his motivations. Sickert killed to demonstrate his own superiority. He killed for the thrill of it, which he clearly enjoyed. He killed to taunt the police.
Sickert expressed these ideas perfectly in his offhand comment: 'There are people who have no right to exist. I'd butter their slides for them.'"
He also expressed it in his painting "The Servant of Abraham" -- for numerous reasons that I have already explained on Casebook in great detail.
Sex (and especially sexual peversion) had nothing whatever to do with Sickert's violent crimes while he was committing them -- although peverted and frustrated sexual impulses may have twisted his views on women (a key element of these murders.) There was no sex involved in any of the canonical Whitecapel murders. Police reports leave no doubt that sex never took place between the murderer and any of the Whitechapel victims. There were no traces of fresh semen on any of the victim's. There was no sign the murderer had masturbated before, during or after the murders. There was no sign of oral sex or anal sex on any of the victims. In an earlier post, I discussed Sickert's fascination with fellatio, as linked to Sonnet 128 by Shakespeare. In Shakespeare's sonnet, fellatio is a symbol of heterosexual love. In Sickert's case, fellatio was a symbol of his domination over women, of their submission to his will (something his then-wife, the older, sexless and feminist Ellen Cobden, was not about to submit to.)
The only indication that suggests anything sexual was the mutilation of the women's genitals and breasts. However, female genitals and breasts are equally related to reproduction. The mutilation of genitals and breasts were symbolic to the murderer. Who can say that his symbolism was sexual and not reproductive? By reproductive, I mean the murderer's views on his heredity and his attitudes towards his mother or, as is more likely in this case, his father and his maternal grandmother. For Sickert as Jack The Ripper, the key trait of prostitutes was NOT that they were sexual beings, but that they were dispensible human trash.
Yesterday, I serendipitously came across a rather remarkable etching by Walter Sickert in the collection of the British Museum. If anyone ever wanted a vivid demonstration of Sickert's personal disgust with prostitutes, as well as his fascination with fellatio and his use of threatening power over prostitutes, here it is.
This etching is dated 1915, and it is entitled: No. 30. It shows a rather good-looking woman, perhaps in her early forties, dressed in a stylish but somewhat erotic long dress. She is standing as if she is displaying herself, especially her slim body with very pronounced breasts. She leans with one hand on Sickert's famous iron bed headboard. That headbord would seem to place this scene in Sickert's own bedroom or studio -- since this same metal bed headboard appears in numerous other works by Sickert stretching over a period of many years. Sitting behind the woman on what looks like a chaise-longue, we can see a bearded middle-aged man who looks very much like Walter Sickert -- except one side of his face is missing. Yes, missing -- as in features deliberately obscured by vagueness and shadows. The man is well-dressed in a vest, sportcoat, slacks and shoes. He is relaxed on the chaise-longue with his feet up, very obviously ogling his woman's body, talking (his mouth is open) and gesturing to her with both hands. She is looking away from the man with a very frightened expression on her face. The etching includes an inscription in Latin, a verse from 'Epigrams' (X1 66) by the Roman poet Martial. Of course, the man and woman in the etching are not ancient Romans and the bedroom is not in ancient Rome. The time is the present or the recent past.
Here is the original Latin text:
Et delator es et calumniator,
et fraudator es et negotiator,
et fellator es et lanista. Miror
quare non habes, Tacorra, nummos
And here is an English translation, thanks to the British Museum:
You are an informer, and a slanderer,
you are a cheat and a procuress,
you are a c*ck-sucker and an agitator:
I can't imagine, Vaccera, why you are not rich.
To me, it looks like Vaccera (or Tacorra, or whatever was the real name of the woman in Sickert's etching) is a prostitute and she is in big trouble. The guy on the chaise-longue is evidently "down on whores." She is very scared -- no doubt about it. She has the same horrified expression as the woman in Le Journal -- except this woman is definitely still alive. Who could this prostitute have been? Or even more importantly, who was she chosen by Sickert to represent? Was this scene inspired by some event or some person in Sickert's past? Perhaps the murder of Mary Kelly? Or, as is much more likely, the more recent murder of Emily Dimmock in Camden Town?
Up untill Cornwell's book, all the art experts who wrote about Sickert ignored or glossed over his dark side. This is no longer true, of course. Art Historian and Sickert Scholar Dr. Anna Greutzner Robbins recently stated that she does not see how it is possible for one to study Sickert extensively and not begin to suspect that he was Jack The Ripper. Even the most adoring of Sickert's disciples, Marjorie Lilly, could not hide the stark split in Sickert's personality in her book about Sickert. Lilly wrote: "the connection between the man and his work was elusive. Those who had only met him in his boyant moods might wonder that he could have painted and was still painting what Andre Gide called 'his morose and powerful' work, especially that of the North London period. When he was gay and witty, all sparkle and abandon, he and the underworld that he portrayed so gravely seemed poles asunder. But had they known him when one of these pictures was germinating, they would have been baffled to see how completely Dr. Jekyll had assumed the mantle of Mr. Hyde. In one of his fits of intense concentration, he would enter the Frith through the ante-room, glide through it gravely like a sleepwalker, pick up the tool or the other materials he was searching for, and leave at the other door so silently that it seemed as if one had seen a spectre rather than the solid form of Sickert himself."
Regards,
Mark Starr
|
Natalie Severn
Chief Inspector
Username: Severn
Post Number: 627
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, April 08, 2004 - 9:55 am: | |
Ever heard of the "hang "em and flog "em brigade at the yearly Tory Party conference debate on crime and punishment?Go listen.Compassion is not a strong point to say the least.
About the lady in question -maybe she was a slanderer and an informer---maybe she caused other peoples deaths.Who knows/ |
Jason Scott Mullins
Inspector
Username: Crix0r
Post Number: 167
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, April 08, 2004 - 11:32 am: | |
+3 cool points for using the word 'serendipitously' in a sentence. Properly, no less.
crix0r |
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 712
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, April 08, 2004 - 3:07 pm: | |
Mark Starr wrote:
Marjorie Lilly seems to have been shocked by Sickert's views on thieves -- which Sickert let slip in an unguarded moment during a heated discussion after a young couple had stolen some canvas and supplies from a nearby room. Lilly recounts the following of Sickert: "He was expressing the gravest disapprobation of these thefts when a friend of the delinquents began to defend them. 'After all,' she declared, 'everyone has a right to exist.' 'Not at all," retorted Sickert. 'There are people who have no right to exist. I'd butter their slides for them.'"
It is in this first-person Sickert quotation, as related by Majorie Lilly, that you will find the key explanation of Walter Sickert's crimes as Jack The Ripper. . .
He (Sickert) chose prostitutes to kill because they had no right to exist and they were easily available. [Thieves, on the other hand, would have been next-to-impossible for Sickert to find when and where he could kill them undetected and with no risk of a struggle.]
Mr. Starr, thieves "next-to-impossible for Sickert to find", in London, with as many criminals as existed in London in that day????
Since there appears to be no "evidence" that Sickert slaughtered thieves, you conveniently use the Lillie quotation but throw away the seemingly most important part of it, that Sickert, if the story is true, seemed to be professing that he was down on thieves and saw them as being disposable. If this quote is meant by you to show Sickert's murderous bent against a section of society, it is an ill chosen one, although, as we have seen before, you are very adept at accepting stories about Sickert as "facts" if they fit your theory and conveniently ignore what does not help you.
