Kosminski and Victim DNA Match on Shawl

[Jeff Leahy]

Why should he have considered that?

Because that is the most probable explanation, if the DNA evidence is correct.

Aaron Kosnminski was after all suffering schizophrenia. A condition from which people are attacked in waves in the early onset.

If we say the first attack was 18 weeks covering the period known as the Autumn of terror…the next best guess for an attack would be….yes around March 1889.

Yours Jeff

[Phil Carter]

Hi Andy,

NOTHING wrong with writing a novel, especially when you admit that's what it is.

I don't buy the shawl thing based on what we know so far, but if Edwards is right (que ?) that it belonged to Kosminski then he could have done the masturbating bit long before - at home, in the park, when he killed Annie Chapman, or whenever.

Hello Mick,

But then I personally DO NOT understand this Edwards chap and his comments at all.

This has ALWAYS been called Eddowes shawl. The Parlours called it that when Napper met them. HE asked the Parlours where the rest of the Eddowes shawl was and they told him Edwards had it. He bought it distinctly under the circumstances that he believed his purchase to be the Eddowes shawl! When Napper visited Edwards the owner showed Napper the rest of the Eddowes shawl. They took the shawl to Dr Jari who did swab tests that were inconclusive.

Then all of a sudden it is Kosminski's shawl. When was THAT proven? On what basis did the known ownersip change?

Then all of a sudden it isnt Kosminski's shawl nor Eddowes' shawl but it is Eddowes' skirt!! What changed the story? With what proof?

Call me daft but it appears to me like the famous cartoon of Bugs Bunny convincing Elmer Fudd it is duck Hunting Season not rabbit hunting season.

Exactly WHEN AND WHERE is the proof of Kosminski ownership? After "apparent" semen stains appeared or before? (UV light reveals other things as equally possible)

Exactly WHEN AND WHERE did this shawl of Kosminskis turn into Eddowes skirt?

The Kosminski suspect supporters have a few problems explaining this amazing set of metamorphic changes.



best wishes

Phil

[Chris]

Phil

As Paul Begg has pointed out, if you don't want to read the book, that's up to you. But in that case this endless interrogation - apparently in the expectation that the rest of us are going to go to the trouble of telling you what the book says - is quite unreasonable.

[Tom_Wescott]

Yes, Chris, a reasonable, even compelling, argument, but still not quite the same as 'the police knew all along it was Aaron Kosminski'.

A strong likelihood does not make a 'fact'.

It seems the vast majority of the police did not think it was Kosminski, and even some of those who were aware of him, thought him innocent.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Phil Carter]

Phil

As Paul Begg has pointed out, if you don't want to read the book, that's up to you. But in that case this endless interrogation - apparently in the expectation that the rest of us are going to go to the trouble of telling you what the book says - is quite unreasonable.

Hello CHRIS,

1. Edwards changed his story via RADIO and other interviews AFTER the book was released. I have seen them.

2. If all you want to do is tell ANYONE that they have no right to ask questions UNLESS they have read the book then on behalf of a lot of people that HAVENT read the book but ARE following this 3000 plus posted thread I will tell them your oh so inclusive words. You have no right to exclude ANYONE from asking questions just because they havent read the book. One of the radio interviews is on (or was last week) his website. I am sure many have seen it that do not own the book. And THEY have the right to follow the thread in silence until THEY want to ask questions too!

I reserve the rigiht to ask questions that you or anyone else dont like seeing because the answers clearly are detremental to Mr Edwards' presentation and the Simpson story which is the origin of the shawl that all this palaver is about anyway. And if you dont like them or cant or wont answer them then WHEN I address my comments to another poster- do not bother to interfere.

Everybody has the right to ask questions of each other- as I DID with Mick.

I hope you understand Chris. This is a topic that attracts many newbies and long time lurkers as they call themselves. The majority havent got the book I bet. Tom Wescott and Lynn Cates havent read it yet as far as I know. NEITHER has Stewart Evans.

You going to suggest stopping them from making comments and asking questions too ?

