Exhumation

[adamkle]

The only one, that can possibly be a hit to the target with the burial-site, could be MJK.
Getting a hit with fingerprints is unlikely, since the obvious choice for JtR is a killer, who died before the fingerprint system took place!

JtR died before the fingerprint system took place? How can we be 100% sure? Even so, he could left fingerprints on his letters or other belongings.
MJK would be interesting. Her clothes - that's where a "bloody fingerprint" could be. But they were changed before the funeral, weren't they?

[adamkle]

Firstly - and most importantly - we do not have the exact burial spot for ANY victim. All the extant monuments are in the approximate area and some are in mass graves.

Frankly, I didn't think the situation is so bad. But, did the authorities even try to locate it?

Secondly, there is nothing to say the bones would be preserved well enough for the efficient extraction of DNA anyway.

We can't be sure there's something left. But forensic exeminer once told me, that it's quite possible to extract DNA from the 120-years-old long bones.

Thirdly, ... As we don't know where the remains are and the exhumation would not be classified as being in the Public Interest, the Home Office would never permit exploration and the desecration of various surrounding unrelated graves in the hope of possibly finding one skeleton.

Probably that's what they think. But are they right? We talk about serial killer, not some damned tv starlet.

There is also the fact that fingerprinting was not used in criminal cases in the UK until the trial of the Stratton brothers following a murder in Deptford, SE London, in 1905.

OK. But step by step. Once we had those figerprints (miracle #1), than we could look for matching suspects (miracle #2). Today no one ever thinks about it, because the graves wasn't even checked...

And what do you think about those cuts on the bones? To know that the same knife was used (or not), that would be a progress, wouldn't it?

Best regards,
Adam

[Monty]

I think the moral issue is more important.

Monty

[j.r-ahde]

Hello you all!

Adamkle, how ideal thinking! It's the same I had, while joining these boards...

But, like Philip said, it's only wishful thinking!

The only one, that can possibly be a hit to the target with the burial-site, could be MJK.

Getting a hit with fingerprints is unlikely, since the obvious choice for JtR is a killer, who died before the fingerprint system took place!

All the best
Jukka

[George Hutchinson]

Hi Adam.

It's a non-starter on every single level.

Firstly - and most importantly - we do not have the exact burial spot for ANY victim. All the extant monuments are in the approximate area and some are in mass graves.

Secondly, there is nothing to say the bones would be preserved well enough for the efficient extraction of DNA anyway. I am no scientist but I do recall that about ten years ago some of the anonymous victims of the Titanic were exhumed in Halifax in Canada and it was found in about half those cases there was NOTHING left of them at all. The acidity of the soil had destroyed all traces of the remains.

Thirdly, DNA would only be of use in the case of trying to get an ID on MJK. As we don't know where the remains are and the exhumation would not be classified as being in the Public Interest, the Home Office would never permit exploration and the desecration of various surrounding unrelated graves in the hope of possibly finding one skeleton.

Lastly - bloody fingerprints on the clothing of a buried victim being a miracle? Damn right it would be. There is also the fact that fingerprinting was not used in criminal cases in the UK until the trial of the Stratton brothers following a murder in Deptford, SE London, in 1905. The killer would have to have a criminal record twenty years later at least and I daresay the routine fingerprinting of convicts did not occur until some years after that.

PHILIP

[adamkle]

I know there was long discussion about it on Casebook in 2004, but I have several questions. Maybe someone would like to answer it.

1. Thanks of exhumation we could compare the cuts on the bones of the "canonical" victims. If they are similar, then probably the knife and the murderer would be the same, right?
2. It was 120 years ago, so it could be a miracle but... If any of the victim was buried in her own clothes, than we could find - literally - bloody fingerprints on it, right?
3. The DNA of the victims would be useful. For many reasons.

What do you think? With all the respect for the victims...