I don’t find that a compelling part of the argument. Edwards makes a rather strained connection between the fact that the shawl had Michaelmas daisies on it, and the fact that the final murders were on September 29 (the date of Michaelmas in the western church) and on November 8 (the date in the Eastern Orthodox Church). Supposedly Kosminski was deliberately leaving a clue as to when he would strike next. This seems like something out of a Hollywood plot about serial killers rather than what a mentally ill killer was likely to do.
However, I don’t think it really matters where the shawl came from, if it in fact contained genetic material from both Eddowes and Kosminski.
But it’s easy to construct scenarios in which Kosminski’s dna could get on the shawl without him being the killer. If they managed to get hold of her entire clothing, I’d be surprised if they couldn’t find other dna as well.
True, and this doesn’t settle things beyond all doubt. (It may not be possible after such a long time.) However, it’s possibly the first time that actual physical evidence has tied one of the known suspects to one of the victims. I believe most other theories have been almost entirely circumstantial.
Serial killers have left clues to show how much smarter they are than the police. Jack the Ripper sent a taunting letter (‘Dear Boss…’) on 29 September, and Eddowes’s body was found on the 30th. The shawl may well have been a deliberately left clue.
I agree that who owned the shawl is ambiguous. Eddowes apparently pawned her shoes the day before, so it mightn’t have belonged to her. But maybe she’d bought it when she happened to have some extra money, and she was loath to pawn it before she pawned other things such as shoes. Or it could have been a gift, as mentioned. She may have deemed it necessary to her uniform, to attract customers. Or it may have belonged to her killer, whom, we suppose, left it intentionally or unintentionally.
Either way, it contained her DNA in the blood and Kosminski’s DNA in the (supposed) semen. So:
[ul][li]Beddowes owned the shawl and Kosminski semen was deposited on it. In this case, it’s not proof that Kosminski killed Beddowes.[/li][li]Kosminski owned the shawl and gave it to Beddowes, either in trade or as a gift. He may or may not have killed her. (See above.)[/li][li]Kosminski owned the shawl and left it after killing Beddowes as a clue to taunt police, or unintentionally because of his mental state.[/li][li]Beddowes owned the shawl and Kosminski came upon her before anyone else found her. He got turned on at seeing the corpse and masturbated over it. (There was a recent thread where a mortician contaminated a murder victim by having sex with her corpse, thus (possibly) resulting in a stiffer sentence for the murderer.)[/ul][/li]Assuming the DNA testing was done properly and no errors were made, the shawl, Beddowes, and Kosminski are all associated with each other. Circumstantially, Kosminski looks guilty. He was also one of the prime suspects. But it’s reasonable that he had sex with Beddowes, his semen was deposited on the shawl, and some other person killed her. Given the evidence presented, I think he did it. But if I were on a jury, I would have reasonable doubt. (Note that I’m not an expert on other evidence, and I don’t remember now what I’ve heard before.)
Yeah, I’d say that it’s far more likely that something about Michaelmas was celebrated made it more likely that the killer would act.
Would the Jews have celebrated Michaelmas?
I also saw, on the Wikipedia, something saying that during that time, Jews would not testify against each other in court. Was that a doctrinal thing (like the ability to loan at interest to outsiders, but not to other Jews) or a cultural choice in that time and place, like how people are told to not talk to the cops, in modern day?
The case against Kosminski was very strong, without much if any of the strange suppositions and coincidences that weaken the claims against the others (such as Cream and Gull). He had means, motive and opportunity, and precisely the abilities described by the coroners at the inquests - a rough knowledge of anatomy but nothing like medical training.
It just wasn’t very interesting. A local workingman Jew with a known hatred of women, loathing of prostitutes and precisely the skills shown in killing and mutilating them who went crazy and died before he could ever be caught or convicted is just not as fascinating as notions about the Queen’s physician, crazy Prince Eddie, highborn Masons like Neil Cream (or do I have two theories crossed there?), alien possession and political intrigue.
Had he been caught and convicted, the whole thing would be a minor footnote of Victoriana.
I dont believe its a doctrinal thing. The main argument I have read is that the recently arrived Eatern European Jewish community would be wary of the State police. Some contemporary policemen did complain of this lack of co-operation at the time. Whether this police view of local Jews was because of anti-Jewish prejudice or hard headed police experience is debated.
I got the impression he was committed at the time they concluded he was the Ripper, figured that he’d never be released, and hushed it up to prevent anti-Semitic rioting.
After all “the Juwes are the men who will not be blamed for nothing.”
This is largely my view too. Though im less sure of Kosminki’s guilt. The killer was almost certainly a local non-entity quite possibly from the local Jewish community.
