Kosminski and Victim DNA Match on Shawl

[SirJohnFalstaff]

I also fail to see the correlation in the article with the Michaelmas religious observance, even if it's the right date, with a Polish Jew.

That is, if the shawl was his.

[wolfie1]

I also fail to see the correlation in the article with the Michaelmas religious observance, even if it's the right date, with a Polish Jew.

That is, if the shawl was his.

The statement may imply that as a Jew, Kosminski was lashing out on Christian observant days to make his own point as a killer who targets Christians.
It was such a sensitive topic, it would explain why police quietly allowed Kosminski to be locked away in an asylum.

[GUT]

And another example of twisting facts to fit a hypothesis.

Does anyone think Kelly was killed 8 Nov?

The police certainly didn't, her death certificate doesn't but why let facts get in the way of a story. If Koz was linking something to a feast day, surely he would make sure to kill on the right day, not a day later!

[Paddy]

Confused !

Wastn't Eddowes skirt said to have michaelmas daisys on it?

Pat.............

[Jonathan H]

Behold the Face of the ...

Yet another arguably modern tangent descended from Sir Melville Macnaghten's school-boy fun with a minor suspect, one who exhibited "solitary vices" -- that Mac was all too familiar with from Eton.

I presume it is the masturbatory aspect that 'led' or inspired these authors/researchers towards a 'rush to judgement', eg. of the contemporaneous police suspects 'Kosminski' the self-abuser would be likeliest to leave semen.

In my opinion while strong, even brilliant theses have been made for a Jewish suspect (Aaron Kosminski in Paul Begg's "JTR--The Facts" and David Cohen in Martin Fido's "The Crimes, Detection and Death of JTR") being the likeliest 'Jack', this new tome, in broad outline, is not going to be made of the same historical timber.

Firstly, there is no such claim at the time about the killer leaving semen at any of the crime scenes. Secondly, the provenance for the shawl is hopeless. Thirdly the DNA at best records one in 400,000--and anyhow is yet to be confirmed by anybody not connected to the upcoming book.

The giveaway for the, eh, over-reach is that 'The Daily Mail' article (yes, that 'Daily Mail') does not concede anything about one to less than half a million identification, so a reader could conclude that an absolute match has been made to Eddowes and Kosminski.

The foundations are somewhat mythical too. eg. The Polish-Jewish suspect was [maybe] seen leaving the Eddowes crime scene by a beat cop. Except that that is an untrue story; a fictional inversion of the Jewish Lawende sighting that was of a Gentile-featured man (reportedly this witness was alleged to have said 'no' to one suspect and 'yes' to another--both Anglo, Gentiles and sailors, not Slavic hairdressers in their 20's).

If the DNA pointed to Montie Druitt I would have exactly the same opinion. It is an over-reach, to be polite.

I am also old enough to remember--and be subsequently disappointed by--the initial press conference bombshell by 'Doctor' Rines that his team of underwater researchers had photographed nothing less than the face of the Loch Ness Monster, in 1975.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JLqnR116p-A/UjQjn_AJ4QI/AAAAAAAAsCk/l9n_0Q97spQ/s1600/gargoyle-body-combined.jpg

Frankly, it still 'gives me chills! (I was 11 at the time) Hey, you can't prove its just driftwood ...

[Wickerman]

So we have a killer who brings this cloth to the murder, leaves it there and cuts another piece of cloth from her body to carry away the organs....

Well, someone's insane to come up with that idea, not sure if it's the killer or the author...

[GUT]

So we have a killer who brings this cloth to the murder, leaves it there and cuts another piece of cloth from her body to carry away the organs....

Well, someone's insane to come up with that idea, not sure if it's the killer or the author...

[AdamWalsh]

If his research and the DNA analysis is to be believed all this proves is that Kosminski came into contact with the shawl she was wearing....he mightve been a client of hers and gave it as a gift. This doesnt conclusively prove he was Jack.

[Beowulf]

Considering the information Rob House discovered that the murders were all near where Kosminski lived, and several other factors that makes Kosminski a Prime Suspect, (name of his book), well, as Bogie said in Maltese Falcon,
it's 'one more item on your (his) side of the scale'.

