Kosminski and Victim DNA Match on Shawl

[Sally]

Well Lynn, you may be paraphrasing a bit too freely, even eagerly, but if these reports are true, it's a real blow. Maybe Christer could get some info on this since he's in contact with Jari.

Unless he has since said so, Dr L didn't in fact say that he was 'too busy' and had no funding. All that is necessary to confirm this is to listen to the BBC podcast linked several times on this thread. - though I concede that misrepresenting the facts is doubtless far more fun than not for any who would rather sweep the whole, pesky Kosminski thing under the table runner.

There is a clear distinction to be drawn between the efforts of Mr Edwards; who aside from any personal interest has obviously a vested commercial interest in the success of his book; and the scientific testing done by Dr Louhelainen and Dr Davies. The two are not synonymous. To read some of the posts in this thread you could be forgiven for thinking that it's all yet another a giant conspiracy and they were all in it together.

A peer-reviewed paper would be advisable and will doubtless follow in due course. The large-scale attention focussing on Edwards' book and the DNA testing which is his star witness make anything else untenable; not least for Dr Louhelainen, who has an academic reputation to maintain. It may also be possible that Edwards succeeds in demonstrating a gdna match with Kosminski in the future - there will be further developments, I'm sure.

Ultimately, it is impossible to prove that Kosminski was Jack the Ripper; or even that he killed Eddowes; even if it transpires that his DNA really is on the shawl.

No need to panic

[Chris]

"there's not much more to be said absent a proper scientific paper from Dr Louhelainen."

And now it looks like that will not happen. He claims:

1. He is too busy.

2. He lacks funding.

Sorry, but that's pretty misleading. What Dr Louhelainen actually said was the following:

JL: Of course, my idea was to publish this in a scientific paper, as it says in the book. But all this book sort of related thing came in first, and they wanted to use this evidence - they thought it was good enough for this sort of publication.

AR: And when can we see the peer-reviewed paper. When will that be submitted to a scientific journal, rather than published in a book and the Daily Mail?

JL: Well, I am hoping of course as soon as possible. But I also have a teaching job, a day-to-day job, and I have to find a budget for that as well. So - I'm not sure - Russell might be willing to fund this further, but that's up to him. So in that case I'd need to find an external funding source for this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/inscience

[mickreed]

Sorry, Theagenes, but it does matter. It matters a great deal. All of the DNA testing in the world counts for nothing if Kate Eddowes’ DNA never came into contact with the shawl. So if, for example, the shawl was manufactured post 1888, the supposed bloodstains from which DNA was extracted could not have emanated from Kate. This, in turn, would render Dr Jari’s conclusions entirely redundant. The same would apply if the shawl’s manufacture postdated Aaron’s 1891 committal to Colney Hatch.


Now, where have I heard that one before?

I agree with pretty much everything here Garry. Well done.

You're apparently a scientist, I'm a historian. Provenance matters to both our disciplines. As you say, if the shawl were to date from say 1900, it couldn't be Kate's DNA on it. It might be her daughters, you'd be unable to tell the difference from this distance.

In my discipline. If I find a signed confession by, say, Winston Churchill, that he was JTR, someone is going to want to know where the letter came from and how do I know it's genuine; what has happened to it during the past 126 years. Saying it's been in some blokes family for all that time, and they've always believed it to be true, doesn't cut it. Provenance, provenance.

So, I am astounded at the people who think the science is everything. At the very most, even if it was really possible to prove that the DNA belonged to Aaron K and Kate E (and to nobody else under any circumstances whatsoever) all it could do is say that Kosminski and Eddowes were both in contact with the shawl at some point. It wouldn't even get to court, let alone convict.

[Mabuse]

Aaron the Public Self-Abuser

What I want to know is, how has it been determined that Kosminski was a "compulsive public masturbator"? I've seen several commenters suggest this, but I can't find any actual evidence to back this up. Was this noted in his hospital treatment records?

In Victorian era England, masturbation was generally considered to be a bizarre evil that would lead to all sorts of terrible consequences.

Even by 1908, Robert Baden-Powell was condemning "self abuse" in his book "Scouting for Boys" saying:

"... the result of self-abuse is always - mind you, *always* - that the boy after a time becomes weak and nervous and shy, he gets headaches and probably palpitation of the heart, and if he carries it on too far he very often goes out of his mind and becomes an idiot."

This is a good example of how masturbation was viewed by his deeply prudish generation and its forebears. It was viewed as something that led to insanity and horrible physical illness, or was itself a symptom of insanity.

