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Picture of Buck's Row Whitechapel in London's East End (now Durward St) - site of Jack the Ripper's first murder on 31 August 1888. Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols' body was discovered 3 metres back from the corner of the tall brick building.

Take a Ripper virtual tour from the first murder scene. Click on the map below to view all 5 murder scenes and other key locations in the hunt for the world's first recognised serial killer.

Buck's Row Whitechapel

Jack the Ripper's London 1888


View Jack the Ripper Walk, Whitechapel, Greater London UK in a larger map

This link will take you to the key points in London where Jack the Ripper carried out his 5 murders
over 71 days from 31 August 1888 to 9 November 1888. You can use this map to make your own Jack the
Ripper walk around London or to trace the movements of the Whitechapel killer whose identity has
never been established.

Was Frank Edwards Jack the Ripper? - Another day another theory

I wonder whether anyone has looked for this fellow....

Although it doesn't state his name was Frank Edwards in this piece...we have this story elsewhere on the boards and within the article it does mention him as being Frank Edwards.

His cousin would have been 11 or 12 at the time of the murders.


__________________
Daily Illinois State Journal
February 2, 1959

Huddersfield researcher traces Jack the Ripper’s forgotten victims


University of Huddersfield researcher Charlotte Mallinson is turning Ripperology on its head.

She is barely concerned with the identity of the man who slew and mutilated a sequence of Whitechapel women in 1888. 

Instead, she wants to reclaim the victims, turn a spotlight on the social conditions that led to their plight and restore to them some dignity amidst the endless procession of grisly Ripper tours that draw tourists to the East End.

Meanwhile, as a frequent and fascinated visitor to London and a witness to its dark tourism, she provides a Yorkshirewoman’s eye view of the capital.

“With Jack the Ripper, Sweeney Todd and attractions such as the London Dungeon it seems to be a city that thrives on the macabre and tales of murders and executions. It is all is highly profitable and entertaining but an anomaly that these topics should provide the subject matter for tourism,” says Charlotte.

“I think that being a Northerner I can look at London objectively and when I am discussing my research with locals in Whitechapel they say, yes you’re right, it is weird, but they have been spoon fed all this from birth. It is just part of their normality. But Whitechapel is an amazing place and I would happily live there. It is such a vibrant community,” said Charlotte, whose current researches have led her to meet and befriend many of the sex workers who today ply the streets once trod by Jack the Ripper.

Charlotte – a single mother of four children – was forced to quit schooling early when she became a teenage mum, holding down a succession of jobs such as bar work and cleaning. But eventually she decided she wanted more out of life and enrolled at the University of Huddersfield for a BA course covering English Literature plus heritage.

She rapidly showed an aptitude for academic work and scored First Class Honours. Then came a Master’s degree which enabled her to explore further her fascination for the heritage industry, especially its darker, more troubling dimensions, such as museums that display human remains.

Her MA dissertation argued that popular representations of Whitechapel’s infamous history amounted to a dehumanisation of the women who were brutally murdered in 1888. She claimed that this was due to discrimination, based on the victims’ gender, their ‘overt sexuality’ and their socio-economic status. Meanwhile Jack the Ripper – because he managed to evade detection – was mythologised and celebrated.

Charlotte has now developed this theme for doctoral research, for which she was awarded a bursary by the University of Huddersfield. The project means that she has become immersed in the saga and cult of Jack the Ripper – without feeling any interest in whom he actually was.

“My focus is on the women. Of all the ‘Ripperology’ books I have read, I have not once finished a last chapter in which the author reveals their theory about the killer’s identity. I cannot get drawn into that. I don’t even think it is relevant, although it is interesting that Jack the Ripper is constantly given an elite identity and the females involved are more and more dehumanised, so that you don’t even hear their names.”

Charlotte’s PhD project – supervised by historian Dr Rob Ellis – is entitled “Our History, Our Streets, Our Voice, Our Future: Reclaiming the Historiography of the Whitechapel Murders”. It will result in both a written thesis and an exhibition that will be a mixture of oral and photographic material, including evidence from current Whitechapel sex workers who will describe their lives and how they exist alongside Ripper tourism.

Charlotte has attended many Ripper tours, of which there are 17 currently in operation.

“You will be walking down Whitechapel and its tiny alleyways and have to wait in one spot while another group passes you by. The area is saturated with tourists. But there is a difference of tone,” she said.