I'm really thinking Kosminski is likely Jack the Ripper.

What is frustrating is we have no photo of him. If he IS JTR, it sure would be nice to know what he looked like.

[GUT]

Considering the information Rob House discovered that the murders were all near where Kosminski lived, and several other factors that makes Kosminski a Prime Suspect, (name of his book), well, as Bogie said in Maltese Falcon,
it's 'one more item on your (his) side of the scale'.

I'm really thinking Kosminski is likely Jack the Ripper.

What is frustrating is we have no photo of him. If he IS JTR, it sure would be nice to know what he looked like.

Well there is the sketch in the article

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi Trevor,surely a one fourhundred thousand is good enough espcially when we have had suspects proposed with no evidence at all its not as though we are been shown another diary from Liverpool.

Its not conclusive you or I could have the same profile and not be connected to either family. This type of DNA evidence on its own is unsafe

Of course another question is were these stains/marks documented before the shawl came into the possession of the current owner ?

[JeffHamm]

mtDNA is passed down from mother to all her children. It's a DNA maternal marker. Meaning, I have my mother's mtDNA, but my children do not, they have their mother's mtDNA, and by a stroke of good luck we're not siblings! mtDNA can be used to trace back the maternal line. So, we can trace back to my mother, her mother, my mother's mother's mother, and so on. Go back a few generations, now, work forward. Think, my great grandmother and all her children. And also all her daughter's children. And also, all her daughter's daughter's children. All of those lines will have the same mtDNA. Common mtDNA matches just means that two people can trace their maternal lines back to a common woman. (So, it is possible that my wife and I do have the same mtDNA, but that would mean that somewhere, tracing back through our respective mothers, and following only the mothers, you end up at the same woman - no, it's not our grandmothers either! )

Meaning, while a mismatch can disprove a suspect, a match just keeps them in the running.

Similar tracing for the paternal line can be done by looking at the Y chromosome, as this past down father to son (however, unlike mtDNA, which can match sons to mothers and the maternal line, the y chromosomes cannot match daughters to fathers or her paternal line).

Now, that being said, I think it would be best to get a bit more information on this breakthrough. If it were shown to be genuine, then it certainly moves Kosminski to the top of the list - but it has to be shown to be genuine first.

[wolfie1]

mtDNA is passed down from mother to all her children. It's a DNA maternal marker. Meaning, I have my mother's mtDNA, but my children do not, they have their mother's mtDNA, and by a stroke of good luck we're not siblings! mtDNA can be used to trace back the maternal line. So, we can trace back to my mother, her mother, my mother's mother's mother, and so on. Go back a few generations, now, work forward. Think, my great grandmother and all her children. And also all her daughter's children. And also, all her daughter's daughter's children. All of those lines will have the same mtDNA. Common mtDNA matches just means that two people can trace their maternal lines back to a common woman. (So, it is possible that my wife and I do have the same mtDNA, but that would mean that somewhere, tracing back through our respective mothers, and following only the mothers, you end up at the same woman - no, it's not our grandmothers either! )

Meaning, while a mismatch can disprove a suspect, a match just keeps them in the running.

Similar tracing for the paternal line can be done by looking at the Y chromosome, as this past down father to son (however, unlike mtDNA, which can match sons to mothers and the maternal line, the y chromosomes cannot match daughters to fathers or her paternal line).

Now, that being said, I think it would be best to get a bit more information on this breakthrough. If it were shown to be genuine, then it certainly moves Kosminski to the top of the list - but it has to be shown to be genuine first.

A recent result is Richard 111, a match with a secondary desc via Richard 111 sister's line . DNA could be extracted directly from remains of exhumed Aaron .Kosminski, with family consent, and traced down to secondary desc.

[pinkmoon]

Its not conclusive you or I could have the same profile and not be connected to either family. This type of DNA evidence on its own is unsafe

Of course another question is were these stains/marks documented before the shawl came into the possession of the current owner ?

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

[Harry D]

I'd feel a lot more confident if the story hadn't broke in the Daily Fail. That's enough to set alarm bells ringing straight away.