The possibility of identifying Jack the Ripper is linked to a shawl that was allegedly found next to his victim Catherine Eddowes, but the origin of this item is in fact in doubt, the author points out. The history of the origin of the shawl is associated with numerous problems, there is no confidence in its authenticity. Experts also have complaints about the tests.
Can we finally establish the identity of Jack the Ripper 130 years later? Unfortunately, no, we cannot. Following the publication of test results for a questionable silk shawl with blood and possibly semen that was allegedly found at the scene of one of the Ripper's murders, forensic experts point to Aaron Kosminski, a 26-year-old Polish hairdresser in London, who was first suspect identified by London police in the Ripper case. However, like all other elements in the Jack the Ripper saga, the evidence presented does not allow the case of a series of murders that caused panic on the streets of London in 1888 to be closed.
The barber's unmasking case involves a shawl that was allegedly found next to Catherine Eddowes, the Ripper's fourth victim. As reported by David Adam in the online journal Science, the shawl was acquired in 2007 by Russell Edwards, a Ripper-lover who then provided it for DNA testing. Although Edwards published his findings in his 2014 book Naming Jack the Ripper, he did not release the DNA test, and therefore it was impossible to evaluate or confirm claims that Kosminsky was the Ripper. But now the biochemists conducting the tests are Jari Louhelainen of John Moores University in Liverpool and David Miller of the University of Leeds.published the results obtained in the specialized journal "Journal of Forensic Sciences" (Journal of Forensic Sciences).
The experts say in the article that they submitted the shawl to infrared and spectrometric testing. They also examined the spots with a microscope to determine their origin. They examined the shawl under ultraviolet light and concluded that it may have traces of semen on it.
Then the experts placed in a vacuum those DNA samples that they managed to take from the shawl, and found there a small amount of modern impurities, as well as numerous damaged short fragments containing DNA from that period. They compared the samples of mitochondrial DNA passed from mother to child with samples taken from the descendants of the Eddowes and found that they matched. In other samples of the studied material, they also found coincidences with mitochondrial DNA in the descendants of Kosminsky.
"All the data collected supports the hypothesis that this shawl contains biological material from Catherine Eddowes, as well as that the mitochondrial DNA sequencing obtained from the sperm stains coincide with the data of one of the main suspects, Aaron Kosminsky," - said the experts in the publication.
However, Adam in the pages of Science magazine argues that the fact of obtaining more detailed data does not mean that there is already enough. As the mitochondrial DNA expert Hansi Weissensteiner points out, mitochondrial DNA cannot be used to identify suspects, they can only exclude someone from this list, since thousands of different people may have the same mitochondrial DNA.
In addition, experts criticized the way the results were published, as some of the data were presented as graphs rather than initial results. Forensic expert Walther Parson believes the authors should publish the DNA sequencing data themselves. “Otherwise, the reader cannot appreciate the results presented,” notes Parson.
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In addition to the published results, there is an even more serious obstacle - the origin of the shawl itself. On The Conversation, Mick Reed explains that the shawl's origin story is fraught with problems. Was this shawl even taken from the crime scene that night by London Police Officer Amos Simpson? Even so, its authenticity is questionable: it was originally believed that this item belongs to the Edwardian period from 1901 to 1910 or earlier period of the early 19th century, and it could have been brought from any European city.
Historian Hallie Rubenhold, author of the new book The Five: The Untold Life of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, is among the experts who criticize the conclusions. “There is no evidence from that period, no documents linking this shawl to Kate Eddowes. This is history at its worst,”she tweeted in response to a headline claiming that a recently published study allegedly“proves”that Jack the Ripper is now identified.
While it seems that we will never know the name of the killer, Rubenhold argues that this in itself doesn't really matter. For her, it is more important to identify those women whom he killed, and whose names we know. As Meilan Solly recently pointed out on the Smithsonian, Rubenhold's study "paid little attention to the man who killed his victims, and the bloody way he did it." Instead, she believes, the focus shifts from the story of Jack the Ripper to the life - not death - of his victims.
Jason Daley