Also, this shawl has nothing to do with the Ripper case.
No,we have some rather dodgy claims that it has the victims DNA on it. For further evidence we need to buy the book.
The policeman who supposedly took the shawl walked a beat that was nowhere near the scene of the crime that night. Yet, he supposedly picked up the shawl despite being miles away. None of the police reports mention the victim having a shawl. Despite all this we are supposed to believe a penniless drunken prostitute wore a very expensive shawl that no-one bothers to mention - even though everything else she had on her person was mentioned, from boots to matches to pieces of soap.
We know exactly what the victim wore and posessed that night. An Inspector itemised her possessions:
"Pair of men’s lace up boots with mohair laces, right boot fixed with red thread; Red guaze silk (worn about the neck); 1 large white handkerchief; 2 unbleached calico pockets; 1 blue stripe bed ticking pocket with waist band and strings; 1 white cotton pocket handkerchief with red and white birds eye border; 1 pair of brown ribbed stockings with white mended feet; 12 pieces of white rag; 1 piece of white coarse linen; 1 piece of blue and white shirting – three cornered; 2 small blue bed ticking bags; 2 short black clay pipes; 1 tin box with tea; 1 tin box with sugar; 1 piece of flannel; 6 pieces of soap; 1 small tooth comb; 1 white handle table knife; 1 metal tea spoon; 1 red leather cigarette case with white metal fittings; 1 empty tin match box; 1 piece of red flannel with with pins and needles; a ball of hemp; and a piece of old white apron.101
She was wearing a black straw bonnet with green and black velvet, black beads, and black strings; a black cloth jacket trimmed with fake fur at the collar and cuffs and 2 outside pockets trimmed with black sik braid and fake fur; a chintz skirt – 3 flounces with a brown button on the waistband; A brown linsey dress bodice with a black velvet collar and brown metal buttons down the front; a grey stuff petticoat with a white waistband; a very old green alpaca skirt; a very old ragged blue skirt with a red flounce and light twill lining; a white calico chemise; a man’s white vest with button to match down front and 2 outside pockets; she had no drawers or stays."
For further evidence I would like to see a peer-reviewed article in a reputable scientific journal. I wouldn’t consider anything said in the book to be firm evidence. However, if it’s confirmed that there is a mtDNA match with a descendant of a victim it would be pretty hard not to conclude that the shawl is connected to the case.
The article doesn’t say that. It mentions DNA, but provides no information on any actual evidence.
No mention of DNA there.
Sure, there have been many claims of having solved the case. But as I said, I don’t believe others have advanced physical rather than circumstantial evidence.
Fair enough. It would take some rather impressive evidence to convince me the shawl is genuine. Even assuming the DNA is as accurate as we hope it doesnt completely discount the possibility of tampering.
We can all purchase the book here. Nothing moneymaking in this little story. Even if you dont purchase the book at least have a click on the shawl owners site below. Its layout should at least ring alarm bells. You can even purchase some “Jack the Ripper chocolate” while your browsing:
"Cornwell found her most tangible support from a modern investigative technique: DNA testing. She visited Scotland Yard and examined several hundred documents and letters supposedly written by Jack the Ripper. Cornwell and Ripperologists are aware that most (if not all) of these letters were written by people other than the murderer. Letters from people claiming to be Jack the Ripper were sent to Scotland Yard into the 1960s, in fact. (Sickert, incidentally, died in 1942.) Some of the earliest letter forgers – two of whom were women – were arrested around the time of the murders [source: Ryder].
When the DNA test results were returned to Cornwell, she found a match. She had results from Ripper letters compared to samples taken from some of Sickert’s known correspondence. She found a match among mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) that ruled out 99 percent of the human population, but not Sickert [source: SPT]. Mitochondrial DNA doesn’t degrade as easily as nuclear DNA. This is significant, considering the Ripper letters that provided matches had been written a century before."
Do you have a hypothesis about how that might have been done? Russell Edwards is an amateur, but the person who did the analysis, Jari Louhelainen, an Associate Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Helsinki, has been publishing in genetics since at least 1995. I don’t see how one could have obtained the alleged results by accident or by making an inadvertent mistake. If they are not authentic, then Edwards must either have put something over on Louhelainen, or Louhelainen has to be in on it. Tampering in which Louhelainen would not have been involved would presumably have required obtaining blood from one of Eddowes descendants, and (perhaps more difficult) semen from one of Kosminski’s (although the relative they obtained an mtDNA sample from was female).
I hope more experts confirm the DNA test results. It would be great to finally have a definitive answer. Aaron Kosminski was an early suspect and up till now it could never be proven.