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New DNA Analysis On Old Blood Pegs Aaron Kosminski As Jack the Ripper
It surely won't be the last theory offered, but a century and a quarter after the notorious crimes of Jack the Ripper, an "armchair detective" has employed DNA analysis on the blood-soaked shawl of one of the Ripper's victims, and has declared it in a new book an unambiguous match with Jewish immigrant Aaron Kosminski, long considered a suspect. Kosminski died in 1919 in an insane asylum. The landmark discovery was made after businessman Russell Edwards, 48, bought the shawl at auction and enlisted the help of Dr Jari Louhelainen, a world-renowned expert in analysing genetic evidence from historical crime scenes. Using cutting-edge techniques, Dr Louhelainen was able to extract 126-year-old DNA from the material and compare it to DNA from descendants of [Ripper victim Catherine] Eddowes and the suspect, with both proving a perfect match.
(Also at The Independent.) It's not the first time DNA evidence has been used to try to pin down the identity of Jack the Ripper, but the claimed results in this case are far less ambiguous than another purported mitochondrial DNA connection promoted by crime novelist Patricia Cornwell in favor of artist Walter Sickert as the killer in a 2002 book. Update: 09/07 16:03 GMT by T : Corrected Sickert's first name, originally misstated as "William."
Jack the Ripper was a fucking Jedi?
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That just proves they were related.
did anyone stop to consider this guy was just a john?? he was emaciated and couldn't have had the strength or energy to overpower these hookers...
wouldn't just reveal the identity of the victim. ("y'see, it was a man's- blood!" "y'see the ripper had cut 'imself shav'n that morning" "y'see the worker girl she had 'er own knife a'course")
I wonder if this guy was a distant relation of Kaczynski's (Unabomber). I did a quick search and didn't find anything about Kaczynski's ancestry, though.
So we can say that DNA evidence is part of a chain that can lead to guilt, and if we assume the known suspects represent the total population of possible suspects, then if the DNA exonerates all other suspects, then there is a case to be made for guilt, but that is a lot of caveats. As we have seen in many cases, obvious suspects are ignored because the authorities jump to quick conclusions. As said, DNA is good for exonerating people, not convicts them.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
...businessman Russell Edwards, 48, bought the shawl...
Why do they throw his age in there? Why does it matter? Is that in any possible way related to the story? I'm not calling out this story in particular, I see this all the time. I'd like to know the motivation behind the trend.
You uneducated buffoon, Timothy!
There was no blood other than the victims on the shawl. And even that was only determined to match through mitochondrial DNA.
What they claim to have matched "definitely, categorically and absolutely" to the murderer are "traces of semen thought to belong to the killer".
Traces of semen. On the clothes of ONE of the victims. Who was a prostitute.
Clearly, "Only non-believers that want to perpetuate the myth will doubt."
Non-believers perpetuating myths? I'm not sure that's how it goes.
From TFA:
A blood-stained shawl belonging to one of the Ripper's victims bought at an auction in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in 2007 was used as the basis for the research.
As well as being soaked in her blood, it was found to have traces of semen thought to belong to the killer.
Mr Edwards said: âoeI've got the only piece of forensic evidence in the whole history of the case.
âoeI've spent 14 years working on it, and we have definitively solved the mystery of who Jack the Ripper was.
"Only non-believers that want to perpetuate the myth will doubt. This is it now - we have unmasked him."
BUT WAIT! There is more... it is once again mitochondrial.
In other words...
Critics, however, have pointed out that the DNA comparisons focused on mitochondrial DNA, which could be shared by anything from between 1% and 10% of the population, so it was hardly unique to Sickert.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
It was impossible to extract DNA from the stains on the shawl using the method employed in current cases, in which swabs are taken. The samples were just too old.
Instead, he used a method he called âvacuumingâ(TM), using a pipette filled with a special âbufferingâ(TM) liquid that removed the genetic material in the cloth without damaging it.
As a non-scientist, I found myself in a new world as Jari warned that it would also be impossible to use genomic DNA, which is used in fresh cases and contains a humanâ(TM)s entire genetic data, because over time it would have become fragmented.
But he explained it would be possible to use mitochondrial DNA instead. It is passed down exclusively through the female line, is much more abundant than genomic DNA, and survives far better.
Making it exactly as valid as the Walter Sickert "evidence" from postage stamps.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I've wondered this over the years, too. In the WSJ, I think it's mostly so people can know where they stand in a certain kind of pissing contest :) ("He was already CEO at 27?! Well, I've got one year to be promoted up from mailboy if I want to keep up ...")