“There are some tours that emphasises the poverty of the area and that the women were forced into prostitution. But the worst tour I went on, I had to leave early because I was grossly offended. They projected huge images of the murder victims on to the spot where they died and they ridiculed the appearance of these women – the fact that they were toothless or fat or had bad skin.

“However, the starkest tension for me – and the reason I went down the PhD route – is that tourists would sigh at the plight of the victims and poverty in the 1880s and then go round the corner and step over a group of homeless women.”

Jack The Ripper was 'invented by the press' says retired murder detective ahead of Myths And Mysteries show in Runcorn


Trevor Marriott, former murder detective, is coming to
 The Brindley in Runcorn with his
Myths And Mysteries show.
A retired murder detective who believes Jack The Ripper was ‘invented by the press’ is coming to Runcorn to discuss the findings of his investigations into famous legends and theories of the unexplained.

Trevor Marriott brings his Myths And Mysteries: The Real Truth show to The Brindley on Thursday, January 29, to present his analysis of the evidence behind topics as diverse as the existence of The Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis, Lord Lucan, UFOs and the debate over whether the Apollo Moon landing took place.

Other investigations include mermaids, the yeti and sea monsters.

He will also be bringing his skills to bear in an exposé of mediums and those who claim they can communicate with the dead.

Trevor said his interest in mysteries stemmed from research into Jack the Ripper, the evidence of which led him to the conclusion that the killings were the actions of multiple murderers rather than one.

He told the Weekly News that the notorious serial killer’s nickname was the creation of an ‘over-zealous member of the press’.

Although he carried out the research in 2002, he later took the results on a theatre tour in 2013.

His interest has now broadened to encompass about 40 topics.

He said: “When I started to look at these particular mysteries that have fascinated people for years it soon became apparent that the members of the public have been misled by what they have seen and what they have read in books and documentaries.

“I set about trying to do an impartial investigation into these myths and to look at what evidence support these theories.

“Some are definitive, others are not.

“I think it’s going to be a very interesting show for the public because of the diverse topics I’m going to be covering.”

Speaking about the benefits of his former career’s experience, he said: “When you are working on an investigation as a police officer you have to take an unbiased approach, your role is to prove or disprove and I can bring that to the table with these myths and mysteries.”

Myths And Mysteries: The Real Truth is on at The Brindley at 7.30pm on Thursday, January 29.

Tickets are £12 or £10 concessions.

For more information or to book call 0151 907 8360.

Jack the Ripper hunter was a psychiatrist who dealt with bizarre cases

Jack the Ripper -
East End madman
Dr. L. Forbes Winslow, perhaps best known for his relentless (and fruitless) attempts to identify the person behind London's Jack the Ripper murders, also was a well-known psychiatrist.
 
Among his many notes on his practice was the report of a heartbroken man who requested that, after his death, his body should be boiled down to extract the fat. 

That fat would be used to make a candle which, along with a letter from the deceased, would be delivered to the woman who jilted him. 

He even specified that the items should be delivered at night, so the woman would read the letter by the light of the "corpse candle."

Bid to trace Jack the Ripper victim’s family links in Shropshire

Jack the Ripper - never identified
The man who claims to have identified the real name of Jack The Ripper has visited Shropshire as part of his research into one of the killer’s victims.

Jack The Ripper killed at least five women in the East End of London during the “autumn of terror” of 1888.

Russell Edwards hit the headlines last year when he claimed to have used DNA from a shawl found at the scene of the fourth murder to name the killer.

He also claimed to have proved that a woman living in the Wolverhampton area is definitely related to that fourth victim, whose name was Catherine Eddowes.

Mr Edwards, who has run Jack the Ripper tours of Whitechapel for 25 years, was in Shrewsbury partly to research Catherine Eddowes’ life.

He said: “I can now confirm that I have a 100 per cent DNA match to one of the victims. I have the shawl that belonged to Catherine Eddowes and there is a definite match to a descendant living in Wolverhampton.”

The descendant, Karen Miller, is Eddowes’s three-times great-granddaughter.

Mr Edwards said: “I am now trying to track down people in Shropshire and the Black Country who are able to help me fill in the gaps of Catherine Eddowes’s life.

“Karen Miller and I will be doing something special for Catherine Eddowes in February, so it would be great if people could come forward with more details about.”

