Kosminski and Victim DNA Match on Shawl

[mickreed]

We would be left with tests that had demonstrated the likely presence of Eddowes' blood on a shawl. That would, in its own way, be highly interesting to Ripperologists I suppose. If any of them could get over their repulsion at the fact that Mr Edwards was responsible for the discovery.

And I fully expect that even that very limited 'discovery' will soon fall apart under its own weight.

Gauguin was Jack the Ripper. Watch this space.

G'day Henry

A post I did earlier today contained the following. Even if the blood could irrefutably be assigned to Kate, and even if it really was brought home by Simpson, the following could explain it just as well as Edwards's story.

Simpson is out and about, and finds, steals, or buys a secondhand shawl somewhere and thinks 'My wife would like that'. Stuffs it in his pocket. Somehow finds himself at the Eddowes crime site, or by the trolley on the way to the nick, or at the mortuary, and get's some of her blood on it. Wife says, 'Bloody hell! That's blood, get it away from me'. Simpson says, 'Oh sod it, I've just been next to Kate Eddowes's body. Must have brushed up against it. Sorry love'. And the family story develops from there.

Sure, as Jeff Leahy says in a post just now, there are only the sources (unless we find more) and we have to live with them as they are. But this does not mean that any old speculation is valid.

I reckon my speculation above is as valid as Edwards's - that is - not very.

[Jeff Leahy]

Sure, as Jeff Leahy says

Actually thats years of being told off by people like Paul and Stewart

[Elamarna]

Some comments from a first time poster

Hi all, been reading casebook for at least 6 years and studing the subject for over 40.
I have read the book about 3 times now and have a few comments to make . My first post so please be patient.
Just been intermated that because Edwards took DNA samples from descendents some months after the samples they were comared to devalues them. How? The shawl samples were already taken and processed according to the book.
Second point : I keep reading here that Edwards says its not a shawl but a skirt. What is said in the book is that he wonders if a press report of the clothing which lists a dress, could infact be the shawl.

Its also been asked how could Ak be sent to a private asylum in say 1889 yet taken to a workhouse 2 years later.
Its apparent from the work of Robert House, that the family were not paupers. Could it not be that admission in 1890 for 4 days could have been the time the disputed id took place. After all he was returned to his brother and some six months later ( which could be called a short time) was committed. Is it a coincidence that this fits Swansons description of what happened.
Will stop there for the time being. More to say later

[Mabuse]

Actually Anderson says it aswell

Claims. Anderson claims it. I'm an evidence guy, I want to see the data.

These men didn't know what sent Kosminski mad; they thought it was because he liked to fondle himself. How much more credible can the rest of their reasoning be? The police failed in capturing the Ripper while he was active, and after the fact these gents tried to justify it. I see nothing else there.

Similarly the claims of Kosminski's masturbation. The only evidence for it is prejudice.

Because the Victorians genuinely believed that "self abuse" led to madness, and that mad people "self abused" we have to be extremely suspicious of any contemporaries claiming this.

The idea that masturbation is associated with mental illness of this type is ludicrous. Thus the views of contemporaries who claim this must be viewed very critically. There's no getting around this.

[Davidsson] was aware of all of Aaron symptoms.

We only have these reports of his symptoms which are sketchy. I agree that it appears to be paranoid-type schizophrenia. I've never heard Davidsson's criteria for subtype classification before. I'm going to ask an associate, who is a neurologist and is on the board down here. He was also educated in Europe, so maybe he'll have insight.

But its possible in the early on set for him to have been in a condition where he was capable of committing the murders.

It's possible he was an unknown genius who prefigured Einstein in physics equations. It is just very unlikely.

It's possible for Kosminski to be capable of many things, but what does the evidence show? The actual evidence doesn't suggest Kosminski is anything more than a poor sufferer of delusional psychosis. He lives in the area of the murders; so did thousands of others. So what?

People with this kind of illness are very rarely homicidal. This is a fact.

If you want to put Kosminski in the frame you need evidence that he had more than just this form of mental illness, that he was a violent maniac. That evidence has not been presented. I don't think it exists.

As with most ripperology your going to discover we know very little as so little has survived and waving around a tooth brush and saying Archeologists have less to go on, aint going to hold much tooth paste.