Best regards
Chris George |
Mark Starr
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, April 08, 2004 - 1:46 pm: | |
Up until now I have been examining Sickert's letters in relation to the Ripper Murders and the Torso Murders. I will have much more to write about both soon, but now I should like to shift to the most blatent example of a specific murder by Walter Sickert: the still unsolved murder of Emily Dimmock, also famously known as the Camden Town Murder. The Camden Town Murder was not a Jack The Ripper Murder. It was another murder by the same man who had called himself Jack The Ripper in 1888 and, as we have seen thus far, murdered Mary Kelly and Catherine Eddowes. It was a murder that in many respects shared the same MO with some of the Whitechapel murders -- but it also had many differences. The differences are not an obstacle. A period of 19 years separates the Camden Town Murder from the Whitechapel Murders. There are countless examples of serial murderers changing their MO's over time. It is not on the basis of any similarity or difference between the Camden Town Murder and the Whitechapel Murder that Walter Sickert's responsibility for the Camden Town Murder is clearly evident. Even though once again, the trail from the Dimmock Murder to Walter Sickert involves some anonymous letters, or rather, to be more precise, some postcards.
First, I should note that while Walter Sickert's name is forever linked with the Camden Town Murder because of his celebrated series of paintings and drawings known by that collective name, Sickert was never a police suspect in this case, nor was he ever mentioned in print as a suspect in this murder by anyone during his lifetime. It was not until Patricia Cornwell began to investigate the Dimmock murder in connection with the Whitechapel murders that anyone ever looked seriously into Sickert as a suspect in the Camden Town murder as well. It is only recently, in both the original edition and then the revised paperback edition of Cornwell's book, that some of the most incriminating facts regarding Sickert and the Dimmock murder have begun to come out. To those facts, I will add several new ones that I have come up with on my own. Then I will connect the dots to join the factual evidence that is now known, including the obscure Sickert etching that I came across just this week in the collection of the British Museum. This etching is about as close as a depiction of the Dimmock murder scene, just before the murder occurred, as any of us is ever likely to see. However, we also have a drawing of the crime as it is actually being committed. And we have Walter Sickert's own evidence that he was at the murder scene. All in all, when one connects the dots, the evidence add up to the inescapable conclusion that Walter Sickert killed Emily Dimmock.
Hopefully, Stephen Ryder will permit me to post here some of the artwork that documents this crime. From past experience, I know I will have to send him the pictures separately. I would like to keep all this material here on one continuous thread.
With regard to the etching in the collection of the British Museum -- which is known by the first line of the Latin inscription at the bottom, "Et delator es" -- I hasten to add that I have substantially changed my opinion about one significant detail of this picture. My first impression was that the woman in the etching was in her early 40s. Upon more careful study and above all with magnification of the image using my image viewer program, I now think she is much younger. Like so many of Sickert's pictures, especially his etchings, many details in this etching are deliberately vague and ambiguous. Under high magnification, however, the woman's face now appears to me very pretty and young. Her expression of fear or horror obscured her youth for me at first sight. There is not so much as one wrinkle in her face to suggest that she is in her 40s. Her body is that of a young fashion model. Her sexy pose, plus the obvious ogling by the sitting man, plus the picture's focus on her striking-looking breasts very much in evidence in the foreground, all help to give the viewer the impression of a younger woman. Also, she is wearing a fashionable full-length evening dress -- which indicates money rather than youth. This was a young woman who had money to spend on making herself look beautiful. Her hair is done in a then-fashionable, bobbed, curled hairdo -- that indicates both money and time spent on her attractive appearance. By anyone's standards, she is a very good-looking woman.
Since the details of this murder may be unfamiliar to those who have followed only the Whitechapel Murders, there are certain basic facts that I think I should review first to put the incriminating facts into a context. Emily Dimmock was murdered on Sept. 12, 1907 in her bed. She was almost 23 years old when she was killed. She was murdered in her rented rooms on St. Paul's Road in the north London suburb of Camden Town -- a middle class to working class area, a respectable residential and business section, and a relatively safe neighborhood -- in stark contrast to the shocking squalor and crime of Whitechapel. Emily was a prostitute. However, she was not a desperately poor unfortunate, like the first four canonical Whitechapel victims, who didn't even have enough money for a room of their own and had to prostitute themselves every day just to find a place to sleep, often upright on a bench, in a doss house. And even though Mary Kelly had her own room where she could take her johns, and she was young and pretty, Emily Dimmock was far better off in life in every respect than Mary Kelly.
Emily lived with her her boyfriend, Bert, who though only 19, was securely employed (since four years) as a railway chef. Bert wanted to marry Emily on the condition that she give up prostitution. Bert worked nights regularly, and he didn't return home from work until 11:30 am the next day -- so Emily had her rooms to herself most nights to do as she pleased. Emily had enough money for life's basic necessities; she prostituted herself regularly for extra money -- for nice clothes, jewelry, entertainment, etc. She did not ply her trade on the streets -- at least not principally. She worked mainly out of 3 local pubs called The Rising Sun, The Eagle on Royal College Street, and Pindar of Wakefield. She was also a known habituée of other local pubs on Euston Road and varios places of entertainmentm such as the local musical halls -- where she would also pick up men. Walter Sickert was known to frequent many of these same places at that time, and he even painted some. After spending the evening drinking with various men, she would take a man home to her rooms for sex for pay. Or men would make a rendez-vous with her -- some by using postcards, as the trial of acquitted suspect Robert Wood later revealed. Rather than a streetwalker, she was what today we would call a party girl or a bar girl. She was not only out for money, she was also out for a hot time. The police report described her as a woman "of lustful habits."
I have seen a photograph of Emily Dimmock taken shortly before she was killed. She was a beautiful woman with the facial features of an actress. She had a graceful body (the photo does not reveal more than that.) She had very dark hair which appears to be short (although most of her hair is obscured by a hat.) Because of the vague features in Sickert's etching, it is impossible to conclude that the face of the woman in the etching is the face of Emily Dimmock -- but she certainly could be. Many features are the same. But to judge from the many resemblances between other Sickert pictures and Whitechapel victims, Sickert often took isolated features of victims and incorporated them into his pictures, rather than painting complete and accurate portraits of one person. Or he purposely obscured details with Impressionist vagueness, so a definite identification could not be made. That is what apparently we have in the etching "Et delator es." That is also what we see in the face of the man in the etching -- who appears to be Walter Sickert, but whose face is partially obscured by a shadow.
In 1907, Walter Sickert lived in Camden Town for more than one year. He had returned to London from Dieppe around 1905-6 after having spent six or seven years on the continent -- mostly in France, but also in Venice. Upon his return, he lodged in a rooming house on Mornington Court. He also rented two studios next to each other on Fitzroy St. To give a rough estimate of the walking times involved, depending on the gait and the route, the normal walking time between Sickert's rooms on Mornington Court and Emily's rooms on St. Paul's Road, as estimated by Cornwell, is around 20-30 minutes. Sickert's studios on Fitzroy Street were close to The Rising Sun pub, just a few minutes walk.
