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CNN Live Today

Jack the Ripper Case Closed?

Aired November 15, 2002 - 10:26   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: They were some of the world's most gruesome cases, a string of serial murders that terrorized London in the 1880s. The culprit played a cat-and-mouse game with authorities and was known only as Jack the Ripper.
The case has been one of the great mysteries of modern times, So who better to investigate it, than one of the top mystery writers of our generation. Bestselling author Patricia Cornwell enlisted modern- day forensic techniques to paint a portrait of a killer, a meticulous look at the crimes and the man that she believes is Jack or was Jack the Ripper.

And Ms. Cornwell joining us right here in Atlanta. And aren't we pleased about that? Good morning.

PATRICIA CORNWELL, AUTHOR, "PORTRAIT OF A KILLER": Thank you.

ZAHN: Glad to have you with us.

CORNWELL: It's great to be here.

ZAHN: Funny thing how this book kind of came to be. An interesting trip on the way to investigating your latest case for a Cornwell (ph) novel.

CORNWELL: Yes. I think that things happen that way, when you don't expect them. And if you -- it's not anything I would have ever set out to do, but a conversation with the top person at Scotland Yard, while I happened to be there, led me into discussing this case, which I knew nothing about. When we got to the suspects, the evidence was so thin, if not ridiculous, for the theories that have evolved about who did it.

I said, well, look, has anybody ever applied modern investigative or forensic techniques to looking at this very old evidence, which has still survived, and the answer was no. So I set about to look into that, mainly out of curiosity, maybe for fictional purposes, and 'lo and behold, I ended up on this trail and it led me in a direction and there was no turning back.

ZAHN: I want to go right to your chief suspect, Walter Richard Sickert, a real man, an artist in the 1880s. Why him? Why do you believe so strongly that he was Jack the Ripper?

CORNWELL: Well, you know, Sickert himself told a lot of very strange stories and anecdotes about Jack the Ripper throughout his very long life, claiming to have painted a picture of him, claiming to have lived in the same lodging house where he had been. He was obsessed with the crimes. He painted some very violent works of art that degraded and mutilated or violated women.

And interestingly enough, he painted a picture called "Jack the Ripper's Bedroom" in 1908, which depicts the very bedroom he was living in, that Sickert was living in at the time. But there's so much circumstantial evidence about his own life, and then you combine it with very skilled forensic analysis we did of the Jack the Ripper letters, which have paper matches, watermark matches, artistic mediums, such as etching ground paint, you know, etching pens, drawings, that all point the finger right back to Walter, Sickert, including a mitochondrial CNA -- CNN would say -- a mitochondrial...

ZAHN: Yes, when you say DNA...

CORNWELL: ... DNA sequence that is, you know, is the same as -- that what we found in Walter Sickert letters, which is just another layer. Of course, that's not conclusive, but it all adds up to quite a picture.

ZAHN: Well, let me ask you about this, so you actually took DNA testing, as if you were trying to solve a crime today?

CORNWELL: Right.

ZAHN: What actual DNA was available from Walter Sickert and from the crime that makes it a match for you, besides the letters?

CORNWELL: Well, thanks to modern technology, what the forensic team was able to do, that I brought over to London, is the British government allowed us to go in and to deal with the original Jack the Ripper letters; there's over 200 of them. And they, very skillfully, swabbed the backs of stamps and envelopes, by removing them, unsealing them. And then we went to the Sickert archives, did the same on envelopes and stamps from his letters and also from a number of other archival sources and other people.

And we did not get the nuclear DNA, which is what you hear about in court. But this is 114 years old, in some cases. But we did get -- Bodey Laboratories did get mitochondrial, which is -- I call it a compass needle pointing the right direction. But it's not conclusive, but it's fascinating that we got a single donor or unique sequence off a ripper letter and these same genetic locations are found in two Sickert letters, another Ripper letter, and we have still 50 more samples that are being tested, as we speak. So that's, if anything else, it's the oldest DNA evidence ever examined in a criminal case.

ZAHN: The whole idea of Jack the Ripper has kind of taken on a larger-than-life thing. It's part of fiction, it's part of our culture. But you make the point in this book, these were very gruesome and terrible and mutilating murders that took place, and I want to go ahead and answer our quiz question for our viewers, and you're going to help us with that, in terms of how many murders he's actually credited for or they think he did, but how many you believe. So the answer here, how many people did he actually kill? CORNWELL: The answer is we don't know, but serial killers don't just start and stop. They keep going, until they are apprehended or are dead or they just become so old that, you know, that they don't have the strength or even that sort of energy to do it anymore. Sickert died at the age of 81. He could have killed ten, 20, 30, 40, we don't know.

ZAHN: But in the book, you say at least seven?

