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He was also already a suspect in the murders. The assistant chief constable wrote that Kosminski was a suspect because he "had a great hatred of women ... with strong homicidal tendencies." In one of the murders, Kosminski was identified but apparently the witness refused to testify against him.
Do you think a shawl with semen stains found on a murder scene would not be pretty heavy evidence today?
It would only be circumstantial evidence. A man's semen could get on a prostitute's shawl because he raped and murdered her. But it could also get there because he was one of her johns.
I heard this detail on the radio story of the same topic: The shawl did not belong to the victim, but I forget the details of how they could know that. They also traced the fibers of the shawl to polish or russian origins, which would be consistent with belonging to the polish emigrant.
Oh I'm sure it would, but without multiple pieces of evidence linking him to multiple scenes, it wouldn't be enough. Even if multiples were found, it wouldn't be enough if he had any alibis. Finding a piece of clothing with semen stains on a prostitute isn't exactly surprising, after all.
A similar case is actually taking place now in Italy. They found a few droplets of blood from a middle-aged family man on the underwear of a 13 year old girl that was killed. Even though it's blood, all this proves is that he had some kind of (inappropriate) contact with the child. On its own, it's not enough evidence to convict him of murder. Now imagine a much more explainable scenario like semen on a prostitute, and you realize how weak the evidence is if not corroborated by further evidence.
Well, one would assume that the police work of the time was done to the most reasonable extent possible and if the outcome of that police work was him as a suspect, being able to confirm DNA at the murder scene would only serve to affirm that suspicion. It all depends on what other evidence police based their suspicion at the time. The person who bought the shawl said he consulted the original written police reports in the archives. I suppose anyone could do the same, or... buy the book. ;)
It was enough to convict Steve Wright: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipswich_serial_murders#Court_a...
They found DNA evidence on 3 of the victims, that is completely different then finding DNA evidence on one victim.
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> The story goes that [the shawl] came from the murder scene of the Ripper's fourth victim, Catherine Eddowes, on September 30, 1888.
With a provenance like that, the mystery is solved beyond all reasonable doubt.
With a provenance like that, the mystery is solved beyond all reasonable doubt.
But... but... I thought Patricia Cornwell had proved the Ripper was British painter Walter Sickert in her book "Case Closed"!
Well, at least now the case is truly closed!
Well, at least now the case is truly closed!
Not really -- all the article says is that a person claims to have identified the "real" Jack the Ripper, using what sounds like pretty persuasive evidence. But would that evidence convict him today, in Britain? Or would it only show that he had a contact with the victim? He was known to patronize prostitutes.
Proving the provenance by testing the blood on the shawl against the victim was the first thing they did.
But it was also kept in a "crime museum" where it might have become contaminated, and DNA samples will degrade over time, so a cautious representation of this finding would be "might show the identity" rather than “Jack the Ripper has been identified."
> "An interesting but remarkable claim that needs to be subjected to peer review, with detailed analysis of the provenance of the shawl and the nature of the claimed DNA match with the perpetrator's descendants and its power of discrimination; no actual evidence has yet been provided," Jeffreys told The Independent newspaper.
> "An interesting but remarkable claim that needs to be subjected to peer review, with detailed analysis of the provenance of the shawl and the nature of the claimed DNA match with the perpetrator's descendants and its power of discrimination; no actual evidence has yet been provided," Jeffreys told The Independent newspaper.
Well, more like proved the possibility that the shawl was in fact from the victim, given the material, design, and the fact that the mtDNA matched a descendent. There are still many, many other peoples' blood from that time period that would yield the same match, but coupled with the story of the background of the shawl, they would like you to believe it a 100% match for their purposes. (A cynic would say... to sell the book.)
Seems more like a ploy to sell books than peer-reviewed scientific research.
Doesn't this sort of thing happen every few years whenever someone decides to write a new book on the subject?
Doesn't this sort of thing happen every few years whenever someone decides to write a new book on the subject?
What, no? Or have you heard of any DNA being extracted from the evidence and compared with living relative, recently?
I share the opinion of the parent post. It seems every once in a while a "Ripperologist" (yes, there is a name for this) comes up with a new, definitive and conclusive theory about the identity of Jack the Ripper, and you must buy the book to find out. Patricia Cornwell comes to mind, she "proved" that it was Walter Sickert, and the killings were apparently caused by Sickert having some flaw in his genitals (not making this up).
The DNA stuff would NOT prove -- even if there were no contamination of evidence, no fakery and no misreading of the evidence -- that this guy was the Ripper. At best it proves he had sexual intercourse with the victim. This isn't a bad lead, but it doesn't "prove" anything about the identity of the killer.
The DNA stuff would NOT prove -- even if there were no contamination of evidence, no fakery and no misreading of the evidence -- that this guy was the Ripper. At best it proves he had sexual intercourse with the victim. This isn't a bad lead, but it doesn't "prove" anything about the identity of the killer.
This submission's title "Jack the Ripper identified through DNA traces"
The linked article's title: "Jack the Ripper identified through DNA traces: sleuth"
See the missing word? We're talking about one person's claim, not an established fact. It might be true, it might be false, but misrepresenting the evidence doesn't help.
The linked article's title: "Jack the Ripper identified through DNA traces: sleuth"
See the missing word? We're talking about one person's claim, not an established fact. It might be true, it might be false, but misrepresenting the evidence doesn't help.
mitochondrial dna haplogroups are not sufficiently unique to be particularly reliable for this purpose. The entire genome is only 16kb. But if there was enough DNA to recover the mitochondrial, there should be enough to recover much more autosomal DNA (3Gb in size), which would be sufficient for identification.
If I read the article correctly, the mtDNA was only used to correlate that the shawl reasonably belonged to the victim. The story of its provenance coupled with the fact that the mtDNA extracted matched her descendent perfectly. It certainly isn't bulletproof. The male identification came not from mtDNA, but from DNA extracted from epithelial cells.
You are correct that autosomal DNA would have been better option (if available), and would have provided more reliable results, yet to my understanding, mtDNA is being used in criminology.
This is a relevant case as well:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11210907
This is a relevant case as well:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11210907
I admit that I don't know any more about DNA matching than can be gleaned from occasionally watching the news. But if there are, say, a dozen serious suspects and this matches one then isn't that persuasive? That is, searching an entire database of DNA samples requires more hits to be convincing, in my mind, than does matching among a tiny group.
By itself, I would imagine that might be enough to prove the innocence of some of the suspects, but not necessarily enough to prove the guilt of one suspect. Of course each court is different and the amount of evidence needed to convict isn't always the same.
The problem is getting samples from the bodies. The mtDNA was sampled from direct female line relatives of both victim and suspect, the bodies of the original victim and suspect are no longer available for forensic work. It should be reasonably possible to recover some autosomal DNA if mtDNA is available, but what do you compare it to?
There's actually more useful information in the Independent article submitted previously:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8281741
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8281741
> The research has not been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, meaning the claims cannot be independently verified or the methodology scrutinised.
Why? It's still written somewhere.
Why? It's still written somewhere.
Cannot should be "have not"
Better news article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2746321/Jack-Ripper-...
Why downvotes? I think it really tells more about the case.
Unconfirmed, speculation.
Now It could well be him but this "evidence" does not prove this. All it does prove is that the shawl belonged to Aaron (DNA from semen). Aaron Kosminski who by the way had a history with prostitutes. At best this merely confirms that he was acquainted with Eddowes, a prostitute.