Undocumented Migrant in Whitechapel, 1888. The DNA evidence is 137 years old. I would like to know how the evidence was kept uncontaminated, since there have been hundreds of court cases where DNA Contamination was enough to provide reasonable doubt. I personally like the one Identified in the Michael Caine Movie on the Whitechapel Murders.
Most of what’s been written on the subject is, um, felgercarb to borrow a term from the original BSG.
Kosminski only shows up in the ‘memorandum’ by Commissioner Sir Melville MacNaughten, along with two other “suspects”, Seweryn Kłosowski (aka George Chapman when they hanged him for marrying and then poisoning three women for inheritances a decade and a half later) and “Michael Ostrog”, another supposed “barber-surgeon”.
The problem is that only Klosowski/Chapman’s existence can be verified- because he was hanged.
George Dew stated that nobody ever heard of the other two before or after MacNaughten’s “memo”. And at the time (fall 1888) MacNaughten wasn’t even in London; he wouldn’t become Commissioner until the following spring.
They had a description of the “Ripper”, from two different witnesses to the leadup to two murders, Annie Chapman and Elizabeth Stride. And they were consistent; male, 5’10”, heavyish, fair-haired, mustache, wearing a deerstalker cap (?) and a frock coat. Witnesses described him as a “toff”- “shabby-genteel” was their term.
His MO and “signature” showed knowledge of anatomy. That was common a century later (to say nothing of today after two decades’ worth of CSI on TV), but in 1888 it would only be found in the medical profession.
Most likely (here’s where I SWAG) he was the son of a “noble house”, probably second or third (not the one who would come into the title). He had been a medical student, but had dropped it, most likely because dear old Dad said it wasn’t a “respectable” pursuit for a gentleman. (At that time, that was the CW among the upper classes.)
He frequented the gambling houses and music halls along Whitechapel High Street and Whitechapel Road (same thoroughfare with different names at opposite ends), just like a lot of “toffs”. And that’s one reason he wasn’t caught; while the police were beating the bushes in the East End, he simply got in his coach and told his driver to take him home- to the West End.
No, he wasn’t any of the “favorite” upper class suspects. He certainly wasn’t Herman Mudgett aka H.H. Holmes; all through August to October 1888, he was busy building his “Murder Castle” in Chicago IL.
Walter Sickert, the artist, was in Nice, France from June to October working on three commissioned paintings. He didn’t have time to go prowling about London.
And the Duke of Clarence was in the public eye pretty much all the time.
My best estimate is that the UNSUB was a habitue’ of the gambling houses and music halls, like a lot of other “toffs”. He likely was a “plunger” at cards (he obviously liked living dangerously), but never for such stakes as would hurt him. He also almost certainly had a reputation for being “rough with the drabs”.
The thing is that the other “favorite suspects”, like the Duke, probably knew him. Odds are, they played cards with him once or twice a week.
They just had no idea that he was “Jack the Ripper” after hours.
As an investigator back then, I’d have used that description, made the rounds of the various gaming clubs and music halls, and asked the gents in the one and the ladies in the other, “Do you know a fellow like that?”
In fact, I’d have asked H.R.H. the Duke of Clarence first.
After all, he was the gentleman who “knew everybody“.
If that`s not going there ether, I imagine
going there would be a whole book.
Interesting,
February 7, 2025 at 11:44 am
JTC
More a screenplay I think, for its 3rd party speculations and phantasmal details…gleaned mostly from the reading of high fiction and questionable historical contexts rather than any personal knowledge and experience.
February 13, 2025 at 2:57 pm
RyGuy
The Prince, (“Dirty Bertie”) had helped build this environment through normalizing nobility his age and the police together to have a special “understanding”, which had made cops of that era very lax.
He personally had increasingly preferred the Parisian nightlife by that point, but the lesser nobility could not afford to hop the channel two or three times a month for a wild weekend like his allowance enabled him to. So they made the most of the situation the Prince had enabled for them in the London Underground over the prior 20 years.
That said, lesser nobles were not the only ones. Self made, well connected merchants, particularly from Cottonopolis (Manchester) of common birth were meeting the lesser nobles at such places as equals. Same with well credentialed Doctors.
There’s also the fact that Disraeli had encouraged Jews from Germany Poland and France (like the Marx Brothers’ dad before he moved to New York) to seek work in London during that time. Your basic thesis and the new one based on the DNA evidence are not necessarily incompatible.