CORNWELL: Well, actually, I have more than. I probably, roughly, sketch out a possible 10 or so. These cases, many of them don't exist anymore. There are things I got from original newspapers were the modus operandi and the signature of the crimes is amazingly similar. And there are confessional bits in the Ripper letters that say -- that refer to these cases that were never attributed to Jack the Ripper and should have been.

ZAHN: Was he a suspect at the time?

CORNWELL: He was not at the time. It developed in later years. And I think, primarily, because of his -- you know, the violent artwork that he began to do in the early 1900's, and also his own very bizarre stories that he kept telling about Jack the Ripper, which is not unusual. These people will push it to the edge, the cat-and-mouse game, the "catch me, if you can," that the Ripper said repeatedly in his letters. He said, you have never caught me, and you never will, and he was right, during his life. But...

ZAHN: But you think you caught him now?

CORNWELL: I know it was Jack the Ripper. I mean, I think, most people will -- when they look at the evidence, know that he did write -- that Sickert wrote a number of these letters really more than a lot of people would assume. So you have to then say, well, if he wrote these confessional letters that are violent and full of games, how can you then say he had -- he did not commit the crimes?

ZAHN: Have you taken this, your case as you see it, back to Scotland Yard and showed it to...

CORNWELL: I have.

ZAHN: And what was their reaction?

CORNWELL: I have shown it to everybody. The investigator who originally spoke to me, John Grieve, opinion was -- with not even as much evidence as I have now, he said that he would have put him under surveillance, got search warrants, and even if nothing else had turned up, he would have sent him before the queen's prosecutor.

At the end of the day, including now, the jury would have to decide. But I believe Walter Sickert definitely would go to court. And back in his days, I really think he would have been hanged.

ZAHN: Does he have any ancestors that have a problem with you coming out and saying it's him? CORNWELL: He has no blood line ancestors -- descendants that anybody knows of. But he has all these Ripperologists. He has two non-bloodline nephews. He has art devotees who I'm not high on their list as being popular at the moment.

ZAHN: OK. And quickly, for escape (ph), our (inaudible) fans, next time?

CORNWELL: She's back. She'll be back. I'm working on that. She's been away for two years and she's going ot come back with a -- like a dragon.

ZAHN: "Like a dragon," that's your clue. Well, we look forward to that, look forward to this book, as well. It's out there right now. Patricia Cornwell, "Portrait of a Killer."

CORNWELL: Thank you very much.

ZAHN: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Good luck on the book tour.

CORNWELL: My pleasure. Thanks.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired November 15, 2002 - 10:26   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: They were some of the world's most gruesome cases, a string of serial murders that terrorized London in the 1880s. The culprit played a cat-and-mouse game with authorities and was known only as Jack the Ripper.
The case has been one of the great mysteries of modern times, So who better to investigate it, than one of the top mystery writers of our generation. Bestselling author Patricia Cornwell enlisted modern- day forensic techniques to paint a portrait of a killer, a meticulous look at the crimes and the man that she believes is Jack or was Jack the Ripper.

And Ms. Cornwell joining us right here in Atlanta. And aren't we pleased about that? Good morning.

PATRICIA CORNWELL, AUTHOR, "PORTRAIT OF A KILLER": Thank you.

ZAHN: Glad to have you with us.

CORNWELL: It's great to be here.

ZAHN: Funny thing how this book kind of came to be. An interesting trip on the way to investigating your latest case for a Cornwell (ph) novel.

CORNWELL: Yes. I think that things happen that way, when you don't expect them. And if you -- it's not anything I would have ever set out to do, but a conversation with the top person at Scotland Yard, while I happened to be there, led me into discussing this case, which I knew nothing about. When we got to the suspects, the evidence was so thin, if not ridiculous, for the theories that have evolved about who did it.

I said, well, look, has anybody ever applied modern investigative or forensic techniques to looking at this very old evidence, which has still survived, and the answer was no. So I set about to look into that, mainly out of curiosity, maybe for fictional purposes, and 'lo and behold, I ended up on this trail and it led me in a direction and there was no turning back.

ZAHN: I want to go right to your chief suspect, Walter Richard Sickert, a real man, an artist in the 1880s. Why him? Why do you believe so strongly that he was Jack the Ripper?

CORNWELL: Well, you know, Sickert himself told a lot of very strange stories and anecdotes about Jack the Ripper throughout his very long life, claiming to have painted a picture of him, claiming to have lived in the same lodging house where he had been. He was obsessed with the crimes. He painted some very violent works of art that degraded and mutilated or violated women.

And interestingly enough, he painted a picture called "Jack the Ripper's Bedroom" in 1908, which depicts the very bedroom he was living in, that Sickert was living in at the time. But there's so much circumstantial evidence about his own life, and then you combine it with very skilled forensic analysis we did of the Jack the Ripper letters, which have paper matches, watermark matches, artistic mediums, such as etching ground paint, you know, etching pens, drawings, that all point the finger right back to Walter, Sickert, including a mitochondrial CNA -- CNN would say -- a mitochondrial...

