Re: dailymail reports that Jack the Ripper's identity has been uncover
A sign of modern times,
Christopher. The public always had a bad memory but it seems to me that the faster the media get, the faster are their customers to forget. (In some cases that's propably a blessing
)
But that's not what's happening in this thread. Some posters are stomping before the evidence has even been examined.
I agree,
Zap. However, if you follow the story up in the internet there appears to be indeed quite a lack of proof and even a very serious lack of professionality. I don't doubt that the analysis was performed properly - there's not much you can do wrong when sequencing DNA, even such old one - but I do very much oppose the conclusions drawn from the analysis (as, I'm sure, the lab in question will do as well, assuming they are professionals and have their good name to defend).
Let me explain my reasons for being so sceptical (I might add that I have done some DNA analysis myself when at university, so that I am rather familiar with the process) :
Apparently this forensic examination is based on material taken from a bloody shawl.
However, that shawl belonged to one of the vicims and had her blood on it, not the murderer's. In addition, it had been kept for more than a century in some junk box and had been handled repeatedly by different persons until it was finally auctioned off and bought by the man who now started this investigation.
It seems reasonable to assume that there would be no usable DNA by the murderer, since he didn't get injured and therefore only a few skin cells from his hands might possibly be on the shawl (but it is generally assumed he always wore gloves) and skin cells don't keep long with such improper storage. Hence, very likely all the DNA traces found in the recent examination are from the victim and the persons who later handled the scarf (with bare hands).
In order to definitely assign these DNA-traces to a person, one would have to be in possession of either an original sample from that person or of a sample of an immediate relative, preferably the person's mother or grandmother (because mitochondrial DNA gets passed on by the female only and keeps better).
Since no tissue samples of the suspects exist nor any samples of their female predecessors (plus: quite a few families of suspects died out or are untraceable nowadays) it is comperatively safe to assume that only the younger DNA (from the new owner, the seller and perhaps the auctioneer) can be identified. The older traces from the victim and previous owners can't be assigned to a specific person.
This renders the DNA-analysis as such ok (some DNA was there and got properly sequenced), but the published conclusions aren't worth the paper they are written on and, I'm sure, were never made by the lab.
