Posted on 03/19/2019 6:50:39 AM PDT by Red Badger
Researchers tested blood and semen found on a shawl near the body of the killer's fourth victim, a woman whose mutilated body was found in September 1888.
The identity of Jack the Ripper, the notorious serial killer from the late 1800s in England, may finally be known.
A DNA forensic investigation published this month by two British researchers in the Journal of Forensic Science identifies Aaron Kosminski, a 23-year-old Polish barber and prime suspect at the time, as the likely killer.
The "semen stains match the sequences of one of the main police suspects, Aaron Kosminski," said the study authored by Jari Louhelainen of Liverpool John Moores University and David Miller of the University of Leeds.
The murderer dubbed Jack the Ripper killed at least five women from August to November 1888 in the Whitechapel district of London.
The study's authors conducted genetic testing of blood and semen on a shawl found near the body of Catherine Eddowes, the killer's fourth victim, whose badly mutilated body was discovered on Sept. 30, 1888.
The brutal murders and the mystery behind the killer's identity and motive inspired countless novels, films and theories over the past 130 years.
Kosminski, who apparently vanished after the murders, has previously been named as a possible suspect, but his guilt has been a matter of debate and never confirmed.
The researchers said they have been analyzing the silk shawl for the past eight years and that to their knowledge "the shawl referred to in this paper is the only piece of physical evidence known to be associated with these murders."
Through analysis of fragments of the victim and suspect's mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down solely from one's mother, researchers were able to compare that with samples taken from living descendants of Eddowes and Kosminski.
The paper also states that the suspect's "observable" characteristics, derived from DNA, match the only eyewitness account to the murders, which law enforcement had ruled "considerably reliable."
The study said its findings represent the first "systematic, molecular level analysis of the only surviving physical evidence linked to the Jack the Ripper murders."
“A family member, by marriage, just found her birth mom year before last via DNA”
My grandmother who was born in 1889, was adopted. Last year I had my 96-year-old mother take an Ancestry DNA test. Within a matter of weeks, I was able to identify both of my grandmother’s biological parents based on several of my mother’s 2nd cousin matches.
A 139-year-old mystery was solved thru modern technology. The icing on the cake was that relatives of the two biological parents had posted their pictures on Ancestry and findagrave.com.
This happened so long ago, it is just a historical mystery, though it may be gory in its details, the overall picture is now just a debatable exercise.....................
I find this fascinating. Here is a site of a man who did some research on the family of this supposed Ripper (ordering genealogical research & translations from Poland). https://www.casebook.org/dissertations/rip-housekoz.html
He also has a forum which is discussing these recent developments.
I don’t care where I came from. The future is what matters. And eternity.
I know I came from Adam.
SON!!!!
Actually descendant(s) from his mother’s mother’s line.
...the mom’s are worrying about their husbands not their other kids.
I am talking generally not a specific instance.
Very cool! :-)
Thanks. I get that. It’s how I usually do it too. ;)
Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper—Case Closed (ISBN 0-425-19273-3) is a 2002 nonfiction book by crime novelist Patricia Cornwell which presents the theory that Walter Sickert, a British painter, was the 19th-century serial killer known as Jack the Ripper. Jean Overton Fuller, in her 1990 book Sickert and the Ripper Crimes, had maintained that Sickert was Jack the Ripper. Prior to that, Stephen Knight, in his 1976 book Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution, had maintained that Sickert had been forced to be an accomplice of the Ripper.
Guess they were wrong. Or perhaps Sickert was the accomplice of Kosminski. It would be interesting if this was investigated.
There's soon to be an explosion of brown eyes in England what with all the ME invaders.
That was my first thought, as they all were just that. I still believe the book Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution nailed it - a successful Victorian Watergate coverup if you will.
I thought the title was presumptuous and read it with a skeptical eye. However, the chapter titled "All Roads Lead to Dorset Street" made me think. The author points out that in 1867, there 80,000 prostitutes out of three million in London (probably more in 1888), and out of all of them, the Ripper killed five who all lived less than 300 yards of each other. The fact that they were scattered about made people think they lived in the area they were murdered in.
Basically, four prostitutes got wind of a Royal Indiscretion, tried to blackmail the government, and got bumped off by a crew of three (he identifies all of 'em). The fifth was murdered by accident as she had the same name as one of the targets.
That book made more sense than any of the other "single guy did it" versions.
the story is compelling from beginning to end = the lead up and preparations, the building prohect, the fair, the "guests", the murders, H. H. Holmes escape, the detective work, the hunt, his capture, the trial leading to his execution. Simply fascinating , Hollywood literally couldn't make up a story this good.
Sounds like you are talking about Francis Tumblety. I don’t think it’s very likely he was the Ripper, knowing what we know about the psychology of serial killers nowadays. Tumblety was a homosexual, after all, and the Ripper killed exclusively female victims in typical sadistic sexual murders. Psychopaths generally pick victims based on their sexual preferences, so a male homosexual psychopath will pick male victims (like Jeffrey Dahmer, or John Wayne Gacy), while a male heterosexual psychopath picks female victims (like Ted Bundy).
Test the stains in the Turin Shroud!
What’s the name of that movie? I’ve been wanting to see it again, and Beau hasn’t. It’s great fun...and scary!
Time and Again? Can’t remember!
Early this morning on ID channel, there were a couple shows (”Deadly Legacy”, 2018) on the John (the clown) Wayne Gacy murders. DNA solved one of the unidentified boys, James Haakenson, he’d killed and stashed in the attic. DNA eliminated another young man from the Gacy file but linked him to another bad guy who had already died.
There should be a push to get DNA testing done on all cold cases with samples. That said, it is wrong to used DNA from those who send in their spit to these ancestry places be analysed by LE without signed notarized legal consent.
From what I’m reading the blood was from the prostitute, so not the killer’s. They tested the semen and like you said could have come from a customer. Agree. People back then didn’t wash their clothing often so the semen could have been deposited on the scarf weeks, months or years before her death.
Pretty much everything about Holmes’ murders was different from the Ripper though. He didn’t pick the same kind of victims, he lured them instead of stalking them, he killed them by different methods, he didn’t commit any of the Ripper’s signature sexual mutilations on his victims, and Holmes was careful to hide and dispose of the bodies while the Ripper posed the bodies and left them in the open to be found.
Serial killers can change over time, but they never change THAT much.
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