Talk:Portrait of a Killer

Latest comment: 3 years ago by Valetude in topic Male-envy?

comment edit

I don't know if this comment fits in the article, but I've read the new book (2nd edition?) and found it absolutely terrible. For the first time in my life I felt that I should retrun the book to the bookstore for a full refund.

For what it is worth, she seems to show that the paper used to write some of the letters was available to Sickert. But there is a long way from that to saying that Sickert is J the R. 205.147.242.4 14:54, 15 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

What does this mean? "The fact that she invested a reported 1 million dollars during her 'research' would precipitate a well known figure being named as the guilty party in her work." Rich Farmbrough 11:00 27 August 2006 (GMT).

Critics point out... edit

This entire page is crying out for citations. Which critics mentioned these things? When?--Nalvage 20:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Personaly, I feel that maybe there's more to this book than meets the eye. In fact, Sickert's own wife once admitted that there was no real way of telling where her husband was on any given day.24.79.5.32 22:06, 30 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Patricia Cornwell seems to have gone completely nuts. Her promotion of this tosh seems to coincide with the decline in quality of her Scarpetta books - as I recall she claimed that negative reviews of those were also a 'conspiracy' against her! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.145.252.66 (talk) 12:50, 29 January 2010 (UTC)Reply

DNA Evidence edit

Something should be added concerning the fact that in interviews preceding and immediately after publication, Cornwell made misleading statements about her case being supported by DNA, while in the book itself being forced to admit that the DNA "evidence" was inconclusive at best, meaningless at worse.

The Paper Match edit

Where did she say this? This article is useless if it appears to be entirely hearsay. (Saboater 13:53, 31 May 2007 (UTC))Reply

Originally it appeared on Cornwell's webpage as a follow-up to the hardcover edition of Portrait of a Killer. Supposedly the paperback edition contains update information, so perhaps the paper evidence made it to that version.

It is proved, but you canot accept the truth. she did prove it, and he is the "jack" killer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.101.196.2 (talk) 13:07, 5 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

Requested move edit

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:02, 17 March 2012 (UTC)Reply



Portrait of a KillerPortrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper—Case Closed – I moved this page to its present title to eliminate the double hyphen from its previous one. User: Wahrmund has asked that the subtitle be restored. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:18, 10 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

Oppose, though not with any particular conviction, per Occam's Razor, entia non sunt multiplicanda .... The subtitle is not needed for disambiguation, presents a problem of typography (it is unpunctuated on the cover of the book), and works against no. 4 of the WP:CRITERIA. It's my impression (but no more) that this wiki does not generally use such subtitles, Twelfth Night, or What You Will redirects to Twelfth Night, Tolkein's story of Bilbo Baggins is at The Hobbit, not at The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, Martin Cruz Smith's Stalin's Ghost not only does not use its subtitle, it is not even mentioned in the article. But I don't feel strongly about it. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:54, 10 March 2012 (UTC)Reply
Hmm, is there something wrong with the proposed title? It's showed up looking pretty weird here. Or is there a bug in the template? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:16, 10 March 2012 (UTC)Reply
Comment - disambiguation may be needed, (reason A) there are so many other books entitled 'Portrait of a killer' (1) = Kazuo Koike & Ryoichi Ikegami 1990, (2) sv:Bo G. Erikson, Carl O. Löfman, Sari Sapir 1980; (3) Al Fulman 1968; (4) C. D. E. Francis - 1956; also(reason B) The full title Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed occurs more often than not. Why not just leave it? In ictu oculi (talk) 03:32, 11 March 2012 (UTC)Reply
Yes, quite right. The subtitle is not needed for disambiguation here at the moment, but I should have considered the wider picture. Opposition withdrawn, support per In octu oculi, preferably with that orthography. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:42, 11 March 2012 (UTC)Reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

New report of DNA research definitively identifying Aaron Kosminski as the Ripper edit

Today's Daily Mail reports that DNA research on evidence made available by a collector has definitively identified Jack the Ripper as Aaron Kosminski. Kosminski was a polish immigrant who had previously been suspected. Since the article is in advance of the release of a book about the DNA studies done, I thought it was worth a mention, but not a change. The article Jack the Ripper Unmaskedlays out a convincing case. SeorsaSeorsa (talk) 20:17, 8 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Requested move 30 September 2020 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) -- Calidum 19:42, 15 October 2020 (UTC)Reply



Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper—Case ClosedPortrait of a Killer – Per WP:SUBTITLE207.161.86.162 (talk) 03:34, 30 September 2020 (UTC)Relisting. —usernamekiran (talk) 03:41, 7 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 12:24, 30 September 2020 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Male-envy? edit

...if she were a man or British, her theory [of Sickert as the Ripper] would have been accepted.

But the British man who first proposed the theory has been universally dismissed as a fraud. Valetude (talk) 23:42, 16 March 2021 (UTC)Reply