These articles begin life as On-This-Day birthday articles for friends on my Facebook page. This is the reason that some of these articles are not of the highest journalistic quality; I don’t care enough to exhaust myself citing references and double checking sources for a birthday greeting (although citation do appear from time to time).

For this birthday article I was going to write about how today is the birthday of rapper Wiz Khalifa. Buuuuuut…since no one gives a shit about a hip-hop artist whose only marketable skill to bust rhymes with 40% greater efficiency than chimpanzees set loose in a typewriter factory, I’m moving on to something relevant real quick. Today is also the day that Annie Chapman died. And because the death of a 19th century East London prostitute is infinitely more interesting than even the most exciting Wiz news, I’m going to foist this sweet forensic update on you with great alacrity (and, if only comments were disabled, impunity also) because this one actually has some relevance in the present day (which is another important way in which it is distinguished from Whiz Quiffa).

Or whatever it was he finally learned to write at the age of 20.

The body of Annie Chapman was discovered just a few minutes before 6 am on September 8, 1888, the second victim of the man who came to be known as Jack the Ripper. Only 30 minutes before the discovery, Chapman and a friend were chatting with a fellow in shabby overcoat and a Sherlock Holmes double-brimmed style “deer hunter” cap. Perhaps it was Jack himself. In those days, prostitutes were considered somehow outside of society and beneath the general worth of the “normal” citizen. Actually nothing’s really changed there, except that they are now highly prized by politician and actors.

What is interesting about this particular case is not so much who the victim was, but who the perpetrator was. You see, only yesterday it was announced that mitochondrial DNA evidence retrieved from a shawl of another victim (Catherine Eddowes) linked the killing of Eddowes to a Polish immigrant named Aaron Kosminski. Kosminski was a suspect at the time of the original investigation, but not enough evidence was collected to link him to any of the murders.

The lingering question for folks who value evidence is how we can say that Kosminski killed all five of the so-called “canonical” murders when there is only direct evidence of his involvement in the Eddowes murder. The answer comes by way of the reason that they are called “canonical”: because the crimes were so similar that there is virtually no doubt among investigators that they were committed by the same person. This means that the killer of Eddowes—officially identified as Aaron Kosminski—is in all reasonable likelihood the killer of Chapman…and Nichols…and Stride…and Kelly.

In 2002, crime fiction author Patricia Cornwell penned a supposedly non-fiction book entitled “Portrait of a Killer – Jack the Ripper Case Closed”. Clearly confusing an ability to spin complex and compelling yarns about crimes that never occurred with the facility to investigate actual crimes, Cornwell’s popular tome fingered artist Walter Sickert as the murderer Jack the Ripper, and even toured the US and UK giving “dissertations”. Her evidence: some creepy drawings and the mere suggestion that some of the Ripper letters received by the investigators—most of which were known to be hoaxes—might have been penned by Sickert. By this standard, Edvard Munch could also be a suspect. As compelling as Cornwell’s theory was to people who don’t know anything about how actual evidence is collected and evaluated, it did not fool the folks who do know, and her fanciful theory was thoroughly dismantled and discredited. Her response: “If I were a MAN…or ENGLISH…”

Yes, yes, dear. The mean old Patriarchy has struck again. Go tell it on the mountain [of evidence suggesting that you’re a second-rate hack investigator with a first-rate delusion of competence and grandeur].

So the other lingering question is: How does Cornwell keep getting work? The answer is that her books are popular and entertaining. She is a good writer of fiction. Non-fiction—especially non-fiction that she investigates herself—is quite simply not her area of competency. It’s compelling, but terrible.

Fortunately, she has not penned a non-fiction book since.