Kosminski and Victim DNA Match on Shawl

[christoper]

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

we could all think up a thousand scenarios.

IF the Ripper dropped this--(I am far from convinced)---the scenario I would imagine is--

AK goes out on the hunt. He takes with him a cloth from the shop that he feels won't be missed--probably to wrap up any organs from the body so that he can get them home without destroying his clothes. Since he has to take something that will not be missed--he has to take whatever is available (as opposed to being able to choose the most resilient fabric).

At the Stride murder scene he is interrupted--and worried that he has been seen. He doesn't get any organs--so the cloth isn't used.

At the second murder scene, I think he was a bit rattled from the possibility of being seen--and being interrupted. For some reason he abandons the cloth he brought. It may be that he couldn't resist masturbating at the scene--and using the silky cloth in the process. Then it was tainted to him--he didn't want to wrap up something he planned to eat later in it.

So he hastily grabbed a piece of apron to wrap his trophy in.

As he approaches home he realizes--if I am caught with this bit of apron in my home, I will hang. I cannot take this home. So he abandons it on the street.

[Stewart P Evans]

It's far from...

To Chris
Have you read 'The Lodger' by Evans and Gainey?
It is a brilliant book, one of the best of this sub-genre,...

It's far from being a brilliant book. It was not a book I would have written by choice but circumstances meant I had to (I would rather have written a 'non-suspect' book) and I would rather not have comparisons drawn between the 'shawl' and the Littlechild letter. But thank you for the kind comments anyway.

[Stewart P Evans]

It would appear so...

Is this really what it's come to?

It would appear so. Disappointing isn't it? I never could abide people who supported nonsense.

[Poch]

Stewart, no offense but you've clearly demonstrated you have not read the book and that you are not likely too either and yet post after post from you seems to speak from authority on the subject. It's not really on becuase all it does is spread disinformation and derails proper discussion.

As I've stated from the start, there is definitely a lot to be talked about regarding this book, there are holes which could and should be filled or exposed and yet you and a few others have done nothing but backslap yourselves senseless about it all being a fraud, all the time demonstrating very clearly to anyone that has read this book that you have really no clue about it outside of tabloid fluff. All this does is spread nonsense and does not create a very good impression, to put it politely.

[Stewart P Evans]

I think....

I think that I probably should have stuck with my decision to abandon the boards, and stayed away. Things have come to a sorry pass.

[Chris]

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.

But the problem is that in the comparison between the shawl and Karen Miller's mitochondrial DNA we have a match which is extremely unlikely to have happened by pure chance, because it involved an extremely rare mutation - the probability is only 1 in 290,000, based on the worldwide prevalence of that mutation.

That can't simply be dismissed without an explanation. There might be several different explanations. But if we are going to be taken seriously, there has to be at least one plausible explanation.

[Rob Clack]

we could all think up a thousand scenarios.

IF the Ripper dropped this--(I am far from convinced)---the scenario I would imagine is--

AK goes out on the hunt. He takes with him a cloth from the shop that he feels won't be missed--probably to wrap up any organs from the body so that he can get them home without destroying his clothes. Since he has to take something that will not be missed--he has to take whatever is available (as opposed to being able to choose the most resilient fabric).

At the Stride murder scene he is interrupted--and worried that he has been seen. He doesn't get any organs--so the cloth isn't used.

At the second murder scene, I think he was a bit rattled from the possibility of being seen--and being interrupted. For some reason he abandons the cloth he brought. It may be that he couldn't resist masturbating at the scene--and using the silky cloth in the process. Then it was tainted to him--he didn't want to wrap up something he planned to eat later in it.

So he hastily grabbed a piece of apron to wrap his trophy in.

As he approaches home he realizes--if I am caught with this bit of apron in my home, I will hang. I cannot take this home. So he abandons it on the street.

I think we can all come up with different scenarios to explain the shawl, but none of them would fit the facts as we know them.

It's pretty certain it was never at Mitre Square or any other ripper related murder sight and a more thorough set of test might prove (or disprove) that.

Regards

Rob

[Stewart P Evans]

Please...

Stewart, no offense but you've clearly demonstrated you have not read the book and that you are not likely too either and yet post after post from you seems to speak from authority on the subject. It's not really on becuase all it does is spread disinformation and derails proper discussion.
...

Please show me where I have 'spoken with authority on the subject [of the book]'. I have posted material from the past that others were not aware of, and have pointed out errors where I have seen them. I have also passed comment on what has been written about the book in the press, including a two-page article by Edwards that appeared in the Mail and which I have read. But you are right, I shall not be wasting my money on the book, even if I do get a mention in it.

[Hunter]

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.

So... what's your point, Rob? Strides DNA (or a female descendant) apparently wasn't tested.

Folks need to get off the sauce before they post or get a lot more of it before they press the send button.

[Stewart P Evans]

Anyway...

Anyway, having upset two people I used to regard as friends I think I had better leave this alone now.

[anna]

Just so everyone knows...

Evening everyone..

Mr Edwards made an appearance on The Alan Titchmarsh show this afternoon..ITV @ 3pm. If you are in the UK it will probably be on catch up or You Tube if you are not.

He didn't bring the table runner. What was shown was a short film of the cloth being tested under lab conditions..that is when he explained they went deep into the cloth to get the DNA!!!

