Kosminski and Victim DNA Match on Shawl

[Caligo Umbrator]

A Mathematician, a Physicist, and an astronomer were travelling north by train. They had just crossed the border into Scotland, when the Astronomer looked out of the window and saw a single black sheep in the middle of a field. "All Scottish sheep are black," he remarked. "No, my friend," replied the Physicist, "Some Scottish sheep are black." At which point the Mathematician looked up from his paper and glanced out the window. After a few second's thought he said blandly: "In Scotland, there exists at least one field, in which there exists at least one sheep, at least one side of which is black."
http://www.mathmos.net/misc/jokes.html

Chris,
It wasn't a black sheep - it was a Woolfs brother in sheeps clothing . . .
Caligo

[Toofew]

He did. He alters his M.O. with each attack. He refines his methods as he goes along and increases in the extremity of violence and mutilation.

I haven't got time to list the pattern here, but a pretty good rundown is given in the paper "The Jack the Ripper Murders: A Modus Operandi and Signature Analysis of the 1888–1891 Whitechapel Murders" by Keppel, Weis, Brown and Welch - Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling 2: 1–21 (2005).

He had target specificity, planning and organisation.

Thanks Mabuse! The article can be read in PDF format at:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jip.22/abstract

Click on the PDF link on the bottom right of the abstract section.

Billy

[MrBarnett]

Hello Chris. Thanks.

Well, HERE people knew--or many did--that the shawl was not genuine.

But the dear public?

Cheers.
LC

Hello Lynn,

The word 'knew' above strikes me as being on a par with RE's '100% match'.

MrB

[Theagenes]

Hello Chris. Thanks.

Well, HERE people knew--or many did--that the shawl was not genuine.

But the dear public?

Cheers.
LC

We still don't know that the shawl isn't genuine. We don't know that it is genuine either. There is almost nothing that we know for sure.

[Theagenes]

Hello Theagenes. Thanks.

Perhaps not you, but MANY got agitated and thought science had solved the case. It hadn't.

And now we see that the claims about DNA were WILDLY exaggerated.

Cheers.
LC

Who is this "many" that got agitated? Seriously, name one person in this thread that "thought science had solved the case."

Name one.

[mickreed]

We still don't know that the shawl isn't genuine. We don't know that it is genuine either. There is almost nothing that we know for sure.

Ever the pedant, me. What does 'genuine' mean? Is it 'genuine' 'Edwardian' or early-nineteenth century? Is it 'genuine' 'Russian' or 'continental' or 'English'?

Is the story attached to it by the family 'genuine', in the sense that they really believe it, in its entirety?

Was it 'genuinely' at the Mitre Square crime scene? Does it 'genuinely' have Eddowes, or Kosminski, DNA on it?

I could go on. But'll I'll just say one thing. Even if the answers to all of the above is 'No', that still won't, necessarily, make it a 'fake' or a 'fraud'. Merely an example of serial misidentification and/or misinterpretation, with a good dollop of wishful thinking.

[Caligo Umbrator]

Hi
I first encountered the name Kozminski and his potential as a suspect when I read Martin Fido's book in the early 90's.
However despite there being some 'circumstantial evidence' that might indicate him to be the face behind JTR, I have some serious reservations.
Macnaghten, and then Swanson (in notes made inside a copy of Anderson’s memoirs) seem to have identified Kosminski as one of the more likely suspects.
But when one examines and compares what is written it is seen that Kosminski is one of three suspects and the details given by the authors pertaining to each individual becomes confused and muddled. There is some significant discrepancy as to his height, his profession , his background, when he entered an asylum and when he died.
It is claimed that he was known to police to be JTR but that the only witness refused to identify him because they shared a religion.
This claim seems spurious, especially given the severity of his crimes.
Jews testify against Jews all the time - they have a court and justice system in Israel. Surely, having identified a suspect in a line up but then refusing to testify as such would open an individual up to, at the very least, a possible charge of conspiracy.
And if, has been stated elsewhere, the witness was already familiar with the suspect and knew him to also be Jewish, why did he agree to a line-up and than also identify the suspect?
My thinking is this - does it seem in any way credible that if the police, in 1888 had genuinely known the identity of JTR, they would have allowed him to remain at large?
To simply state, as was written later, that 'he was being closely watched' does not really seem like a satisfactory response.
This was, it is claimed, a foul murderer, who violently mutilated women.
Were constables or plain-clothes officers really detailed hanging around outside his residence and following him around 24 hours a day for the 2 and 1/2 years before he was incarcerated in an asylum?
If they'd really known who he was then I feel fairly certain they could have, at the very least, made efforts to have that person immediately removed to a sanatorium.
I honestly believe that at the time the previously mentioned persons wrote their memorandums, or notated in them, they believed the person they were naming was dead and it would look, they hoped, as if they had solved the crime but that due to legal matters they were prevented from bringing the man to justice.
If Kosminski had been known to authorities at the time and was genuinely believed to be JTR, they should likely have encountered little trouble in prosecuting him.
Thoughts, anyone?