I am not new to Ripper research, I am merely new to talking about it. I've been vacuuming up Ripper info since I was a kiddy when I lived in London. I've roamed those very streets. I read every book I could get my hands on, and traced the paths of the Whitechapel Murderer, or what is left of them, on foot.

I'm no expert. I've no published books. I write fiction. I work in the entertainment business. I'm not a criminal psychologist or anything. But I've been fascinated by this case for multiple decades, and I'm not stupid. I've read tens of thousands of posts here. And I've been reading your posts, too.

I know we will never know. I just find mysteries fascinating.

It's always possible some factoid has been overlooked, some data hidden in an old document may reveal some new information.

Right were just going to ignore the sources and make it all up as we go along are we? Given a choice between what McNaughten says and what you claim, guess who my money is on?

You are entitled to your opinion. I will support your right to present your opinion until the sun burns out.

I just don't see Kosminski as a good suspect, largely because of my experience with the mentally ill, and the paucity of the evidence against him. It's weak as P.

I enjoy a good debate and logical reasoning, though.

As I've said we don't know when Kosminski first came to police attention but it seems likely, given Kosminski was placed in an asylum that it did so before then..

Yeah, well, this is it, isn't it? There's no evidence for this. It's conjectural.

This is what happens when we have a favourite suspect, we look at the evidence and massage it to fit our particular view, it is cognitive bias. We're all guilty of it. It's human nature. I don't blame you, you think Kosminski dunnit. So it looks to you that he's the fella, and every little shred of material will support that from your viewpoint. I just have to agree to disagree. I don't have any books published, I just have three decades of interest. God only knows why, it's a horrible story to be interested in. It's macabre.

Kosminski got banged up in 1891. Three years after the last suspected Ripper killing. Why didn't he do anything in the intervening time? No evidence of him being a suspect at that time, nor being locked up elsewhere. Where is the evidence he was locked up in '89?

Got to be an hypothesis for this hiatus.

Loads of people at the time and place ended up in the workhouse or the loony bin. I very much doubt if every one of them were surveilled by the police prior or due to it. There's no evidence that Aaron Kosminski was watched.

The surviving mentions of him are contradictory, contain errors, and clearly are not based on solid data. He didn't go mad because he fondled himself. If Macnaghten or anyone else thought that was the case, how rational can any of their other conclusions be?

No, this NOT accurate. The Amazon reviewer did not read closely enough apparently. According to the book the samples were taken from the relatives AFTER the DNA was recovered from the shawl.

This only makes the process a little bit less suspect. Edwards should not have been involved with the sampling process at all.

I am not worried about the Piltdown Man Scenario™. I am concerned with the overall shoddiness and lack of scientific rigour in this exercise.

Where were the samples kept? In his fridge?

[mickreed]

[I]

Because the Victorians genuinely believed that "self abuse" led to madness, and that mad people "self abused" we have to be extremely suspicious of any contemporaries claiming this.

The idea that masturbation is associated with mental illness of this type is ludicrous. Thus the views of contemporaries who claim this must be viewed very critically. There's no getting around this.

Like Mabuse, I'm an evidence bloke. So what if Macnaghten said 'Kosminski' was insane due to 'solitary vices'? So what if the red ink entry on his admission to Colney Hatch says the cause was self-abuse? So what if Anderson also said it?

That is not evidence that he did masturbate, not, at least, any more than any young bloke, especially one locked up in an asylum.

There is no evidence that Macnaghten and Anderson knew first-hand that K masturbated unduly. The initial entry in the admission record makes no mention of it, although that's probably pre-assessment.

The Victorians were obsessed with masturbation. They thought it caused about everything from diabetes, blood in the urine, urgency to pass urine, tendency to drink, to insanity - you name it, they knew what caused it.

So, poor old K is 'insane' - why? 'Solitary vices' obviously. That causes everything. Add to that the possibility that the staff in Colney Hatch may have seen him (or thought they saw him) doing it while looking through his peephole. 'He's mad, we've seen him at it. Ergo, we know what caused his madness. Jeez, we've got a whole institution full of madmen, and they're all at it'.

I repeat, young blokes, locked up, what are they going to do? What would a young Macnaghten have done?

Attached is a bit from an 1872 publication, typical of the time.

[mickreed]

Damn, didn't attach this properly to previous post

[Jonathan H]

Macnaghten Knew more than Anderson?

