Ripper finally identified!

[chris_49]

I'm reminded of the man who wrote a book claiming that a late "Jungly Barry" in India was really Lord Lucan. He backed this up with photographs and the claim that no such person as Barry Halpin had been born in Great Britain, according to birth records.

In fact Barry had been born in Ireland and was well known in folk music circuits in Lancashire, and was recognised immediately from the photos. As reliable a witness as Mike Harding described his reaction to the story: "I laughed. I cried. I laughed again". I saw the book very soon after, remaindered!

 

[hepburn]

What I remember of the shawl when I saw it on the telly  was not of Michael daises,but much bigger flowers..

[DevonCruwys]

I am very sceptical of this claim. If indeed DNA has been used to help identify Jack the Ripper then we would expect the results of the research to be published in a prestigious scientific journal rather than the Daily Mail. (DNA has, for example, been used very effectively in combination with genealogical records in the case of the Romanovs and of Ned Kelly, and for both studies the results were written up and published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.) I can find no evidence of any scientific paper having been published to support the claims about Jack the Ripper's DNA. Ancient DNA requires very careful analysis in a sterile lab in order to rule out contamination with modern DNA. It's also necessary to replicate the results by testing independently in a second lab. It is not clear in this case if that has been done. If the DNA from the shawl was tested in the same laboratory used for the modern DNA tests then the samples are likely to have been contaminated. Without having full access to the data we also cannot check that the results have been interpreted correctly.

Also, the researchers should have taken DNA samples from a second matrilineal descendant of Eddowes and a second matrilineal descendant of Kosminski in order to establish a consensus haplotype as was done in the case of Richard III.

There's another sceptical view here:

http://www.oregonlive.com/today/index.ssf/2014/09/jack_the_ripper_finally_identi.html

[jess5athome]

......................  She was a prostitute and may have had professional dealings with him.

That's put in a very delicate way Ruskie 

It seems a bit dodgy to me  as said, why would it be in a Newspaper, you would think they would have had some kind of large gathering to make the results known.

Frank.

[Ruskie]

An abridged version of the article has appeared today in our (Australian) papers.

Obviously with the plan is to sell as many copies as possible of Mr Edward's book when it is released on the 9th of September. (tomorrow) 

Devon, surely the scientist, Jari Louhelainen, would have undertaken the tests in the correct way - at least you would expect him to have done so.  I suspect that there is more to the testing and the results than we have been told.

[DevonCruwys]

Here's a more sceptical article from the Independent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/has-jack-the-rippers-identity-really-been-revealed-using-dna-evidence-9717036.html

Ruskie, if the correct protocols had been followed then the research would have been published in a major paper in Nature or Science, as happened for example with the Romanov research and the Ned Kelly research. Instead the Jack the Ripper story has been sold to the Mail and it provides lots of publicity for a new book.

[Ruskie]

So does this mean that the scientist, Jari Louhelainen, will/may lose professional credibility?

Or was this purely an experimental exercise with him not making any claims, and Mr Edwards is skewing the results to suit his theory?

[Erato]

He may plan to put out his results in greater detail in a more professional publication at a later date.  However, it is considered very poor form to announce them first in the 'popular' press, especially a low credibility newspaper.

[mrsruz]

I read an article last Sunday in the Spanish newspaper "El Mundo" where a researcher was putting forward a very convincing theory that the Ripper was actually a woman.
It was suggested that she was the wife of the Royal physician who was unable to have children & had a psychological hatred of prostitutes,
As a doctorīs wife she could almost certainly have owned an expensive shawl although it wasnīt mentioned in the article.
My Spanish isnīt fluent, but what I could understand made a very convincing case.