Kosminski and Victim DNA Match on Shawl

[lynn cates]

correction

Hello Harry. Correct you if you're wrong? Well, if you insist.

Unless and until we can show CONCLUSIVELY that this is Kate's shawl, there is no TALK of evidence.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

destiny

Hello Jon.

"That silly idea demonstrates the ignorance involved. The evidence was held by the City police not the Met. So PC Simpson cannot have asked his superiors for permission, they had no control over the evidence."

My friend, you should be a ripperologist.

Cheers.
LC

[Harry D]

Hello Harry. Correct you if you're wrong? Well, if you insist.

Unless and until we can show CONCLUSIVELY that this is Kate's shawl, there is no TALK of evidence.

Cheers.
LC

Hello Lynn,

Note that evidence was written in inverted commas. I hoped it wasn't lost on you.

Thanks.

[eddie1]

If the DNA is correct Kate's DNA is on the shawl why would her DNA be on it if not hers ?

[lynn cates]

facts

Hello Jason.

"you can't argue with hard facts"

What hard facts? If it were established that, say, a Polish Jew were perpetrator--well, there were thousands. So, too, with mitochondrial DNA.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Jack

Hello Harry. Thanks.

Ah! As in "Jack the Ripper"?

Cheers.
LC

[richardh]

Now there's a thought.

It could be possible that d.n.a from the descendants was added after it came into the current owners possession.

[c.d.]

I read the article several times. The words and phrases used and the way the story unfolds seem to follow the classic quest plot. The protagonist somehow gets drawn in to pursuing his goal even though he knows it is fraught with difficulties. The odds are against him but he is able to overcome perils and stumbling blocks by ingenuity and plain old good luck. His success comes because his heart is pure and his intentions noble. The universe is on his side.

I'll withhold judgment for now but the whole tone of the article suggests B.S.

c.d.

[eddie1]

So if the dna was added after the current owner purchased the shawl how did semen DNA from aron get on there the descendants DNA was taken from a females mouth ??

[lynn cates]

agree

Hello CD. Ah! We agree at last!

Cheers.
LC

[Stewart P Evans]

Contemporary Evidence

Contemporary evidence is enough to prove this one a nonsense before you even start looking at alleged DNA.

I am no DNA expert and no doubt I will be corrected if necessary. However, I believe the DNA being used in this instance (as in Cornwell's) is only mitochondrial and not nuclear. Mitochondrial DNA is accurate to only 400,000 of the population so how can any single 'match' be achieved?

That is if any original DNA survived on this much-handled piece of cloth, when previous tests showed there to be none present.

[eddie1]

Contemporary evidence is enough to prove this one a nonsense before you even start looking at alleged DNA.

I am no DNA expert and no doubt I will be corrected if necessary. However, I believe the DNA being used in this instance (as in Cornwell's) is only mitochondrial and not nuclear. Mitochondrial DNA is accurate to only 400,000 of the population so how can any single 'match' be achieved?



That is if any original DNA survived on this much-handled piece of cloth, when previous tests showed there to be none present.

I think im right that the previous test on the shawl only tested with a swab in one randomly chosen place not the
Entire shawl as they have done this time. Also they have used new techniques this time that were not available last time they tested they didn't just take a swab to remove dna

[Qlder]

What can possibly be proved?

These types of scientific results need to be independently replicated before being accepted as "facts". (This may already have been done, but the article doesn't give us much detail at this stage.) Further, without identifying the descendant of Kosminski's sister (so far as the article goes, we only have Russell Edwards' word about her), the link with Kosminski's mtDNA can only be settled by testing whatever remains of Kosminski there may be, or some other matrilineal descendant of his sister who is prepared to be identified as such.
The provenance of the shawl - conditions of storage, who came into contact with it (possibly some smutty pun in there somewhere - sorry) - is, and very likely will forever remain, very problematical. Even if we get to the stage of having independent replication of the results, we would simply have the facts of a shawl with blood from the Eddowes family and some very small measure of epithlial cells from the Kosminski family. What that would mean for the whole case might be less than the Mr Edwards believes. For instance - if Kosminski was at any time visited by a policeman who wanted to question him about the Whitechapel murders, and that policeman brought along the bloodied shawl to try to prompt some reaction from Kosminski, then the presence of any material from Kosminski would no longer link Kosminski to Mitre Square, but instead would link him to meeting a policeman who had possession of the shawl. ("How could Kosminski's semen get on the shawl?" you may ask. The answer is that he was a man with a serious mental illness and a known proclivity for masturbation.) This line of thought may be seen as a bit of a stretch, but if you're going to convict a man for the ages, your evidence should be required to stand up to the old test of being beyond any reasonable doubt, and I certainly see it as reasonable that Old Bill went to have some chats with Aaron Kosminski and they may have taken along a few prompts to aid the conversation. (How good are the visitors' logs for the institutions that held Kosminski? Would the police have bothered signing in if they felt certain he would never come to trial due to his persistant insanity?)
So, unless the proponents of the shawl determining Kosminski's guilt can (a) have independent confirmation of the results (may have already been done - we don't know) and (b) demonstrate that there was never any other opportunity for Kosminski to be in contact with the shawl, I will retain some skepticism.

BTW mtDNA only identifies matrilineal ancestor/descendant lines. Apart from his brothers, there may have been many cousins of various degrees sharing the same mtDNA and living close enough to London's East End to join Aaron Kosminski in the frame.

[Amanda Sumner]

BTW mtDNA only identifies matrilineal ancestor/descendant lines. Apart from his brothers, there may have been many cousins of various degrees sharing the same mtDNA and living close enough to London's East End to join Aaron Kosminski in the frame.


399,999 others joined Kosminski in the frame....

[MrBarnett]

Hi,

Does the 400k figure hold true for a recent immigrant of a distinct ethnicity from the host population?

MrB