February 7, 2025 at 2:49 pm
The Nth Doctor
Yeah, I call BS on this claim as well. There is no way, after 137 years — almost all of that time with no serious efforts (or even the ability) to maintain a verifiable chain of custody and prevent contamination of whatever they managed to get a sample off of — that they’ve been able to prove anything of the kind.
Preponderance of evidence maybe, not reasonable doubt… But since they can’t kill a dead guy, it ought to be “close enough”.
February 13, 2025 at 2:34 pm
RyGuy
Apparently, his line of Polish Jewish DNA is so distinctive that it could be narrowed down to a particular town in Poland which had no prior presence in England prior to the 1880s. Any cross contamination that could cause a doubt would have to have come from another Jew from that same community. MAYBE his brother? Although his brother had no symptoms of being a schizophrenic so it would have to have been from handling his little brother’s laundry, which still narrows it down to Aaron.
My wife is only 5’2″ and I’m 5’11” so I’m quite familiar with the view in that first panel. Still one of my favs, no matter how many times I look. Ahhh…
I thought Jack was supposed to know what and where he was slicing. Shiite, we have Stabbers, Machete choppers, Subway Train Pushers, Stray Arsonists, Etc… Englandistan has more knife wielders now that get less attention than Jack.
DNA and a perfect match. It is possible he was a customer and Jack followed up on the situation. I doubt that.
But it won’t be solved because that would mean the end of speculation, rumors, books, movies, articles and theories. Can’t put an end to the money train.
Highly doubtful. Not unless he was the absolute best to ever run a bolt gun. That Carcano he allegedly used was the worst piece of crap a sniper could have chosen to use to kill the most important man in America.
But, like your statement about Oswald, that’s just my opinion.
Fact. And Oswald practiced working the bolt at night after night. Forgotten Weapons call it the best rifle of WWII.
And anyone could have made those shots. Anyone.
Or Marines have no idea how to shoot is that what you’re saying?
February 8, 2025 at 2:52 am
JohninMd.(HALP!)
Yeah, yeah….doctors know anatomy. So do good butchers, without going to med school…
18 Comments
Oh, I am so not going there.
clear ether
eon
Undocumented Migrant in Whitechapel, 1888. The DNA evidence is 137 years old. I would like to know how the evidence was kept uncontaminated, since there have been hundreds of court cases where DNA Contamination was enough to provide reasonable doubt. I personally like the one Identified in the Michael Caine Movie on the Whitechapel Murders.
Most of what’s been written on the subject is, um, felgercarb to borrow a term from the original BSG.
Kosminski only shows up in the ‘memorandum’ by Commissioner Sir Melville MacNaughten, along with two other “suspects”, Seweryn Kłosowski (aka George Chapman when they hanged him for marrying and then poisoning three women for inheritances a decade and a half later) and “Michael Ostrog”, another supposed “barber-surgeon”.
The problem is that only Klosowski/Chapman’s existence can be verified- because he was hanged.
George Dew stated that nobody ever heard of the other two before or after MacNaughten’s “memo”. And at the time (fall 1888) MacNaughten wasn’t even in London; he wouldn’t become Commissioner until the following spring.
They had a description of the “Ripper”, from two different witnesses to the leadup to two murders, Annie Chapman and Elizabeth Stride. And they were consistent; male, 5’10”, heavyish, fair-haired, mustache, wearing a deerstalker cap (?) and a frock coat. Witnesses described him as a “toff”- “shabby-genteel” was their term.
His MO and “signature” showed knowledge of anatomy. That was common a century later (to say nothing of today after two decades’ worth of CSI on TV), but in 1888 it would only be found in the medical profession.
Most likely (here’s where I SWAG) he was the son of a “noble house”, probably second or third (not the one who would come into the title). He had been a medical student, but had dropped it, most likely because dear old Dad said it wasn’t a “respectable” pursuit for a gentleman. (At that time, that was the CW among the upper classes.)
He frequented the gambling houses and music halls along Whitechapel High Street and Whitechapel Road (same thoroughfare with different names at opposite ends), just like a lot of “toffs”. And that’s one reason he wasn’t caught; while the police were beating the bushes in the East End, he simply got in his coach and told his driver to take him home- to the West End.
No, he wasn’t any of the “favorite” upper class suspects. He certainly wasn’t Herman Mudgett aka H.H. Holmes; all through August to October 1888, he was busy building his “Murder Castle” in Chicago IL.