Terrible comment imho.

Phil

[Chris]

It seems the vast majority of the police did not think it was Kosminski, and even some of those who were aware of him, thought him innocent.

We're not discussing whether the police thought Kozminski/Aaron Kozminski was the murderer. We're discussing whether Macnaghten and Swanson, when they wrote "Kosminski", were referring to Aaron, or another hypothetical Kosminski, who was committed to Colney Hatch or some other asylum under a different surname.

[Chris]

You going to suggest stopping them from making comments and asking questions too ?

I'm not suggesting stopping anyone from asking questions. You know very well I've answered dozens of people's questions on this thread.

I just take exception when someone say "Wild horses wouldn't drag me to spend my money on this book - now tell me exactly WHEN AND WHERE the book says ..." [ad nauseam].

[Jonathan H]

Dear Tom

Incisive as ever, as you have grasped the nub.

Some posters on this long thread have quoted Macnaghten to buttress the argument that 'Kosminski' is a strong suspect.

It is unsafe, and only works if certain inconvenient aspects are ommited.

For example, Macnaghten eliminated the Polish suspect from his memoirs (and the Russian). For him there was only the English gentleman suspect, the 'Simon Pure' riddled in mind and body with a disease that led him to kill.

Worse, Macnaghten is the senior policeman who arguably knew more accurate data about Aaron kosminski than did those policemen (Anderson, Swanson) who advocated him as the Ripper.

To Chris

The answer is yes and no.

Aaron Kosminski is the man that Anderson and Swanson were talking and writing about between 1895 and 1910.

The problem is that they did not know it.

They seem to have only ever known his fictional variant, 'Kosminski', who is recast as a better suspect than the real figure from which, nonetheless, that semi-fictional construct was derived.

In that sense the shawl-tablecloth artifact is in the same tradition: it is confidently claimed to be one thing, but is actually something else.

[Phil Carter]

I'm not suggesting stopping anyone from asking questions. You know very well I've answered dozens of people's questions on this thread.

I just take exception when someone say "Wild horses wouldn't drag me to spend my money on this book - now tell me exactly WHEN AND WHERE the book says ..." [ad nauseam].

And I take great exception to someone telling me when and where I can or cannot ask a question of a poster that has not even been adressed to you! If Mick Reed wishes to comment or answer that is entirely up to him

Again I repeat. IMO this story is fast going the way of the Diary debacle. And if you think that type of evidence with very dubious factual presentation will enhance this field of research I can guarentee you it wont and will cause damage akin to 20 years ago the longer it goes on.

Chris- we have had Cornwell give us DNA tests that according to HER nails SICKERT as The Ripper. Now we have Edwards giving us DNA tests that according to him nails Kosminski as The Ripper. But on this occasion the man who took those DNA tests is way more reserved- HENCE the focus is back on Edwards as well as the good doctor. And I and many many others have seen how Edwards keeps changing the story that started all this.

These things do NOT bode well in combination for defence of the story nor the tests.

Yes- we have ALL answered numerous questions- not just you. So well done!

Phil

[Amanda Sumner]

I'm not suggesting stopping anyone from asking questions. You know very well I've answered dozens of people's questions on this thread.

I just take exception when someone say "Wild horses wouldn't drag me to spend my money on this book - now tell me exactly WHEN AND WHERE the book says ..." [ad nauseam].

Hi Chris,

I don't think Phil's post was unreasonable at all. With or without reading the book, these issues have been raised elsewhere and on this thread.
His questions were as much to raise these bizarre points as looking for answers.
We know that there are no answers because the questions are really hypothetical ones about an event, or several events, that never happened.
Documentary evidence tells us that the shawl did not exist at the crime scene and neither was Amos Simpson. That story is based on family lore and hearsay.
The family lore was that the shawl belonged to Eddowes, never the murderer, so to then say that the shawl belonged to Kosminski is pure conjecture, without even family lore to support it.
So, based on conjecture the whole book, read or not, amounts to little more than fiction. Any DNA found on the shawl is totally irrelevant until it can be proven that it was at the scene of the crime.
One cannot change the goalposts to remove obstacles that happen to get in the way of a good yarn, or should I say "should not" because, clearly, this is what has happened here.