To Jeff

It's worse than that, mate.

Macnaghten knew more about 'Kosminski' than Anderson (or Swanson).

He knew that he was not deceased and out and about for a considerable time after the Kelly murder.

Alone among the brass, Mac had lived among males and knew all about 'solitary vices'and such like. That it did not drive men of his class insane.

Also when he fed Sims the material for the suspects for his big 1907 article, he had 'Kosminski' altered: the masturbation-insanity factor was dropped, he lived alone and he had worked in a Polish hospital. Now it is the state and not his family who have him sectioned. By implication he was still alive in 907--which he was.

Macnaghten knew more about this man and also was not hostage to the Victorian notion of self-abuse leading to sin and worse, unlike his repressed and pious boss--whom he loathed.

[Jonathan H]

Sorry, 1907.

I think Mac was pulling his chief's leg about excessive wanking.

[mickreed]

[I]

Where were the samples kept? In his fridge?

I've had my DNA tested by four different outfits:

Family Tree DNA, Ancestry, 23andMe, and Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation.

Each one required me to provide either swabs or a mouth wash. The instructions were thorough and I obeyed them scrupulously, I didn't want to waste my money by stuffing them up. In each case, the results I received were exactly the same. But the companies wouldn't have cared if I had, because it's only my dosh I'm wasting.

But, if I was suspected of a crime, do you imagine the Old Bill would let me take my own samples? No, because they would want to be sure that there was no contamination. A defence lawyer would have got me out in no time at all.

That's why, if the stories are true that Edwards took the samples himself, then all bets are off. There can be no credibility in the process.

He may have tried to do everything right, may have actually done everything right. But he can't prove it, and neither can the scientists. Therefore it falls over.

[Mabuse]

...

That's why, if the stories are true that Edwards took the samples himself, then all bets are off. There can be no credibility in the process.

Exactamundo.

It's horrible.

This is even without the shawl's chain of custody problems.

It's hilarious, really. We should laugh. I just find it frustrating.

[Theagenes]

Theage, if Edwards himself took the samples from relatives, it hardly matters whether they were taken before or after the samples from the shawl were taken. As someone who is prepared to give any idea a fair crack of the whip until it collapses, I have to say the more we hear about this one the more it falls apart. Edwards himself took DNA samples from the relatives? Is that true? If so....

And re Kosminski, we have merely failed to eliminate Kosminski, along with any one (or more) of over seven thousand other Londoners? Meaningless.

We would be left with tests that had demonstrated the likely presence of Eddowes' blood on a shawl. That would, in its own way, be highly interesting to Ripperologists I suppose. If any of them could get over their repulsion at the fact that Mr Edwards was responsible for the discovery.

And I fully expect that even that very limited 'discovery' will soon fall apart under its own weight.

Gauguin was Jack the Ripper. Watch this space.

Of course it matters when he took the samples. Unless he's lying he got the samples well after Jari had extracted the DNA from the shawl. How could they have contaminated the shawl? Btw, it was apparently one of those mail in kits that he sent to Karen Miller so presumably she swabbed herself.

There are plenty of problems here no doubt about it, but this isn't one of them. The handling of the semen samples on the other hand was a train wreck.

[Theagenes]

I've had my DNA tested by four different outfits:

Family Tree DNA, Ancestry, 23andMe, and Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation.

Each one required me to provide either swabs or a mouth wash. The instructions were thorough and I obeyed them scrupulously, I didn't want to waste my money by stuffing them up. In each case, the results I received were exactly the same. But the companies wouldn't have cared if I had, because it's only my dosh I'm wasting.

But, if I was suspected of a crime, do you imagine the Old Bill would let me take my own samples? No, because they would want to be sure that there was no contamination. A defence lawyer would have got me out in no time at all.

That's why, if the stories are true that Edwards took the samples himself, then all bets are off. There can be no credibility in the process.

He may have tried to do everything right, may have actually done everything right. But he can't prove it, and neither can the scientists. Therefore it falls over.

And this is what was done apparently. He sent her one of those mail in kits. She swabbed herself, sent it back and he gave it to Jari. So yes, this is amateurish, but Jari already had his shawl results with the rare mtDNA mutation. Karen Miller is presumably still available so it should be easy to resample her under more controlled circumstances. I really don't think this a big deal.

