British citizen, Russell Edwards, 48, may have conclusively determined that Jack the Ripper, the notorious killer of 5 prostitutes in East London in 1888, was Aaron Kosminski, a Polish Jew who lived near one of the crime scenes.
A shawl found by the body of Catherine Eddowes, one of the Ripper’s victims, has been analysed and found to contain DNA from her blood as well as DNA from the killer.According to Edwards, he became interested in the mystery in 2001 after watching the Johnny Depp film From Hell. He bought the shawl at an auction in 2007, enlisted the help of Dr. Jari Louhelainen in 2011 to do DNA testing, and will publish his findings in the book Naming Jack the Ripper, available this week.
Kosminski has always been one of the three most credible suspects. He is often described as having been a hairdresser in Whitechapel... What is certain is he was seriously mentally ill, probably a paranoid schizophrenic who suffered auditory hallucinations and described as a misogynist prone to ‘self-abuse’ – a euphemism for masturbation.Novelist Patricia Cornwall's 2002 book Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed "identified" a different Jack the Ripper.
I believe Mr. Edwards' investigative journey to identify Jack the Ripper is arguably fascinating and compelling. The mystery may finally have been solved.
Posted by Note Taker
3 comments:
And how many times has that been washed or sent to the dry cleaners?
Never, according to the article at the link.
Guess again!
Smithsonian Mag.
Others, however, are still skeptical. First, the shawl has been "openly handled by loads of people and been touched, breathed on, spat upon," Richard Cobb, who organizes Jack the Ripper conventions, told the Guardian. This means that the genetic material could be contaminated. The Independent also points out that most labs working on ancient DNA do so with blind samples—researchers don't know which samples are which—to prevent their biases from affecting results. Labs also go to great lengths to ensure those samples are not contaminated. "None of this," the Independent writes, "as far we know, has been done in this case".
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/case-solved-jack-ripper-180952631/
Post a Comment