Originally posted by Jackdaw
I would like to set a challenge to any so called "Ripperologist" out there who doubts that Patricia Cornwell was correct in her opinion that Walter Richard Sickert was in fact Jack the Ripper.

Beyond that, Cornwell says that Sickert painted several prostitutes in a way that resembled the photographs of the dead Ripper victims, but those photos were taken at the morgue, not the crime scene, and were published in books to which Sickert had access. He also painted these scenes two decades after the murders, and the women depicted are not necessarily dead. Yet what about "dried blood" on a Ripper letter turning out to be artist's medium? That still does not tie it to Sickert. Taking a stab with psychology, Cornwell believes the macabre paintings he did of menacing men sitting with murdered prostitutes is a reflection of his own crimes from two decades before, sublimated for a while to avoid attention. Cornwell leaves no room for the motive of simply being interested in bringing attention to his art by depicting sensational subject matter.

Cornwell admits that conclusive physical evidence is lacking at this time, but insists that the many links she has made between Sickert's life and the Ripper crimes just cannot be denied. He was a master of disguise, his initials match those on some of the Ripper letters, he had quirky handwriting (like Jack) and as a boy he had sketched naked and bound women. These are among the reasons why, she says, she has closed the case. But in fact, she has merely begged the question: She appears to have assumed Sickert is Jack and to have made the "right" facts align nicely with that thesis, thereby "proving" it. But she hasn't really proved anything. The records are incomplete, the remains are gone, the crime scenes have long since been contaminated, and evidence is missing or wiped away. Thanks to Cornwell, Sickert can be restored among the usual suspects, but she offers no scientific basis for tapping him as the infamous Red Jack.