He added that Catherine had been born in Wolverhampton and there were other family descendants in the area.

He claims to have identified as Jack the Ripper as Aaron Kosminski, a Polish Jew who fled to London to escape the Russian pogroms. He was 23 and lived in Greenfield Street, near where the third victim, Elizabeth Stride, was killed.

Was Australia's Frederick Bailey Deeming Jack the Ripper?

Frederick Bailey Deeming jumped shipped to Australia after the murder of his wife and their four children at Rainhill, Lancashire in England. He later became a suspect in the Jack the Ripper investigation.


As the investigation into the murder of Emily Mather began to focus on her husband, Victorian police established regular communication with authorities in England. A report was sent to Victoria from Lancashire police concerning Deeming's stay in Rainhill, Lancashire, and marriage to Emily Mather on 22 September 1891. 

It was around this time, in either August or September, that Deeming was suspected of having murdered his first wife Marie James and their four children. Just as he would do a few months later with Emily in Melbourne, Deeming buried his victims under the fireplace of their rented villa.

Newspaper clipping comparing Deeming's
and Jack the Ripper's handwriting

PROV, VPRS 937/P0 Inward
Registered Correspondence,
unit 511, Deeming Case
English authorities were keen to ensure that should Deeming somehow escape justice in Melbourne, he would be extradited to England to face trial over the Rainhill murders. This appeared to be unlikely, however, as less than a month after the discovery of Emily's body the crowds attending Deeming's appearances seemed ready to take justice into their own hands.

As soon as news of the Rainhill murders appeared in the press, people cried out for quick and decisive punishment. From the time of his capture to the time of his execution, great care was taken to ensure that the ever-present crowds did not get out of hand and hang Deeming themselves. Public opinion was therefore against Deeming from the beginning. Newspaper reports damned him as a dangerous monster, a born criminal who deserved to be put to death.

The nature of Deeming's crimes caused a great deal of unspoken anxiety, as he had brought to Australia a new criminal type now widely known as the serial killer. Deeming was a deviant, but a nonetheless urbane and highly mobile criminal. He was comfortable in big cities that allowed him to disappear at will into anonymous crowds. He was also perfectly at home travelling the world and seemed to thrive on the thrill of being in constant flight from the law. As a master of disguise, he particularly seemed to relish masquerading as a member of the respectable classes, surrounding himself in all its fineries. More disturbingly, he used the respectability of the marriage ritual as a way to recruit his murder victims.


Formal portrait of Frederick Deeming
 and his first wife Marie, reproduced
 in The History of a Series of
Great Crimes on Two Continents,
 first edition, p. 8 
OMG 182,
Collection of the National
Trust of Australia (Victoria)


























The inquest into Emily's death resumed on 5 April, but it had to be moved out of the Coroner's Court because of the massive public interest. The coroner found that Deeming was responsible for Emily's wilful murder, and committed him to stand trial on 22 April.


Illustration depicting Emily Mather's
skull and the battle-axe that inflicted
 the wounds, reproduced in The
History of a Series of Great Crimes
 on Two Continents, third edition,
p. 50 
OMG 184,
Collection of the National
Trust of Australia (Victoria)
During Deeming's trial, the public expressed anger and disgust, feelings which were reflected in and amplified by newspaper reports. Many were convinced Deeming was responsible for the Whitechapel murders committed by 'Jack the Ripper' in London in the late 1880s, as it seemed impossible to imagine two people capable of such monstrous acts. Newspaper reports also insisted on this link. In the end, all available evidence suggested Deeming was in Hull Gaol at the time of the Whitechapel murders.

Letter from Harry Jones, 19 March 1892
PROV, VPRS 937/P0 Inward
Registered Correspondence,
unit 511, Deeming Case

http://www.prov.vic.gov.au/online-exhibitions/deeming/story07-ripper.htm



Has Jack the Ripper been identified by DNA testing of a 126 year old shawl?



The mystery shawl reportedly linked to
 Jack the Ripper's fourth murder of
 Catherine Eddowes.
Jack the Ripper, one of the most notorious serial killers in history, has been identified through DNA traces found on this shawl, according to a book to be published Tuesday. 

The fabric was taken from the murder scene of Jack the Ripper's fourth victim, Catherine Eddowes. 

In the end, it may have taken a Johnny Depp movie, a shawl and a DNA test to solve the mystery behind one of the most notorious serial killing sprees in London: Who was Jack the Ripper?

