The technique was a new way to retrieve the DNA from the fabric. AFAIKT, they used the normal PCR procedure for the analysis.
That doesn’t say that it’s never been published in any scientific journal. The guy has a PhD in molecular biology so there’s a good chance that it has been published.
From the link in the OP:
[QUOTE=Jari Louhelainen]
To extract DNA samples from the stains on the shawl, I used a technique I developed myself, which I call ‘vacuuming’ – to pull the original genetic material from the depths of the cloth.
I filled a sterile pipette with a liquid ‘buffer’, a solution known to stabilise the cells and DNA, and injected it into the cloth to dissolve the material trapped in the weave of the fabric without damaging the cells, then sucked it out.
I needed to sequence the DNA found in the stains on the shawl, which means mapping the DNA by determining the exact order of the bases in a strand. I used polymerase chain reaction, a technique which allows millions of exact copies of the DNA to be made, enough for sequencing.
[/QUOTE]
For the apparent seminal fluid samples:
So the “new technique” developed by Louhelainen was apparently for retrieval of the samples. He used regular PCR for analysis, as well as the newer whole genome amplification (which he did not develop himself).
Note they claim a 100% match between the blood and Eddowes’ descendant. The Cornwell investigation only claimed that the DNA “ruled out 99% of the population,” but not Sickert. If you’re testing hundreds of documents and letters from different authors, you could get a result like that easily by chance. The DNA evidence for a connection to Sickert is far weaker than this (even considering that even if Sickert wrote some of the letters it wouldn’t necessarily prove he was the killer.)
No, I dont. To be honest I wasnt sure that the Kosminski DNA had come from semen. I thought it was just some DNA matter. If it did come from semen then that makes tampering on the Kosminski side a whole lot more difficult.
Eddowes was absolutely destitute and pawned anything of value she could get her hands on for drink. It doesn’t make sense that she would have a fine shawl. This is 19th century London we’re talking about here. Crushing poverty was the norm.
I can’t speak about the DNA evidence, but, the whole tone of the quotes by the principal in the ‘discovery’ just seems too, too much like made up horseshit. Kind of like, ‘Since there was never any real proof that the scarf wasn’t Eddowes’, and was never really questioned by the Queen’s counsel, so, obviously…" I can’t really describe it, since I can’t bring myself to go back and re-read the article, but, I think that it just ‘sounds’ like too much nonsense. I did note that the article, IIRC, claimed that the scarf had been proven to have been made in the ‘early 19th century’. That would make it, what, at least 38 years old at the time of the murders? And, it looked brand new in the pics that I saw…
I think that this will turn out to be a hoax.
The experts involved are legitimate scientists so there’s almost no chance this a hoax. That is not to say that the case is “solved.”
Because it’s not individual-specific in the way that full DNA is. Assuming that the blood on the shawl is a match to Eddowes, then it’s also an equal match to her mother, all her aunts, all her aunts’ daughters, all her sisters, all her nieces, all her daughters, etc etc etc. And assuming the semen is a match to Kosminski, it’s also a match to all his brothers, all his sisters’ sons, etc etc etc.
I’m not sure. It sounds amazing, and it would be great to have an answer…but it’s the Daily Mail. And the whole ‘This guy said someone said it was totally the victim’s shawl that this policemen who was nowhere near the scene picked up, even though she couldn’t have afforded a shawl like that, and nobody believed him but me, and I saw the Michaelmas daisies, which are a vital clue even though a Jewish guy wouldn’t have cared about Michaelmas, and I was totally RIGHT!!!’
What is the most interesting thing for me is that Kominski(sp?) was the man most considered the most likely candidate by the original investigators. You will notice in Cold Cases, often the perpetrator turns out to be someone who was suspected all along, but they could not get evidence against him, in this case it seems witnesses were unwilling to testify.
The DNA evidence (presuming its reliable) on its own is not conclusive. But combined with other evidence, including that of the original investigation, it is compelling.
The fact that the Ripper stopped killing people is also pretty good evidence that the perpetrator was locked up or died. Anyone possible subjects that continued to live freely are unlikely to have been the perpetrator.
This. Maybe the hoax, if it is, is more subtle and clever than most - but I think that if someone was going to spend ten years setting one up, they’d go for the glamorous and shocking Proof™ that it was Gull or Cream or Eddie or one of the other high-profile suspects. This strikes me as dogged police-like work leading wherever… and to the least interesting, most obvious and most likely suspect, for whom there are few suppositions and guesses filling in the blanks, and no need for elaborate royal family/Masonic/political webs to explain either his actions or the mystery.