The last time Emily was seen alive was in The Eagle pub with a man named Robert Wood. After the murder, Wood was arrested for the murder. He was tried and acquitted. The prosecution had no incriminating evidence whatsoever. There is no doubt that Wood was innocent. There is no need go through the details of Wood's trial, since all of it is totally irrelevant to the murder. The police had arrested the wrong man. No one else was ever charged in the crime. The murderer has never been identified. Like the Ripper murders, some patently absurd suspects have been named purely on conjecture. Despite Wood's innocence, I will come back later to the subject of Sickert and Wood.
On the morning of Sept. 12, Bert Shaws's mother arrived around 8:30 am at the rooming house to see Emily, who usually arose at 8. She knocked at the front door but could not raise Emily. However, from the front door landing, she could see a bit into Emily's room through the front window. She saw a body in bed, and so she assumed Emily was still sleeping. Repeated knocking could not wake her. The landlady, Mrs. Stocks, let Mrs. Shaw in the house to await the arrival of Bert, who came home regularly at 11:30 am. Bert's mother, now worried, went to the train station to meet her son. When they returned home, he and his mother could not get into his rooms. The outer doors were locked from the inside. Bert had no key, since the door was not usually locked or Emily was there to open it. Mrs. Stocks opened the outer doors with her key. Inside, Bert found the double inner doors locked from the inside as well. Bert broke through the double doors. Then he flung back the covers to find Emily's bloody corpse.
Bert ran for the police. Twenty-five minutes later, P. C. Thomas Killion arrived with Shaw. P. C. Killion touched Emily's shoulder and found it cold. Then P. C. Killion sent for Dr. John Thompson, police surgeon, who arrived at 1 pm. Dr. Thompson concluded that Emily had been dead 7-8 hours, based on the coldness of the body and the stage of rigor mortis. That would place the time of death at 6-7 am. However, Cornwell strongly rejects Dr. Thompsons conclusion about the time of death. She says that he got the time of death wrong because of miscalculations in temperature. She claims he did not make the proper allowances for the blankets, the exceptionally cold night (46 degrees), the lack of heat in the room, etc. When Dr. Thompson examined Emily at 1 pm, the temperature outside had risen to 70 degrees, advancing the rigor mortis faster than normal. Cornwell contends that Emily was really murdered between midnight and 4am. That conclusion, she contends, is supported by other evidence -- specifically the means of escape by the killer through the front window. Between 6-7 am, it would have been virtually impossible for anyone to have escaped through a front window on to St. Paul's Road without being seen by someone. St. Paul's Road is a busy thoroughfare in a working class district, with many people on their way to work every day (except Sunday) at that hour. Sept. 12 was a Thursday.
Continued soon.
Regards,
Mark Starr |
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 713
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, April 09, 2004 - 9:11 am: | |
Hi, Mark
So Walter Sickert did the Camden murder too. Let me ask you something, what happened about him writing to the police about his murders? No letters about the Camden murder? No drawings in hotel guest books to taunt the police? You see, in promoting Sickert as Jack the Ripper, you have the same problem that Patricia Cornwell has, i.e., that Walter Sickert lived until 1942. There is no evidence that he committed the Camden Town murder let alone the Ripper murders, or any other killing for that matter. Why did he stop writing letters to the authorities? Writer's cramp? 
Chris George
(Message edited by admin on April 09, 2004) |
Natalie Severn
Chief Inspector
Username: Severn
Post Number: 631
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, April 09, 2004 - 9:47 am: | |
re Marks post of April 6 7.16 pm You say that from a painting or sketch you have just seen there is evidence of Sickert"s "fascination with fellatio".What made you say that?
There seem to be numbers of wild accusations about Sickert and his "disability"[which to me seem highly unlikely] and now you add this which
seems to be more wild speculation.
Even the stand he took about anti-semitism
which like the things he was trying to express in many of his paintings to do with injustice and poverty you want to deride.
Well actually unlike Patricia Cornwell Sickert didnt confine his art to painting[or as in her case writing about "murders"] but explored a whole range of social relationships in his paintings. |
Mark Starr
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, April 09, 2004 - 6:13 am: | |
As I mentioned in my last post about The Camden Town Murder, Walter Sickert was never mentioned as a suspect in this murder by the police or anyone in print during his long lifetime -- just as he was never considered a suspect as Jack The Ripper by the police or anyone else in print during his long lifetime. That Walter Sickert was Jack The Ripper is now established by my multiple links on top of Cornwell's multiple links. It is self-evident that Sickert successfully avoided suspicion in the Whitechapel murders throughout his lifetime. He avoided suspicion as Jack The Ripper because he took extraordinary pains and precautions to avoid detection. Walter Sickert was very good at covering his tracks. He avoided detection in the Camden Town Murder for the same reasons. Except here he made a major miscalculation and post-humously gave himself away.
Sickert always counted on the obtuseness of the police -- an assumption in which he was repeatedly proven correct, particularly in the case of the dense police Ripper investigator Sir Melville Mcnaughten, who never suspected Sickert even after Sickert sought him out at least two decades after the Whitechapel Murders and tried to sell him a patently phony Ripper story in which he (Sickert) just by chance wound up sleeping in Jack The Ripper's bed.
Sickert also played upon the naiveté and gullibility of people in the art world who were pre-disposed to dismiss his lifelong obsession with Jack The Ripper as the goofiness of an eccentric English painter with a silly but innocuous fascination with crime. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. They ignored the mountain of documented evidence that incriminates Sickert, attempting to rationalize their obvious denial as the normal Bohemian activity of artists at the turn of the century -- artists like Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, Bonnard, etc. Except Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas and Bonnard never killed anyone. Sickert did.
That amazing meeting between Sickert and Mcnaughten, which is documented in McCormick and discussed in Rumbelow, had to have taken place sometime between 1905 (when Sickert returned to London from six years in France) and 1921 (when Mcnaughten died.) It had to have taken place after 1905 because Sickert told Mcnaughten his phony Lodger from Bornemouth story -- which we know from multiple sources Sickert claimed took place in his rooming house in Mornington Crescent in Camden Town. And it was not until his return from France in 1905 that Sickert first moved into Mornington Crescent.
One has to ask oneself, but appaently no one ever has: why did Sickert seek out Mcnaughten at least 19 years after the Whitechapel murders to tell him his Lodger story? Why should Sickert have put himself at risk of suspicion after so many years? It must have been Sickert who sought the meeting with Mcnaughten, and not vice versa. For Mcnaughten, the Ripper case had been closed for at least 15 years. Neither Mcnaughten nor any other policeman was still actively working the Ripper case after 1905. So what could Walter Sickert possibly have had to gain by such a meeting that would have made him take such a risk?
Once again Sickert outfoxed the police. What did Sickert have to gain? In this meeting with Mcnaughten, Sickert learned that the police regarded the case as closed. Mcnaughten told Sickert that he, as the lead investigator who had taken over the Ripper case after Fred Aberline's retirement, was sure that Sickert's Lodger from Bornemouth must have been Montague Druitt, and that Montague Druitt had committed suicide in 1888. The Jack The Ripper case was closed as far as he (Mcnaughten) was concerned -- and he was the police. In sum, Mcnaughten told Sickert the two things he wanted to know most -- that he had not come under suspicion during the intervening years that he had been in France, and the case was long closed as far as the police were concerned. Thus, Sickert was now completely free to commit another murder, knowing that the police would not automatically suspect him because of any association with the Whitechapel Murders. And if that meeting between Sickert and Mcnaughten took place sometime in 1905-7, then the next Sickert murder would have been The Camden Town Murder.