British businessman and noted "Ripperologist" Russell Edwards claims to have finally and conclusively identified the serial killer as Aaron Kosminski, a Polish immigrant and barber.

Edwards unmasked his candidate for Jack the Ripper in the Daily Mail and chronicles how he came to the conclusion in a forthcoming book.

Kosminski has long been one of the more credible suspects in the five gruesome murders of women in the London's East End in 1888. Born in central Poland on Sept. 11, 1865, he moved with his family moved to east London in the early 1880s, and lived near the murder scenes, according to Agence France Presse.

He ended up in a workhouse the year after the murders and was described as destitute; a year later, he was discharged but eventually ended up in an insane asylum -- he was thought to have been "seriously mentally ill," Edwards writes -- where he died from gangrene in 1919. 

A witness had identified Kosminski as the murderer at the time.

Edwards said his interest in Jack the Ripper began after he watched "From Hell," a 2001 film about the murders that starred Depp as a clairvoyant police inspector.

In 2007, Edwards bought a shawl that had been discovered at the scene of the murder of Catherine Eddowes, the fourth Ripper victim. Before Edwards bought it, the shawl belonged to the relative of a police official who had been allowed to take it home to his dressmaker wife, Edwards writes.

 "Incredibly, it was stowed without ever being washed," and handed down in the family, he said.

Polish emigrant Aaron Kominski -
Was he Jack the Ripper?
A contemporary sketch of Polish emigre Aaron Kosminski. 

When Edwards bought the shawl, he subjected it to DNA testing, which confirmed that the blood on it belonged to Eddowes. A UV light showed semen on the fabric. That DNA was compared to that of a Kosminski descendant, Edwards writes.

The identity of Jack the Ripper has eluded Brits for over a century and obsessed everyone from serious academics to armchair detectives. Queen Victoria's grandson Prince Albert Victor was thought to be a suspect at one point, but it turned out he wasn't near the murders at the time. 

Other suspects have included Mary Pearcey ("Jill the Ripper"), who had been convicted of murdering her lover's wife; in 2006, an Australian scientist, pointing to DNA results, suggested the killer may have been a woman.

Historian Mei Trow had previously identified mortuary attendant Robert Mann as Jack the Ripper, using "psychological and geographical profiling,"the Daily Mail wrote in 2009. The murder victims' bodies would have been delivered to the mortuary where Mann worked, where he was suspected to have "admire[d] his handiwork."

In claiming that Jack the Ripper was definitely, most assuredly Aaron Kosminski, Edwards has generated serious skepticism; as Agence France-Presse points out, the findings haven't been subjected to the methodology required for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

And the man who invented the DNA finger-printing technique, Alec Jefferys, called for greater scrutiny, telling The Independent it was "n interesting but remarkable claim that needs to be subjected to peer review, with detailed analysis of the provenance of the shawl and the nature of the claimed DNA match with the perpetrator's descendants and its power of discrimination; no actual evidence has yet been provided."

No matter who Jack the Ripper was, he remains one of the least liked figures in British history: Several years ago, in a BBC History Magazine survey, Jack the Ripper was voted the worst Briton of the last 1,000 years.

Jack the Ripper exhibits go on public display in Scotland Yard's Black Museum in London

Jack the Ripper's letter 'From Hell' and pans Dennis Nilsen used to boil his victims' flesh: 

Police exhibits from some of the grisliest crimes to go on display to the public for the first time.


Scotland Yard's Black Museum has never been open to public in 150 years.


Police have been known to faint at the exhibits which include death masks.


Collection also includes a noose used in the last female execution in UK.


It has been one of the most macabre and inaccessible museums in the world for almost 150 years.

From the infamous 'From Hell' letter reportedly written by Jack the Ripper to the battered old cooking pot used by serial killer Dennis Nilsen to boil his victim's flesh, it houses exhibits from some of Britain's most notorious murderers and criminals.

Now a selection of the 20,000 exhibits is set to go on display to the public for the first time. 


Scotland Yard's Crime Museum, known as the 'Black Museum' for its grisly collection of crime memorabila (such as the collection of vicious weapons pictured)

Scotland Yard's Crime Museum, known as the 'Black Museum' for its grisly collection of crime memorabila, has only been open to serving police officers and a few select guests since it first opened its doors 1874. 