This is apparently one of the factors that led Melville Macnaghten to suspect Kosminski as the Whitechapel murderer! He actually seems to indicate Kosminski was insane because he was a masturbator.

This idea springs from prejudice, not from logic and evidence.

Where is there evidence of Kosminski's "hatred of women" and prostitutes other than Macnaghten's assertion? Is it any more likely than his claim about the origins of Kosminski's madness? I don't see any evidence in the literature of Kosminski's homicidal tendencies.

Kosminski threatened his sister with a knife - this does not necessarily indicate a hatred of women. When people with schizophrenia act out violently, it is most often against people in their own family, and usually takes place at home. So this event is absolutely in line with the picture of Aaron Kosminski's illness, and does not necessarily support the claim that he hated women.

Schizophrenics suffering a psychotic episode are often extremely frightened and can sometimes act out against those they care about. I know of a case of a sufferer who struck his wife while under the terrifying effects of a delusion. This man in no way hated women, and loves his wife deeply. The illness caused him to act out in fear.

Similarly, throwing a chair is something that a schizophrenic might do if they were deeply afraid, perhaps attempting to avoid coercion by attendants, or suffering from delusions of persecution. It is not in itself indicative of the overall violence of the patient.

Back to the public masturbation thing. In Victorian England, there were laws against "public indecency" and sexual acts therefore had to be clandestine.

It seems to me that if Aaron Kosminski was a public exhibitionist, he would have been jailed or charged, and we should have records of this, unless the suggestion is that this symptom started up after the killings and he got locked up because of that. That's not how I would expect this kind of symptom to manifest. Anyway, Macnaghten says this has been going on for years.

Instead, his "solitary vices" are said to be the cause of his mental illness, and we are left to wonder how his contemporaries knew about these "vices". While "solitary vices" is a euphemism, it generally seems to have been used to describe behaviour that was behind closed doors.

Perhaps Macnaghten simply assumed that Kosminski was a masturbator because he was insane. The contemporary understanding of mental illness was primitive.

I think it is much more likely that if the "solitary vices" claim is true, Kosminski had pornographic material that was found by his family members or that was discovered when he was sectioned.

If Kosminski was compelled by delusional ideation or obsession to fondle himself publically, then this also suggests that he had diminished regard for legal consequences. It was an act that could lead to his incarceration, but if he's doing this publically, he doesn't care about that.

The Ripper, however, shows strong aversion to legal consequences, he is clearly trying to evade capture.

A schizophrenic whose thoughts are so controlled by his paranoid delusions that he will not eat food served to him and who has auditory hallucinations is usually not ordered in their thinking. The Whitechapel killer is certainly ordered enough in his thinking to evade capture. He's cunning and brazen.

Maybe the Ripper is active while he's not quite so ill, but if he's not in a full-on psychotic state, what is pushing him to do the killings?

For Kosminski to be placed in an asylum in 1891 suggests that in 1888 his illness was already bubbling away. He is apparently coherent enough in court in 1889 over the unmuzzled dog, but that doesn't tell us much. In some cases it is not necessarily obvious that a person has schizophrenia. This is conjecture, but based on the things I've learned, I'd imagine he was showing significant symptoms long before 1891. If not, that's a pretty sudden onset of the disease.

As for Kosminski being "so crazy no prostitute would go with him" - nearly all of the victims were needy for money and some might have been in some state of intoxication. They would not have been terribly discerning about their clients, and might not have recognised such symptoms anyway.

People at the time expected the Ripper to be an obviously raving, deranged monster. We now know that many serial killers do not appear dangerous at all, they often seem harmless or banal. It seems more likely that Jack was one of these, not the paranoid garbage-eating Kosminski.

If these women already knew Aaron Kosminski from the area, or he was a previous customer, that is a different matter.

Kosminksi being suspected as the killer, as was noted by Fisherman in an earlier post, seems to have occurred after he was put in an asylum. He was not identified by the police at the time and there is no record of him being a suspect in 1888.

He apparently had the type of illness characterised by disordered thinking, diminished motivation and lack of planning ability. He didn't want to work, which I take as evidence of low motivation. People with these symptoms find undertaking any task to be very difficult.

There is no evidence of Kosminski being violent outside of symptoms that are seen in many people with schizophrenia. Did he have a police record?

He is suspected because he lived in the area and was put in the asylum, as far as I can tell.

As to the shawl and contamination - it was kept at the Crime Museum for a time.

Is it possible it came into contact with victim DNA there, from other objects or in some other manner of cross-contamination?