Despite the inevitable onslaught by those pre-convinced of Sickert's innocence, no one can explain away Sickert's commission of The Camden Town Murder. In this murder, Sickert has run out of amazing coincidences, unbelievable excuses, silly rationalizations, and ignorant dismissals. By his own admission, Walter Sickert was at the scene of the crime. And the only way he could possibly have been at the scene of the crime would be if he had murdered Emily Dimmock. And if he lied in his admission, that also proves he killed Emily Dimmock. Because Walter Sickert was indeed at the scene of the murder. When he killed Emily Dimmock.
More to come.
Regards,
Mark Starr |
Glenn L Andersson
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 1487
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, April 10, 2004 - 9:20 am: | |
Mark wrote:
>Many psychological experts on Jack The Ripper -- from Kraft-Ebbing who diagnosed the Ripper's problem as degenerative sexual perversity to modern-day FBI profiles who lump Jack together with Ted Bundy and the Green River Killer -- view Jack as a sexual psychopath." [my emphasis]
No, they don't. John Douglas from the FBI -- as well as John Hazelwood -- diagnosed him as a paranoid schizofrenic and a disorganized (or mixed organized--disorganized) and sexually deranged serial killer, not a manipulating psychopath a la Ted Bundy. Walter Sickert (if he had the psychopathic personality traits you and Cornwell claims that he had) doesen't fit the FBI profile the slightest -- on the contrary, he totally contradicts it.
I can't say if they are right or not.
But if you choose to refer to profiling, please read up on the subject first before you use it to support your extraordinary views.
"More to come."
Go figure...
All the best
(Message edited by Glenna on April 10, 2004)
Glenn Gustaf Lauritz Andersson
Crime historian, Sweden |
Josiah arthur
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, April 09, 2004 - 1:11 pm: | |
what about the dna evidance recovered on Sicket off the stamps |
Mark Starr
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, April 10, 2004 - 9:40 pm: | |
From Court TV's Crime Library file on the Green River Killer:
"The FBI's profiler John Douglas concluded that the bodies were dumped in the areas because the killer thought of the women as 'human garbage.'
Sound familiar?
Regards,
Mark Starr |
Tim Davis
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, April 09, 2004 - 5:23 pm: | |
Hey Christopher T, if it is so easy to find thieves in London just when you want to cut their throats, then let's see you do it. Why don't you go to Whitechapel tomorrow around midnight? You have three hours to find yourself a thief and cut his throat. It should be a piece of cake, right? You can use a rubber knife, just so everybody knows its all in fun. But for goodness sake, please be careful!!! Thieves can be dangerous when they are discovered. Sometimes the thieves have knives. And blackjacks. And even guns. Also they can fight back with their fists. Especially if they are male thieves. Female whores in their forties are pushovers. And it is hard to sneak up on a thief, especially while he is stealing something. They are always on the lookout not to get caught. It will be very interesting to see how many thieves you can catch and slice up in three hours. There are still plenty of thieves in London, right? Happy hunting.
ta-ta,
Tim Davis |
Mark Starr
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, April 10, 2004 - 3:18 am: | |
In the anecdote recounted by Marjorie Lilly in her book on Walter Sickert, Lilly does not paraphrase Sickert's words. She quotes them directly in the first person in quotation marks. There is no reason to suppose that the words in Lilly's book are not the exact same words that came out of Walter Sickert's mouth -- especially in this case when we are dealing with only two short, vivid sentences. Sickert did NOT say "Thieves have no right to exist." His exact words were "There are people who have no right to exist. I'd butter their slides for them." It is clear in the context of the conversation, that Sickert was including other people in addition to thieves when he used the expression "There are people." There is no suggestion in Sickert's words that he was speaking exclusively about thieves and only thieves.
It is the second sentence in Marjorie Lilly's quote that is doubly incriminating in the Jack The Ripper case. Sickert said: "I'd butter their slides for them." By 'slides,' Sickert was not talking about children's slides in a playground. He was not talking about the slides on Dr. Openshaw's mikerscope. He used an image that is instantaneously and frighteningly clear to everyone. Moreover, someone sliding on a slide does not slide up. He or she can only slide down. In this vividly imaged sentence, Walter Sickert said two things. He was willing and ready to help get rid of these people who had no right to exist. And, as far as he was concerned, they would slide directly down -- to Hell, with his assistance.
Thus, we now have yet one more devil link to add to our collection of Ripper devil links. But this one is very different. The source is not Jack The Ripper. The source is Walter Sickert. There are several possibilities as to how Sickert viewed his own role in this sentence. He could have thought of himself as the Devil's Servant, just as he thought of himself as Abraham's Servant in the Ripper-related self-portrait entitled "The Servant of Abraham." Or he might have thought of himself as the Devil himself returned to earth, as he suggested in his Lusk Letter "From Hell." Or he might have thought of himself as Jesus, deciding who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. In that respect, he would have resembled his self-portrait as Jesus that Sickert painted after his stroke in 1926 under the title of "The Raising of Lazarus."
When Walter Sickert went to see Sir Melville Mcnaughten at Scotland Yard, his principal motive was to discover whether the police had discovered any evidence to suspect him as Jack The Ripper during the six years he had been living in France. That Sickert had taken this risk to find out whether the police were even aware of his existence was added proof, as if he need yet more, that the police were fools. What better demonstration of his superiority over the police than this new exhilarating experience of stepping into the police's den, selling them a phony Ripper story, learning critical secret facts about the Ripper case, and getting away with everything without so much as a cloud of suspicion. Of course, this was not Sickert's first excursion into police headquarters. He had also planted the Whitehall Torso into the basement of Scotland Yard in October 1888.
In 1907, at least 19 years had past and the police had never questioned Walter Sickert as a Ripper suspect. Why then would Sickert have been worried that the police might have found some incriminating evidence against him during the six years that he lived in France, or even during the 19 years since the Whitechapel murders had occurred. Because in those 19 intervening years, a very important new development had taken place in crime detection: the use of fingerprints.
Back in 1888, Scotland Yard had no laboratory for processing fingerprints, but now in 1907 they did. Back in 1888, fingerprints had never been used in a murder trial. By 1907, fingerprints had been used by the police successfully in many murder and criminal trials, and murderers had been hanged as a result. Fingerprints were the subject of major, regular features in news stories about crime. Everyone in England was now aware of them. But back in 1888, Walter Sickert had never taken care to make sure his fingerprints were not on any Ripper item. Now, he thought, what about all those Ripper letters and postcards he had sent. What was on them? Sickert had no idea. In fact, one Ripper letter does contain fingerprints in either blood or red ink. Unfortunately, they are so smudged they are unusuable. And what good would would they do us now anyway. We do not have a verified set of Sickert's fingerprints to compare them to. At least not yet. Who knows what forensic evidence may turn up one day? But back in 1907, Sickert had to consider the possibility that perhaps the police had obtained prints of the Ripper from his letters. And the uncertainty worried him enough to make him take the amazing risk of meeting Mcnaughten.