The Metropolitan Police and the Mayor's Office are currently in discussions with the Museum of London to stage the unique collection, which also includes the noose used to hang Ruth Ellis - the last woman executed in the UK.

Other exhibits include death masks of people hanged at Newgate prison and casts of their rope-scarred necks and the severed arms of a murderer, thought to have committed suicide in Cologne, Germany in the 1950s.

The museum has only been open to serving police officers and a few select guests since it first opened its doors 1874.

From the infamous 'From Hell' letter reportedly written by Jack the Ripper to the collection of nooses (pictured) used to carry out executions of some of the most notorious criminals

It also boasts a pommel horse that was put to use in a homosexual brothel frequented by Oscar Wilde.

Sharon Ament, director of Museum of London, has confirmed the incredible exhibition would draw visitors from all over the world. 

The Crime Museum was set up by Inspector Neame in 1874 so new officers could see tools of the criminal trade, such as guns disguised as walking sticks and umbrellas. 

Despite being officially closed to the public, a select group of VIPS have been allowed to view the collection including Gilbert and Sullivan, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini.

Several of these visitors, including service officers, have been known to faint at the museum which currently held in room 101 in the Met's Victoria Street headquarters. 


Take a look around Scotland Yard's Black Museum

Now a selection of the 20,000 exhibits is set to go on display to the public for the first time







The Metropolitan Police and the Mayor's Office are currently in discussion with the Museum of London to stage the unique collection which also features the belongings of Charlie Peace - musician, burglar and murdererChief Supt Simon Ovens, chairman of the Met's museum board, told the Independent

'The wish is twofold: we're obviously very proud of our history as the oldest police force in the world and to also show the role that the Metropolitan Police has played in London since 1829,' said Chief Supt Simon Ovens, chairman of the Met's museum board.

'It's not up to the Metropolitan Police to act as a censor but I hold very closely in mind the effect it may have on surviving family members of any part of the collection.' 

There have long been calls for the institution to open to the public and last year, a report called on the Metropolitan Police to open up the space to raise funds during a period of major government cuts.


27.12.14

Has Jack the Ripper been identified as Aaron Kominski?

Ripperologists Rip DNA Claim By Amateur Sleuth Saying There’s Just CSI Effect Going On

Aaron Kominski - Was he Jack the Ripper?
Russell Edward's claim of having solved Jack The Ripper Identity has gone viral in just over a day. 

Many people thought that the claims of the amateur sleuth are 100% true, uncovering the mystery that has spanned for more than a century. In his book Naming Jack the Ripper, Edwards said that the infamous serial murderer is Aaron Kosminski who has been one of the prime persons of interests back then. 

Edward's said that they have unmasked the serial killer through the help of science. He worked with scientist Jari Louhelainen of Liverpool John Moores University.

'Once I had the profile, I could compare it to that of the female descendant of Kosminski's sister, who had given us a sample of her DNA swabbed from inside her mouth.

"The first strand of DNA showed a 99.2 per cent match, as the analysis instrument could not determine the sequence of the missing 0.8 per cent fragment of DNA. On testing the second strand, we achieved a perfect 100 per cent match."

However, for several Ripperologists, the term used to describe a group of people interested on the case, Jack The Ripper identity remains a whodunit. It is still far from being solved and Edward's claims only became viral because of the internet.

"Literally, we see articles like this a couple of times a year, but this one has gone viral," said Stephen P. Ryder, executive editor of "Casebook: Jack the Ripper," an online data base built by Ripperologists.

"There's kind of a 'CSI Effect' going on," Ryder said. "People hear 'DNA,' and they think it's 100 percent solved."

Ryder and many of the members of the forum doubt that Kosminski was indeed the true Jack the Ripper identity because of the difference in physique as described by witnesses.

"If it actually was Kosminski, this guy was a borderline raving lunatic," Ryder said. "This was not a criminal mastermind by any means."

Witnesses described Jack as a heavy-built man while Kosminski, who was 23 when detained, paraded a slight body built.

"Until I see anything more than what I've seen so far, it's like the Patricia Cornwell case," Ryder said.

Could Jack the Ripper have been a Woman?


Not Lizzie Borden, though
 she would be a cool
 suspect too.

In 1888, someone killed five prostitutes in London's Whitechapel district and came to be called "Jack The Ripper".