In stories like this, I think it's largely because it's an easy detail -- might not add much to the story, but then, neither in many cases does knowing *exactly* where something took place, but it helps to flesh out a story, gives you some mental hooks to hang your brain on. It's easier to think of "One-legged clown Bob Snorvliss, 42, of Stoke-on-Trent" being caught trying to bribe children to spray-paint clothes onto nude statues because he has a clothed-statue fetish, rather than just hearing that "A guy, somewhere, did something interesting in a place you don't live."
It also helps establish identity, since people seem to draw on a fairly small pool of names. Oh, *that* Russell Edwards!
"I Warned Him!" - Jack
Like the one just below...
Concentrating on the ethnicity of that POLISH immigrant sure will bring more clicks to the topic.
After all... We haven't had a nice flame war since that last "Misogyny. Misogyny everywhere." story.
But that was just about women and games and there aren't enough REAL lunatics interested in that.
We all know, real loonies is where the clicks are.
So we clearly need the next one to be racial-ethnic-religious with all tangential conspiracy theories as a bonus. And lest we forget... Palestine, Gaza, West Bank, Israel.
Thanks timothy. :)
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
That's DNA, not DVD.
I just read somewhere that the DNA evidence so far points to some unnamed woman, who is thought to have masqueraded as a midwife.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Worse, it's a tabloid that wants to grow up to be Fox News. It's one of the least trusted "news" sources in the UK.
" Jewish immigrant Aaron Kosminski"
If Kosminski had been a Lutheran from Germany, they'd call him a "German immigrant".
When comparing the sample to a database, random error can create a match under certain common circumstances.
That's complete bullshit. We're not talking about a match in one short sequence, but unique patterns that arise from different numbers of repeated sequences, and in most modern studies, 100s of thousands SNPs over the whole genome.
A guy buys a shawl, buys a study to show it is the real thing, and is now writing a book about it.
Could be the real thing, but there is a money incentive involved, so let's wait if uninvolved experts agree.
You can't immigrate from 'Jewishland', saying he was a Jewish immigrant is useless. Where was he actually from? Israel? Germany? Poland? Ukraine?
1. The blood on the rag was the female's and the semen on the rag was Aaron's.
2. This doesn't necessarily prove that Aaron was the Ripper, just that he was there. It's possible that someone else killed her and left her for dead. Then Aaron walking by found the corpse and masturbated on it. He was known to have been a sicko who did unspeakable things.
3. There is a strong case that it was Cohen because he was specifically linked to murders of prostitutes, and the crimes stopped the same year he was confined to the asylum.
4. There's some suggestion that Cohen was an alias the Asylum used because Aaron's last name was too difficult to pronounce. It may have been the same man.
Oy vey! It's another Holocaust(TM)!
And, of course, it's inconceiveable that there were cross-dressing prostitutes during that period?
---- a fact which would not be discovered in the autopsy of a crudely mutilated victim?
Jews are always jews first, citizens of countries second http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
Elvis did it
Only way descendants would be a perfect DNA match from samples 120+ yrs ago would be with cloning.
Unless Jack is immortal and has been hiding by pretending to be his own descendant all these years.....
A perfect DNA match 5 more generations apart imply faulty/contaminated testing procedures.
Using cutting-edge techniques, Dr Louhelainen was able to extract 126-year-old DNA from the material
I hear Jack the Ripper also used cutting edge techniques.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Born: 1864/5.
There was no Poland in 1864/5. It was partitioned by Russia (with parts given to Prussia and Austria-Hungary) in late 18th century ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitions_of_Poland ).
As a side note, Russia has long track record of partitioning other countries, hasn't she?
first of all, Poland was not existing at the time - it was partitioned and occupied by Russia, Prussia and Austria-Hungary.
Moby Dick is fiction, but was highly influenced and factually informed by the tragic events and wreck of the whaleship Essex. Melville was consumed by the stories of the surviving crew, and was inspired by them to write Moby-Dick. It's a fictional work immersed in a strong, accurate nonfiction document.
The following book about the Essex is superb, for those with further interest. It won a nonfiction National Book Award. You will stay up very late reading it.
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, by Nathaniel Philbrick.
This is what Jews do to animals - God told them to do it!
http://rabbi.bendory.com/pix/shechita/tn/100_0192.jpg.php
Any comments?
There is nothing in the story as published that in ANY WAY identifies Jack the Ripper.
Even if every word published is true and the science stands up to every scrutiny, all it really shows is that a man and a woman who lived in/worked in/frequented the same areas came into contact at least once during the period between 1888 and 1891 in which Jack the Ripper was active.
It shows NOTHING more than that.