When Sickert learned that he had escaped suspicion for at least 19 years, he realized that he had made his point. The police were indeed fools. He also realized that there was no point in repeating the Jack The Ripper myth in his next crime. Why continue to taunt the police? He had already proven that he was smarter than they were. Why terrorize the populace yet once again? He had already demonstrated he could scare the stupid, superstitious public into mass hysteria. Now he set hit sights on bigger game -- the fools who controlled the art world and the cultural elite. They had not given him the artistic recognition he obviously deserved at age 47. And so he decided that in his next murder, he would eschew mythical fiends. He would not bother with Ripper letters. Instead, he would distill and encrypt essential elements of his crime into his art and leave them forever dangling on exhibit, right in front of the noses of the art establishment -- visible but at the same time invisible. He would suggest many of the key elements of the crime in a long series of sketches, drawings, etchings and paintings known by the collective name of the Camden Town Murder. But through his characteric ambiguity and vagueness, he would never quite reveal visually quite enough to send him to the gallows in his lifetime. Here would be his perfect revenge for the lack of recognition that was his in 1907 in England, at the age of 47. He would make fools of the British art world forever. And to top it off, just before he died he planted a clue to this crime, -- knowing full well that no one would ever be able to figure it out while he was alive. He had even decided to make a fool out of posterity. And he almost succeeded.
|
Mark Starr
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, April 10, 2004 - 7:43 pm: | |
I do not pretend to be an expert in the field of psychological profiling of psychopaths. What I know is what I've read in the works of others who have studied this question. Patricia Cornwell has never pretended to be a professional profiler; but before she became a writer of crime fiction, she spent six years working for the Virginia Chief Medical Examiner's office --- first as a technical writer and then as a computer analyst --- and she also served as a volunteer police officer. Not relying on her own background and training in forensic science, she has not hesitated to employ the professional expertise of top profiling and forensic experts -- to which he has virtually unlimited access, thanks to her vast personal fortune and her willingness to spend substantial segments of it on expert opinions and forensic tests in the Jack The Ripper case. Amonger her consultant for her book were FBI Profiler and Instructor of Law Enforcement Edward Sulzabch. Also, she employed the Co-Directors of the Virginia Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine, Dr. Paul Ferrara and Dr. Marcella Fierro -- and had access to the entire staff of forensic scientists in this institute. In her vast bibliography of primary and secondary sources for her book, she lists a huge number of works dealing with the psychology of psychopaths and criminal profiling -- including two works by John Douglas. Let's see what Cornell had to say about Ted Bundy, Walter Sickert and other psychopaths in her book about JTR:
"When Ted Bundy decompensated, his crimes had escalated from spree killings to the orgy of the crazed multiple butcheries he committed in a Florida sorority house. He was completely haywire and he did not live in a world that would let him get away with it. Sickert lived in a world that would. He was not pitted against sophisticated law enforcement and forensic science. He traversed the surface of life as a respectable, intellectual gentleman. He was an artist on his way to becoming a Master, and artists are forgiven for not having a structured or "normal" way of going about their affairs. They are forgiven for being a little odd or eccentric, or a bit deranged."
"Sickert's fractured psyche threw him into constant battles with his many selves. He was suffering. He understood pain, as long as it was his own. He felt nothing for anyone, including [his first wife] Ellen..."
"Sickert's letters to Blanche are masterly works of machination and give us a peek into the the dark recesses of a psychopathic mind...He did not feel grief over the loss of Ellen [she divorced him]... He was relieved to have one set of complications out of his life, and he felt more fragmented than before. Ellen gave him a sense of identity. The marriage gave him a safe base in the endless game of tag he played..."
"If any part of Sickert's anatomy symbolized his entire being, it was not his disfigured penis. It was his eyes. He watched. Watching -- spying, stalking with the eyes and feet -- is a dominant trait of psychopathic killers, unlike the disorganized offenders who are given to impulse or messages from outer space or God. Psychopaths watch people. They watch pornography, especially violent pornography. They are very scary voyeurs."
"Modern technology has made it possible for them to watch videotapes of themselves raping, torturing and killing their victims. They relive their horrific crimes over and over again, and masturbate. For some psychopaths, the only way they can reach orgasm is to watch, stalk, fantasize, and replay their last rampages. Ted Bundy, says former FBI profiler Bill Hagmaier, strangled and raped his victims from behind, his excitement mounting as her tongue as her tongue protruded and her eyes bulged. He reached climax as she reached her death."
"Then come the fantasies, the reliving and the violent-erotic tension is unbearable and these killers strike again. The denouement is the dying or dead body. The cooling off period is the safe haven that allows relief and the reliving of the crime. And the fantasies begin. And the tension builds again. And they find another victim. And they introduce another scene into their script to add more daring and excitement: bondage, torture, mutilation, dismemberment, grotesque displays of the carnage, and cannibalism."
"As former FBI Academy instructor and profiler Edward Sulzbach has reminded me over the years: 'The actual murder is incidental to the fantasies."
"Psychopaths love to watch the drama they script. It is common for serial killers to return to the scene of the crime or insert themselves into the investigation. A murderer showing up a his victim's funeral is so common that today's police often have plainclothes officers clandestinely videotape the mourners. Serial arsonists love to watch their fires burn. Rapists love to work for social services. Ted Bundy worked as a volunteer for a crisis clinic."
And Walter Sickert worked as a painter of nude women, many of them prostitutes.
I am glad I was diverted momentarily from my present task of describing how Walter Sickert murdered Emily Dimmock in Camden Town in 1907, because virtually every word of the passages from Cornwell's book that I quoted above is a perfect description of Walter Sickert's actions in the Camden Town Murder. I will go into all of this in another post.
But before I sign off, I should add a little footnote. I do not claim any special knowledge about Ted Bundy. Nevertheless, I think I am safe in saying that I am the only person on Casebook.org ever to have crossed paths with Ted Bundy. Without going into all the details, just about 30 years ago, I happened to see a man outside a church. In fact, he asked me for the time. Several hours later, a young girl was brutally murdered behind that church. I never connected the dots. In fact, I was not even aware for perhaps a year that a murder had been committed near this church. I was totally involved in my own work at the time, and it was just by chance that I was near that church on that day. Yet I was able to recall the incident without knowing it was Bundy, and give a vague but evidently fairly accurate discription of him. It was not until several years later that others pointed out to me that the person whom I had seen was Ted Bundy.
Regards,
Mark Starr |
M.Mc.
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, April 09, 2004 - 6:20 pm: | |
I don't mean to offend anyone who wishes to believe Sickert was Jack the Ripper. However no matter how many "coincidences" Cornwell or anyone has come up with, they are not facts. There have been any number of "coincidences" in cases that pointed to someone and it turned out to be someone else. Even with "coincidences" such as Sickert's he would likely love the fact he was a suspect in the JTR case. He was no doubt a prankster and had a taste for the gory. But please keep in mind so did Hitchcock and he didn't kill anyone. Jamie Lee Curtis said a few things about Hitchcock being a bit morbid. If you recall her mother Janet Leigh was in the movie Phycho. Both Hitchcock and Sickert were about the same type of prankster really.
