Patricia Cornwell Ripper Letter

Patricia Cornwell in her 2002 book - Portrait Of A Killer.

Fuller's hypothesis that Sickert was the Ripper is based on the claims made by Florence Pash, a friend of Sickert's, who told

Fuller's mother Violet Overton Fuller, who in turn told her daughter, that Sickert knew the identity of the murderer and painted clues into some of his pictures. Also that the murders were connected to an illegitimate child of an unnamed member of the royal family. Cornwell, in her book, makes the claim that Sickert became a serial killer after Whistler, whom he idolised, went on honeymoon with his new bride, and the thought of Whistler been in love and enjoying sexual relations with a woman, was the catalyst that finally sent him over the edge. Cornwell also

If Sickert wrote any of the Ripper letters, it does not prove that he was the Ripper, for there is no evidence that any of the

Jack the Ripper letters were actually sent by the murderer.

Cornwell errors in assuming that an operation in Sickert's childhood left him with a malfunctioning penis. It is believed it was rectal, and not penile surgery that he underwent, and his sex life, by all accounts, remained unimpeded. Cornwell's book, though sensationalist and highly speculative, unfortunately suffers from the same oversights as Fuller's book, and employs selective facts and poor scholarship to support her case, and provides us with no real proof that

Sickert was Jack the Ripper. Cornwell it is said spent $4 million of her own money in an attempt to prove Sickert was the Ripper. There is some evidence that Sickert may not even have been in England at the time of the Whitechapel murders, as during the whole of September he may have been on holiday in France, a letter written by Ellen, Sickert's wife, to her brother in-law Dick Fisher dated 21

September, suggests that Walter had been in France for some weeks.

He was known in Johannesburg as the 'King of Pimps'. Lis started his criminal career in London, committing further crimes in New

York, South Africa, and South America. Silver was a cruel and sadistic pimp, racketeer, white slaver, burglar, rapist, and police informant. Van Onselen makes the following points.

Silver was in Whitechapel at the time of the Ripper murders for the birth of his daughter.

As a pimp and brothel keeper, he would have been familiar with the prostitutes working in the local area.

Jack the Ripper was known to write brazen letters to the papers. Silver was litigious, wrote bold letters to newspapers.

He also had bitter and violent relationships with women all his life.

Van Onselen believed Lis's attempt to conceal his presence in

England in the latter half of 1888, made him a plausible suspect. Unfortunately Van Onselen, offers us no real evidence Lis was actually in Whitechapel London in 1888, it is purely speculation. Joseph Lis, would have been 20 years of age at the time of the Whitechapel murders. He was executed as a spy in Poland in 1918. CLAREN CE SIMM

In 1992 an article appeared in the publication Weekly World

News in which widow 103 year old Betty Simm, described