I wasn't convinced by Dr Louhelainen's comments about ruling out contamination in the BBC interview, he said the photos of the shawl being handled by Edwards came after the testing - but the shawl had been handled by dozens of people for years before then, and had lain on the floor of the Crime Museum at least once!

[Chris]

Would Russell Edwards have to give permission to Dr. Louhelainen to publish in a peer reviewed journal, or to conduct further tests?

I'm asking because if Mr. Edwards has privately funded all the testing thus far, I wonder if he therefore has ownership (and control) of all the specimens, data, and test results.

The book says that Dr Louhelainen agreed to do the work without being paid for his time, on the understanding that he would be able to write a scientific paper on it.

[mickreed]

Sorry, but that's pretty misleading. What Dr Louhelainen actually said was the following:

JL: Of course, my idea was to publish this in a scientific paper, as it says in the book. But all this book sort of related thing came in first, and they wanted to use this evidence - they thought it was good enough for this sort of publication.

AR: And when can we see the peer-reviewed paper. When will that be submitted to a scientific journal, rather than published in a book and the Daily Mail?

JL: Well, I am hoping of course as soon as possible. But I also have a teaching job, a day-to-day job, and I have to find a budget for that as well. So - I'm not sure - Russell might be willing to fund this further, but that's up to him. So in that case I'd need to find an external funding source for this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/inscience

That's good Chris. Well done. I remember it now, but that part seemed so obvious that I promptly forgot it.

[lynn cates]

spare time

Hello Mick. Thanks.

"As we know this was only ever a sideline for Jari done in his spare time"

Yes, and I think an expert should have been used.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

threat

Hello Mabuse. You are quite right about schizophrenia. Research indicates violence is usually linked in these cases to perceived threat.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

head

Hello Garry. Great post. Perhaps that should be at the head of the queue.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

funding

Hello Chris. Thanks.

If I am mistaken, so sorry.

He HAS funding then?

Cheers.
LC

[mickreed]

What I want to know is, how has it been determined that Kosminski was a "compulsive public masturbator"? I've seen several commenters suggest this, but I can't find any actual evidence to back this up. Was this noted in his hospital treatment records?

In Victorian era England, masturbation was generally considered to be a bizarre evil that would lead to all sorts of terrible consequences.

Even by 1908, Robert Baden-Powell was condemning "self abuse" in his book "Scouting for Boys" saying:



This is a good example of how masturbation was viewed by his deeply prudish generation and its forebears. It was viewed as something that led to insanity and horrible physical illness, or was itself a symptom of insanity.

This is apparently one of the factors that led Melville Macnaghten to suspect Kosminski as the Whitechapel murderer! He actually seems to indicate Kosminski was insane because he was a masturbator.

This idea springs from prejudice, not from logic and evidence.

Where is there evidence of Kosminski's "hatred of women" and prostitutes other than Macnaghten's assertion? Is it any more likely than his claim about the origins of Kosminski's madness? I don't see any evidence in the literature of Kosminski's homicidal tendencies.

Kosminski threatened his sister with a knife - this does not necessarily indicate a hatred of women. When people with schizophrenia act out violently, it is most often against people in their own family, and usually takes place at home. So this event is absolutely in line with the picture of Aaron Kosminski's illness, and does not necessarily support the claim that he hated women.

Schizophrenics suffering a psychotic episode are often extremely frightened and can sometimes act out against those they care about. I know of a case of a sufferer who struck his wife while under the terrifying effects of a delusion. This man in no way hated women, and loves his wife deeply. The illness caused him to act out in fear.

Similarly, throwing a chair is something that a schizophrenic might do if they were deeply afraid, perhaps attempting to avoid coercion by attendants, or suffering from delusions of persecution. It is not in itself indicative of the overall violence of the patient.

Back to the public masturbation thing. In Victorian England, there were laws against "public indecency" and sexual acts therefore had to be clandestine.

It seems to me that if Aaron Kosminski was a public exhibitionist, he would have been jailed or charged, and we should have records of this, unless the suggestion is that this symptom started up after the killings and he got locked up because of that. That's not how I would expect this kind of symptom to manifest. Anyway, Macnaghten says this has been going on for years.

Instead, his "solitary vices" are said to be the cause of his mental illness, and we are left to wonder how his contemporaries knew about these "vices". While "solitary vices" is a euphemism, it generally seems to have been used to describe behaviour that was behind closed doors.

Perhaps Macnaghten simply assumed that Kosminski was a masturbator because he was insane. The contemporary understanding of mental illness was primitive.

I think it is much more likely that if the "solitary vices" claim is true, Kosminski had pornographic material that was found by his family members or that was discovered when he was sectioned.