I'm sorry but even if Sickert was the killer of Emily Dimmock in the well known Camden Town Murder, which nobody can say for sure who killed her. There is not far too little to say he was Jack the Ripper. Other suspects are far more likely than Sickert as being JTR. You're playing jump rope with a loaded gun like Cornwell did. I read her book and found most of it to be her point of veiw. No real facts to say Sickert was guilty of anything more than writing some of the JTR HOAX letters and he's not the only person who wrote some either. So what? Cornwell took 2ed hand info and the ASSUMED this and that from that info. The only facts she has come up with are lame to say the least. Some paintings that look like the MORGUE and other police photos photos of some of the victims that we have all seen. So what? Paper that matches a few of the JTR HOAX letters. So what? The fact that his interest in the case was strong? So what? A lot of people were like that about the JTR case. The queen of England was very interested in the case. Does that mean she was down in the streets in drag killing hookers? I doubt that. Cornwell should have focused more on that GUESTBOOK she got a hold of. I was upset she did not show more than a few fuzzy photos of it and gave her bloody 2 cents about it. I want to know more about it hoax or not. All Cornwell did through more than half her book was focus on Sickert's penis. GAWD! Sickert's penis this and Sickert's penis that! After a while it just became amussing in a sick twisted way that is. I'd have to see a whole lot more than Cornwell came up with to believe Sickert was Jack the Ripper. Show me more clues because right now I don't buy it. Maybe I'll change my mind if more comes of Sickert but there are better suspects by far than him.  |
Glenn L Andersson
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 1497
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, April 11, 2004 - 8:43 pm: | |
Mark Starr,
An interesting footnote, that one about your experience with Bundy. Thank your lucky star you weren't a pretty sorority girl.
Now, I have nothing to add to your description about psychopaths. I am by no means an expert, and I don't waste my trust too much on the generalizations made by profilers these days anyway. However, I have read up a lot on the subject and I once used to be rather interested in this approach -- today I feel more critical about its alleged advantages in every situation.
But that is not the point. The point is that modern profilers doesen't diagnose Jack the Ripper as a psychopath or even as a criminal of the similar personality traits as the likes of Ted Bundy. As I said, I can't say if the profilers are right in their estimations or not, but your arguments falls to pieces when you describe Sickert as a charmer with psychopathic tendencies and then at the same time refers to profilers, who interprets Jack the Ripper as a character type that is of complete opposite mental disposition as the one you lean upon in your discussion.
I advice you to read John Douglas' The Cases That Haunts Us, which contains a full psychological profile on Jack the Ripper (and I also urge you to read the JtR profiles made by Eckert and Hazelwood in their respective books), where JtR is described as a schizofrenic character with intelligence around average or low intelligence, unsure of himself, a loner that is neither a literate or someone who seeks attention and who is so paranoid that he's carrying a knife for his own protection, not just to commit murder.
This is as far as the articulate, intelligent, charming and manipulating psychopath Ted Bundy as you can get, and also as far as yours and Patsy's description of Walter Sickert as you can get as well.
I am not saying that the profilers are right, I am just saying that you can't refer to "modern profilers" to support your Sickert theory, when in fact their profiles on Jack totally contradicts Sickert's alleged personality.
I have read Patsy's book twice, and her profiling attempts as well as her interpretation of other profiling efforts are among the worst I have read. She may have experience of some of the forensic and medical stuff, but psychological profiling is clearly not her field of expertise.
"Sickert's fractured psyche threw him into constant battles with his many selves. He was suffering. He understood pain, as long as it was his own. He felt nothing for anyone, including [his first wife] Ellen..." [...]
"Sickert's letters to Blanche are masterly works of machination and give us a peek into the the dark recesses of a psychopathic mind...He did not feel grief over the loss of Ellen [she divorced him]... He was relieved to have one set of complications out of his life, and he felt more fragmented than before. Ellen gave him a sense of identity. The marriage gave him a safe base in the endless game of tag he played... [...]
"If any part of Sickert's anatomy symbolized his entire being, it was not his disfigured penis. It was his eyes. He watched. Watching -- spying, stalking with the eyes and feet -- is a dominant trait of psychopathic killers, unlike the disorganized offenders who are given to impulse or messages from outer space or God."
Completely unsupported personal interpretations and speculations that are of no scientific value whatsoever. This is not facts, merely factual distortion and how the author wishes to see him. Complete worthless fiction.
All the best
(Message edited by Glenna on April 11, 2004)
Glenn Gustaf Lauritz Andersson
Crime historian, Sweden |
Frank van Oploo
Inspector
Username: Franko
Post Number: 265
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Monday, April 12, 2004 - 10:31 am: | |
It’s a fact that police investigative procedures in 1888 did not include fingerprinting. As Mark said, fingerprints had never been used in a murder trial back in 1888. So, it’s unlikely that the police would have tried to keep the Ripper letters and envelopes clear of any other fingerprints. But, considering that all of the letters that according to Mark Starr were written by Walter Sickert were received and handled by others than the police, it seems even less likely that these missives weren’t contaminated with other fingerprints, or that Sickert’s fingerprints, if they were there, were unintentionally wiped off, partially or completely. The Dear Boss letter and Saucy Jacky postcard were sent to the Central News Agency, the Lusk letter was received by George Lusk, the Openshaw letter was addressed to Dr. Openwhaw at the London Hospital.
So, there’s every reason to believe that the letters allegedly written by Sickert would have been of little to no use as far as fingerprinting is concerned - that is, if the police would have worked with fingerprinting as an investigative tool at the time, which they didn’t. Surely the highly intelligent Walter Sickert could have figured that out in less than the 10 seconds I needed to do just that.
|
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 720
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, April 12, 2004 - 2:58 pm: | |
Hi, Mark
I like the way you weave and duck. Having earlier quoted Walter Sickert's supposed remark that thieves had no right to exist and twisted it to apply to prostitutes you allege he slaughtered in Whitechapel, you now say, "Sickert did NOT say 'Thieves have no right to exist.' His exact words were 'There are people who have no right to exist. I'd butter their slides for them.' It is clear in the context of the conversation, that Sickert was including other people in addition to thieves when he used the expression 'There are people.'" My emphasis. There are people like Mary Jane Kelly and friends, you mean of course, as Sickert himself obviously meant. Clear as day.
Then you conveniently switch from your mode of saying that Sickert was a writer of letters to the authorities, hundreds of them if we are to believe you and Patricia Cornwell, by saying that at the time of the Camden Town murder of 1907, which you also attribute to him, he no longer needed to write such letters to the police and others:
"When Sickert learned that he had escaped suspicion for at least 19 years, he realized that he had made his point. The police were indeed fools. He also realized that there was no point in repeating the Jack The Ripper myth in his next crime. Why continue to taunt the police? He had already proven that he was smarter than they were. Why terrorize the populace yet once again? He had already demonstrated he could scare the stupid, superstitious public into mass hysteria. Now he set hit sights on bigger game -- the fools who controlled the art world and the cultural elite. They had not given him the artistic recognition he obviously deserved at age 47. And so he decided that in his next murder, he would eschew mythical fiends. He would not bother with Ripper letters. . . ."
Mark, you construct a very neat fantasy scenario about Sickert being the Whitechapel killer, the Whitehall/Torso murderer, the Camden Town killer, and a prolific writer of Jack the Ripper letters. A scenario that lacks real evidence.
Of course you talk about the supposed meeting between Sir Melville Macnaghten and Walter Sickert in which the painter was supposedly tapping the police official for information about whether his fingerprints were found on all those Ripper letters he sent.
However, Mark, I would not rely too much on Donald McCormick and his supposed reconstruction of that meeting between Sickert and Macnaghten. McCormick is not much regarded among Ripperologists. It is thought that much of his book is made up of tales either conjured up by himself or by Dr. Thomas Dutton. The late Melvin Harris's dissertation here on the Casebook on Donald McCormick's unreliability is worth reading.
Best regards
Chris George |
Mark Starr
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, April 12, 2004 - 2:37 pm: | |
It is not that Ripper letters -- including Ripper letters very likely to have been written by Walter Sickert -- MIGHT contain fingerprints -- including fingerprints of Walter Sickert. At least one Ripper letter -- a Ripper letter very likely to have been written by Walter Sickert -- DOES in fact contain fingerprints.
These are fingerprints that were accidently left in ink stains on the letter paper. These fingerprints were certainly left there by the same person who wrote this letter. That means they were very likely left there by Walter Sickert -- but we, in 2004, do not know that they were, at least not yet. They are not the usual kind of fingerprints left by fingers on a doorknob or on a glass mirror; they are fingerprints left in ink on paper. Thus they are not subject to contamination or degradation over time.
There are two problems with these fingerprints that make them useless to us in 2004. First, we have no set of Walter Sickert's fingerprints with which we can compare them. And since Walter Sickert is long dead (and was in fact cremated,) we cannot obtain a fresh, verified set of Walter Sickert's fingerprints to make a comparison. Second, the fingerprints on this particular letter are smudged and not readable for identification. However, back in 1888-1907 (which is the time frame I was discussing,) Walter Sickert did not know that these prints were too smudged to be useful for identification. How could he have possibly known back then what information the police could extract from fingerprints? He probably was unaware even that he had made any fingerprints at all. Fingerprints were not a concern to anyone in 1888. And even if he did notice these prints in ink before he sent the letter, he had no way of knowing back then what fingerprint experts could use or not use for identification.
Moreover, Sickert could not possibly have known after he sent his MANY Ripper letters whether he might have accidentally left OTHER finger prints as well -- in ink, or just with his fingertips on the paper -- on any of those MANY Ripper letters he wrote. While he was actually writing all of those many Ripper letters back in 1888, the thought of fingerprints could not possibly have even crossed his mind because back then the use of fingerprints in crime detection, by either of the two police forces in London, was unknown. By 1907, however, everybody in London knew about fingerprints in murder cases.
Ironically, it was the fact that Jack The Ripper had made such fools of the police in London in his Ripper letters in 1888, and had subjected the police to such ridicule and scorn in his taunts, taunts that were reprinted over and over in the newspapers, that forced Scotland Yard to reform itself and modernize itself in the wake of the Whitechapel murders. One of the most important steps Scotland Yard took to introduce scientific methods into crime detection soon after the Whitechapel murders was the creation of a police laboratory that included newly trained technicians and experts on fingerprints. When the police began to make arrests on the basis of fingerprints, and when crown prosecutors began to obtain convictions on the basis of fingerprints, and when murderers began to swing on the gallows on the basis of fingerprints, that was big news in England. And in France. No matter where Walter Sickert was during 1888-1907, Walter Sickert heard about fingerprints.
Moreover, back in 1907, Walter Sickert was ALIVE and he had FINGERS. Unlike us in 2004, the police in 1907 could have obtained a verifiable set of Walter Sickert's fingerprints for comparison. If in 1907 the police had begun to suspect him for any reason whatsoever and had brought him in for questioning, the police could then have obtained a verified set of his fingerprints. That was what Walter Sickert was afraid of. And he was willing to risk a meeting with Mcnaughten to find out what the police might have had on him. Sickert did not know whether or not the police had found and preserved any of his fingerprints (whether ink fingerprints or normal fingerprints) on any of his Ripper letters during the 19-year period that had elapsed since the Whitechapel Murders, the exact time period in which the use of fingerprints was introduced into crime detection in England. But after his meeting with Mcnaughten, he knew the police had nothing on him.
Why would Sickert have taken such a risk? As Patricia Cornwell's experts on manipulative psychopathic serial killers have pointed out, this kind of cat-and-mouse game with the police is typical behavior of manipulative
psychopathic serial killers.
Regards,
Mark Starr |
Mark Starr
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, April 12, 2004 - 2:55 pm: | |
I would have thought my point about profilers was self-evident.
There is more than one profiler in the world. In fact, there are many. They do not all agree with each other.
To that I will add: the only way to know which profiler was correct is to re-read the profiles AFTER the murderer, in this case Jack The Ripper, has been positively identified.
Regards,
Mark Starr
|
Dan Norder
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, April 11, 2004 - 4:50 pm: | |
Mar wrote:
"Not relying on her own background and training in forensic science,"
Which is good, because she has none. Typing letters for people who are trained is not training. Donating a million bucks to a school doesn;t make you any more skilled in anything that schol teaches.
"she has not hesitated to employ the professional expertise of top profiling and forensic experts -- to which he has virtually unlimited access, thanks to her vast personal fortune and her willingness to spend substantial segments of it on expert opinions and forensic tests in the Jack The Ripper case."
The problem here is that she was already convinced Sickert was the Ripper before any of these other people were involved. When boss lady controls your salary and says the someone is a murderer, you are damn well going to come up with whatever you can to try to keep the paycheck coming in.
And even after not wanting to say anything to piss off the lady who controls the purse strings, the professionals involved are all very clear in saying that the DNA is *not* a match, that it's not proven that Sickert wrote any of these letters, and so forth. Cornwell keeps trying to hype the results into proof when they don't prove a thing. |
Dan Norder
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, April 11, 2004 - 4:59 pm: | |
M.Mc wrote:
"All Cornwell did through more than half her book was focus on Sickert's penis. GAWD! Sickert's penis this and Sickert's penis that! "
Funniest thing about it is that it was all just what she fantasized his penis was like. She had no facts to back any of it up. The best evidence we have shows that it was more than likely surgery on his backside, not his dangly bits. |
Domenic Pasqua
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, April 11, 2004 - 11:09 pm: | |
I just finished reading Ms. Cornwall's book. I found it very interesting. I believe the paintings being the evidence is very suggestive at best and will not argue what they suggest. If Sickert is JTR the paintings are portraits of the murders he committed. I believe Ms. Cornwall makes a compelling case with regards to the watermarks and the letters. I'm surprised the discussion does not address the letters. I agree that more of the letters are probably genuine, from JTR, then currently believed. Ms. Cornwall makes I believe a correct point that a person can vary there handwriting. As a skilled painter it would be very easy for Sickert.
With regards to the psycho babble. I do not remember a profiler solving a case and coming up with a person no one suspected. Most info is after the fact and how a person (or suspect) fits a profile.