Anybody who thinks it does either hasn't read the article (no, they definitely DON'T have a series of hi-res colour photographs or a 1080p video of Aaron Kosminski ripping open the body and no, the victim did not survive long enough to provide the police with her killer's name, address and e-fit nor to pick him out of a police line-up) or possibly just doesn't understand what it means (no, you can't take a random DNA sample from an unreliable source of uncertain provenance, identify it as belonging to a specific person and then TRUTHFULLY say "The fact that this DNA is definitely from person A proves conclusively that person A was in this alleyway between 20.08 and 20.19 on a Sunday evening 125 years ago" - this sort of science simply doesn't have THAT ridiculously specific level of accuracy) and is therefore simply forming an opinion from a position of ignorance.
In this instance we could simply assume that the author doesn't understand the DNA results (certainly a possibility) but it's also possible that the science is simply being deliberately misrepresented in order to suggest some validity for the book.
Either way, there's 1 simple fact here - this investigation DOES NOT prove that Kosminski was Jack the Ripper nor does it offer any CREDIBLE evidence to make Kosminski significantly more likely than other suggested perpetrators.
I really doubt the claim that in the victorian era, Poland was literally flooded by jews. Figuratively, maybe, but I do not think that word 'literally' means what you think it means.
Who is John Cabal?
It's not the bloody that's allegedly the perpetrator's, but semen found on the shawl. I'm surprised nobody else replying to you seems to have done their homework either.
So, everything is acceptable if I allege that an imaginary being told me to do it?
If Hitler claimed an imaginary being told him all Jews needed to be extirpated, that would be acceptable to you as well?
Any rejoinders?
Well, he was also apparently insane.
> I really doubt the claim that in the victorian era, Poland was literally flooded by jews.
Maybe he had something to do with the little boy who put his finger in the dike to plug it up? :)
Wow. What century is this again? I thought most people who said garbage like this died out a long time ago.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
which is considered quite normal mental state in Russian Empire.
So we clearly need the next one to be racial-ethnic-religious with all tangential conspiracy theories as a bonus. And lest we forget... Palestine, Gaza, West Bank, Israel.
Well, Jack the Ripper's ethnicity is relevant to the story. The sentiment at the time was that the Ripper's crime was so heinous that he must have been an immigrant since no British person would commit such heinous crimes. The Ripper's ethnicity would be relevant to that sentiment. Similarly for his religious affinity. There was some graffiti found near Eddowes's apron saying, "The Juwes are the men who will not be blamed for nothing." (Variant spellings are in the records.) Some people hold that the graffiti was not written by the Ripper. Some hold that it was, and expressed Jack's anti-Semitic beliefs. Some hold that the Ripper was Jewish and wrote the graffiti to throw off suspicion.
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
Redjac will next strike in 2105 on the Martian Colonies.
(Did a search and could not find the obligatory Star Trek reference in this posting.)
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
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BT
If true, that would invalidate Alan Moore's theory...
I'm not knowledgeable enough about the era or the facts to have a definitive opinion about the validity of his interpretation, but I do have to say that if the next-to-last victim was using the name of the last victim for her nickname (as Moore says), it is indeed a strong indication that the murders were not random.
Well, Jack the Ripper's ethnicity is relevant to the story. The sentiment at the time was that the Ripper's crime was so heinous that he must have been an immigrant since no British person would commit such heinous crimes.
First off, now is not "at the time".
Nor is any rationale provided for why would such labeling be of any importance now, nor why would ANY ethnic or religious attributes be relevant to either murders or the identification of the murderer EVER.
There was never any evidence or testimony of any ethnic or religious identity of the murderer.
Nor were murders ever explained as a religious or ethnic ritual - other than in completely made up conspiracy theories involving everything from royal family, through obligatory masonic this or that, to Lewis Carroll.
Because he wrote weird books. Clearly, Alice was written in code, describing his murders.
The whole "connection", including the graffiti you mention, boils down to "some people were very anti-Semitic back then".
Which provides as much reasoning to prominently point out the ethnicity of a supposed "proven" murderer as it would to point out the ethnicity of any famous murderer.
Try it like this...
Do articles about John Wilkes Booth start with the mention of his ethnicity and religious affiliation?
How about Lee Harvey Oswald?
How about John Wayne Gacy?
Theodore Robert Bundy?
Charles Milles Manson?
Here's an easy one... Adolf Hitler. Do articles on Hitler start "Adolph Hitler, a Catholic dictator..."?
What you are providing up there is not a valid reason but RATIONALIZATION of one's either deliberate attempt at sensationalism or utter lack of tact or reason.
I'll exclude the possibility of racism cause that would be beyond retarded.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
And to the person who downmodded me fuck you die screaming, faggot.
For "blood" please substitute the word and read as "sperma frost"