Since then, everyone from Sherlock Holmes to officers on "Star Trek" have weighed in on who the killer might be. 

The suspects are a Who's Who of people from the period because, apparently, it could just not have been some crazy, unknown sociopath, it had to be a member of Parliament or a famous writer.

John Morris has a new suspect - Lizzie Williams, the wife of the physician Sir John Williams (also a suspect), who he says killed the prostitutes out of anger over being infertile - a positively Freudian idea (Freud was also a fictional suspect). 

Despair over her condition is also what drove her to remove the wombs of three of her victims.

Has Jack the Ripper’s True Identity Been Revealed?

Based on DNA testing of a 126-year-old shawl, the author of a new book being released today claims to have solved one of history’s greatest murder mysteries and unmasked the identity of one of the most infamous serial killers of all time—Jack the Ripper.



In the early morning hours of September 30, 1888, police discovered the mutilated body of Catherine Eddowes, her throat slit and left kidney removed, in London’s Mitre Square. Eddowes had been the second prostitute inside of an hour found murdered in that section of the city, and the slaying bore the grisly signatures of the serial killer who for weeks had been terrorizing London’s East End—Jack the Ripper.

As police completed their work, Acting Sergeant Amos Simpson reportedly made an odd request to take home a blood-splattered shawl—blue and dark brown with a pattern of Michaelmas daisies at either end—found at the crime scene as a gift for his seamstress wife. His superiors granted permission, but not surprisingly, the present was not well received. Simpson’s horrified wife stashed the seven-foot-long fabric found next to Jack the Ripper’s fourth victim in a box. It was never worn, never washed as the search for one of the world’s most notorious killers grew colder and colder. The person responsible for killing at least five London prostitutes between August and November 1888 was never found, and authorities officially closed the file in 1892.


The slayings never faded from public consciousness, however. Legions of “Ripperologists” have developed their own theories over the decades, and the lineup of possible suspects has included Winston Churchill’s father, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” author Lewis Carroll, and Prince Albert Victor, grandson of Queen Victoria and second in line to the British throne. Some have even speculated that Jack the Ripper was in actuality Jill the Ripper, and female suspects include Mary Pearcey, who was executed in 1890 after butchering her lover’s wife and child with a carving knife in a similar manner to the notorious serial killer.

The Victorian-era shawl reportedly taken by Simpson passed from generation to generation of the policeman’s descendants until it was put up for auction in 2007 and purchased by Russell Edwards, an English businessman and self-confessed “armchair detective” who was fascinated by the coldest of cold cases. Although the silk fabric was frayed and aging, it still contained valuable DNA evidence since it was never washed. Now, after more than three years of scientific analysis, Russell says that Jack the Ripper’s true identity has been found interwoven in the ragged, 126-year-old shawl, and he fingers Polish immigrant Aaron Kosminski as the serial killer in his new book “Naming Jack the Ripper.”

Edwards enlisted forensic geneticist Dr. Jari Louhelainen of Liverpool John Moores University in 2011 to study the shawl using a level of analysis that was only possible in the last decade. Louhelainen identified the dark splotches on the shawl as stains “consistent with arterial blood spatter caused by slashing.” He also discovered evidence of split body parts, consistent with a kidney removal, as well as the presence of seminal fluid. Louhelainen found the mitochondrial DNA taken from the shawl matched that taken from Karen Miller, a direct descendant of Eddowes, as well as a female descendant of Kosminski’s sister, Matilda, who provided swabs of mitochondrial DNA from the inside of her mouth.

Police who worked the case at the time of the murders would not have been surprised to see Kosminski’s name linked to the crime. At the time of the murders, Kosminski was among the handful of primary suspects. The youngest of seven children, Kosminski was born in Klodawa, Poland, in 1865. After the death of his father, the family fled the pogroms flamed by Poland’s Russians rulers and immigrated to London’s Whitechapel section in 1881. Likely a paranoid schizophrenic, Kosminski, whose occupation was listed as hairdresser, was admitted into an asylum in 1891 after attacking his sister with a knife. In the mid-1890s, a witness identified him as the person attacking one of the victims but refused to testify. Lacking any hard evidence, police never arrested Kosminski for the crimes. He remained institutionalized until his death in 1919 from gangrene.


Edwards has long theorized that the shawl was of too fine a quality to have been worn by a London prostitute and belonged to Jack the Ripper, not Eddowes. Using nuclear magnetic resonance, another Liverpool John Moores University scientist, Dr. Fyaz Ismail, determined that the fabric’s age predated the 1888 murders and was likely made near St. Petersburg, Russia. The region of Poland where Kosminski was born was under Russian control, and it would not have been unusual for Russian goods to have been traded there.

“I’ve spent 14 years working on it, and we have definitively solved the mystery of who Jack the Ripper was,” Edwards told London’s Independent newspaper. “Only non-believers that want to perpetuate the myth will doubt. This is it now—we have unmasked him.”

Many Ripperologists, however, are not so certain. The report has generated plenty of skeptics, some of whom have noted that the laboratory analysis has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal and that Louhelainen was only able to test mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down from mothers to children and offers much less of a unique identifier than nuclear DNA. Many people can share similar mitochondrial DNA signatures. Other critics refute the notion that Simpson was even at the crime scene the night of the Eddowes murder and note that the shawl may have been contaminated over the decades since it has been held by many members of the Eddowes family.

In addition, this is not the first time that DNA evidence has supposedly cracked the case. American crime novelist Patricia Cornwell asserted that DNA samples found on the taunting letters sent by Jack the Ripper to Scotland Yard matched those of post-Impressionist painter Walter Sickert. A 2006 study by Australian scientist Ian Findlay extracted DNA from the saliva on the letters and determined that it was likely that the sender was a woman. So even with the latest news, it’s unlikely the debate on Jack the Ripper’s identity will suddenly abate.

Jack The Ripper was 'invented by the press' says retired murder detective ahead of Myths And Mysteries show in Runcorn



Trevor Marriott, former murder detective, is coming to
 The Brindley in Runcorn with his Myths And
 Mysteries show.


A retired murder detective who believes Jack The Ripper was ‘invented by the press’ is coming to Runcorn to discuss the findings of his investigations into famous legends and theories of the unexplained.

Trevor Marriott brings his Myths And Mysteries: The Real Truth show to The Brindley on Thursday, January 29, to present his analysis of the evidence behind topics as diverse as the existence of The Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis, Lord Lucan, UFOs and the debate over whether the Apollo Moon landing took place.

Other investigations include mermaids, the yeti and sea monsters.

He will also be bringing his skills to bear in an exposé of mediums and those who claim they can communicate with the dead.

Trevor said his interest in mysteries stemmed from research into Jack the Ripper, the evidence of which led him to the conclusion that the killings were the actions of multiple murderers rather than one.

He told the Weekly News that the notorious serial killer’s nickname was the creation of an ‘over-zealous member of the press’.

Although he carried out the research in 2002, he later took the results on a theatre tour in 2013.

His interest has now broadened to encompass about 40 topics.

He said: “When I started to look at these particular mysteries that have fascinated people for years it soon became apparent that the members of the public have been misled by what they have seen and what they have read in books and documentaries.

“I set about trying to do an impartial investigation into these myths and to look at what evidence support these theories.

“Some are definitive, others are not.

“I think it’s going to be a very interesting show for the public because of the diverse topics I’m going to be covering.”

Speaking about the benefits of his former career’s experience, he said: “When you are working on an investigation as a police officer you have to take an unbiased approach, your role is to prove or disprove and I can bring that to the table with these myths and mysteries.”

Myths And Mysteries: The Real Truth is on at The Brindley at 7.30pm on Thursday, January 29.

Tickets are £12 or £10 concessions.

For more information or to book call 0151 907 8360.

http://www.runcornandwidnesweeklynews.co.uk/

6.1.15


Jack the Ripper: The thrill of history is often all about the erotics of not knowing

When mysteries are wide open, they become flooded with possibility



The signature on a letter dated 29 October 1888 written by a person claiming
 to be Jack the Ripper.  ‘In ­September 2014, the author ­Russell Edwards
 announced he had DNA proof that Jack the ­Ripper was a barber called
 Aaron Kosminski.’ 



The year 2014 turned out to be the one when history got solved, once and for all. In September, the author Russell Edwards announced he had DNA proof that Jack the Ripper was a barber called Aaron Kosminski. The same month, Canadian marine explorers declared they had finally located HMS Erebus– the ship in which the British polar explorer Sir John Franklin was last seen entering Baffin Bay in 1845 in his attempt to navigate the Northwest Passage. And then, to cap it all, we learned this month that Richard III – he of the beetle-black pageboy bob – was actually nearer to blond.

These are all mysteries that have kept history geeks going for generations. Well, perhaps not the one about the colour of Richard III’s hair – although it did make a lovely coda to the discovery of his skewwhiff skeleton in that Leicester car park in 2012. So to have these conundrums solved should result in a kind of ecstatic release, a rush of pleasure. Some philosophers call it the erotics of knowing.

But actually, after that first climax of delight in being able to bang in the final bit of the historical jigsaw, a curious flatness sets in. For a few brief minutes, it’s extraordinary to be able to stare into a photograph of Kosminski and imagine what it might have been like if his was the last face you saw on Earth. Or to be finally able to start to understand what happened to Franklin’s expedition, a hubristic endeavour that ended up with his beleaguered crew snacking on each other once the tinned supplies ran out. But after that comes … simply the detumescence of having nothing left to learn.

The fact is, we need our historical mysteries in order to keep the past fizzing with energy. It’s these tantalising, ticklish absences that pull us in as children to the idea that the olden days are not yet done and dusted. Instead, there’s the lingering possibility that we might be the ones to solve the riddle – or, in the case of Jack the Ripper, the crime. Until, that is, DNA came along and spoiled everything.

My obsession with the Russian revolution started when I was eight years old and saw the film Anastasia on Saturday afternoon television. It’s the one in which Ingrid Bergman plays the Romanov princess, who at the time of the film’s making (1956) was believed to have survived the 1918 slaughter in Yekaterinburg and be living incognito in Europe. Bergman got an Oscar for it.

I instantly became convinced that Anna Anderson, on whom the character of Anna in the film is based, was indeed the Princess Anastasia incognito. What’s more, I – a little girl from Sussex – would be able to prove it. I would travel to America where Anderson now resided and announce the good news to her myself. Together we would live as princesses really should.

In the 1990s, DNA testing proved that Anna Anderson was an imposter. I was devastated and shocked; to be honest, I am still a bit in mourning. Which is why I’m not sure how many more solved mysteries I can bear. For whereas once upon a time it really was possible for an inspired amateur sleuth to solve historical mysteries that had left the experts scratching their heads for decades, what hope is there now? Unless you have the funds to run a state-of-the-art laboratory out of your spare bedroom, you’re pretty much obliged to leave history to the professionals, and watch the results on television.

There is, though, one chink of hope. In October came the news that the identity of Jack the Ripper may not in fact be solved. There was a bungle, apparently, with the way they did the DNA testing. Don’t ask me for the details, but apparently the consequence is that the murderer is no more likely to have been Aaron Kosminski than thousands of others. The mystery is wide open again. At a stroke the past has become flooded with possibility; and the erotics of knowing – and not knowing – are back in play.


29.12.14

Was Jack the Ripper a woman?



One of history’s oldest unsolved mysteries is the identity of Jack the Ripper, the infamous serial killer who stalked and murdered at least five women in London’s East End in 1888.

The brutality of the Ripper’s crimes—as well as Scotland Yard’s failure to solve the case—caused a wave of hysteria in England and inspired gory headlines around the world.

In one of the more recent efforts to crack the long-cold case, an Australian scientist used swabs from the stamps and seals of some of the letters Jack the Ripper was believed to have sent to police in order to construct a partial DNA profile of the sender.

Though the results were admittedly inconclusive, they indicated that the samples were likely to have come from an unexpected source—a woman.

Far-fetched? Maybe not.

Possible Suspects

It’s true that while many theories about the killer’s identity have emerged over the years, some of them more implausible than others (Lewis Carroll of “Alice in Wonderland” fame?), the police only had four actual suspects—all male.

But after a witness said she saw the fifth Ripper victim, Mary Kelly, hours after she was murdered, the chief inspector in the case suggested it might have been the female killer escaping in Kelly’s clothing. Later proponents of this “Jill the Ripper” theory suggest that a midwife (possibly an abortionist) would have had the anatomical knowledge usually attributed to the Ripper, and would have had easy access to her female victims.

As the theory goes, the most likely suspect may be Mary Pearcey, who was convicted and hanged in 1890 for the murder of her lover’s wife and child—and who had used a method similar to the Ripper’s to commit the crime.

http://arynews.tv/en/jack-ripper-woman/

2.1.15