Jack The Ripper (Compendium Thread)

[Cochise]

Um, well, I don't totally rule that out, because all of this is 'opinion' until someone comes up with some peer-reviewed science.

But this is not a full DNA match, its mitochondrial DNA, so a) it only matches to within several thousand people and b) a 100% match would actually be proof that the DNA was NOT from Eddowes/Kosminski, as the samples for comparison come from descendants, not the actual subjects.

Couple that with the fact that it has been recovered by a 'new technique' apparently unknown to anyone else, and it all tends to smell a bit Maybrickian.

Even if it is all eventually peer-reviewed and proven, it is only extra circumstantial evidence, and any defence council will simply point out that Mr Kosminski, his client (whichever Kosminski it is - the police never mentioned his first name) admits he uses the services of prostitutes and the semen must have got on the cloth at some point prior to the murder.

 

[Stu73]

Iv'e still seen no reason to believe that any DNA sample is either viable or reliable from the drape/shawl/wrap.

You only need to look on this site at Mainstream news, real murder mysteries,

It's so easy for dna to degrade and become useless, yet we're supposed to believe this as the cornerstone for the argument?

 

[Ascalon]

A lot of good points here.

First of all, the shawl/wrap/bolt, whatever you like to call it, was shown to have been of eastern European manufacture, hence the reasons that it might have been carried to the scene by Kosminksi, not necessarily by Eddowes. This is not as outlandish as it seems, as I seem to recall at the time of the murders, Kosminski was living with relatives, including a sister. Secondly, I absolutely agree that there are numerous ways that DNA could have got on material that was at the scene, without the need for violence. But, in the circumstances, it would be an extraordinary coincidence for Kosminski to have been a client of Eddowes on the night that she met the Ripper.

As regards the dating of the shawl to 1902 by the pattern, I was not familiar with that and was using the information in the Daily Mail article (I know ? ) as regards its origins.

I too am deeply troubled by the supposed provenance of the shawl and agree it makes no sense for a copper from the wrong patch to have been gifted something like this.

That said, if the DNA, mitochondrial as it is, holds up then it still makes the most compelling case yet for Kosminksi as JTR. But it also paints a unique picture of mental breakdown, if by his incarceration, Kosminksi has gone from being a knife-wielding murderer who has the self-control to attack in public and then walk away (a la the stroll from Mitre Square to Goulston Street and beyond) to gibbering fool.

I think the early pathology of Kosminski is of particular interest as not only was he significantly younger than most profilers would have said, his later symptoms making him appear as a harmless idiot are at variance with what appear to be a fairly calculating character early on.

It does strike me that, as has been noted, the timing on the Eddowes attack is so tight, especially with the night watchman so close by in the commercial premises, that the deposition of the male DNA on the shawl may have been as a result of an involuntary action that was subsequently cleaned up.

 

[eziofan]

The biggest problem for me is why, out of approx 40 'suspects' the author only chooses to search for Kosminski's DNA and comes up with a hit. What about Druitt, Tumblety, et al? Lucky guess?

 

[Stu73]

If it was a modern day crime in a court of law, that shawl would never even be entered as evidence.

My point still remains that even if you got a time machine and brought the killer back, certain ripperologists just would not accept it as they have too much invested.

 

[emina]

The biggest problem for me is why, out of approx 40 'suspects' the author only chooses to search for Kosminski's DNA and comes up with a hit. What about Druitt, Tumblety, et al? Lucky guess?

Yes, that does seem to be too good to be true, doesn't it? Or perhaps he did test against descendants of other suspects but the article left those bits out (probably reading the whole book would explain this). Maybe he just always thought Kosminsky was the 'who' who dunnit and struck lucky first time.

Actually, it does make sense that Kosminski would be the one to test for. The Eddowes attack was the only murder to have an eye witness. The witness later identified Kosminski during a police interview but refused to testify. There are varying accounts by different members of the police team about the details, but to cut a long story short, given that an eye witness positively identified Kosminski as Eddowes attacker, it would be a bit strange if the investigator hadn't at least started with Kosminski.

EDIT: Indeed, if the police interview and ID happened as reported (as I say, there are some conflicting reports), it would be doubtful whether any of the other candidates could even reasonably considered.

 

[emina]

There was no eyewitness to Eddowes' death or attacker. She was apparently seen with a male companion by three men some hours prior to her death, but those witnesses couldn't even be sure it was Eddowes they had seen.