Walter Sickert, the artist, was in Nice, France from June to October working on three commissioned paintings. He didn’t have time to go prowling about London.
And the Duke of Clarence was in the public eye pretty much all the time.
My best estimate is that the UNSUB was a habitue’ of the gambling houses and music halls, like a lot of other “toffs”. He likely was a “plunger” at cards (he obviously liked living dangerously), but never for such stakes as would hurt him. He also almost certainly had a reputation for being “rough with the drabs”.
The thing is that the other “favorite suspects”, like the Duke, probably knew him. Odds are, they played cards with him once or twice a week.
They just had no idea that he was “Jack the Ripper” after hours.
As an investigator back then, I’d have used that description, made the rounds of the various gaming clubs and music halls, and asked the gents in the one and the ladies in the other, “Do you know a fellow like that?”
In fact, I’d have asked H.R.H. the Duke of Clarence first.
After all, he was the gentleman who “knew everybody“.
clear ether
eon
If that`s not going there ether, I imagine
going there would be a whole book.
Interesting,
More a screenplay I think, for its 3rd party speculations and phantasmal details…gleaned mostly from the reading of high fiction and questionable historical contexts rather than any personal knowledge and experience.
The Prince, (“Dirty Bertie”) had helped build this environment through normalizing nobility his age and the police together to have a special “understanding”, which had made cops of that era very lax.
He personally had increasingly preferred the Parisian nightlife by that point, but the lesser nobility could not afford to hop the channel two or three times a month for a wild weekend like his allowance enabled him to. So they made the most of the situation the Prince had enabled for them in the London Underground over the prior 20 years.
That said, lesser nobles were not the only ones. Self made, well connected merchants, particularly from Cottonopolis (Manchester) of common birth were meeting the lesser nobles at such places as equals. Same with well credentialed Doctors.
There’s also the fact that Disraeli had encouraged Jews from Germany Poland and France (like the Marx Brothers’ dad before he moved to New York) to seek work in London during that time. Your basic thesis and the new one based on the DNA evidence are not necessarily incompatible.
Yeah, I call BS on this claim as well. There is no way, after 137 years — almost all of that time with no serious efforts (or even the ability) to maintain a verifiable chain of custody and prevent contamination of whatever they managed to get a sample off of — that they’ve been able to prove anything of the kind.
Preponderance of evidence maybe, not reasonable doubt… But since they can’t kill a dead guy, it ought to be “close enough”.
Apparently, his line of Polish Jewish DNA is so distinctive that it could be narrowed down to a particular town in Poland which had no prior presence in England prior to the 1880s. Any cross contamination that could cause a doubt would have to have come from another Jew from that same community. MAYBE his brother? Although his brother had no symptoms of being a schizophrenic so it would have to have been from handling his little brother’s laundry, which still narrows it down to Aaron.
My wife is only 5’2″ and I’m 5’11” so I’m quite familiar with the view in that first panel. Still one of my favs, no matter how many times I look. Ahhh…
It’s even better when they’re 4’10” 🙂
ION, Zed apparently isn’t the only one to spank his wimmens;
https://www.daybydaycartoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/032717-1-550×277.jpg
Still trying to nail down a few other births…
I thought Jack was supposed to know what and where he was slicing. Shiite, we have Stabbers, Machete choppers, Subway Train Pushers, Stray Arsonists, Etc… Englandistan has more knife wielders now that get less attention than Jack.
DNA and a perfect match. It is possible he was a customer and Jack followed up on the situation. I doubt that.
But it won’t be solved because that would mean the end of speculation, rumors, books, movies, articles and theories. Can’t put an end to the money train.
And yes, Oswald killed Kennedy.
But Epstein did NOT hang himself!
Zar Belk!
“And yes, Oswald killed Kennedy.”
Highly doubtful. Not unless he was the absolute best to ever run a bolt gun. That Carcano he allegedly used was the worst piece of crap a sniper could have chosen to use to kill the most important man in America.
But, like your statement about Oswald, that’s just my opinion.
Fact. And Oswald practiced working the bolt at night after night. Forgotten Weapons call it the best rifle of WWII.
And anyone could have made those shots. Anyone.
Or Marines have no idea how to shoot is that what you’re saying?
Yeah, yeah….doctors know anatomy. So do good butchers, without going to med school…