In fact, this is the least of the problems with this whole thing, but repeating the demonstrably false insinutations of that Amazon reviewer is like throwing chum in the water to those on here that cherry pick every little thing to support their agenda regardless of its validity.

[Theagenes]

Okay, so having finally acquired an ebook version of Edwards' book, here are my thoughts. Over all it is a very weak and amateurish effort, though I suppose it was never intended to be anything more than that. There is a lot of fluff. I skimmed the chapters about his various marriages, his superficial overviews of the murders and th emajor suspects, and a lot of his own spurious theorizing. The Michaelmas stuff is as silly as it sounds and is only relevent in in that tends to cloud his judgement at times when he is interpreting the information that he is given.

THe fact that he is overreaching far beyond what Jari is saying is evident -- in fact he basically admits that on several occasions saying things like (paraphased), "Jari was trying to downplay this, but he's a scientist and has to be cautious. I didn't really understand it, but I knew we were on to something..." There are also times where he is clearly reading way too much into a passing remark or cautious statement of Jari's and just running with it. That's the basic tone of the book and it's cringe-worthy at times.

That said there are a couple of pretty important things in here, that in the absence of a proper article from Jari, Miller, et al. should not be simply ignored. So let's start with the strengths.

1. The dating of the shawl -- he has made a strong case for the shawl dating to mid-19th century or thereabouts. This "conventional wisdom" of the Ripperology community that the shawl is an Edwardian table runner seems to be a chimera -- nobody can even give a straight answer as to where this idea came from. Edwards, on the other hand had it examined and tested by a number of different experts and the dates ranged from Regency to mid-19th century. THere seems to be little in the way of doubt here. The contention that the shawl is of Russian origin is purely anecdotal, however -- one of the experts said it looked some he had seen from the St. Petersburg area. But it does sound like there is some agreement that it wasn't made in England.

2. There is a very good likihood that it is Catherine Eddowes' blood on the shawl. I can hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth already, but the fact is this is pretty solid. We've seen the number 1 in 290,000 chance, and maybe that's accurate, maybe it isn't, but what is importnat here is that according to Edwards, Jari identified a global private mutation in both Catherine Eddowes and Karen Miller. Chris mentioned this earlier, but I wasn't familiar with the term, but after reading up on it, effectively what it means is a mutation that is specific to a single family lineage. There are also local private mutations that are even rarer, affecting only a few individuals in a family, but for our purposes this is rare enough.

It is very clear from several misstatements that Edwards does not really understand the DNA or everythign Jari was telling hi, But the presence of the global private mutation is a pretty simple thing and don't think he is mistaken that Jari told him this. So you have this shawl that has always been associated with Kate since before DNA fingerprinting was a thing, now having DNA on a blood stain with a rare mutation that only Kate and certain members of her family have. Unless you arguing for fraud, then the chance of the blood *not* being Kate's is ridiculously tiny. So this shawl appears to be one of the few remaing pieces of physical edvidence that can be directly tied to a victim in some way.

The lack of provenience is real problem, no doubt about it, I don't have an answer. I could speculate, but that's all it would be. But the shawl very likely has Kate Eddowes' blood on it. Beyond that it's all speculation.


Now the biggest problem:

Kominski -- the DNA evidence from the semem stain is incredibly weak. First of all, as Prosecutor and other have pointed out earlier in this thread, they didn't actually find any sperm cells, just epithelial cells which could have come from other places. The spermatological expert David Miller expressed some concern about this but it was downplayed by Edwards in the book. The stained fluoresced like semen, but other substances are similar in that regard.

In any case they got quite few cells, but Miller's lab lost a bunch of the samples, so they had to try and reclaim a few from slides they had made, which exposed the cells to the slide cover adhesive as well as other contamination. Still they managed to get to the cells and found nDNA. It does sound like was assigned to the mtDNA halogroup T1a1, which accoriding to a link posted earlier, could have been shared by 7200 people at the time. Edwards did not mention this at all -- he just mentioned the haplotype match, which is not that big a deal unless it's rare. Most of those 7200 would be Eastern Europeans in the East End. This is a far cry from the solid results of Kate's DNA where it could only belong to a handful of people.

Edwards did not identify Kosminski as the killer -- though he thinks he dd -- he just failed to eliminate him. It really could have been a lot of people that could have deposited that semen (if it is actually semen).

