Kosminski and Victim DNA Match on Shawl

[Amanda Sumner]

That's a level of certainty I don't think we're quite entitled to yet. It seems as misplaced and authoritative as Mr Edwards' wilder claims.

We can have a high level of certainty that the shawl was not there because the events of that night are well documented, including a very detailed list of clothes that victim was wearing when she was killed. We also have a drawing from F. Foster that shows Eddowes lying on the ground as she was found. No 'shawl'.
The policeman, Amos Simpson. had no reason to be in that area and was not recorded, anywhere, that he was on special duties that night. No records or statements from anyone that he was with them at the scene. So we can be equally certain he was not there.



I don't think Dr Louhelainen is speculating. Neither do I think Dr David Miller is speculating.

The speculating I was referring to were from members on this board. Lengthy discussions on how Amos could possibly have got the shawl under the noses of a number of policeman, a doctor and an artist, is speculating, conjecture. Whether the blood is arterial blood is speculating. There is no way one can tell, now, where it came from.



I agree instead with the primer on the Casebook homepage: IF it is proven to be the DNA of Eddowes and Kosminski, provenance becomes moot.

I disagree. The only way one could be absolutely sure that the DNA belonged to Eddowes and Kosminski is to exhume their bodies, which will never happen. Any positive results will remain inconclusive, but simply cannot rule them out. However, had a proven item at the scene been preserved and tested then the results would have been more interesting, I think.

After all, the shawl's provenance is a gap, it's an empty space. You can't prove it wasn't there. It's a gap, not a definitive minus. DNA evidence, if confirmed and solid, would be a positive. A gap in provenance wouldn't cancel out biological evidence. That evidence would exist!

Again, provenance is everything. An item emerges into the public eye, years later, and claimed to be something that was not recorded in history, at all, has to be viewed with scepticism and suspicion. There is far more evidence to suggest it wasn't there than it was. We have documentary evidence on one side and er....someone's say so, on the other.
Any conclusive DNA ( which is extremely unlikely) is going to show, at best, that relatives who shared the same DNA of both had been in contact with it at some point or other, not necessarily at the same time, and more likely anywhere else than in Mitre Sq. This could also be before or much later after the event. In this instance,I think the dating of this shawl is crucial to the investigation.

Re the shawl's provenance we have absence of evidence, which is not quite the same as definite evidence of absence. That absence of 125 year old documentary evidence could not cancel-out definite biological evidence of Eddowes' blood in arterial spray on a piece of fabric that had Kosminski's DNA in semen stains.

Again, I feel the provenance is highly important. Any conclusive evidence on a highly suspect item will lead to wondering how that can be so, and will raise questions of foul play. The whole thing will be far too neat and tidy. It will not happen. It has been shown, over and over on here that the shawl has been mishandled down the ages. Contamination must be rife. There is no chance of conclusive proof of anything.

I don't disagree with you - I think this thing will remain very much unproven, and Edwards has hyped the results way beyond what the actual science will bear. But I think your logic is wrong. Provenance is surely moot IF the shawl has on it arterial blood spray, semen, and the confirmed DNA of a victim and a chief suspect.

Again, if that happened, but it won't, I would be very suspicious of the results....

But that's a big IF. At the moment we're entitled to say that it doesn't, and as it doesn't we're entitled to give the lack of provenance primacy as evidence.

I agree, we are all entitled to an opinion. I do think, though, as it stands, we need an independent investigation, and more tests done, to either uphold or dismiss these claims. I believe the latest I've heard is that the scientist , Jari has no plans to have this done in the foreseeable future...

Why is that, I wonder?

Sorry, I wrote between quotes to answer your raised points, but it came up like this!

Amanda

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Ripperology is the art of juggling an infinite amount of balls.

Regards,

Simon

[lynn cates]

shot in the dark

Hello Garry. If your post #2713 is correct, it would change things drastically.

Instead of a smoking gun, it looks more like a shot in the dark.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

advantage

Hello Christer. Thanks for translating that.

I think MANY of us have been taken advantage of.

Cheers.
LC

[Amanda Sumner]

Hi All,

Ripperology is the art of juggling an infinite amount of balls.

Regards,

Simon

Hi Simon,

It certainly is!

Regards,

Amanda

[lynn cates]

2

Hello Helena. The more I read the less convinced I am that there is ANY worth in the Edwards/Jari findings.

That makes two of us.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

focus

Hello Mabuse. Thanks for posting that.

Things are starting to come into focus.