ZAHN: Yes, when you say DNA...

CORNWELL: ... DNA sequence that is, you know, is the same as -- that what we found in Walter Sickert letters, which is just another layer. Of course, that's not conclusive, but it all adds up to quite a picture.

ZAHN: Well, let me ask you about this, so you actually took DNA testing, as if you were trying to solve a crime today?

CORNWELL: Right.

ZAHN: What actual DNA was available from Walter Sickert and from the crime that makes it a match for you, besides the letters?

CORNWELL: Well, thanks to modern technology, what the forensic team was able to do, that I brought over to London, is the British government allowed us to go in and to deal with the original Jack the Ripper letters; there's over 200 of them. And they, very skillfully, swabbed the backs of stamps and envelopes, by removing them, unsealing them. And then we went to the Sickert archives, did the same on envelopes and stamps from his letters and also from a number of other archival sources and other people.

And we did not get the nuclear DNA, which is what you hear about in court. But this is 114 years old, in some cases. But we did get -- Bodey Laboratories did get mitochondrial, which is -- I call it a compass needle pointing the right direction. But it's not conclusive, but it's fascinating that we got a single donor or unique sequence off a ripper letter and these same genetic locations are found in two Sickert letters, another Ripper letter, and we have still 50 more samples that are being tested, as we speak. So that's, if anything else, it's the oldest DNA evidence ever examined in a criminal case.

ZAHN: The whole idea of Jack the Ripper has kind of taken on a larger-than-life thing. It's part of fiction, it's part of our culture. But you make the point in this book, these were very gruesome and terrible and mutilating murders that took place, and I want to go ahead and answer our quiz question for our viewers, and you're going to help us with that, in terms of how many murders he's actually credited for or they think he did, but how many you believe. So the answer here, how many people did he actually kill? CORNWELL: The answer is we don't know, but serial killers don't just start and stop. They keep going, until they are apprehended or are dead or they just become so old that, you know, that they don't have the strength or even that sort of energy to do it anymore. Sickert died at the age of 81. He could have killed ten, 20, 30, 40, we don't know.

ZAHN: But in the book, you say at least seven?

CORNWELL: Well, actually, I have more than. I probably, roughly, sketch out a possible 10 or so. These cases, many of them don't exist anymore. There are things I got from original newspapers were the modus operandi and the signature of the crimes is amazingly similar. And there are confessional bits in the Ripper letters that say -- that refer to these cases that were never attributed to Jack the Ripper and should have been.

ZAHN: Was he a suspect at the time?

CORNWELL: He was not at the time. It developed in later years. And I think, primarily, because of his -- you know, the violent artwork that he began to do in the early 1900's, and also his own very bizarre stories that he kept telling about Jack the Ripper, which is not unusual. These people will push it to the edge, the cat-and-mouse game, the "catch me, if you can," that the Ripper said repeatedly in his letters. He said, you have never caught me, and you never will, and he was right, during his life. But...

ZAHN: But you think you caught him now?

CORNWELL: I know it was Jack the Ripper. I mean, I think, most people will -- when they look at the evidence, know that he did write -- that Sickert wrote a number of these letters really more than a lot of people would assume. So you have to then say, well, if he wrote these confessional letters that are violent and full of games, how can you then say he had -- he did not commit the crimes?

ZAHN: Have you taken this, your case as you see it, back to Scotland Yard and showed it to...

CORNWELL: I have.

ZAHN: And what was their reaction?

CORNWELL: I have shown it to everybody. The investigator who originally spoke to me, John Grieve, opinion was -- with not even as much evidence as I have now, he said that he would have put him under surveillance, got search warrants, and even if nothing else had turned up, he would have sent him before the queen's prosecutor.

At the end of the day, including now, the jury would have to decide. But I believe Walter Sickert definitely would go to court. And back in his days, I really think he would have been hanged.

ZAHN: Does he have any ancestors that have a problem with you coming out and saying it's him? CORNWELL: He has no blood line ancestors -- descendants that anybody knows of. But he has all these Ripperologists. He has two non-bloodline nephews. He has art devotees who I'm not high on their list as being popular at the moment.

ZAHN: OK. And quickly, for escape (ph), our (inaudible) fans, next time?

CORNWELL: She's back. She'll be back. I'm working on that. She's been away for two years and she's going ot come back with a -- like a dragon.

ZAHN: "Like a dragon," that's your clue. Well, we look forward to that, look forward to this book, as well. It's out there right now. Patricia Cornwell, "Portrait of a Killer."

CORNWELL: Thank you very much.

ZAHN: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Good luck on the book tour.

CORNWELL: My pleasure. Thanks.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com