He was a loon. He hated women. He had just enough skill to butcher (but not dissect) them. He was lucky enough to get away with five or six murders, maybe more; maybe his culture protected him a little. And he was locked up and died as a loon without ever resolving his crimes. Boring, really, and I think there are other cases in 17-1800s England much like it, forgotten because the perp was caught and hanged.
In considering the possibility of a hoax, this occurred to me as well. Kosmiski was hardly the suspect most likely to garner the most media attention. As the link in the OP says:
This is a little unfair, to be honest. Of course he’s writing a book, he’s a Ripper enthusiast who’s found some extra evidence, what else is he going to do? And the fact that he runs a shop devoted to the crimes just shows that he’s always been interested in them - and that he’s exactly the sort of person who’s going to keep digging and come up with anything that remains to come up with.
The actual DNA expert involved, as other people have pointed out, seems totally bona fide and unrelated to previous Jack investigations.
To others pointing out it’s come from the Daily Mail - it’s actually coming out as publicity for the book, and other news sources are carrying it (I first saw it on the BBC website), and it’s not a “Daily Mail Investigation” in any way.
One thought on the hoax angle: could the samples that match the DNA of the descendants actually be the DNA of the descendants, applied to a random vintage shawl sometime this century? Or would the age of the samples be revealed as part of the testing?
Well the scientific legitimacy of the findings have yet to be proven. All we have so far is a rather meagre article. An article which for the umpteenth times unmasks the true identity of Jack the Ripper. Around 100 or so suspects have been the subject of Ripper books. Every one of them making money for someone. Sometimes its a lot of money, sometimes its a little money. I see no reason to doubt this book as being any different to its many, many predecessors.
The DNA expert is bona fide? Again, I shall wait until others experts have been able to judge his “new procedure” and findings. A number of other scientists have been proven wrong in the past. Many a scientist has exaggerated their findings and been proven wrong.
Im with you on the Daily Mail. It is not a Daily Mail investigation, but it is a piece of typical Daily Mail infotainment. The original story also had some advertising of the book at the bottom of the page. I view the story as one long advertisment. The author of the book gets lots of free publicity, the Daily Mail gets thousandsof extra hits. Everyone’s a winner.
In the meantime you can order the book before scientists truly have an opportunity to investigate the evidence in greater detail. A book about a shawl that was almost certainly nowhere near the murder, a shawl that only turned up as a Ripper artifact once the industry had taken off, and a shawl picked up by a policeman who was nowhere near the murder location that night. Sorry, if im a skeptic. I have seen too many Ripper Diaries(there are two separate Ripper Diaries), Ripper artists, Ripper Royals, Ripper Freemasons and Mad Ripper Doctors.
That occurred to me, but it seems unlikely unless the geneticist were in on it (and he could simply make the whole thing up instead of using a phony blood sample). If the blood were recent, it wouldn’t have been so difficult to collect samples. And as I remarked above, getting a semen sample from Kosminski’s female descendant would present technical difficulties.
It might be possible for a fellow expert to fool the geneticist somehow, but it seems unlikely that Edwards as an amateur could do so. I think a hoax would require the geneticist to be in on it, and as an established scientist I don’t see that he would have a great deal of motivation to risk his career over something like this.
I can’t think of a prior one that relied on hard evidence. (That is assuming the DNA tests are upheld by scrutiny, yes.)
All the prior ones were based on real or fake diary entries (real diaries and diarist, fantasy or prank entries; fake, no explanation needed), supposed deathbed confessions and deathbed identifications of a suspect (again, several levels of “real” and fake) and, by far the largest category IIRC, elaborate “detective” work tying together nine layers of nonsense and supposition to pin it on notable, highborn suspects.
I am by no means an expert, even an amateur one, but I’ve been interested in Ripperology for decades. I’ve read a lot. Not one prior claim of a suspect I can think of passed the first sniff test, especially those that involved, say, Gull and a cohort of palace and Masonic enablers.
Out of that history of hoaxes, elaborate conspiracy theories and just plain English eccentricity, this one just strikes me as believable and very likely true… because Kosminski was a prime suspect in the first place, one of the simplest and most obvious possibilities, and all that’s ever been needed is one solid piece of evidence to make the conclusion final.
While the larger point about mtDNA not being specific to the individual is true, it’s passed down from a mother to all of her children, not just her female children. The scientist linked Kosiminski’s DNA to that of a female descendant of his sister.
How long would you need for the blood stain to set in? Would a year be significantly less difficult to get out than two years? Or a hundred?
Does she have any male relations? A maternal cousin, perhaps? That might be the hoaxer, with the woman who got tested an unknowing patsy.