The tale of the eyewitness who refused to testify against Kosminski (on the basis of their shared Jewishness) does not appear in any contemporary police documentation and appears to be an embellishment in a police inspector's memoirs (Sir Robert Anderson iirc).

There was one apparent random eyewitness to a ripper victim being assaulted (knocked to the ground during a struggle) but her attacker taunted the passerby threateningly so he hurried past. The woman was later found mutilated at that spot. The eyewitness's account of the man we might reasonably assume to be the murderer is nothing like Kosminski. (This last par is from memory, CBA to check the precise details).

Yes, all true, but the question was 'why choose Kosminski to DNA test for?' If you want a place to start, Kosminksi, regardless of any unknown variables would be the sensible, or indeed only place to start.

Did the identification happen?
Dunno TBO, and neither does anyone else. It's impossible to verifiy. If it did, Kosminksi's yer starting point (if nothing else). If it didn't, there is no starting point.

Were the witnessed attack and the murder the same event?
As above.

If it's not Kosminski, there's no other known name in the frame, so who could you test for? Again, Kosminski's top of the pile, but after that it's pure guess work.

In order to start a search for other DNA, you'd need to identify a suspect on other grounds. Others have tried, I suppose. But overall, without going into wild speculation and given the 'alleged' connections between Kosminski and the Eddowes murder, it doesn't seem at all 'strange' to me that he would be the first suspect to check. In fact, it would seem logical to check him first, if only to rule him out.

 

[Analogue Boy]

All I can confirm is that the police are now closing in on Jack the Ripper.
I'm sure this latest disclosure will be weighed against the other evidence and we can expect an arrest in the next few decades.

 

[Bigphoot2]

All I can confirm is that the police are now closing in on Jack the Ripper.
I'm sure this latest disclosure will be weighed against the other evidence and we can expect an arrest in the next few decades.

No doubt the BBC will be there to film the search of his house.

 

[emina]

Well, I don't see how you justify that, given the numerous other named individuals who have been suspected. I suppose that we won't be able to answer this without reading the book.

Well, there are lots of names in the frame for the killings, mostly latter-day speculation, but given the alleged connection with Kosminski, I'm simply saying that it would be a good place to start, that's all.

Well, there's no contemporary police documentation describing the supposed 'Kominski witness', which leads one to the conclusion that it wasn't reported at the time because it didn't happen.

I doubt very much that a crucial eyewitness to an infamous murderer striking terror across the east end would manage to avoid being identified or even referred to in any form of official record whatsoever, while the prime suspect was let loose as the police gave a collectively philosophical shrug of their shoulders!

Yeah, but there are a lot of lost records, plus the fact that different officers directly contradicting one another means that someone's telling porkies. Missing info and contradictory info doesn't leave much to go on. Clearly there were details of the investigation that have gone unrecorded too. I agree that it's probably a fabrication, but I can't rule out the possibility that it isn't entirely.

Well, it would be quite a coincidence if they weren't, wouldn't it

Yep. No argument.

Well, I wouldn't know where to start. But presuming that authenticated clothing from JTR victims still survives in the Black Museum, perhaps looking for DNA on those might now be overdue. If Kosminski came up again, that would certainly be something of a slam-dunk.

It would indeed. I think if the methodology gets the thumbs up via peer review, that might be something folk'll look into.

 

[Yithian]

All I can confirm is that the police are now closing in on Jack the Ripper.
I'm sure this latest disclosure will be weighed against the other evidence and we can expect an arrest in the next few decades.

No doubt the BBC will be there to film the search of his house.

Especially given that people are saying Jack was a BBC employee and may have actually ripped on BBC property. Apparently, this whole thing has come to light in spite of the BBC screening a laudatory documentary that portrayed Jack as a social reformer, passionate in his work to fight prostitution in the East End.

 

[dreeness]

:?

So... No fascinating back-story, no grand conspiracy, no Satanists, no Freemasons, no Royals...

Just some drab, no-account, worthless little schmuck with a butcher knife...

Wouldn't make much of a movie...

 

[Bigphoot2]

Although I have grave doubts that this is the solution, I think Kosminski will probably capture the public imagination as the 'real' JTR for one simple reason.

He looks like Jack the Ripper!

It's a mugshot that screams 'Guilty!' as loudly as the infamous shot of Myra Hindley.

