Jack the Ripper breakthrough as DNA 'finally unmasks serial killer'

x0x7@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 62 points –
Jack the Ripper breakthrough as DNA 'finally unmasks serial killer'
express.co.uk
30

The DNA match that the author claims is very suspect. Here is a good article about why. The bullet points are:

Shawl: There was no contemporary documentation that the shawl was recovered from the crime scene

There was no contemporary documentation that the Inspector that supposedly took the shawl and gifted it to his wife was at the crime scene

The shawl was silk and had an expensive design making it unlikely that Eddowes would have owned it

DNA: The DNA collected and compared was mitochondrial DNA which is far less unique than nuclear DNA, mitochondrial DNA is generally considered exclusory rather than inclusory

The shawl was not kept free from contamination, descendents of both the identified victim and the identified suspect are known to have handled the shawl prior to testing

On top of the problematic DNA match from his last book the author is now layering on conspiracy theories concerning Freemasons and antisemitism for his new book to draw even more questionable conclusions.

Edited to fix link and spelling

I'm sorry, do you mean shawl? I've been having a hard time reading and understanding things lately, so I tried Googling "shaw" and found a bunch of people named that which is extra confusing in this context

Yes, I edited my comment to fix the spelling. Thanks for letting me know about the error.

Thank you for editing. It is a good comment, sorry I got a little lost on my way through it

They meant "shawl" all 6 or so times they said "shaw", yes.

No matter how much evidence and proof you have, half the people will say it wasn't him. Especially historians who are dead set on a different suspect

Reading other sources, I doubt this claim as well.

detectives believed he had a "great hatred of women, specially of the prostitute class, and had strong homicidal tendencies".

No shit, Sherlock.

some sperm on a prostitute shawl? Yeah this woman had some client no wonder we find DNA on her, it is a stretch to go from client to killer.

This story is old: Jack the Ripper: Scientist who claims to have identified notorious killer has 'made serious DNA error'

my favorite theory is:

Mary PEARCEY, Jack the Ripper according to sir Arthur Conan Doyle

::: spoiler spoiler Mary Pearcey, like many other famous Victorian-era murderers, has been suggested as a suspect in the Jack the Ripper slayings. She was apparently the only female suspect mentioned at the time. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, speculated at the time that the Ripper might have been female, as a woman could have pretended to be a midwife and be seen in public in bloody clothing without arousing suspicion or notice.

This theory was then expanded upon in 1939 by William Stewart in his book Jack the Ripper: A New Theory, which specifically named Pearcey in connection with the crimes. All evidence given is circumstantial, and there is no physical evidence or eyewitness reports linking Pearcey to the Ripper crimes.

F. Tennyson Jesse, the British criminal historian, explained the theory in her study of Pearcey's case: "It was no wonder that, simultaneously with the discovery of the crime, legends should have sprung up around her figure. The rumour even arose that the notorious Jack the Ripper had been at work in the locality, and though this was quickly disproved, yet the violence and horror associated with the crime was such as to make it understandable how the rumour arose in the first place. Even in the earliest paragraphs which announced the discovery of the crime, several false statements were suggested."

In May 2006, DNA testing of saliva on stamps affixed to letters allegedly sent by Jack the Ripper to London newspapers, and thought by some modern writers to be genuine, appeared to come from a woman. This led to extensive discussion of Pearcey and her crime in the global press. :::

I don't know who it was, but my dad was very interested in the case and was convinced there was a Salvation Army connection for reasons I don't remember, but then years after he told me that, this came up:

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/07/14/jack-the-ripper-new-novel-suggests-east-end-serial-killer-female-salvation-army-worker_n_5583639.html

very interesting, but anything about Jack the ripper is, thanks for the link

Ok so now all the AIs are going to hallucinate that Russell Edwards was Jack the Ripper, right?

All this time I thought his name was Jack.

Naw. Jack was the guy rose drowned in that movie about big ship that sunk.

I think.

Honestly, the old women ranting about decaprio’s ass was more interesting than the movie.

More people die on average every week in American school shootings but... okay.

Yeah but those don't usually go unsolved for 150 years and it seems very unlikely that any of the British historians involved in this project would be able to make enough meaningful changes to the American sociopolitical landscape to offer any help on that subject.

“Have ground considered maybe, passing gun control laws?”

- one of said historians.

( Grrrr. Republicans are the reason we can’t have a nice education.)

Jack the Ripper was the first well-known case of a serial killer. There were previous serial killers, but their killings did not have the international publicity that Jack the Ripper had. It was perfect newspaper fodder given the seedy location of urban London and the lurid details of the murders of prostitutes coupled with things like telegraph cables covering the world and crossing the oceans. And, as others have said, it was never solved.

So obviously people have wanted a resolution to something like that for decades.

There are things worse than that, even. And those things invalidate discussion of american school shootings as much as the shootings should invalidate this discussion.