Supposedly it has been proven that it was Polish immigrant Aaron Kosminski.
How credible is this? It seems very credible to me.
I came here to start the same thread. It seems to be a conclusive find. Is it tabloid stuff or did they really for real identify Jack the Ripper?
This writer questions the provenance of the shawl.
But how unlikely is it that a shaw that is claimed to be connected to a victim just happens to have mitochondrial DNA from one of the main suspects?
So, you’re telling me that a prostitute had semen on her shawl?
I thought he was the likeliest suspect based on a TV special I saw years ago - but since it was The History Channel or some such, I’ve never been sure it was reliable in the first place. For that matter The Daily Mail isn’t that trustworthy either, is it? It sounds a lot of verification will be required.
You make a good point. He could simply have been one of her clients. But according to the article he was identified by one of the witnesses. Of course, the witness may have been mistaken. Also, the man was mentally ill, so it’s at least conceivable that he came upon the body after the fact and masturbated on the shawl.
As it is the Daily Fail one should indeed be wary.
There are however some items that if confirmed would make it more likely, while it is true that the piece of clothing has dubious origins if the DNA matched one of the victims as it was reported then those doubts are overcome by the evidence. Then if confirmation also comes that the semen had likely come from Aaron Kosminski (the comparison IIUC came from descendants of his relatives) then this will make it even more definitive.
“A shawl found by the body of Catherine Eddowes, one of the Ripper’s victims, has been analysed and found to contain DNA from her blood as well as DNA from the killer.”
So the DNA itself confess to being the killer? Or is the mere presence of a man’s DNA on a garment which was allegedly worn by a murder victim now conclusive evidence to his guilt?
“It was said to have been found next to the body of one of the Ripper’s victims, Catherine Eddowes, and soaked in her blood. There was no evidence for its provenance, although after the auction I obtained a letter from its previous owner who claimed his ancestor had been a police officer present at the murder scene and had taken it from there.”
So our key piece of evidence is a shawl stored by a dude who is willing to write a letter verifying that he’s been told it was a shawl found near one of the victims of JtR? Brilliant!
Sure. But if that is the only doubt then I would conclude that he is the Ripper. How good would a defendant do in today’s court by saying that his DNA on a shawl was simply the result of his masturbation on it after someone else killed her?
According to the article, it also contains mitochondrial DNA matching a descendant of Eddowes. If that’s true, it would seem to confirm the provenance.
Actually, the writer believes it wasn’t Eddowes’ shawl, since it was too expensive for a poor prostitute to have owned, but rather belonged to the killer.
The analyst also believes he found a kidney cell, which are not typically found on prostitute’s shawls. (Eddowes had her kidney cut out.)
I would also like to see the methodology documented in a scientific paper. However, if the shawl contains genetic material from both the victim and one of the prime suspects it seems pretty good evidence to me.
That’s not really a key piece of evidence if the genetic data turn out to be correct. The genetic data would serve to confirm the claimed provenance.
Yep, I agree, as I pointed before the doubts of the origins of the shawl are overcome by the DNA evidence of both the victim and the most likely perpetrator.
But I do agree with science writer Susannah L. Bodman, this needs to be confirmed but so far it looks very promising. It may be one of those two times when the broken clock that is the Daily Mail is correct.
Jack the Ripper and the Case for Scotland Yard’s Prime Suspect is a very good book centering on Aaron Kosminski (and likely the source of much of the background in the Daily Mail article):
The book covers a lot of the social history of East European Jewish immigrant garment workers of the era, so may be of interest even to those not interested in Jack the Ripper.
Yeah, the chain of custody for the shawl ain’t the best, but there was a strong case for Kosminski without it. Presumably that’s why it was his DNA that was tested for.
I won’t believe it until it says it’s true on Wikipedia
Fuck, I just had a miskey close the browser and eat about 2000 words… maybe I’ll rewrite the post later. But in short, this revelation strikes me like Ballard’s report that Titanic had gone down in two pieces: the many accounts of her breaking up were brushed aside in favor of the more romantic one that has her in one piece on the ocean floor. It takes only that one fact to see how silly the conclusions and chains of reasoning were, and how obvious it was that she broke up.
Ditto for “Leather Apron”/“The Polish Butcher.” The accounts talk about how strong the case and suspicions were, but brush that aside in favor of the more romantic and titillating claims that it was Gull or one of the other highborn suspects. Taking this revelation at face value makes the absurd chains of logic for those claims disintegrate, and the rather dull and plebian case jump out of the narrative.
We may have been hoaxed. The researcher may have bollixed up the testing and conclusions. But like Ballard’s report, writing as someone with a lifetime fascination with the Ripper, this snaps into place as sounding completely correct… far more so than the endless solutions that turn on convoluted logic, deathbed confessions and odd coincidences.
I bet one wooden farthing that further investigation will only solidify that Kosminski was “Jack.”
There’s a thread about this at Casebook.org, the best site you’ll find about Saucy Jack on the internet.
Kosminski and Victim DNA Match on Shawl - Casebook: Jack the Ripper Forums
Briefly
- There’s no evidence that the shawl belonged to Eddowes.
- The shawl was “discovered” recently by a family who claim that an ancestor of theirs was a special policeman who found it near the scene and took it home as a gift for his wife. His wife was Not Impressed and stuffed away somewhere where it was allegedly found by modern relatives. There’s precious little evidence that this policeman even existed, none at all that he was every anywhere near Mitre Square where Eddowes was killed.
- The DNA in question is actually mDNA.
- The guy who wrote this book runs a Jack the Ripper gift shop (and, presumably, knows exactly how much money Patricia Cornwall has made with her crappy mDNA based book.)
There’s more at that site. It’s always interesting reading but, really, don’t get your hopes up.
Well, regarding 1) and 2) the DNA evidence does overcome that. As for 3) the article and the book does mention from the beginning that it is Mitochondrial DNA what was searched for and compared to, not sure why remarking on it makes it to be less believable.
As for 4), yeah, that is why confirmation is still needed but so far I can tell you that many counterpoints are underwhelming, or I should say: not really needed as one can say simply that confirmation of the science and the materials are still needed.
I assume you mean mtDNA, that is, mitochondrial DNA. There’s a lot more mtDNA in cells than nuclear DNA, which makes it particularly useful since it can be amplified for analysis more easily. Since it’s passed down maternally without recombination, it’s also useful for identifying ancestor/descendant relationships. If the mtDNA in the shawl in fact matches that of Eddowes’ several times great granddaughter, that’s excellent evidence that the blood on the shawl is that of Eddowes. So the provenance is no longer necessary to associate the shawl with Eddowes.
Can you explain why people are using the fact that it’s mtDNA as a point against the evidence?
I think the weakest part in the chain of logic is the claim that the prostitute could not have owned such an expensive shawl and therefore it must have been left by the murderer. Who’s to say that it wasn’t given to her as a gift? Who’s to say that Kosminski hadn’t been a client of hers earlier in the day and given it to her as a gift?
Could a defense attorney raise reasonable doubt?
Why was Kosminski a suspect to begin with?
This, for me. He lived close to the prostitute, so there’s no reason that he couldn’t have used her services. And he doesn’t strike me as a rich Polish immigrant, so is it any more likely he would have got the scarf?