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dailymail reports that Jack the Ripper's identity has been uncovered.

Re: dailymail reports that Jack the Ripper's identity has been uncover

Jack the Ripper finally identified by DNA? Maybe, maybe not

To sum up, the Daily Mail is a terrible source, these guys have not reported their findings in any peer-reviewed journals, and the poor chain of evidence on the shawl makes definitively proving anything dubious.

It could be true, but I'd remain skeptical for the time being until their methodology and evidence is peer-reviewed. This isn't the first time Jack the Ripper has been "conclusively" identified.
 
Re: dailymail reports that Jack the Ripper's identity has been uncover

From what I gather, the Daily Mail is not a very reputable news source. And the story sounds rather unlikely. DNA evidence from 126 years ago somehow viable enough to narrow it down to a single suspect "beyond reasonable doubt?" Improbable, to say the least.


I read an interesting hypothesis a while back that Jack the Ripper may have never existed at all, but was simply a media construct, a scapegoat created for a string of homicides by a variety of different people. Tabloid journalism is nothing new.
 
Re: dailymail reports that Jack the Ripper's identity has been uncover

Heh, we posted the same article. :techman:

ETA: Never mind, you removed it.
 
Re: dailymail reports that Jack the Ripper's identity has been uncover

I almost didn't click on this thread because it said "Daily Mail." I certainly didn't click on the link in the op. Luckily Locutus had a good link.

DNA evidence degrades. Someone who read the original link want to tell me if they say what kind of DNA? If it's sweat, you can throw out this story entirely. I'd find that completely absurd. I will say that the results do point to someone who was a police suspect, but I doubt that the person who did this test was ignorant of that fact.

In short, the Daily Mail may be right. They may just be validating old-timey xenophobia. Ultimately, short of extreme theories (like it being a member of the royal family) I'm not sure why it matters who he was. Victorian police would have loved it to be an immigrant because they could comprehend that, but native Londoners could have been (and have been) serial killers. Either way, the evidence here, short of independent analysis, does very little to solve this debate.
 
Re: dailymail reports that Jack the Ripper's identity has been uncover

Alidar Jarok said:
DNA evidence degrades. Someone who read the original link want to tell me if they say what kind of DNA? If it's sweat, you can throw out this story entirely. I'd find that completely absurd.
Click to expand...

They're allegedly epithelial cells from the urethra, extracted from semen traces.


They may just be validating old-timey xenophobia.
Click to expand...

It did bug me that the article made a point of mentioning that the "confirmed" Ripper was "a Polish Jew." Is his religion in any way relevant to the story?
 
Re: dailymail reports that Jack the Ripper's identity has been uncover

Well, it's relevant in that it's probably the reason he was suspected in the first place. Anyone who knows the history of either xenophobia or antisemitism should know that it's worth taking the police's suspicions with a grain of salt. On the other hand, I realize that, if he was guilty (which he may be, I don't know if the police had any evidence back then) it isn't a reflection on anyone else but him (so it's not something relevant in that sense).

Without reading the Daily Mail, how much did they play it up? Any hint of "of course it was a foreigner"?
 
Re: dailymail reports that Jack the Ripper's identity has been uncover

Alidar Jarok said:
Without reading the Daily Mail, how much did they play it up? Any hint of "of course it was a foreigner"?
Click to expand...

There's no overt editorializing, but they do mention that he was Polish several times, and that he was an immigrant. They only mention that he was Jewish once, but they mention that he was a "Polish lunatic" in bold in the body of the article, and in the subtitle. So, not the worst Daily Mail article ever, but their core readership will certainly be able to read between the lines and pick out the things most relevant to their worldview.

Mention of him being Jewish:
Before buying it, I spoke to Alan McCormack, the officer in charge of the Crime Museum, also known as the Black Museum. He told me the police had always believed they knew the identity of the Ripper. Chief Inspector Donald Swanson, the officer in charge of the investigation, had named him in his notes: Aaron Kosminski, a Polish Jew who had fled to London with his family, escaping the Russian pogroms, in the early 1880s.

Bolded passage:
Shawl that nailed Polish lunatic Aaron Kosminski and the forensic expert that made the critical match

Subtitle:
Jack the Ripper has been identified as Polish-born Aaron Kosminski
Hairdresser Kosminski lived in Whitechapel and was later put in an asylum

Caption beneath sketch:
GUILTY: A DNA sample has proven Polish immigrant Aaron Kosminski was Jack the Ripper
Click to expand...
 
Re: dailymail reports that Jack the Ripper's identity has been uncover

I hope it's not true simply because I don't want the Daily Mail to get an exclusive on it.
 
Re: dailymail reports that Jack the Ripper's identity has been uncover

*Checks AP news wire* Hmh. Nothing. CNN? Nothing. BBC World News? Nada.


Yeah, I call a flag on the play for utter bullshit.
 
Re: dailymail reports that Jack the Ripper's identity has been uncover

Oh wow. I can see mention his origins once, but over and over again? I will say it seems to only be xenophobia and not antisemitism (the one stray mention just reporting his reasons for emigrating, which is fine overall). But the constant mentions of "Polish" are pretty prominent. I'm sure they really want to have that to use as ammunition in the future.
 
Re: dailymail reports that Jack the Ripper's identity has been uncover

Uncovering Jack the Ripper's identity is a nigh annual event at this point.
 
Re: dailymail reports that Jack the Ripper's identity has been uncover

Locutus of Bored said:
They only mention that he was Jewish once, but they mention that he was a "Polish lunatic" in bold in the body of the article, and in the subtitle.
Click to expand...

There were actually three references in all: One describing Kosminski as "a Polish Jew," one saying the DNA they found had a haplogroup "common in people of Russian Jewish ethnicity," and a photo caption mentioning that the other Ripper suspects included "a Jewish shoemaker" and "a polish barber" [sic].
 
Re: dailymail reports that Jack the Ripper's identity has been uncover

Alidar Jarok said:
Oh wow. I can see mention his origins once, but over and over again? I will say it seems to only be xenophobia and not antisemitism (the one stray mention just reporting his reasons for emigrating, which is fine overall). But the constant mentions of "Polish" are pretty prominent. I'm sure they really want to have that to use as ammunition in the future.
Click to expand...
In the 1880s the area was where a lot of immigrants piled in on top of each other, among them a large number of Jews. The Daily Mail is engaging in the same practice the sensational press did back then- target them foreigners.
"not a day passes but English families are ruthlessly turned out to make room for foreign invaders.'
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That from charming Conservative MP William Evans-Gordonin 1902 about the East End, plus c'est la même chose.
 
Re: dailymail reports that Jack the Ripper's identity has been uncover

I see no reason to stomp on this new claim of scientific proof right now. It should be welcomed and looked into. It might very well be the final answer.
 
Re: dailymail reports that Jack the Ripper's identity has been uncover

ZapBrannigan said:
I see no reason to stomp on this new claim of scientific proof right now. It should be welcomed and looked into. It might very well be the final answer.
Click to expand...
Stomping is the best part of science.
 
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