JACK the Ripper lived in St Peter’s, Broadstairs, according to an American novelist. Patricia Cornwell has spent £2.5 million searching for the identity of the infamous Victorian serial killer.

She now believes the Ripper was Walter Richard Sickert, an Impressionist artist who painted a series of pictures of mutilated prostitutes. Sickert lived in the family home of the Mocketts, known then as Hauteville, in Church Street, St Peters, between 1934 and 1938.

Many older residents remember him as a miserable old man who didn’t pay his bills.

Sickert, who was born in 1860, was an apprentice to Whistler, and worked with Degas. But Cornwell believes he matches the profile of the serial killer.

The best-selling author has staked her reputation as a forensic crime expert on the identity of the man who mutilated five women in Whitechapel in 1888.

She bought 30 of Sickerts’ works, and tore them apart to find clues. She also employed a team of American forensic scientists to fly to London and study letters sent by the Ripper to Scotland Yard at the time of the killings.

The novelist’s most famous character, Kay Scarpetta, is a forensic scientist, and Cornwell has studied the subject while researching her books. Sickert is one of the characters featured on the St Peter’s Village Tour.

Organiser Brian Sleightholm said:” We are thrilled to find this link to St Peters with such a famous story. His time here was still in living memory so many people remember him.

“Another famous resident, Sir Edward Heath, remembers calling on Sickert one Christmas when he was a young choirboy. He said they sang outside Hauteville, but did not ring the bell or knock on the door. “After a few minutes, a wizened old man opened the door, and said, “Go away” before slamming it shut.

“Whether he was Jack the Ripper or not, he doesn’t appear to have been very neighbourly by all accounts.”