And since Bundy's name has been mentioned. I also read book about Bundy who from all accounts was an extreme bright, handsome and friendly person while he wasn't killing you. Who is to say the JTR was not the same type of person. Ms. Cornwall believes he was and his name was William Sickert. We will never know for sure but I feel Ms. Cornwall's theory is a compelling one. Just because he is a famous artist doesn't mean he wasn't killing people on the side. |
Frank van Oploo
Inspector
Username: Franko
Post Number: 268
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Monday, April 12, 2004 - 5:31 pm: | |
Even if Walter Sickert feared that he could be tied to one or two letters on the basis of his fingerprints, there still weren’t any fingerprints to tie him to any of the crime scenes.
This alone would have been reason enough not to get panicked. And being as interested in the case as he was, he would undoubtedly have known that he wasn’t the only one writing such letters (or does Mark mean to say that he was?), which means that he could have hidden behind that very fact in the unlikely case the police were able to find the person whose fingerprints matched those they had found. As they hadn’t suspected Sickert before, that would have been like searching for a needle in a haystack. The alleged meeting with Macnaghten would not have been the smart thing to do.
So, neither panicking nor reassuring was needed for Walter Sickert. |
Glenn L Andersson
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 1500
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Monday, April 12, 2004 - 6:26 pm: | |
Mark Starr,
You obviously didn't understand my post, although I very carefully tried to point certain things out.
"There is more than one profiler in the world. In fact, there are many. They do not all agree with each other."
I agree. And that is why I mentioned three -- all who have come to the same result (for what it's worth). FBI came to other conclusions than the ones you say they did and therefore you made a factual error. I just wanted to make that clear. If you want to refer to something, make sure you've got the facts correct. Why is this so hard to understand? This has nothing to do with who does the most fitting psychological personality evaluation; the meanings will always be divided about that. Of course different profilers can reach different conclusions, but I couldn't care less about which profiler is right or wrong in that regards.
Fact remains, Douglas and FBI gives Jack a diagnosis complete different from the one you say they do, and that was the real issue in my objections, since you tried to use them as a support for yours and Cornwell's Sickert theory in an incorrect way. Feel free to use other sources, though, that may fit your reasoning.
Domenic,
I partly agree with you, but the relevance of profilers -- or whether they ever have solved a case or not -- was not the issue here.
It could very well be that the Ripper was a Bundy-like character and fitting Cornwell's psycho profile on Sickert (although I personally find it quite unlikely), but that was not the point of the discussion.
All the best
Glenn Gustaf Lauritz Andersson
Crime historian, Sweden |
Donald Souden
Inspector
Username: Supe
Post Number: 208
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, April 12, 2004 - 8:03 pm: | |
Mark,
I don't wish to get unduly personal nor disparage your anecdote, but since you brought it up I will mention that I think it provides interesting insights to your case against Walter Sickert.
First of all, it is arguing without factual basis to assert you are the only poster to have encountered Ted Bundy. After all, there are many posters in North America and Ted traveled extensively. Without really trying, I've crossed paths with at least six murderers. I don't include Bundy on the list, but someone may yet tell me I met him.
That brings up your next assertion. In fact, you don't really know that it was Bundy whom you met. With only a vague description still in your memory you were told it was Bundy; it is a good possibility, given what you know, but it remains no more than that.
And, without casting any doubts on your veracity, how do we know that what you say is true? Could you not have made up the story about being told you'd met Bundy as something akin to a hoax letter or an attempt at an explanation why you were in the same place at roughly the same time a woman was murdered? And if the anecdote is not true, might it not even be proof of your own complicity in those deaths? No, I don't think that is the case, but you seem to have no compunction imputing all that to Walter Sickert.
You have problems in presenting your arguments and several of those problems were exposed in your anecdote. In essence, possibilities are not "conclusive proof" and until you understand the difference your posts are examples of empty verbiage.
Don.
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Mark Starr
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - 5:11 am: | |
Hi Rosemary,
Grateful for MD. Eager to see Bedroom Study. Who is X? Need info on discovery, provenance. Stains ink or blood, red or black? Credit 4U?
Regards,
Mark Starr |
Natalie Severn
Chief Inspector
Username: Severn
Post Number: 664
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - 6:55 pm: | |
Mark Starr,What"s happened over Emily Dimmock?We haven"t had the denouement yet.Or have you tired of playing judge and jury to Walter Sickert and turned tease?
Natalie |
Mark Starr
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - 9:00 pm: | |
No, Natalie. I have not forgotten about Emily Dimmock. But she and you will have to wait a bit before Walter Sickert is brought to justice for that crime. Your genuine interest in what I have to say about that case is deeply moving. But suddenly, for the past few days, I have much bigger fish to fry.
And so I will take a breather from these boards, and pick up Emily someday where I left her.
If I do get a moment free, I will comment on the exchange between Sickert and Mcnaughten that Donald McCormick reported in his book, and Rumbelow discussed in his book. For once, Christopher T George had a good point. Well, it really wasn't his point. It was a point by Melvin Harris -- to whom George referred me. Harris convinced me that McCormick was untrustworthy -- which is not the same thing as being wrong or even unjustifiably speculative. Consequently, I want no part of what McCormick had to say, especially when, in the case of the exchange between Sicket and Mcnaughten, McCormick cites only an anonymous informant who he never named later. So out goes the entire Sickert-Mcnaughten exchange. I want nothing to do with it if its source is possibly dishonest, and I will not cite it any more.
Undoubtedly, the furies will immediately start picking apart my past posts to see how this about-face affects my other arguments. But they will be in for a disappointment. Because the alleged meeting always posed a difficult if not impossible question for me: why would Walter Sickert have taken such an insane risk to have met with Mcnaughten. And my answer was that Sickert was insane. Sickert was indeed a manipulative psychopathic serial killer, absolutely no doubt about that -- but he was not dumb. So I am now delighted that I do not have to answer that question anymore, not even to myself.
Of course, if you have nothing to write about while I am gone, you could always taken on Tommy Nilsson.
Regards,
Mark Starr
A P.S. to Domenic Pasqua, who wrote: "I believe Ms. Cornwall makes a compelling case with regards to the watermarks and the letters. I'm surprised the discussion does not address the letters."
Hi Domenic. You might want to read all the posts on this thread, beginning with mine on March 14. Arrivederci. |
RosemaryO'Ryan
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - 3:06 pm: | |
Dear Mr Starr,
I now rate you and Bullwinkle...neck and neck!But, still I see the finishing post a long ways off.
You must have patience in this matter...I promise that you will meet Lazarus HIMSELF upon the publication of David Radka's "AR" (an adventure into the invention of the ahistorical ludibricum). All we need now are persons to play Matthew, Luke, and John...and not forgetting the Messiah!
Rosey:-) |
Kitty
Police Constable
Username: Kitty
Post Number: 5
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, September 18, 2004 - 8:41 pm: | |
Dear Mr. Starr,
I have had a glimpse of your concerns and it seems you are completely misguided on all counts. Sickert is simply a wonderful artist and a very special person, who is no killer. Cornwell's interest is batty and eccentric, like her ideas. Like all works of fiction or speculative analysis her work on Sickert says much about her, and nothing about her subject. The fact that she is capible of character assassination is a flaw and has damaged her career- probably irrevocably.
I think you're out on your own there. You seem it. |
Tommy Nilsson
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, September 20, 2004 - 3:15 am: | |
Mr Sickert was right. It was almost safe.
They can not see and if they do, well, they will not believe it. Let´s see how far I can go.
Tommy Nilsson
PS And no, Mark is not alone out there. |
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