I'm sure I've seen him speaking badly dubbed English in a spaghetti western

 

[Ascalon]

I would tend to agree that Kosminski was the obvious choice to start this particular line of inquiry because from this distance with all modern methods of geo and personality profiling, he was the best named suspect of the time.

You'd hardly start with Druitt as scholarship since has shown he couldn't have been the culprit.

A

 

[Yithian]

He's got moustaches that were just made for evil twiddling and all he needs is a top-hat.

And semen-encrusted clothes.

 

[dreeness]

Not a Ripperologist, but I came across something odd in the Wikipedia entry for Aaron Kosminski, two sentences which seem bizarrely contradictory.

In Kosminski's defence, he was described as harmless in the asylum. He brandished a chair at an asylum attendant in January 1892 and he threatened his sister with a knife, but these two incidents are the only known indications of violent behaviour.

So, "harmless", except for a couple of minor bashy/stabby interludes.

 

[Yithian]

Not a Ripperologist, but I came across something odd in the Wikipedia entry for Aaron Kosminski, two sentences which seem bizarrely contradictory.

In Kosminski's defence, he was described as harmless in the asylum. He brandished a chair at an asylum attendant in January 1892 and he threatened his sister with a knife, but these two incidents are the only known indications of violent behaviour.

So, "harmless", except for a couple of minor bashy/stabby interludes.

There's been a lot of discussion of such things (see - or rather listen - to the ripper cast episodes I posted links to above). First, the level of casual violence in the East End at this time would be much higher that is accepted today - mere threats were seen as commonplace. Second, the nature of Kosminksi's mania seems to have changed - he seems to have become more passive during his incarceration (hope I'm remembering this correctly).

 

[dreeness]

Possibly the guards gave him some impromptu fine-tuning? "Patient became violent, so we took turns kicking the crap out of him", not the sort of thing that would be written down.

 

[Cochise]

There is no known image of Aaron Kosminski.

The picture above is pure imagination. (And actually looks like a different suspect, Severin Klosowski)

We aren't even sure which of several members of the Kosminski extended family the police were talking about, since the available records only provide a surname. Their description of events in connection with the Kosminski suspect would actually tend to exclude Aaron Kosminski, because they state that the suspect had homicidal tendencies, was incarcerated in 1889 and died shortly afterwards. Aaron Kosminski was not described as violent (he indulged in public masturbation and other unpleasant but harmless habits), he was not incarcerated until February 1891 and he didn't die until 1919. He also was substantially younger than any of the witness estimates (although no-one is sure if any of the witnesses actually saw the Ripper).

One senior police officer directly involved stated bluntly that no-one knew who Jack the Ripper was. So it has to be assumed that the various officials who named or pointed to certain suspects had insufficient evidence to even convince their colleagues, let alone a jury.

If you suspect one man named 'Smith' of murder and you find a prostitute has gone with another man named 'Smith' you have not in fact strengthened your case at all.

I rather hoped this was a new piece of evidence, but, sorry, it holds no water at all. Quite apart from the above we have a novel and not peer-tested method of recovering the DNA, we have dubious use of mitochondrial DNA where it appears the groups haven't even been correctly identified, we have claims of a 100% match when such a thing is impossible in the circumstances (you can only get a 100% match when the DNA comes from the actual person, not a descendent) and we have a piece of cloth that according to expert examination could not have been made before 1902, and which could not have been obtained in the way described by the family who used to own it. And which has already been rejected as a genuine artefact by the Black Museum (which was why they sold it).

Someone has- as with most of the other named suspects - picked a suspect and gone on to make a case using only the few pieces of 'evidence' - real or alleged - that can be cherry picked to support their case and ignoring all the contra evidence. When the police themselves do this we call it a fit-up.

 

[Cochise]

There may not be as many Kosminskis as Smiths but there were at least two large extended families with that name living in the area at the time. At least two others, Woolf and Isaac, have previously been suggested as Ripper suspects. And it has also been suggested that Aaron was a witness used for identification of a relative, not a suspect at all. And that the identification could not be used because Aaron subsequently was incarcerated as insane, hence confusion in memories and memos by officers not directly involved.

There would also be similar surnames that could be confused, indeed its been suggested that Klosowski was confused with Kosminsky which is why at least two detectives declared him to be the Ripper when he was caught carrying out other - but completely dissimilar - murders. Many of those would be from the same ethnic background and thus sharing the same mitochondrial DNA. The cloth had also been previously tested for bloodstains and none found.

