Kosminski and Victim DNA Match on Shawl

[Theagenes]

This point I am about to make doesn't make much difference for me because I don't think Stride was a victim but for those who do:

Why wasn't it left with her?
And why isn't her dna on it as well?

None of it adds up.

Rob

Maybe her DNA is on it. Personally, if I owned an item like this that might even possibly be linked with the murders -- even the slightest chance -- I'd want it tested against every suspect and victim I possibly could -- provided I had the resources to do it.

Why would anyone who actually wants to know the truth not want this to happen? Or did I just answer my own question?

[Jonathan H]

Known Unknowns?

There is a big difference between knowing something absolutely, and knowing something in all likelihood.

Lizzie Borden was acquitted but we know she axed her father and stepmother, likewise O. J. Simpson in the modern era. We know he was guilty right?

It is possible to hold a provisional opinion based on limited data, the difference being that you accept it may be changed by new data, and/or accept it can only be contingent--and accept that other interpretations of incomplete data are possible too.

That does not mean you have to see those competing opinions as of the same strength, or take the lazy, reductionist view that the very fact a competing opinion can be mounted negates and cancels out all of them.

The primary sources show that three significant police officers (and, again, it could be argued only two of them--but which two?) believed that the case was solved and not a mystery. These competing opinions were shared with the public. Case solved.

Both cops cannot be correct, and both might be wrong.

But as Rob House points out one (or two) of them might have been right.

It is possible to hold that opinion in the same way you believe Borden and Simpson are guilty--very likely, not an absolute fact.

An open mind can live with that. We do so in our daily lives all the time, about mundane matters.

[Stewart P Evans]

But...

The point is that mitochondrial DNA mutates very slowly, and the mitochondrial DNA he did have for comparison is - to an extremely high probability - identical with the mitochondrial DNA of Catherine Eddowes and Aaron Kozminski.
It's just no good for people to come here and rubbish the scientific evidence on the basis of zero understanding and zero willingness even to assimilate the facts. It tends to confirm all the worst stereotypes of Ripperologists - as cranky obsessives out of touch with the real world.
Of course there are huge problems with the provenance of the shawl, and I don't believe for a minute that the family tradition about Amos Simpson as presented by David Melville-Hayes can be true.
But on the other hand there are some very striking scientific findings that demand an explanation. I don't know what the explanation is, but we'd better try to find out, otherwise we'll convince no one - and I don't believe in the end we'll even convince ourselves.

But this 'scientific evidence' has not been independently evaluated or peer tested. Yet it appears to have been accepted on what has appeared in one subjective book and press reports that contain errors.

[Chris]

Who pulled your chain?

To be absolutely frank, Stewart, you did - along with all the other people who have been condemning this book without being willing even to read it. And even condemning those who are trying to understand the facts.

[Stewart P Evans]

Amaze

To be absolutely frank, Stewart, you did - along with all the other people who have been condemning this book without being willing even to read it. And even condemning those who are trying to understand the facts.

You simply amaze me.

[GUT]

The point is that mitochondrial DNA mutates very slowly, and the mitochondrial DNA he did have for comparison is - to an extremely high probability - identical with the mitochondrial DNA of Catherine Eddowes and Aaron Kozminski.

It's just no good for people to come here and rubbish the scientific evidence on the basis of zero understanding and zero willingness even to assimilate the facts. It tends to confirm all the worst stereotypes of Ripperologists - as cranky obsessives out of touch with the real world.

Of course there are huge problems with the provenance of the shawl, and I don't believe for a minute that the family tradition about Amos Simpson as presented by David Melville-Hayes can be true.

But on the other hand there are some very striking scientific findings that demand an explanation. I don't know what the explanation is, but we'd better try to find out, otherwise we'll convince no one - and I don't believe in the end we'll even convince ourselves.

G'day Chris

I'm no expert on DNA. But have had lengthy sessions with them both in preparation and in cross-examining them.

As I understand it mtDNA can be stable over a fairly long period, but when it does mutate it can mutate drastcally in one or two generations.

[Chris]

And I used to think that you were one of the sensible ones. But as you are an old buddy of Mr. House and a Kosminski obsessive I shouldn't be surprised.

A "Kosminski obsessive"? Laughable. I've never thought Aaron Kozminski was likely to be the murderer, and I've always made that abundantly clear.

[Stewart P Evans]

Yes...

A "Kosminski obsessive"? Laughable.

Yes, they are aren't they?

[Chris]

As I understand it mtDNA can be stable over a fairly long period, but when it does mutate it can mutate drastcally in one or two generations.

By all means post the evidence that backs up that opinion.

[Stewart P Evans]

I didn't say that...

A "Kosminski obsessive"? Laughable. I've never thought Aaron Kozminski was likely to be the murderer, and I've always made that abundantly clear.

I didn't say that you thought he was likely to be the murderer. But you have always given him, and research on him, a lot of attention. More so than other suspects, and, of course, buddied up with House.

[Jonathan H]

To Chris

Have you read 'The Lodger' by Evans and Gainey?

It is a brilliant book, one of the best of this sub-genre, and argues a [provisonal] opinion based on new and neglected primary sources that is hard to beat; in the sense that it establishes that Dr. Tumblety was the paramount police suspect of 1888, around which other police machinations orbited for years afterwards.

That does not mean that the American quack was 'Jack' as that cannot be known as an absolute, but a highly regarded police officer of the day felt he had never been cleared (while another very sly police administrator figure propagated the fiend to Edwardians as a middle-aged medico who was almost caught).

The provenance of the Littlechild Letter is not in doubt. That is certainly an absolute.

Whereas the 'shawl' is hopeless, and the DNA evidence--found on a discredited artifact--is the equivalent of the flipper shots of Nessie. Not a lie, to be charitable, but an over-reach based on ambiguous readings.

[lynn cates]

whence?

Hello Patrick, Theagenes. Where would one get a sample of DNA for either Eddowes or Kosminski?

(And welcome to the boards, Theagenes.)

Cheers.
LC

[Chris]

buddied up with House.

Is this really what it's come to?

[Rob Clack]

Maybe her DNA is on it. Personally, if I owned an item like this that might even possibly be linked with the murders -- even the slightest chance -- I'd want it tested against every suspect and victim I possibly could -- provided I had the resources to do it.

Why would anyone who actually wants to know the truth not want this to happen? Or did I just answer my own question?

Well if it is, then why not leave it in Dutfield Yard?

I am all for more testing. I just don't think there would be any tests that would give us a positive 100% satisfactory answer. Despite what Russell Edwards says. He might be convinced, but I am not.

Rob

[pinkmoon]

They did apply to exhume the body but it was rejected on religious grounds. They wanted to do it graveside, just using a couple of teeth. The author said he could go down a route of using the law to allow them to exhume it and over rule the religious grounds but he didn't really want to do it that way. As they were pursuing the idea of exhuming the body, the scientist said that it wasn't neccesary as they had found enough DNA on the shawl anyway.



You've clearly not read the book, I think you should be more careful with your words whilst you're trumpeting 'fact' and 'truth'.

I have not read the book and I will not read the book because there shouldn't be a book there should be nothing untill this shawl can be proved it was at the murder site and as it can't none of this should be happening.