Patricia Cornwell Biography

Patricia Cornwell was born Patricia Carroll Daniels on June 9, 1956 to Sam and Marilyn Daniels, an appellate lawyer and homemaker respectively. She has two brothers, Jim and John. The Daniels home was not an easy one; on Christmas Day 1961, the highly abusive Sam left the family, Marilyn was hospitalized for depression and the Daniels children were placed into foster care. Cornwell righted herself, earned a BA in English from Davidson College and by 1979 worked as a reporter for The Charlotte Examiner. As a journalist writing was already a large part of her life. By 1983, she had published a biography of family friend Ruth Bell Graham, though Cornwell wouldn’t have another book published until 1990. Between these two periods Cornwell married and divorced Charles Cornwell, her former English professor, and became a technical writer and computer analyst for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia while also volunteering for the Richmond Police Department. During this time, Cornwell developed an interest in becoming a novelist. Like many writers, she dealt with a great deal of rejection from the publishing world. She wrote three novels, all of which went unsold until 1990 when her latest tome, which introduced the wildly popular Dr. Kay Scarpetta, called Postmortem was published. It was a major critical and commercial success.

Patricia Cornwell Novels

Since 1990, there have been 20 more entries in the Kay Scarpetta series with a new one following almost every year. Scarpetta has often been mistaken as a fictionalized/romanticized version of Cornwell herself; but for a few minor notes—they’ve both been divorced and enjoy cooking; they have had somewhat similar professions—the character is pure fiction, and Cornwell herself has said that she is closer in personality and temperament to Scarpetta’s niece, Lucy Farinelli. Farinelli was introduced Postmortem and has certain life details similar or identical to Cornwell. They are both self-made millionaires who have struggled with their sexuality (Lucy officially came out around the same time Cornwell herself realized she was gay) as well as difficult bouts of depression and the fear of inheriting mental instability from their families. Both Cornwell and Farinelli have wrecked cars will driving under the influence. Cornwell also developed another series, focusing on the characters of Andy Brazil and Judy Hammer. There have been three books in the series so far and tend to be notably darker in tone.

There are currently 24 Kay Scarpetta novels, each one focusing on a different mystery. The latest book in the series was published in 2022 and is entitled Livid: A Scarpetta Novel.

Patricia Cornwell and Jack the Ripper

One of the perks of financial independence is getting to indulge in pet projects. Backed up by her great fortune, Cornwell has spent years and approximately $6 million investigating the most infamous cold case in history: the identity of Jack the Ripper. There is something about the Ripper that appeals to crime writers, a dark mass that no known technology can correctly identify or even detect. Many have thrown their opinions out; currently there are more Ripper suspects than Ripper victims by a factor of five. When Cornwell’s Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper: Case Closed debuted, the last part of that title excited as many as it irked. Cornwell’s theory pointed to painter Walter Sickert as the Ripper, citing watermarks that appeared on both Sickert’s and the Ripper’s letters. Ripper experts have criticized this theory, and accusations of obsession have surrounded Cornwell for years dating back to a rumor that circled since 2001 involving Cornwell allegedly purchasing and destroying one of Sickert’s paintings during the course of her investigation. Cornwell has denied being obsessed, though taking out full page spreads in two national UK papers at more than $10,000 a pop declaring this didn’t exactly help her cause. Cornwell has since said that the case is far from closed; in 2006 she revised some of Portrait to account for new evidence.

Patricia Cornwell Controversies

Like any noteworthy writer, Cornwell’s had a fair share of controversy, even outside of the Jack the Ripper situation. In the early to mid-90s, Cornwell was having an affair with married FBI agent Margo Bennett. Her estranged husband Gene Bennett was a disgraced former FBI agent that twice attempted to murder Margo. Margo thwarted him and Gene was later convicted of attempted murder (Margo) and for kidnapping Margo’s church pastor, Reverend Edwin Clever. Naturally this caused quite a controversy and lead to a very sudden and unfortunate public outing for Cornwell. Cornwell’s relationship with Margo Bennett ended abruptly. The 2009 true crime book Twisted Triangle written by Caitlin Rother and John Hess deals with the case in detail. In 2000, writer Leslie Sachs claiming that Cornwell’s novel The Last Precinct plagiarized from his 1998 novel The Virginia Ghost Murders. Sachs filed suit against Cornwell, sent letters to her publisher, started a website devoted to this cause, and stuck stickers on copies of The Last Precinct that so accused Cornwell of plagiarism. Cornwell counter-sued for libel, winning back the money spent for her legal defense. Despite an injunction telling Sachs to stop due to his baseless plagiarism claim, Sachs left the United States for Belgium where through his website accused Cornwell of bribery, trying to have him killed, and being an anti-Semite. Cornwell’s wife Staci Ann Gruber is Jewish. In 2009, not long after the trouble with Sachs, Cornwell fired her money manager Evan Snapper of Anchin, Block & Anchin. The redundantly named firm handled the finances of Cornwell and her company Cornwell Entertainment, Inc., had earned over ten million dollars a year, from 2006-2009, yet the accounts showed a balance of roughly $13 million total. According to Cornwell’s lawyers, Snapper took advantage of Cornwell’s desire to insulate herself from her money due to ongoing mental health issues and absconded with tens of millions over the four year period. Cornwell suit AB&A for one hundred million; she settled for fifty.

Patricia Cornwell Interview

uInterview spoke with Patricia Cornwell just as her 2013 novel Dust, the latest entry in the Scarpetta saga, was published. As always, the novel utilized the latest in forensic science technologies—specifically, in this case, forensic imaging—but Dust also was a lightning rod for controversy; in the opening chapters, Scarpetta investigates the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting that claimed the lives of twenty-six people. For Cornwell, Scarpetta’s addition was organic. “The decision I made about that was well after I had started this book and when that horrible case occurred,” she told uInterview exclusively, “since that part of Connecticut is not that far from where Scarpetta’s headquarters, was, ‘You know, in real life, she probably would have responded and helped her colleagues out in this’…I try to keep Scarpetta in the world that the rest of us inhabit, and it’s a painful decision sometimes because I could look the other way. But I don’t think that’s the right thing to do.”

Cornwell also shared her opinions on the nature of spectacle killings, mass murders and gun control.

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