Even if the cloth is wrongly dated, all we have - even if the science is verified - is evidence that among the many people who have handled it are people from the same ethnic grouping as Eddowes descendants (who might well have handled it during one of the many previous amateur attempts to get a provenance) and of Kosminski, a Eastern European Jewish man - of whom many hundreds arrived in the East End in the 19th century, and who in turn have thousands of descendants. The thing spent years in an antique shop, for goodness sake. Handled by all and sundry, and even had at least two pieces cut from it.

However, best suggestion yet from Casebook - if the shawl _is_ genuine then the obvious murderer is Amos Simpson the policeman who stole it.

After all , who normally steals bloody (allegedly) souvenirs from the crime scene, especially before the police artist has recorded the crime or the police have noted the victims clothes and possession - oh, and who was not seen by anyone at the crime scene after the body was discovered. Normally that would be the murderer, wouldn't it?

 

[Cochise]

I have no horses backed either way - I don't believe anyone can credibly identify the murderer with the evidence available, and I don't think this story adds to the evidence - but equally I'd be happy to see some peer reviewed science both on the dating of the cloth and on the DNA evidence that proved it was genuine and specific, although that would simply move Aaron up the pecking order of suspects, not prove the case.

The cloth was extensively tested by Andy Ailffe - or rather he had tests done - when it previously came up as an supposed genuine artefact and ended up in the Black Museum. There are extensive discussions on it over at the casebook along with the history of previous attempts (several) to get some provenance / proof that this is a genuine piece of evidence. Most of which I was completely unaware of 48 hours ago.

Everything in the past has come up negative, so it is only reasonable that people are demanding some third party verification before being prepared to consider the implications if previous findings are reversed.

The suggestion about old Amos is not exactly satire - its rather more plausible than the actual story of the alleged shawl's provenance - but of course there is no evidence for either.

 

[Heckler]

.

The question remains: How did blood --in an arterial splash pattern -- apparently matchable with an Eddowes descendant, and semen -- apparently matchable with a Kosminski descendant -- get on a piece of cloth that was not apparently manufactured till a decade after the killing?

Alter just one tiny assumption -- that the material was dated wrongly -- and it all hangs together. This is far more likely to my mind that than a faulty DNA process randomly produced matches to a known victim and a contemporary suspect.

Assuming the shawl was dated correctly as being from the period you still have a DNA match with a huge number of people (tens if not hundreds of thousands). What we've proved here is that a decendant of a sibling of Kosminski and a decendant of Eddows fall into those huge groups.

Again as has been said already, clarification and peer review is required before even the loose conclusions I've made can be said to be proven and even if that is proved you've still got a piece of cloth with two bits of DNA on them and that's that.

 

[Heckler]

Very little precise information has been released yet concerning the nature of the DNA evidence Mr. Edwards claims to have found. A few articles have suggested that the DNA being examined was mitochondrial DNA. It is important to understand the difference between a "DNA match," like those seen on a CSI television show, and a "mitochondrial DNA match". mtDNA, unlike nuclear DNA, is not unique. Finding an mtDNA match between two samples does not mean that one person left both, but that only a certain percentage of the population could have left both. These percentages can vary from anywhere between 1% and as much as 40% of the population. Finding an "mtDNA match" doesn't generally mean you've matched one person definitively - it means you've matched the population group to which that person belongs to the population group of the person who left the sample.

The best that can be said for such an mtDNA match is that it doesn't exclude Kosminski from being the source of the DNA. He could have left it, yes, but so could any one of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of other people who share that same mtDNA profile. Or, as Alan Boyle, science editor at NBC News, wrote:

MtDNA is passed down from a mother to her children, and many people can share the same mtDNA signature. The signature linked to Kosminski, T1a1, is a relatively common subtype. Thus, the determination doesn't mean much unless the signature can be narrowed down to a rarer subtype, or unless additional evidence can be brought to bear (as was the case for identifying the remains of Russia's Czar Nicholas II and his family).

From 'ere : Link

 

[dreeness]

Given that he was apparently mentally ill at the time, and given how shockingly Victorian mental health patients were 'treated', I don't think that pair of incidents adds up to very much at all. If anything, the fact that he didn't actually harm anyone would tend to mitigate against him being an impulsive killer.

Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy were both considered "model prisoners". An impulsive killer isn't necessarily an impulsive fighter as well.

 

[Cochise]

I think what gets everyone agitated when these things come up is that most people with an interest know that without 'new' evidence we can get no further in identifying the criminal. So interest in any possible new evidence is naturally considerable.

