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Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Message Boards » Books, Films and Other Media » Non-Fiction Books » Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed (Cornwell, 2002) » Cornwell Ignoring Eyewitnesses « Previous Next »

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Richard Lawrence
Unregistered guest
Posted on Wednesday, May 28, 2003 - 11:38 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I recently read Cornwell's book, and her case was about as inadequate as I expected after seeing her on TV. She has to spend a lot of her time countering the obvious evidence against her theories. For example, she has} to explain the widely varying handwriting in the "Ripper" letters, since her theory is that Sickert wrote most of them. And she has to explain the accusations of adultery and illegitimate children made against Sickert, since her theory is that he was impotent. Etc.

I think many of her arguments in these areas are weak, but at least she is addressing the evidence in those instances. However, what really surprised me was a couple of glaring omissions, where she doesn't even mention important evidence that could be considered damaging to her case. Specifically, I'm referring to the eyewitness reports from Israel Schwartz and George Hutchinson. As far as I noticed, she said absolutely nothing about either witness or the content of their testimony.

One of Cornwell's theories is that Sickert could dress up in disguises because of his experience as an actor, which misled witnesses. But anyone who has ever worked with greasepaint, wigs, etc., knows that while they may be effective with an audience viewing the scene at some distance, they are much less convincing up close. Hutchinson's testimony indicates that he got a very close look at a man who went home with Mary Kelly, but there is no suggestion that he noticed any makeup, fake mustache, etc. Since the man he saw looked nothing like Sickert, this is a strike against Cornwell's theories. One would expect her to offer some sort of counter-argument, as she does for other evidence. Instead, she seems to simply ignore it.

Schwartz's testimony is even harder to reconcile with Cornwell's theories. He claims to have seen a man assaulting Liz Stride just before her murder. This was almost certainly the man who killed her (regardless of whether that man was also JtR). But an assault of the type witnessed by Schwartz is entirely contrary to Cornwell's theory that the Ripper cunningly slit the throats of his victims from behind as they prepared for sex. Once again she needs to deal with this evidence, and she says nothing.

These are just two instances that stuck out for me, but I wonder what other significant evidence Cornwell may have ignored. I don't expect her to deal with every scrap (which is essentially impossible), but I see ignoring major eyewitness testimony as a major blow to her credibility.

Does anyone see an excuse for this? Or on the other side, any other glaring omissions that I didn't notice?
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Christopher T George
Inspector
Username: Chrisg

Post Number: 157
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Thursday, May 29, 2003 - 2:37 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi Richard:

Could we simply attribute the fact that Ms. Cornwell's appears to ignore important pieces of evidence in the case to tunnel vision? In fact it is possible to see the same phenomenon in a number of authors who favor a suspect. Any evidence that does not fit their case is ignored.

Best regards

Chris George
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Brian W. Schoeneman
Inspector
Username: Deltaxi65

Post Number: 271
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Thursday, May 29, 2003 - 5:06 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Richard and Chris,

Actually, ignoring the eyewitness testimony isn't an entirely bad thing to do. Eyewitness testimony, even coming from such widely cited sources like Schwartz and Hutchinson, is often unreliable. Ignoring it fits in with her attempt to use "modern forensic methods" to solve the case.

I am now going to go put a bullet in my head for defending Cornwell.

B

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Mark Andrew Pardoe
Detective Sergeant
Username: Picapica

Post Number: 70
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Thursday, May 29, 2003 - 6:34 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I've always considered Mr Hutchinson's testimony as twaddle; it's just too good. Remembering how bad the street lighting was, old Hutchinson must have had the eyesight a cat would envy.

No Hutchinson was up to no good (having a quick goz through other people's windows for a little bit of "relief" I'd wager) and had been spotted by another witness. Thus he had to come up with story to explain is presence.



