# $6,000,000 Man?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/6-000-000-man/136289>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [November 11, 2002, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/6-000-000-man/136289 "2002-11-11T16:51:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2002, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/6-000-000-man/136289/1 "2002-11-11T16:51:06Z")

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Hmm . . . I’ll try this again:

* * *

Let me start by saying mystery writer Patricia Cornwell is free to do whatever she wants with her money.

> [@](#):
>
> Ms. Cornwell is the author of the best-selling Kay Scarpetta novels about an intrepid medical examiner who solves gruesome serial killings. Small and delicate as she looks, Ms. Cornwell is one tough lady. She is obsessed with injustice, with animal rights, with serial killers. And now she is obsessed with Jack the Ripper, who terrorized the East End of London from August to November 1888, murdering and disemboweling prostitutes. Estimates vary, but the prevailing theory is that he killed five.
> 
> Ms. Cornwell has spent $6 million hiring forensic scientists and gathering evidence to crack the case, one of the oldest unsolved serial-killer mysteries on record. It has spawned an industry of books, Web sites, tourist attractions and countless suspects over the years.

See [http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/11/books/11RIPP.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/11/books/11RIPP.html)  
(registration required, I think).

However . . . I am curious as to whether anyone else thinks that she might have found a more useful application for her $6,00,000. That much money could fight a lot of “injustice” in other spheres (or endow a lot of animal shelters, if that’s her thing).

Shades of some self-indulgent robber baron funding some crackpot theory about the authorship of Shakespeare? Especially because, at the end of the day, her conclusion, which she’d like us to believe is forensic proof positive, is pretty clearly just a guess based on smidgens of possible physical evidence and a lot of armchair pseudo-psychological profiling of the Ripper. Do you think she’ll encounter any criticism over pursuing her pet theories at such expense (so far, the press seems more focused on the opportunity to re-enjoy the sensational serial killer angle of the Ripper story).

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**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2002, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/6-000-000-man/136289/2 "2002-11-11T17:22:25Z")

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I posted [a thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=143684) in Cafe Society on the same topic, or at least whether or not the Ripper case had been solved (some think yes, others no - surprise)

As for her spending all this money - seems more than a little foolish, but the limited profile we get of Patricia Cornwell is of a very determined, focused person, so it doesn’t surprise me that she has gone tilting at $6 million windmills…