Cheers.
LC

[Patrick S]

The retesting is also another question that has crossed my mind. The results for the Deeming/Napper case were inconclusive. So how did this second set of testing take place. Two possible scenarios:

1. Edwards contacts Dr. Louhelainen asking him to try again even knowing the earlier results were negative - perhaps with Kominski samples.
2. Dr. Louhelainen having developed new methods of extraction contacts Edwards informing him of his new extraction techniques and he would like to retest the "shawl"..

I'm not sure I would use the term "fluke" to describe this second encounter.

cheers, gryff

This is covered in the BBC science interview. Link is on this thread. Somewhere.

[Peter Griffith aka gryff]

In fact, they could possibly predate 1888: I believe it is also stated that nuclear magnetic resonance techniques demonstrated that the shawl is old and predates the murders.

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) is a technique that has been used for identifying chemical compounds going back to the 1940s and 1950s.

So a scenario for its use with the "shawl" would be to extract the dyes from the "shawl", separate them by some form of chromatography, then get an NMR spectrum to identify the individual components. So for example you might identify dyes A,B,C.

Now you would have to look up when such dyes were first used and where. If they are in a combination A,B,C then the youngest would give an estimate of the first time they could have been used in that particular combination.

What it won't tell you is the last time such dyes were used in that combination. If those same dyes were still in use in 1900, then the "shawl" could have been made then

cheers, gryff

[PaulB]

Hello Simon,

So let me get this right... this Finnish Dr Jari swab tested the shawl earlier and found nothing.

He re-tested the shawl afterwards using a different method and found all manner of things that didn't /would not have shown up with the swab tests.

All this after Edwards had shown the shawl to Napper on a previous occasion when Napper was trying to fix Deeming as the Ripper. ON THIS PROGRAMME it says that Edwards has a personal reason for interest because "Deeming lived in Liverpool (in my home town)"

Napper..A (retired) policeman and DNA expert when on the force convinces Edwards to get the shawl tested. Deeming's DNA has no DNA shown belonging to Deeming. Results are inconclusive.

So can someone please explain to me why Edwards has suddenly DROPPED the Deeming "personal interest" and jumped on Kosminski?

Who suggested this away-from-a-personal-interest-in-Deeming theory to Edwards?





best wishes

Phil

Phil
It might help you if you read the book - Edwards explains that he favoured Deeming because of the Liverpool connection. As for Aaron Kosminski, before he bought the "shawl" he spoke to the curator of the Crime Museum who told him that the police had always known that the identity of Jack the Ripper was Aaron Kosminski.

[lynn cates]

Why?

Hello Phil.

"So can someone please explain to me why Edwards has suddenly DROPPED the Deeming "personal interest" and jumped on Kosminski?

Who suggested this away-from-a-personal-interest-in-Deeming theory to Edwards?"

Good question. And why no one else tested?

Cheers.
LC

[Rob Clack]

Hello Phil.

"So can someone please explain to me why Edwards has suddenly DROPPED the Deeming "personal interest" and jumped on Kosminski?

Who suggested this away-from-a-personal-interest-in-Deeming theory to Edwards?"

Good question. And why no one else tested?

Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn,

As Paul said, it is explained in the book.

Regards

Rob

[Stewart P Evans]

I am not sure...

Hello Stewart,
May I ask you, as you were there at the auction... was there specific mention or description of the pattern on the shawl being printed?
best wishes
Phil

I am not sure how the auctioneer introduced the shawl, other than quoting the description given in the auction catalogue (...log for US readers), thus -

235 A late 19th century brown silk screen printed shawl
decorated with Michaelmas daisies [sic], 8ft (with some sections cut out and torn). (illus.)

[anna]

Hi everyone.

The auction house that sold the shawl back in 2007 is called...

Lacy Scott and Knight...if you go to their website there is a small section that is headed "latest"..if you click on that it will show you the original catalogue page which the "shawl" appeared on....minus the reserve or price.

There is the description that they worked out for it....but there is also something I find very odd indeed...

They say.."There was a lot of publicity generated before the sale,and we were inundated by e-mails and telephone calls from interested parties.The shawl also sparked a big debate on Jack The Ripper forums and drew a massive crowd on the day of the sale. However,the provenance proved too shaky for Ripperologists,and the shawl failed to sell on the day.

A few days later,we were approached by Mr Edwards...etc.

Now..The room is absolutely packed..but nobody puts a bid on it...not even dealers ?.....nobody at all.

[lynn cates]

Jack known

Hello Rob. Thanks.

I have seen a few students who have suggested that the police REALLY knew whom Jack was. Usually these people are dismissed. Perhaps they are right, then?

Cheers.
LC