Cheers, Mark
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Caroline Anne Morris
Detective Sergeant
Username: Caz

Post Number: 115
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Friday, May 30, 2003 - 5:32 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi Brian,

I didn't see your common sense words as 'defending' Cornwell. I mean, if Liz Stride wasn't a ripper victim, Schwartz's testimony becomes irrelevant. Likewise, some Cornwell critics are happy to entertain the idea that Mary Kelly may not have been a ripper victim, which would make Hutchinson's reliability or otherwise equally irrelevant.

IMHO there are other, far more important factors, that make Cornwell's work on the case, and the conclusions she draws from it, hard to fathom or take seriously. I could understand if it was the publisher's decision to lure unsuspecting readers in with 'Case Closed', but there appears to be no excuse for Cornwell assuming what she does about Sickert's fistula, or claiming on radio that the paper evidence would have got Sickert into court (except, perhaps, on charges of hoaxing a JtR letter and wasting police time - hardly hanging offences though).

Love,

Caz
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Christopher T George
Inspector
Username: Chrisg

Post Number: 165
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Friday, May 30, 2003 - 3:22 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi, Caz:

Some might say, heretical though this might be to say, that Wally Sickert could have been had up in court for being a lousy artist. blush

Chris
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Richard Lawrence
Unregistered guest
Posted on Friday, May 30, 2003 - 12:32 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I want to explain more clearly why I think it is critical to Cornwell's case that she deal with the testimony of Israel Schwartz. Cornwell has several particular theories about the Ripper crimes. Schwartz's testimony is especially relevant to some of these theories.

One of Cornwell's key theories is that most of the numerous letters claiming to be from the killer are genuine. This theory is critical to her identification of Sickert as Jack the Ripper, because her best forensic evidence comes from the letters. (No weapon is available to be tested, forensic samples were not taken from the crime scenes, the bodies have decomposed, and most of the autopsy notes are missing.) It is on one of these letters that she found mitochondrial DNA that was matched to similar DNA that might be from Sickert. If the killer did not actually write most of the letters, then she has no forensic connection between Sickert and the murders.

Some of the letters include claims that clearly imply that the letter-writer killed Elizabeth Stride. Most importantly, the famous "saucy Jacky" postcard includes such an implication. If JtR did not kill Stride, then this postcard is almost certainly a fake.

The postcard, along with the earlier "Dear Boss" letter, contains many phrases ("dear boss," "ha ha," etc.) that are imitated in later letters, including the use of the name "Jack the Ripper." It is unlikely that the real killer would imitate a fake letter-writer, so many of the later letters can only be considered real if the first two are real. Therefore, if JtR didn't kill Stride, these first two letters and many of the later letters are almost certainly fakes. And if the letters are fakes, then no amount of DNA on them can connect Sickert to the actual murders. If anything, connecting him to the letters would be evidence that he was not JtR. At worst, he would be a demented letter-forger.

This chain of reasoning makes Schwartz's testimony crucial for Cornwell. Other theorists can dismiss Stride as a JtR victim, thereby making Schwartz irrelevant, but Cornwell cannot. And Schwartz offers highly relevant testimony regarding Stride's murder. Schwartz claimed to be an eyewitness to an attack on Stride that was almost certainly the prelude to her murder. Of all the eyewitness testimony for any of the murders, this is among the closest in time to the probable time of the murder and the only case where an assault was actually seen.

Unfortunately, the details related by Schwartz are all problematic for Cornwell's theories. His description of the man attacking Stride does not resemble Sickert. His description of a struggle contradicts Cornwell's theory that the killer struck from behind without warning. His suggestion of an accomplice, as well as the fact that the assault occurred in front of at least two people, contradicts Cornwell's theory that Sickert worked alone and with great secrecy.

