The Camden Town Murder -
the case against Walter Sickert
In her documentary broadcast in the UK on 30 October 2002, Patricia Cornwell admits to having examined a painting by Walter Sickert (as opposed to a mass slaughter of many paintings as has been reported) in order to extract some of his DNA. She hoped to prove that not only was he Jack the Ripper but the Camden Town murderer as well.
Sickert lived in Camden and he painted a series of pictures called the Camden Town Murders, supposedly based on the Ripper victims. Another subject for many of his paintings was the Old Bedford Music Hall in Camden High Street of which I am sure Emily must have known.
Sickert lived close to the shadowy underworld that was Camden Town at that time and that was what fascinated and inspired him. He was living at No.6 Mornington Crescent in 1907, a stones throw from the Old Bedford Music Hall which he painted so often, and could not fail to have known of Emily's murder.
In 'The Ripper and the Royals' by Melvyn Fairclough he tells of the royal conspiracy theory surrounding Jack the Ripper. Walter Sickert features prominently but is not implicated in any of the horrific murders.
Miss Jean Overton Fuller in her work 'Sickert and the Ripper Crimes' recounts the
same story as told to her mother by Joseph Sickert, Walter Sickert's illegitimate
son - a conspiracy in which Walter Sickert was a leading figure and who killed the
last victim Mary Kelly to stop her revealing to the world that the Prince of Wales
had fathered a daughter by a catholic.
To the best of my research Sickert had no connection with Emily before or during her association with Bert Shaw. Bert and Emily lived quite a distance from Sickert's circle of influence and his name is never mentioned in any of the family recollections or by any of her friends. Neither is Walter Sickert's name mentioned by any of the contemporary biographers of Edward Marshall Hall.
I can't see that there is any evidence connecting Walter Sickert to this murder and it appears that Patricia Cornwell was searching for more murders to link with the serial killings in Whitechapel and has tried to make the suspect fit the crime.
There was a nineteen year gap between the Ripper murders and this one. If the murderer was a serial killer then it was an unusually long gap between crimes unless there are other crimes that bear his trademark. None have come to light. The Ripper disappeared after the horrific attack on Mary Kelly; the murder of Emily Dimmock was no less brutal but bore none of the other signatures of the previous Ripper victims.
A few people have contacted me about the Camden Town Murder and Jack the Ripper. One in particular has written an excellent essay which although not ending with naming a suspect for the Ripper killings has presented the medical evidence in a detached and erudite fashion. He concludes that there is nothing to link the Camden Town Murder with the Ripper killings and offers strong evidence to suggest that the final murder of Mary Jane Kelly was not that of the serial killer at all.
The website is highly recommended: The Whitechapel Murders as is the book 'by ears and eyes' by Karyo Magellan, the pen name of a very articulate and talented forensic pathologist.
Although Patricia Cornwell has been given much media attention and sold many millions of books she is not the first to put Walter Sickert in the frame. I had quite a long correspondence with Miss Fuller who revealed that Patricia Cornwell mentions things in her book that could only have come from Miss Fuller's own research but that the latter was never given the proper acknowledgement.
During her time in England the BBC offered Ms Cornwell the use of a helicopter to fly to Miss Fullers's home near Northampton so that the two ladies could compare notes on camera. Miss Cornwell refused the offer. It is Miss Fuller's conclusion as well as that of Florence Pash (who completed a portrait of Sickert),and who was at one time the mistress of Walter Sickert, that he had no involvement at all with the Camden Town murder.
So, who did kill Emily in the early hours of September 12 1907?
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