Me too. A great piece of writing. I can’t read it without smiling.
But in all seriousness, why WOULD a police officer give his wife a “gift” that was so morbid? I would understand the story if he kept it for himself as a macabre treasure, but the story makes it seem like a romantic or loving thing for his wife. Even the most clueless husband wouldn’t do something like that.
Not that I disbelieve the story, but that is a definite tally to the negative side for the veracity of it.
I don’t buy the shawl. The officer who supposedly found it was in the wrong police force in the wrong area.
My impression was that the evidence that it was “semen” was a epithelial cell was found. Yes, that could have come from the urethra, but also the mouth or skin.
There are very few details of what the DNA tests showed, but certain mDNA types are shared by a large number of people. Even if the shawl was the victim’s (which I doubt), the “semen” DNA could have been from a large number of people (and there are certainly ways other than murder that someone’s DNA might get onto a prostitute’s clothing).
We’re talking about a very small amount of DNA, with the potential to match a large number of people, from an article that has been handled by a great number of people, that almost certainly isn’t related to the crime.
That’s not to say that Aaron Kosminski didn’t do it, and in fact, he’s probably one of the least unlikely suspects they have. But this “new revelation” is an just an attempt to sell a book, nothing more and nothing less.
From my understanding, she was pawning her shoes and anything else of value. It likely would have been a customer very soon prior to the Ripper.
That’s the claim being made; that it must have been brought by the killer because she couldn’t have owned it. Therefore, no other customer’s DNA could be on it.
It’s plausible, but hardly ironclad.
I’d have to agree. She’s a $2 hooker. Or penny or farthing. Why give her an expensive shawl?
And a shawl that survived a couple of World Wars - including the Blitz- etc etc and extreme periods of poverty was kept and never washed or hocked.
I know Eclectic Wench made the valid point about hangmen selling pieces of rope etc but how many are still in existence? And hey were presumed to be connected with a criminal event, not a shawl some policeman seemed to have found and not submitted to the enquiry.
This pretty much reflects my take on it.
Sure it’s possible, and I’m sure stranger things have happened —
But it sure requires a very long string of coincidences and out of ordinary behaviour and some downright weirdness.
Assuming that it was given to the victim, by the murderer, and that he did “leave a sample” on it, (which is already a bit strange) and it was dropped and picked up, and then not handed into the enquiry from someone that would know he should have, and then kept because it was connected to a famous murder - WHY SO LONG?
If it was just thought to be a stained shawl - why would you not wash it?
The more I think about it the more I’m leaning to the hoax (or something similar) scenario. Looking at Kosminski’s other evidence, there’s really very little that ties him to the case, as mentioned. So while he’s been a prominent suspect of late, it’s hard to imagine anyone having the certainty that it was him that would justify a 14 year effort to have this shawl tested for Kosminski and no one else. So I would speculate that the testers knew they would find his DNA by other means.
Not just that but the killer would have had to have taken some time to get his DNA on the shawl, which itself could eat into the window considerably.
“Just a poor cockney flower girl, that’s all Ah is! But Ah owes everything to Doctor Kosminski. 'E taught me to walk, and to talk, and to dress, like a regular LADY! 'E give me real cloth*, 'e did!”
“The scoundrel!”
*for years I thought she said “cloth”, and then shows said cloth and blows her nose in it. Turns out the actual quote is “class”. But my version fits this case better…
Is this actually likely to happen?
Not necessarily. If it was semen, it could have got there hours or weeks earlier. And if it wasn’t actual semen, just epithelials, it could have got there in any number of ways - if the killer at some point held the shawl between his teeth to free up a hand, for example.
It still doesn’t add up to me, though. Like, if there were Michaelmas daisies on her dress and the killer brought the shawl as a matching present, how did he know what she’d be wearing (and find a matching shawl)? There’s never been any implication that Jack the Ripper pre-selected victims - and surely one of them would have mentioned having an appointment.
Also, the whole ‘It was a clue because the next murders happened on dates that have a connection to Michaelmas’ thing is just plain silly - especially given that Kosminski was Jewish. It’s like one of those numerology things where if you try hard enough you can make the letters in anyone’s name add up to some number that was found at some crime scene.
I doubt if any peer revue will ever happen.
And I agree again with eclectic wench regarding setting patterns and dates. These people were so poor and in most cases illiterate that being able to purchase anything or even know what date it was stretches the imagination.
I’d like to see the case solved but given something far more recent such as Zodiac with all the resources available and poured into that it would seem similar to winning lotto for this to be a game breaker.
I had thought the whole idea it was semen had to do with his encounter with the victim. I guess maybe not.
[One aspect possibly worth comment is the idea that Kosminski was prone to “self abuse”, as documented at the time. I’m uncertain as to whether this was based on actual knowledge or was simply a matter of his insanity being attributed to this likely cause, as would have been thought plausible at that time.]
This thread has me leaning towards it being a hoax, but I have to question this. Do we know that it was only tested for Kosminski and no one else?
I think the author would have told us if they had tested for anyone else, especially if that test came back negative. It would marginally improve his case. I assume such tests do not come cheap. I also assume the number of descendants of plausible suspects willing to be tested is fairly limited.
You have problems keeping up with this thread? I had to register at Casebook because there was somebody wrong on the internet (and he still keeps being wrong!), so I have to continue to follow that thread, which has grown to 200 (short) pages! The level of discourse does not compare favorably with here, and there’s a lot of repetition, so it’s a slog.
And it’s not a shawl. It’s 5/6ths of a table runner for an 8’ table, with the other 2’x2’ printed/painted end removed at some time. It could be worn as a shawl, though.
Yeah, the first four weeks of the month have been extremely busy lately. And the SO had surgery recently, so I’m busy when I’m not at work.
I’m sorry to hear that. Is SO feeling better yet?
Actually, they are not very expensive at all. A full mtDNA analysis costs anywhere from $199 to $339 at commercial labs. (The $999 price includes the full genome.)
The cost would not be a consideration for a lab like Louhelainen would have.
I would assume this would be the major limitation. I suspect, for example, the Royal Family is not eager to be tested.
Actually, they are not terribly expensive. A full mtDNA analysis costs anywhere from $199 to $339 at commercial labs. (The $999 price includes the full genome.)
The cost would not be a consideration for a lab like Louhelainen would have.
I would assume this would be the major limitation. I suspect, for example, the Royal Family is not eager to be tested.
Only since he saw Johnny Depp in that masterpiece of criminology, From Hell.
I don’t have a link at the moment, but he has backstepped in an interview to the view that Kosminski “cannot be excluded.” My experience with mtDNA guys has been that “cannot be excluded” is far from a ringing endorsement and gives them wiggle room in case further testing doesn’t support them. It’s not Maury Povich saying,“You ARE the father,” and I think it’s what he really told Edwards, who ran with it to get the book on the shelves in time for the anniversary.
True, it’s a press release, written by the owner of the cloth and author of the book. That means it’s not even good enough to be a Daily Mail investigation!