However, such 'evidence' has for years been brought forward, usually with some claim that the case is solved beyond a shadow of a doubt, and equally usually turns out to be at best a flimsy rehash of existing evidence, or some minor, real but not conclusive item. In the worst cases it is obvious fantasy or even fraud.

So there is naturally a lot of initial enthusiasm when 'new evidence' is brought forward, only to be rapidly replaced by cynicism when the evidence is found to fall into one of the categories above - as, until it is peer reviewed and something new is confirmed, is the case here.

The story told for the alleged shawl's provenance is in flat contradiction of the recorded facts, so there has to be very strong confirmation of the DNA findings before any more discussion is worthwhile.

None of the above means dismissing Kosminski (or someone similar) as a candidate - the Kosminski suspect remains one of the top three or four 'runners' for JtR based on the comments of the police actually involved, but unfortunately those comments don't even let us identify which Kosminski beyond a reasonable doubt, let alone convict poor old Aaron out of hand. Nevertheless, arguments that he is JtR are a lot more sensible than fingering Lewis Carroll or Dr. Barnardo or even Queen Victoria.

 

[Cochise]

And yet - despite the flimsiness of the evidence to which you correctly refer - he remains one of the best attested suspects.

Which is an indication of how tiny the evidence is for _any_ of the suspects - there actually is no hard evidence whatsoever to link any of them to any of the crimes, the case against all of them being made of pure speculation with, in only a handful of suspects' cases, tiny amounts of supporting but inconclusive circumstantial evidence.

Even if the so-called Seaside Home identification did take place, all it could prove is that the witness recognised someone who was seen near one of the crimes - no witness of record actually saw a murder taking place or a blood-stained murderer fleeing the scene. And, we do not now know who either the witness or (as you point out) the accused was!

 

[CarlosTheDJ]

Remember I mentioned our wedding reception at a Brighton hotel a few pages back?

Supposedly a hotel with Ripper connections?

Well, it went swimmingly. I thought placing our wedding cake directly under some framed post-mortem victim photos was a particularly nice touch by the venue.

 

[dreeness]

There is another alleged depiction of Kosminski's face on this video clip, at about the 5:37 time index.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7kOx-k16Kw

What these pictures are based on, maybe descriptions or sketches or something?

It's a similar sort of face, high forehead etc, but without sideburns.

 

[Cochise]

Garrick, I don't think I've made myself clear. I don't think there is any significant evidence for _any_ of the suspects - one mention by a policeman is about the strongest evidence you get in this case, and that's pathetic.

Back in the day. when I was doing active research into the Ripper murders, I hadn't grasped that there is really no concrete evidence at all, so I read up on what were then thought of as the 'most popular' suspects, as well as some of the off-the-wall ones. Hence discovering, for example, that in the case of Kosminski we don't actually know who they were talking about, or indeed if the three possible mentions of him refer to the same person.

I repeat, until more properly provenanced and authenticated evidence comes to light (which is now extremely unlikely) you could name anyone that was known to frequent the East End and wasn't definitely elsewhere on at least two of the 'canonical' murder dates. And you would have as much evidence for convicting whoever you chose as any of the so far named suspects.

The police at the time possibly had more evidence than we have now - many papers have supposedly been lost - but that is also pure speculation, and since none of the police agree (for certain) on the same suspect then its unlikely they had anything conclusive anyway.

As for the pictures / descriptions, they are based as far as I can tell on the known description of Severin Klosowski, a poisoner, who one detective thought - with no evidence whatsoever - was also the Ripper.

We do not IIRC have a full description of Aaron Kosminski, but he is described in the asylum records as fair and slim - he only weighed 8 stone. He was also only 23 , considerably younger than the age given by any of the witnesses who 'might' have seen the Ripper - which is further support for the argument that _if_ the police were in fact suspecting a Kosminski, then it is not Aaron, because he is too young.

 

[RyoHazuki]

Forgive me if I've overlooked something obvious, but:

Assuming for a wild moment that the shawl's provenance is pukka, that it was incorrectly dated, and that the stains are indeed those of Eddowes' arterial blood and Kosminski's semen... surely that would only prove two facts - that Eddowes was wearing the shawl when she died, and that she was wearing the shawl during a sexual encounter with Kosminski. To assume that those two events happened together is rather a big leap, and I doubt it would be enough for a conviction even in a modern court.