I felt Mr Edwards had just a very basic knowledge of JTR. I think Mr Titchmarsh gathered that too.

Just thought it was a good moment to slip this info into the conversation this evening,for those who weren't on the boards this afternoon.

[JeffHamm]

Are you saying that you have read the book and all they matched was one lousy Haplogroup?

Although that one particular group was mentioned on-line, it was obvious based on what the scientist said, that he is claiming that more than just one individual Haplogroup from the DNA strand was matched. So was he deliberately misleading us? I have not read the book.

Every piece matched would narrow it down to fewer and fewer people.

this wiki page goes into great detail about the Thomas Jefferson DNA--in his case paternal DNA (not maternal) was used---but the matching process is very similar. You can see in great detail how certain fragments found were very common (some of which pointed to Africa where many shared that fragment) but when the entire result was put together--there were only a few who matched the totality. That is how it works. Just because that one piece is common it does not mean that the entire strand is that common.

The details in this article are a good explanation of how it works:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffers...gs_controversy

Sorry, from what you said, I thought you were claiming to have read the book and were deliberately misleading people. It seems you haven't bothered with the book--and just picked a piece out of the news coverage and assumed that represented the full scientific effort?

Matching that haploid gives a general idea of the geographical origin of the suspect--many thousands of people would come from this area--so that is not very unique. HOWEVER, it is obvious that more than the one haplogroup was matched. Please look at what the scientist has said in interviews. Information such as hair color etc--shows that more than that one haplogroup (indicating geographic ancestry) was matched. Much more specific genetic information was obviously obtained (at least for AK) and has been referred to. Every piece that was obtained narrows it down further and further to fewer people.

Even though that particular Haploid has been mentioned in the tabloid--it is a gross mischaracterization of the research to act as though that was the only DNA characterized and that a match is based solely on its presence.

Ah, I see what you're getting at. I'm not saying that T1a1 was all the genetic information they have, rather, it's all we have seen specifically mentioned so far. So, given this is all we have, we can start trying to narrow things down. If we could, for example, narrow it down to 14,000 people (say 10% of T1's were T1a1's, a number I'm making up just for use here as an example) then we can conclude the upper limit is 14,000 at this point based upon the information we've been given (rather than information that's been implied to exist, which even if it does, we can't do anything with because we don't have access to it).

Now, given that he's claimed to determine hair colour, etc, then he's got nuclear DNA from the semen, which he's now verified is the case but he didn't have time to get it analysed before the book deadline. If he can get a full profile from that, then he should be able to do a match with the living relative of Kosminski and things could get interesting.

As for the book, I've not had a chance to get it yet. Not sure when it will be made available here in New Zealand, but I will read it when I can get it. Until then, I'm stuck with what I get here on the boards.

- Jeff

[Observer]

Ofcourse proof would be required, doubt already hangs over whether Stride was a victim, and there are those who put a question mark over Kelly.

What ever we think about the Diary, Its has held up for twenty odd years and still unproven to be fake. I dont see this latest theory holding out that long.

I have and proberbly always will keep an open mind about this case.

Regards.

Stride I'd agree with. However, there are those who do not put a question mark over Kelly.

I also keep an open mind about this case. I do not believe Kosminski to have been the killer. In my opinion he doesn't fit the bill. I believe the notion that there were at least three individuals responsible for killing Nichols through to Kelly, is bleedin bonkers

Regards

Observer

[spyglass]

To Admin,
I think there should be a cash prize for the first person to reach and comment on post 2000 on this thread.

Also a cash prize for the first post to crack a joke about having a mass debate about Kosminski's solitary vice's and stains on the Shawl / table cloth.

Regards.

[Tom_Wescott]

I don't want to speak for Stewart, but I know that the reason I don't have any faith in the findings is because the DNA has been extracted from an item with no apparent relation to the murders. I could pull some mtDNA off Rumbelow's 'Ripper knife' and by God it will match the mtDNA of at least one and probably a good dozen or more of the members of this site. What does that prove?

Rob (House) gives us a George Bush ultimatum whereby we either accept the science or we're accusing Edwards and his doctor of fraud. I'm certainly not accusing anyone of fraud.

Had they been able to produce the Lusk kidney - an item we can actually link back to Oct. 1888 and show that the DNA could not have been Eddowes, I would buy that. If it proved to have the same mtDNA as Eddowes, I would accept it as a POSSIBLE match.

However, there's a reason why mtDNA can only be used to EXCLUDE a suspect. You can't condemn a man based on mtDNA particularly when the item it was extracted from has about as bad a provenance as you could hope for.

Having said that, I don't have any arguments with Rob House. He's a great guy and I love his book.

And for the plethora of newbies reading this thread, as Stewart mentioned earlier, the shawl has been around for a long, long time. It has been discussed and debated. It's rare when Ripperologists agree on something, but we seem to agree that it had nothing to do with the Eddowes murder. Phil Carter and Neil Bell agree with each other on this. Simon Wood and Rob Clack. This rarely happens, folks, but it's one helluva litmus test when people of such disparate thought processes come together on a conclusion.

This is NOT something we're arguing just to "keep the mystery intact". It's something we all agreed on long before this book was announced. It's an interesting item to speculate over, but none of us have been able to satisfactorily connect it to Eddowes or her crime scene. Because of this provenance, it's impossible to create a convincing argument around it for any suspect.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott