Jack the Ripper is thought to have been identified

[PorkChop]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 16805.html

There's a few problems with it, but there's been a DNA match.

[Kirbi]

I'd say there's a massive amount of problems with it -

How do we know that's actually Eddowes' shawl?
If it is, how do we know it hasn't been tampered with in the many years since her murder - where was it kept, etc?
Where did they get a sample of Kosminski's DNA - is it contemporary, or a descendant (each begetting its own set of additional questions)?
What about the mitochondrial DNA sequence found on a selection of the Jack the Ripper letters? which seemed to implicate Walter Sickert. (Obviously the letters could be from an attention-seeking hoaxer, but still.)

The truth is, I always have similar problems with Jack the Ripper theories. After so long, and with the way the evidence has been treated in the interim, there's just no way to know. I remain skeptical of them all!

It's always a compelling subject, though.

[PorkChop]

I'd say there's a massive amount of problems with it -

How do we know that's actually Eddowes' shawl?
If it is, how do we know it hasn't been tampered with in the many years since her murder - where was it kept, etc?
Where did they get a sample of Kosminski's DNA - is it contemporary, or a descendant (each begetting its own set of additional questions)?
What about the mitochondrial DNA sequence found on a selection of the Jack the Ripper letters? which seemed to implicate Walter Sickert. (Obviously the letters could be from an attention-seeking hoaxer, but still.)

The truth is, I always have similar problems with Jack the Ripper theories. After so long, and with the way the evidence has been treated in the interim, there's just no way to know. I remain skeptical of them all!

It's always a compelling subject, though.

- There's no record of the shawl's provenance, apparently. Questions have been raised already over its authenticity.

- mtDNA can't be used to uniquely identify one person. It's a match, but hundreds of people can have the same mtDNA, according to some of the scientific articles in response.

- I really don't buy into the Sickert theories. Tumblety is the best suspect, if you ask me.

[Kirbi]

- There's no record of the shawl's provenance, apparently. Questions have been raised already over its authenticity.

- mtDNA can't be used to uniquely identify one person. It's a match, but hundreds of people can have the same mtDNA, according to some of the scientific articles in response.

They do - but does Kominski's match it?

It just sounds like they're announcing him as the definitive suspect when they only have one new item of evidence - and one that's really easy to poke holes through. If they haven't even bothered to re-evaluate the other evidence which would seem to relate to this item, it looks really sloppy.

- I really don't buy into the Sickert theories. Tumblety is the best suspect, if you ask me.

Yeah, I don't really have a favourite suspect. I haven't seen any significant new evidence that I could believe, or all the old evidence lined up in a compelling enough theory. I don't think I'll ever be convinced.