Patricia Cornwell - Portrait Of A Killer - Jack The Ripper - Case Closed

We do know the behavior, and we know that psychopaths act without fear of consequences. They do not care about the suffering left in the aftermath of their violent storms. It doesn't bother a violent psychopath if his assassination of a president might damage the entire nation, if his killing spree might break the hearts of women who have lost their husbands and children who have lost their fathers. Sirhan Sirhan has been heard to boast in prison that he has become as famous as Bobby Kennedy. John Hinckley, Jr.'s failed attempt on Reagan's life catapulted the pudgy, unpopular loser into becoming a cover boy for every major magazine.

The psychopath's only palpable fear is that he will be caught. The rapist aborts his sexual assault when he hears someone unlocking the front door. Or maybe violence escalates and he kills both his victim and whoever is entering the house. There can be no witnesses. No matter how much violent psychopaths might taunt the police, the thought of captivity fills them with terror, and they will go to any length to avoid it. It is ironic that people who have such contempt for human life will desperately hold on to their own. They continue to thrive on their games, even on death row. They are determined to live and to the bitter end believe they can dodge death by lethal injection or cheat the electric chair.

The Ripper was the gamesman of all gamesmen. His murders, his clues and taunts to the press and the police, his antics - all were such fun. His greatest disillusionment must have come from realizing early on that his opponents were unskilled dolts. For the most part, Jack the Ripper played his games alone. He had no worthy contenders, and he boasted and taunted almost to the point of giving himself away. The Ripper wrote hundreds of letters to the police and the press. One of his favorite words was Fools - a word that was also a favorite of Oswald Sickert's. The Ripper letters contain dozens of Ha Ha's - the same annoying American laugh of James McNeill Whistler that Sickert must have heard hour after hour when he was working for the great Master.

From 1888 to the present day, the millions of people who have associated Jack the Ripper with mystery and murder undoubtedly have no clue that more than anything else, this infamous killer was a mocking, arrogant, spiteful, and sarcastic man who believed virtually everyone on earth was an "idiot" or a "fool." The Ripper hated the police, he loathed "filthy whores," and he was maniacal in his sarcastic, "funny little" communications with those desperate to catch him.

The Ripper's mockeries and utter indifference to his destruction 01 human life are evident in his letters, which begin in 1888 and end, as far as we know, in 1896. As I read and reread - more times than I can count - the some 250 Ripper letters that survive at the Public Record Office and the Corporation of London Records Office, I began to form a rather horrifying image of a furious, spiteful, and cunning child who was the master controller of a brilliant and talented adult. Jack the Ripper felt empowered only when he savaged people and tormented the authorities, and he got away with all of it for more than 114 years.

When I first began to go through the Ripper letters, I concurred with what the police and most people believe: Almost all of the letters are hoaxes or the communications of mentally unbalanced people. However, during my intensive research of Sickert and the way he expressed himself - and the way the Ripper expressed himself in so many of his alleged letters - my opinion changed. I now believe that the majority of the letters were written by the murderer. The Ripper's childish and hateful teases and mocking comments and taunts in his letters include:

"Ha Ha Ha"

"Catch me if you can" "It's a folly nice lark " "What a dance I am leading"

"Love, Jack the Ripper"

"Just to give you a little clue"

"I told her I was Jack the Ripper and I took my hat off"

"Hold on tight you cunning lot of coppers"

"good bye for the present From the Ripper and the dodger"

"Won't it be nice dear old Boss to have the good ole times once again"

"You might remember me if you try and think a little Ha Ha."

"I take great pleasure in giving you my whereabouts for the benefit of

the Scotland Yard boys"

"The police alias po-lice, think themselves devilish clever" "you donkeys, you double-faced asses"

"Be good enough to send a few of your clever policemen down here" "The police pass me close every day, and I shall pass one going to

post this." "Ha! Ha!"

"you made a mistake, if you thought I dident see you…" "the good old times once again" "I really wanted to play a little joke on you all but I haven't got enough

time left to let you play cat and mouse with me." "Au revoir, Boss." "a good Joke I played on them" "ta ta"

"Just a line to let you know that I love my work." "They look so clever and talk about being on the right track" "P.S. You can't trace me by this writing so its no use" "I think you all are asleep in Scotland Yard" "I am jack the ripper catch me if you can"

"I am now going to make my way to Paris and try my little games" "Oh, it was such a jolly job the last one." "Kisses"

"I am still at liberty… Ha, ha, ha!" "don't I laugh"

"I think I have been very good up to now"

"Yours truly, Mathematicus"

"Dear Boss… I was conversing with two or three of your men last

night"

"What fools the police are." "But they didnt search the one I was in I was looking at the police all

the Time."

"why I passed a policeman yestaday amp; he didnd take no notice of me." "The police now reckon my work a practical joke, well well Jacky's a

very practical joker ha ha ha" "I am very much amused" "I'm considered a very handsome Gentleman" "You see I am still knocking about. Ha. Ha" "you will have a job to catch me" "No use you're try in to catch me because it wont do" "You never caught me and you never will Ha Ha"

My father the lawyer used to say that you can tell a lot by what makes a person angry. A review of the 211 Ripper letters in the Public Record Office at Kew reveals that Jack the Ripper was intellectually arrogant. Even when he disguised his writing to look ignorant, illiterate, or crazy, he did not like to hear that he was. He couldn't resist reminding people he was literate by an occasional letter with perfect spelling, neat or beautiful script, and excellent vocabulary. As the Ripper protested more than once in communications that were increasingly ignored by the police and the press, "I ain't a maniac as you say I am to dam [sic] clever for you" and "Do you think I am mad? What a mistake you make."

In all likelihood, an illiterate cockney would not use the word "conundrum" or sign his letter "Mathematicus." In all likelihood, an ignorant brute would not refer to the people he has murdered as "victims" or describe mutilating a woman as giving her a "Caesarian." The Ripper also used vulgarities, such as "cunt," and worked hard to misspell,

mangle, or write in snarls. Then he mailed his trashy letters - "I have not got a stamp" - from Whitechapel, as if to imply that Jack the Ripper was a low-life resident of the slums. Few Whitechapel paupers could either read or write, and a large percentage of the population was foreign and did not speak English. Most people who misspell do so phonetically and consistently, and in some letters, the Ripper misspells the same word several different ways.

The repeated word "games" and much-used "ha ha"s were favorites of the American-born James McNeill Whistler, whose "ha! ha!" or "cackle," as Sickert called it, was infamous and was often described as a much-dreaded laugh that grated against the ear of the English. Whistler's "ha ha" could stop a dinner party conversation. It was enough of an announcement of his presence to make his enemies freeze or get up and leave. "Ha ha" was much more American than English, and one can only imagine how many times a day Sickert heard that irritating "ha ha" when he was with Whistler or in the Master's studio. One can read hundreds of letters written by Victorians and not see a single "ha ha," but the Ripper letters are filled with them.