Gotta Love That Media Expertise, Boy

It no longer amazes me that people who don't really know what they're talking about can get on TV as experts. It does, however, still burn me. Take the case of Patricia Cornwell, the mystery author whose foray into non-fiction accused Victorian artist Walter Sickert of being Jack the Ripper. Experts on the ripper case have largely debunked Cornwell's case, which oscillates between puffing up weak evidence and glossing over enormous evidentiary gaps.

To sum up:

1. Cornwell claims that she has discovered a mitochondrial DNA link between Sickert and one of the letters that supposedly came from Jack the Ripper. Sounds impressive, doesn't it? But, according to David Cohen, who researched the issue for Slate, mitochondrial DNA samples can be matched to anywhere between .1%-10% of the population. So the sample Cornwell extracted to the letter could have come from Sickert, or from thousands to millions of others. And considering that many, many people have handled this letter over the years, from the sender all the way to Patricia Cornwell and Francis the Talking Mule for all we know, the sample she recovered could have come from any of them.

2. Even if she were to demonstrate a link between Sickert and the letter, this proves nothing about Sickert as a suspect. Scotland Yard received hundreds of letters purporting to come from the Ripper. All but three are certainly hoaxes, and those three are only potentially Ripper letters. Even the "From Hell" letter, which seems to be the most promising (because it came with half a human kidney--like the kidney Ripper victim Catherine Eddowes lost), could easily have been just a medical school prank. Faking Jack the Ripper letters seemed to be, briefly, the national pastime of England. So Sickert could have just been joining in the macabre fun. That makes him weird, but not a killer.

3. Finally, the best evidence tells us that Sickert was in France during the murders. Cornwell supporters like to claim that he could have made a run into England by train and boat to commit his murders, but have yet to produce a scintilla of evidence that he did so. And honestly, why would he bother? A man who derived sadistic pleasure from killing prostitutes could certainly find targets in France. Traveling all the way to Whitechapel doesn't seem like a game that's worth the candle.

Cornwell has surely heard this before, but she still goes on the air to make her claims. That's understandable, I suppose. What bothers me is that so many people who work on TV fail to notice that this woman doesn't deserve the mic. She should be on public access with Kurt Cobain conspiracy theorists, not on national TV, and certainly not without rebuttal.