Portrait of a Killer Trivia Quiz

Answer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed

"Body of Evidence" is one of the Kay Scarpetta book titles. "Beyond Identity" is a chapter title in the book "Portrait of a Killer". "Royal Conspiracy" refers to a popular theory that a member of the royal family was responsible for the "Ripper" murders.

Answer: John Grieve (Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Scotland Yard)

Patricia Cornwell's dedication was "To Scotland Yard's John Grieve - You would have caught him". Dr Ferrara, Dr Fierro and Peter Bower were also acknowledged in the book, along with many other people, in an appendix entitled "My Team". Patricia Cornwell's novel "The Last Precinct" was dedicated to Linda Fairstein, whom Cornwell describes as "prosecutor, novelist, mentor, best friend". Fairstein is also mentioned more than once in "Portrait of a Killer".

Answer: artist

Walter Sickert is widely regarded as the most important of British Impressionist painters. Part of Patricia Cornwell's evidence is her analysis of Sickert's paintings. She claims "I began to wonder about Sickert when I was flipping through a book of his art ... some of his paintings bear a chilling resemblance to mortuary and scene photographs of Jack the Ripper's victims". Sickert was a student of James McNeill Whistler.

Answer: all of the choices are correct

According to the Guardian, Patricia Cornwell purchased 32 of Sickert's paintings and even cut up one of them in a vain attempt to find the evidence she needed, an act which outraged art experts and Sickert biographers. "Their only consolation was that Cornwell appears to have paid well above the market value for her collection".

Answer: Mr Nemo

When he was an actor, his stage name was Mr Nemo which is Latin for Mr Nobody. One of the telegrams sent to the police by "Jack the Ripper" has the words "Mr Nobody" crossed out followed by "Jack the ripper sent these". He did use the alias Richard Sickert, Richard being his middle name, but he did not use it as a stage name.

Answer: his correspondence

Patricia Cornwell and staff from the Virginia Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine also took DNA samples from a number of other sources, including the original "Ripper" documents and the correspondence of Ellen Cobden Sickert (his first wife), James McNeill Whistler and Montague John Druitt (another suspect).

They found a sequence of DNA on several "Ripper" letters which matched sequences found on Walter Sickert's correspondence. According to Patricia Cornwell, this is the oldest DNA ever tested in a criminal investigation.

Answer: 24

According to her official website (www.patriciacornwell.com), two of Sickert's letters and two of the "Ripper" letters have been identified by Bower as coming from the same quire of paper, that is, from the same group of 24 sheets. This is done by matching the cuts made on the edges of the paper when they are cut to size by a hand-fed guillotine.

Answer: it clearly showed two fingerprints in red ink

Unfortunately, the significance of fingerprints, although known, was not readily accepted as evidence in Victorian London. It was not until 1901 that Scotland Yard established its first Central Finger Print Bureau. Since Sickert was cremated upon his death in 1942, a comparison is not possible now.

Answer: Nelly

His mother's name was Eleanor, his sister's name was Helena and his first wife's name was Ellen, but they were all known by the diminutive Nelly. Ellen Terry, a famous actress with whom Sickert associated, was also known as Nelly. In her book, Patricia Cornwell claims that Sickert was fixated on Ellen Terry and stalked her. Cornwell also states "I will resist giving in to the temptation to resort to Oedipal psychobabble because the four strongest women in Sickert's life had the same nickname".

Answer: a penile fistula

Patricia Cornwell believes that the presence of a penile fistula caused impotence which in turn caused his hatred of women and led him to commit the murders. In Chapter 6 she states "I must admit I was shocked when I asked John Lessore about his uncle's fistula and he told me - as if it were common knowledge - that the fistula was a "hole in [Sickert's] penis". I don't think Lessore had a clue as to the significance of what he was saying ...". (John Lessore was Sickert's third wife's nephew.)