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.
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
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:
11:58, Mon, Oct 7, 2024 | UPDATED: 09:40, Tue, Oct 8, 2024
The infamous killer's face has finally been unmasked (Image: Russell Edwards/IG)
This is the face of the world's most infamous serial killer according to an author who has been studying the Jack the Ripper case for close to 30 years.
Ripper researcher Russell Edwards has used new facial remodelling technology to create this CGI black and white image of how the killer would have looked at the time.
It was after Mr Edwards used DNA evidencefrom the shawl of one of his victims to "prove" that Jack the Ripper was actually Aaron Kosminski, a Jewish immigrant from Poland who was one of the key suspects at the time of the horrific Whitechapel murders.
Now, in a second book on the case, Mr Edwards claims not only to have conclusively identified the Ripper, but also the reason why he mutilated his victims in such a way and how he evaded justice.
Jack the Ripper butchered and murdered at least five women in the Whitechapel area of east London over just a four month period from August to November 1888.
Three victims had internal organs removed, which led to a theory that the killer had some anatomical or surgical skills.
Two of the Ripper's victims Annie Chapman and Catherine Eddowes (Image: Handout)
Police actually investigated the brutal killings of 11 women, mainly prostitutes, from April 1888 to February 1891, known as the Whitechapel murders.
It is widely agreed that the third to the seventh of them, known as the Canonical Murders, were definitely carried out by the Ripper.
Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly were killed over nine weeks from August to November 1888.
They all had their throats cuts, post-mortem injuries, including to the vagina, and body parts were taken from Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly. So, how did Mr Edwards "confirm" Kosminski as the Ripper?
PC Watkins was the officer who discovered the heavily mutilated corpse of the Ripper's fourth victims Catherine Eddowes on September 30 1888 on a pavement in Mitre Square.
Her head was nearly severed and her nose cut open. She was his second victim on the same night. A silk shawl she had was covered in blood.
Nearly 120 years later in 2007, Mr Edwards, a north London businessman, found the alleged shawl on auction in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.
Curious, but sceptical, he bought it and found it remarkably preserved with what appeared to be blood and even semen stains still on the garment.
It was later established that as her body was taken to the morgue, acting Police Sergeant Amos Simpson took it as a somewhat macabre "gift" for his wife, Jane.
Although she never wore it, it remained in the family for generations and was auctioned off by Sergeant Simpson’s great-great-nephew David Melville-Hayes.
Mr Edwards was surprised that such an ornate silk scarf, decorated with flowers would have been Ms Eddowes', as she was a poverty-stricken drunk.
Jack the Ripper: Suspect ‘couldn’t have been killer’ says expert
Yet, the design and dyes used appeared to be like those of the time produced in St Petersburg. This caused Mr Edwards to consider if it could have actually been a possession of Ripper suspect Kosminski, who hailed from the Russian empire.
Could he have left it at the scene, he wondered. So began a lengthy series of DNA tests on the presumed blood and semen stains, with the help of distant relatives of the victim and suspect.
Remarkably, there was a positive match for the blood stains and an unnamed direct descendant of Ms Eddowes.
A request to exhume Kosminski’s body was declined, however, the DNA found in the semen stains was also a match for one of Kosminski's sister’s descendants.
This, says Mr Edwards, is conclusive proof as to the identity of Jack the Ripper - a case that remained unsolved since 1888.
Kosminski was born on September 11, 1865, making him 22 and 23 at the time of the murders. He grew up in Klodawa, near Warsaw, the youngest of seven children, with his father dying when he was aged just eight.
His mother remarried and records suggest he may have been sexually abused by his stepfather. In 1882, six years before the murders, the family fled to the East End of London to escape anti-Semitism that was spreading across eastern Europe after the death of Tsar Alexander II a year earlier.
During the murders investigation, the Dr Robert Anderson, head of the London Criminal Investigation Department, had designated Kosminski as key suspect as the killer.
Previously confidential police reports, that were published in 1894 as the Macnaghten Memorandum, recorded that detectives believed he had a "great hatred of women, specially of the prostitute class, and had strong homicidal tendencies".
Butm even then political correctness made them reluctant to accuse a Jew, due to the potential fallout of antiSemitism.
With no known photographs of Kosminski’ ever found, Mr Edwards then contacted his descendants to obtain as many historical family portraits as possible to feed them into a sophisticated computer programme which has created his likeness based on the appearance of close relatives.
The new image shows a young man with short hair, high cheek bones and a piercing stare.
The mystery has captivated people for more than 100 years (Image: Getty)
Further research by Mr Edwards has since uncovered how he believes the serial killer evaded justice due to his brother's involvement in freemasonry, and even why the mutilations took place.
In February 2023 he received several photographs, including one of 15 men all with handlebar moustaches and dressed the same in suits with an overgarment. They were revealed to be members of the Lodge of Israel, an order of Freemasonry set up for Jewish immigrants in Britain.
One of them was Kosminski’s eldest brother, Isaac, who was a wealthy tailor who had moved to London in 1870 and changed his last name to Abrahams. Remarkably, in an ancient Masonic Code, the "Master Mason", called Hiram Abiff, was murdered by three assassins, known as "The Juwes" for refusing to give up his secrets.
The fable led to the creation of thee Masonic blood oaths giving descriptions of mutilations, such as cutting throats, removing tongues, and "That my left breast had been torn open and my heart and vitals taken."
Mr Edwards is convinced that the Ripper was not a random mutilator, but was carrying out these Masonic instructions.
The book has taken nearly 30 years of research (Image: Russell Edwards)
He also believes that the Masonic connections of his brother were probably what prevented his younger sibling's arrest, to avoid the fallout against the Jews.
More alarmingly, the Ripper left another clue at the Eddowes murder scene. Nearby scrawled in chalk was the mysterious phrase
"The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing."
With the word Juwes, spelt in the same Masonic way.
Kosminski was never arrested and in 1890, after suffering a suspected schizophrenic breakdown, in which he threatened his sister with a knife, he committed to Colney Hatch lunatic asylum in North London.
He died 28 years later in the Leavesden Asylum, Hertfordshire.
Naming Jack The Ripper: The Definitive Reveal by Russell Edwards is out now published by Rowman & Littlefield.
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.
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.