Worst of all for Cornwell, some aspects of Schwartz’s testimony, along with some other differences between Stride's murder and the others (for example, the lack of abdominal mutilation), suggest that Stride may in fact have not been killed by the same person as the other victims. In which case Cornwell's entire case against Sickert falls apart. So it is crucial for her to deal with his testimony, so that she can argue against his accuracy or relevance, or at least explain the discrepancies with her theories. Appallingly, she decided to ignore him instead.
}
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Richard Lawrence
Unregistered guest
Posted on Friday, May 30, 2003 - 10:26 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Brian,

I agree that eyewitness testimony can be unreliable. However, it is still an important form of evidence, and I don't think that ignoring it is the appropriate response. Neither does Cornwell, apparently, because she directly addresses eyewitness testimony in other instances in her book. For example, she discusses the testimony related to the Chapman and Eddowes murders. Her theory about Sickert using acting experience to develop disguises is designed specifically to rebut witness testimony that describes men who did not look like Sickert. But when it comes to the witness accounts that are potentially the most damaging to her theories, she mysteriously fails to mention them.

Caroline,

Please keep in mind that my point is not to defend a particular theory of the crime, but to note the credibility-damaging way Cornwell deals with evidence. One of Cornwell's own theories is that most of the "Ripper letters" were actually written by the Ripper. At least one of these includes a claim to have committed both murders in the "double event," and Cornwell accepts Stride as a Ripper victim. So while it is entirely possible that someone else killed Stride, such a theory doesn't explain why Cornwell ignores Schwartz's testimony. He isn't irrelevant to her theories of the crimes. Similarly, Cornwell accepts Kelly as victim of the same killer as all the rest, so she can't ignore Hutchinson's testimony on the grounds of a theory that someone else killed Kelly.

I agree that her arguments are deficient in other ways as well. But it is one thing to offer bad arguments or jump to conclusions, and another to simply ignore important evidence. The former may simply indicate excessive zeal or poor reasoning skills. The latter smacks of intentional deception of the reader. And I see it as especially egregious that she deals in detail with witness testimony when it supports her case or can be explained away easily (e.g., Elizabeth Long's testimony), but fails to even mention the witnesses when they are harder for her to explain (e.g., Schwartz).
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Gary Alan Weatherhead
Police Constable
Username: Garyw

Post Number: 8
Registered: 5-2003
Posted on Wednesday, June 04, 2003 - 6:32 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Dear Mark and All

You stated "I've always considered Mr. Hutchinson's statement to be twaddle,..."
I couldn't agree more. Huchinson was spotted hanging around the area of the murder with no reasonable explanation as to the purpose of his presence. I have thought Hutchinson to be a witness with absolutely no credibility since I first read his statement some 26 or so years ago.

It is interesting from a legal standpoint that he came forward after the inquest when he would not likely be examined under sworn oath and after he knew he had been spotted.

Best Regards
Gary
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Caroline Anne Morris
Detective Sergeant
Username: Caz

Post Number: 119
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Friday, June 06, 2003 - 4:27 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi Richard,

You make some very valid points. And you are right - if Cornwell's theory depends upon Sickert killing Stride, yes, she should have explained precisely how she sees all the known details of this murder fitting in - or else produced a good agument for why they don't.

Although I agree with the points others have made about Hutchinson's unreliability, perhaps Cornwell should at least have dealt with this witness, along with any others that feature prominently in the case.

Love,

Caz
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Brian W. Schoeneman
Inspector
Username: Deltaxi65

Post Number: 277
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Friday, June 06, 2003 - 7:17 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Richard,

As Caz said, you make some great points.

I guess it comes down to the fact that Cornwell just wrote a poor book, based on a poor theory, with poor fact checking and poor analysis.

B
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Lynn Carr
Unregistered guest
Posted on Monday, June 30, 2003 - 6:16 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

"I guess it comes down to the fact that Cornwell just wrote a poor book, based on a poor theory, with poor fact checking and poor analysis." [Brian]

And that's a loud AMEN.

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Kim
Unregistered guest
Posted on Saturday, June 18, 2005 - 6:36 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I think the real issue here is not how correct she is. Cornwell is a fiction writer with no historical background, and to date has given no reasonable explanation as to why she spent 6 million dollars on something she never even thought about before 2001.

Cornwell's book is also completely unreliable in an historical context. Not only is it full of speculation and difficult to follow, but rather than analyse all evidence, she does not even mention other main suspets.

Cornwell's absolute condemnation of Sickert leads me to believe that her book cannot be reliably considered as an historical work on this topic.

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