So bottom line, as I was suggesting earlier, the results are mixed. The blood on the shawl is very likely Kate's, but there very little evidence for Kosminski.

I have some more comments, but I need to get to bed and they'll have to wait.

OKay, seeing all the typos above, I was clearly falling asleep as I was writing that. Anyway let me address a few more points about the book that I didn't get to.

1. The so-called kidney cell -- this an excellent example of Edwards' overreach. This cell was found with the epithelial cells in the semen stain. Jari made a passing remark along the lines of "Hmm, this one kind of reminds me of a kidney cell." Edwards heard "kidney" and ran with it, because of Eddowes and her missing kidney. But Jari never said it was a kidney cell. It sounds like he was just thinking aloud. And even it was a kidney cell (which may not be the case), it was found in the semen stain (which may or may not be semen) which was contaminated because they had to pull it off a slide. It was among many other objects they were sorting through under the microscope to try and find their epithelial cells again. And assuming it really did come from semen, and actually is a kidney cell, isn't the most like explanation that it came from whoever deposited the semen? Is it normal for kidney cells to be present in ejaculate just like epithelial cells from the urethra? I don't know the answer, but seems reasonable. In any case these should have been the questions going through Edwards' head. Instead his response was "OMG! Kidney! Eddowes! That proves it!"

2. Kosminski "match" - Throughout the book I never got the impression that Edwards was being willfully deceptive -- prone to circlular logic and confirmation bias, absolutely -- but not willfully deceptive. That is, until the last chapter on the DNA match with Kosminski. This chapter was very sparse on actual facts and it really felt like he was only saying enough to bolster his theory, while withholding information that would be less helpful -- like how common or uncommon that particular haplotype was. And it ended very abruptly, like "and we got the results and it was 100% match with Kosminsjki's relative so that proves it, Kosminski was the killer. The End." At least that's what it felt like. He's absoultely right in that the haplotypes were a 100% match and yes, this certainly does add weight to Kosminski as a suspect, but thousands of other people with that haplotype would also be a 100% match so it's hardly case closed. He had to know this, but chose not mention it.

3. The "other" stain -- This could be important and I think it's only been mentioned once in this thread. In addition to the blood and possible semen (and it probably is semen -- that just can't be proven), Jari found another stain which he described as being some other bodily fluid like feces or intestinal fluid, but he was unable to get DNA from it apparently. The stain was mirrored on both ends of the shawl as thoough it was folded when the stain got there. Edwards mentions this briefly and never really follows up. There are probably plenty of ways that feces could have gotten on it in the filth of the East End, but if it is some other substance that normally should not be outside of the body, then that probably is significant as it makes it more likely that the shawl was in contact with Eddowes corpse, and that the presence of the blood isn't from some other incident like a broken nose, menstration, etc. As Mick Reed suggested there are still ways that this could happen outside of the crime scene itself however -- at the mortuary, in the ambulance cart, etc. At any rate this is something that probably needs to be followed up with further testing. Better technology might be able to get more information from it.

[mickreed]

Karen Miller is presumably still available so it should be easy to resample her under more controlled circumstances. I really don't think this a big deal.

Yes, Theagenes, I agree that it's not the biggest problem with this thing, especially since Karen Miller can be re-tested.

But, if we are talking scientific rigour, then the fact that there are 'amateurish' aspects, reflect on the overall process and cast doubt overall. Another 'amateurish' aspect is that the samples were lost in the Leeds lab, apparently because they weren't marked up in the standard way, and probably got chucked out by students. Okay, it doesn't prove that the outcomes are buggered, but it does raise an eyebrow at the very least.

I take your (at least I think it was you) point that that there is, perhaps, a demonstrable link between the Eddowes family (not necessarily Kate herself) and the shawl. I need to see the actual full evidence myself to be sure, but I accept it's likely from what several cautious people have said. That is interesting, even important, but it proves nothing. There are numerous way in which that could happen and the shawl end up with Amos Simpson. I humorously concocted one myself in an earlier post.

From what we know so far, the Eddowes connection seems to be the only viable thing in the book. If substantiated, then it will be good.

[Robert]

Science is for ever striding forward, and I'm confident that in 10 or 20 years, yet more info will come from this object. So I would advise Mr Edwards not to throw the item away (not that he's going to do that).