If Kosminski was compelled by delusional ideation or obsession to fondle himself publically, then this also suggests that he had diminished regard for legal consequences. It was an act that could lead to his incarceration, but if he's doing this publically, he doesn't care about that.

The Ripper, however, shows strong aversion to legal consequences, he is clearly trying to evade capture.

A schizophrenic whose thoughts are so controlled by his paranoid delusions that he will not eat food served to him and who has auditory hallucinations is usually not ordered in their thinking. The Whitechapel killer is certainly ordered enough in his thinking to evade capture. He's cunning and brazen.

Maybe the Ripper is active while he's not quite so ill, but if he's not in a full-on psychotic state, what is pushing him to do the killings?

For Kosminski to be placed in an asylum in 1891 suggests that in 1888 his illness was already bubbling away. He is apparently coherent enough in court in 1889 over the unmuzzled dog, but that doesn't tell us much. In some cases it is not necessarily obvious that a person has schizophrenia. This is conjecture, but based on the things I've learned, I'd imagine he was showing significant symptoms long before 1891. If not, that's a pretty sudden onset of the disease.

As for Kosminski being "so crazy no prostitute would go with him" - nearly all of the victims were needy for money and some might have been in some state of intoxication. They would not have been terribly discerning about their clients, and might not have recognised such symptoms anyway.

People at the time expected the Ripper to be an obviously raving, deranged monster. We now know that many serial killers do not appear dangerous at all, they often seem harmless or banal. It seems more likely that Jack was one of these, not the paranoid garbage-eating Kosminski.

If these women already knew Aaron Kosminski from the area, or he was a previous customer, that is a different matter.

Kosminksi being suspected as the killer, as was noted by Fisherman in an earlier post, seems to have occurred after he was put in an asylum. He was not identified by the police at the time and there is no record of him being a suspect in 1888.

He apparently had the type of illness characterised by disordered thinking, diminished motivation and lack of planning ability. He didn't want to work, which I take as evidence of low motivation. People with these symptoms find undertaking any task to be very difficult.

There is no evidence of Kosminski being violent outside of symptoms that are seen in many people with schizophrenia. Did he have a police record?

He is suspected because he lived in the area and was put in the asylum, as far as I can tell.

As to the shawl and contamination - it was kept at the Crime Museum for a time.

Is it possible it came into contact with victim DNA there, from other objects or in some other manner of cross-contamination?

I wasn't convinced by Dr Louhelainen's comments about ruling out contamination in the BBC interview, he said the photos of the shawl being handled by Edwards came after the testing - but the shawl had been handled by dozens of people for years before then, and had lain on the floor of the Crime Museum at least once!

You'll go far Mabuse. Excellent. I've been trying to find the stuff about public masturbation as well. Had as much luck as you.

Like so many other areas of life, there's a Chinese whisper that somehow becomes true.

I mean, it's not absolutely clear that Kate Eddowes was a whore.

Poor, a bit of a drunk on occasion, bludged off her family a bit, and, perhaps, even probably, earned a few coppers on the side from time to time. But according to John Kelly, she was usually home at a sensible time 8 or 9 at night. Kelly's landlord had known them both for seven years and never known her to go with anyone except Kelly, and had never heard of such a thing.

Yet it's been suggested about Kosminski that he could have been Kate's punter and so on.

[robhouse]

This is apparently one of the factors that led Melville Macnaghten to suspect Kosminski as the Whitechapel murderer! He actually seems to indicate Kosminski was insane because he was a masturbator.

This idea springs from prejudice, not from logic and evidence.

In all likelihood, the idea came from Kozminski's asylum record, which indicated the "Supposed Cause" of insanity as "self abuse".

RH

[mickreed]

Hello Chris. Thanks.

If I am mistaken, so sorry.

He HAS funding then?

Cheers.
LC

I don’t think he knows whether there's funding or not yet.

[mickreed]

In all likelihood, the idea came from Kozminski's asylum record, which indicated the "Supposed Cause" of insanity as "self abuse".

RH

Great Rob, thanks.

Of course the added gloss about doing it in public comes from somewhere else.

[mickreed]

In all likelihood, the idea came from Kozminski's asylum record, which indicated the "Supposed Cause" of insanity as "self abuse".

RH

The other issue here is where did the red pencil amendments come from? It looks as though they were added some 6 years into the illness (he'd been ill only six months when admitted). So here's this young bloke locked up in a sexually-segregated aslum. Of course he's going to masturbate. He may do it in the dining room, but doubtless he did it in his bed as well (or only there). So people would know, stains would be seen, and conclusions would be drawn.