What I do find unreasonable, and I have heard Edwards say this himself, is to tell people to buy the book.

I have no immediate urge to buy the book. It is my decision, and mine alone, how I spend my money and unless I have a rare urge to read fiction, I really cannot see myself buying this in the very long foreseeable future.

Amanda

[wolfie1]

Faction

Hi Chris,

I don't think Phil's post was unreasonable at all. With or without reading the book, these issues have been raised elsewhere and on this thread.
His questions were as much to raise these bizarre points as looking for answers.
We know that there are no answers because the questions are really hypothetical ones about an event, or several events, that never happened.
Documentary evidence tells us that the shawl did not exist at the crime scene and neither was Amos Simpson. That story is based on family lore and hearsay.
The family lore was that the shawl belonged to Eddowes, never the murderer, so to then say that the shawl belonged to Kosminski is pure conjecture, without even family lore to support it.
So, based on conjecture the whole book, read or not, amounts to little more than fiction. Any DNA found on the shawl is totally irrelevant until it can be proven that it was at the scene of the crime.
One cannot change the goalposts to remove obstacles that happen to get in the way of a good yarn, or should I say "should not" because, clearly, this is what has happened here.

What I do find unreasonable, and I have heard Edwards say this himself, is to tell people to buy the book.

I have no immediate urge to buy the book. It is my decision, and mine alone, how I spend my money and unless I have a rare urge to read fiction, I really cannot see myself buying this in the very long foreseeable future.

Amanda

Lets just call the book a Factional tale. Neither fiction nor fact but a hybrid of genres. The publisher is also to blame for taking his claims as fact alone.

[Tom_Wescott]

We're not discussing whether the police thought Kozminski/Aaron Kozminski was the murderer. We're discussing whether Macnaghten and Swanson, when they wrote "Kosminski", were referring to Aaron, or another hypothetical Kosminski, who was committed to Colney Hatch or some other asylum under a different surname.

I don't have a problem accepting they were talking about Aaron. Unless I find out that one of Le Grand's aliases was Kosminski. Then I'll suddenly have a problem accepting they were talking about Aaron.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Tom_Wescott]

Lets just call the book a Factional tale. Neither fiction nor fact but a hybrid of genres. The publisher is also to blame for taking his claims as fact alone.

I can't believe this myth persists that publisher's have any regard at all for factual accuracy. Maybe journals, but not book publishers. That hasn't been the case for at least as long as I've been a reader. They have good cover artists and good editors and that's it.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Roy Corduroy]

Perhaps he should have considered Aaron being placed in a private asylum March 1889, possibly in Surrey, and then being later released?

Hi Jeff, the logic of this escapes me. For obvious reasons. By he you are referring to Martin Fido, who was researching the pauper referrals from East London districts, where he found David Cohen. Martin was kind enough to share his notebooks on JTR Forums, so I re-post it here.



As we know, only when Martin kept searching those pauper referrals into the year 1891 did he find Aaron Kosminski. And the rest has been filled in over time.

So I have difficulty with considering "Aaron being placed in a private asylum March 1889, possibly in Surrey, and then being later released." In fact, I don't consider it at all. And I don't know who dreamed up the idea. It has no cred. Aaron's family could not afford to send him for private treatment in 1890 nor 1891, so how could they have in 1889. Makes no sense. For starters.

Roy

[Ghost]

I'm not suggesting stopping anyone from asking questions. You know very well I've answered dozens of people's questions on this thread.

I just take exception when someone say "Wild horses wouldn't drag me to spend my money on this book - now tell me exactly WHEN AND WHERE the book says ..." [ad nauseam].

Hi Chris,
It seems like you have a good grasp on the evidence the book presents. I'm having quite the chore trying to piece it together through this giant thread. Could I trouble you to create a new thread that presents the important evidence right up front? I think it would be helpful to everyone.