Caligo

[Observer]

Hello Chris. Thanks.

Well, HERE people knew--or many did--that the shawl was not genuine.

But the dear public?

Cheers.
LC

Do the "dear public" wander into this forum? Of course they do. This thread alone has 331,000 views. And what do they have to put up with? Sheep stranglers, ludicrous interpretation of the post mortem reports, copy cat killers, blatant bending of the evidence. In short, a veritable fantasy fest. Of course, they don't have to pay to read the zevel in here, but it seems the poster's who are the most vociferous in rubbishing Mr Edwards book, and ideas, are the worst offenders in this forum when it comes to spouting crap.

[mickreed]

Hey Caligo

This claim seems spurious, especially given the severity of his crimes.
Jews testify against Jews all the time - they have a court and justice system in Israel.

And they did so testify then - in London.

My thinking is this - does it seem in any way credible that if the police, in 1888 had genuinely known the identity of JTR, they would have allowed him to remain at large?

Not to me.

If they'd really known who he was then I feel fairly certain they could have, at the very least, made efforts to have that person immediately removed to a sanatorium.

Yep.

It's all very difficult. I'm awaiting Rob House's book which will give me far more knowledge than I have at the moment, but I cannot see how they would have been convinced in 1888/89 and not done something.

And as for the Black Museum saying that the Yard knew all along that it was Aaron Kosminski - well, Bollocks! is all I can say.

Macnaghten, and Anderson (according to Swanson's notes) may have held 'Kosminski' in varying degrees of suspicion, but, so far as I know, he never had a first name until Fido found Aaron in an asylum in the 1980s.

It's quite probable that Aaron and 'Kosminski' are one and the same, quite another, from the surviving evidence, to say that either was definitely JTR.

[Ghost]

I don't recall reading anyone getting excited, on either forum, that science had solved the case.
Perhaps I may have missed the odd stray remark though.

We don't now see that the DNA claims have been WILDLY exaggerated.
We have seen questions raised, which may or may not be satisfactorily answered - one way or the other.

The wild and exaggerated claims unfortunately can largely be characterised as personal abuse.

How are the claims wild and exaggerated? The Edwards theory has DNA results that place what is most likely the victim's blood on a fabric that has an oral history of being at one of the crime scenes and has another DNA stain consistent with a named contemporaneous police suspect (albeit seemingly at too high a frequency to pinpoint him).

True that Edwards may well be making more of it than what can be said, is it really that far off?

I'm kind of intrigued by the Lechmere theory, actually, but that's a whole lot more evidence and a lot less conjecture than what's going for Lechmere.

[Tom_Wescott]

I'm kind of intrigued by the Lechmere theory, actually, but that's a whole lot more evidence and a lot less conjecture than what's going for Lechmere.

Welcome to Ripperology.

The Kosminskians would point out that Aaron Kosminski was a bonafide police suspect, whereas Lechmere (Cross) was merely a bonafide witness.

The Lechmerians would point out that Aaron Kosminski might be the Kosminski named by Swanson who might be the unnamed Polish Jew suspect described by Anderson and if so was indeed the Kosminski all but exonerated of the murders by Macnaghten in his memoranda.

Meanwhile, there's the majority of Ripperologists saying twasn't either of them.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Errata]

This is an interesting post, Jeff. One that caused me to stop and think about "Jack" in way that I've not done previously. It occurs to me that from my earliest exposure to the murders (my early teens), I've always, on a somewhat subconsious level - felt that the killer was someone to be pitied. I suppose that upon reading the details of the murders my young impressionable mind formed an opinion: these crimes were committed by someone whose life was a hell.

Even now, the murders strike not as the work of someone evil, but of someone who was very, very sick.

Obviously, this is something quite subjective. I'm curious if others feel the same way.

The funny thing is that I have never looked at these crimes and pitied the author. I was young enough when I read Rumbelow's book that this was a story about a demon. And even looking at is an an adult with a good idea of what exists in the world, I always thought this was someone who killed because it made them feel good. Not from any madness. At best someone who genuinely didn't understand that making themselves feel better by killing people was not okay. Which I suppose might be slightly pitiable, but I never saw these murders as the result of someone who suffers.

Odd how people can get the same information and draw distinctly different conclusions.

[lynn cates]

stats and such

Hello Chris. Thanks. Love it.

To be contrasted with:

"A mathematician, a statistician and an economist are all asked, "How much is 2 + 2?"

M: "2 + 2 = 4. It is a necessary and eternal truth."

S: "Well, as the number of occurrences approaches infinity, the probability that the solution to the equation will be a whole number intermediate between 3 and 5 approaches 1."

E: (Walks to the widow and draws the shades. Turning round. . .) "Well, how much do you WANT it to equal?"

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

know way

Hello MrB. Thanks.

"The word 'knew' above strikes me as being on a par with RE's '100% match'."

Well, what is your definition of "to know"? Justified true belief?

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

feel the excitement

Hello Theagenes. Thanks.

How about YOU for one?

Cheers.
LC