Kosminski and Victim DNA Match on Shawl

[Henry Flower]

At the moment I'm most interested in this PC's wife: serious questions need to be asked about any woman whose husband thinks she might actually appreciate the gift of a tent-sized length of fabric stolen from a corpse, covered in blood, semen, and kidney.

Is that a blood-stained shawl hidden under your helmet, or are you just pleased to see me?

[paul g]

Puzzlling.

Morning Lynn lot of things don,t add up maybe the book will reveal all.

[pinkmoon]

Announcement regarding the 2015 Conference in Nottingham:

We spoke to Russell Edwards last week about appearing at next years conference in Nottingham, but he is currently unsure.

We all agree that it is an exciting development and if nothing else will get the case talked about and bring new people which we applaud.

However it will inevitably have critics and raise questions and we hope Mr Edwards will come along to answer them.

We also realise this is going to be exactly the kind of news people will want addressed at a conference.

Therefore we are announcing that our only as yet unfilled speaker slot is being allocated to discussion of the shawl. Russell Edwards has first refusal on this slot, and we will also be approaching Dr Louhelainen. If neither of them wants to take the opportunity to present their case, we will look elsewhere for people to talk about it.

I think they will both need a flamethrower to keep the savage Mob at bay if they turn up this WILL end up in the pub car park in a good old fashioned brawl.In fact I can see the headlines BRAWL OVER SHAWL.

[bigjon]

I think they will both need a flamethrower to keep the savage Mob at bay if they turn up this WILL end up in the pub car park in a good old fashioned brawl.In fact I can see the headlines BRAWL OVER SHAWL.

The conferences have a proud tradition of respectful debate and discussion of even the most controversial of speakers.

Ripperologists who can be fierce online are often perfectly polite in person.

[Henry Flower]

Tom Wescott in The Bank Holiday Murders has a compelling discussion on the provenance of the 'shawl'. He outlines just how improbable it is that the item could have been filched from the crime scene before the area was secured and documented, especially by a constable whose jurisdiction ended some distance from Mitre Square and who is not recorded as having been present at any point.

All of these improbabilities would, of course, become mere details were the scientific analysis proved by independent experts to demonstrate a greater than 95% likelihood that Eddowes' DNA is present in the bloodstaining.

I'd be happy with that. But from what I've read so far I'm not optimistic.

[Henry Flower]

BRAWL OVER SHAWL!! Brilliant. Even better than DEBATE TURNS FIERY OVER DIARY.

[paul g]

MtDNA

While you can,t believe everything you read on the internet or a book for that matter , just found the following so will quote it as I found it word for word.

I worked for a Dna testing company, and I had my mtDNA tested to the highest level possible and I matched 5 other people in the office.

The obvious dna scenario is the selling point and the sensational headline that has grabbed everyone's attention.
Taking everything away the shawl authenticity t etc and leaving just the mtDNA
This alone is beginning to looked flawed and unreliable just from us amateurs
And holes and cracks are beginning to appear in the theory.

At the start of the thread we had DNA which has now been identified as mtDNA which if correct and we believe what we have read on this thread the absolute best the scientific world can narrow the mtDNA down to is 1/40,000.

So unless the book reveals something that is not yet in the public domain we will be left with the following.

No evidence the shawl was at the murder scene.
No evidence that the shawl is in anyway connected to kominsky.
No DNA evidence connecting Kominsky to the shawl apart from secondary DNA that is reliable down to 1/40,000
At this moment in time it is still disputed as to weather the shawl actually was around during the JTR murders.
Even on just the above we have not touched on cross contamination of the shawl.

[pinkmoon]

Just to add to that and reminded by Debera Ariff… The Shawl isn't actually a Shawl at all, its an Edwardian Table Runner, hence the stange dimensions.

Its value would have been considerable at the time and unlikely to have been owned by Cathrine Eddows. I spoke to the Parlours who believed the family that owned this artefact to genuinely believe it was the Shawl of Cathrine Eddows. But the reality is we are all told things by our parents and grand parents when we are young that turn out not to be true.

Thanks for the info Stewart

Yours Jeff

Hi Jeff,I was watching one of thoughs antique Show things the other month and a nice sweet old couple turned up with this glass that had been passed down through the family and it was meant to be the glass queen Victoria took her first alcoholic drink out of they were convinced they were going to make thousands it was in fact a glass dating from the 1920s should have seen look on their faces priceless!

[GUT]

Hi Jeff,I was watching one of thoughs antique Show things the other month and a nice sweet old couple turned up with this glass that hand been passed down through the family and it was meant to be the glass queen Victoria took her first alcoholic drink out of they were convinced they were going to make thousands it was in fact a glass dating from the 1920s should have seen look on their faces priceless!

Yes Yes Yes saw the same episode recently.

[pinkmoon]

BRAWL OVER SHAWL!! Brilliant. Even better than DEBATE TURNS FIERY OVER DIARY.

We could get Don King to promote the fight.

[tinysteelorchestra]

Hello everyone. I'm new to this forum, so apologies if I'm simply repeating everyone else.

I first read this story in The Independent, which was the only reason I even bothered reading it properly. But my initial reaction is one of complete cynicism. At first I assumed the article was referring to the piece of apron found near the Goulston Street graffiti, I've never heard of a shawl being found.

Is it even possible for DNA to remain intact for that long? What kind of a policeman (from the wrong division) takes a bloody eight foot shawl from a crime scene home to his wife? And how come Mr Edwards isn't getting these results properly authenticated by other scientists?

It all sounds about as likely as the Maybrick Diary, or Ms Cornwell's frankly bizarre obsession with Walter Sickert...

Andy.

[pinkmoon]

Tom Wescott in The Bank Holiday Murders has a compelling discussion on the provenance of the 'shawl'. He outlines just how improbable it is that the item could have been filched from the crime scene before the area was secured and documented, especially by a constable whose jurisdiction ended some distance from Mitre Square and who is not recorded as having been present at any point.

All of these improbabilities would, of course, become mere details were the scientific analysis proved by independent experts to demonstrate a greater than 95% likelihood that Eddowes' DNA is present in the bloodstaining.

I'd be happy with that. But from what I've read so far I'm not optimistic.

If such a fuss was made about a piece of bloodstained apron think what fuss an expensive shawl would have caused.

[Henry Flower]

As the experts and the judge in the Kercher/Knox/Sollecito trial insisted, it is not enough for the defence to simply brandish the word 'contamination' around as though it explained away everything - they had to show some probable and specific explanation as to exactly how and when the collection or storing or testing procedures used by the forensics team deposited large amounts of Sollecito's DNA on the clasp of the victim's bra strap.

'contamination' is a very specific word, not a magic incantation. Let's wait for the actual evidence to be properly published before we start dismissing it with magic words.

[Donpayasos]

figures

I think this is plainly a bunch of hooey.

Can someone in the know clarify the figures being cited though? Someone says the DNA match gives us odds of 1 in 400,000, someone else says one in 400.000 (which means 1 in 400) someone else says 1 in 40,000. Some people interpret this to mean there were 400,000 other people with the same DNA, some say it means the DNA is proven 400,000 to one to be Kominski's and Eddowes'. That's quite a broad variety of readings.

I would also like to point out that in the Mail article the Scandinavian science boffin who produced the DNA results also claimed that the bloodstains showed an arterial spray consistent with the murder scene. But nowhere do we learn that he has any qualifications related to analysing blood spray, which I would think is a very different science from microbiology... It's also odd that those who studied the "shawl" before did not notice this.

[lynn cates]

overwhelming

Hello Paul G. But other than that, the evidence is OVERWHELMING. (heh-heh)

Cheers.
LC