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Lumberjack Bonanza posted:The reasons why the report is sketchy are numerous. Most people wouldn't really expect to find usable evidence after all this time, even with mitochondrial DNA evidence. It's not impossible, but it's definitely odd. The findings were not published in a peer reviewed journal, they were published in one of England's most infamous rags. The suspect himself, Kosminski, had very little evidence tying him to the crime. There's also the fact that some of the most likely suspects for the Ripper were Jews with mental issues. I think most people would qualify serial killers as "crazy", sure, but too often people see a paranoid schizophrenic and immediately assume they are violent. I think this may have been what threw me a bit here, this was widely republished in NZ on websites associated with reputable news papers. I guess this is why I'm not a cop.
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Sep 8, 2014 10:10
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Isn't it basically just a promo for that guy's book about Jack the Ripper?
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Sep 8, 2014 11:25
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ravenkult posted:Isn't it basically just a promo for that guy's book about Jack the Ripper? Basically yes. See also, all the other "evidence" over the last 20 or so years that "solve" the crimes. I think its possibly a vicious circle that if your someone who has an interest in that case, you start to armchair detective the case out of interest, 6 years later you've written a book that basically needs a punchline to sell it, so despite your best intentions you get added to the list of ripper case solving books.
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Sep 8, 2014 11:37
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Don't sperm cells not have mitochondria, though? And that's why you can trace maternal lineage through mitochondrial DNA because you know it came from the egg cell?
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Sep 8, 2014 12:13
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Davfff posted:e a bit this was widely republished in NZ on websites associated with reputable news papers. As if we have reputable newspapers.
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Sep 8, 2014 12:33
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Sperm cells have mitochondria, in fact that's one of the few things they do have, it's just very rare that the sperm's mitochondria make it into the egg.
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Sep 8, 2014 12:34
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Lumberjack Bonanza posted:The reasons why the report is sketchy are numerous. Most people wouldn't really expect to find usable evidence after all this time, even with mitochondrial DNA evidence. It's not impossible, but it's definitely odd. The findings were not published in a peer reviewed journal, they were published in one of England's most infamous rags. The suspect himself, Kosminski, had very little evidence tying him to the crime. There's also the fact that some of the most likely suspects for the Ripper were Jews with mental issues. I think most people would qualify serial killers as "crazy", sure, but too often people see a paranoid schizophrenic and immediately assume they are violent. Oh, not at all, as far as I'm aware. Mitochondrial DNA testing is cool for a couple reasons: 1. You have a lot more copies of mitochondrial DNA than nuclear DNA. This means that if a sample is very degraded, you are way more likely to find intact mitochondrial DNA than nuclear DNA. This means that you can take mtDNA samples from an old bloody shawl and plausibly get a valid match. 2. It allows you to trace lineage. Since there is no gene recombination, mtDNA will only change based on mutations, which happen at a more-or-less fixed rate. This lets you, for instance, compare mtDNA from two individuals to see how distantly related they are. In this case, you can also take mtDNA samples from presumed relatives and match historical samples (since you know approx. how many mutations may have occurred in the mtDNA over a certain number of generations). In this case, I believe they were comparing the mtDNA of the blood on the shawl with a descendant of the victim, and the mtDNA in the semen with the descendant of Aaron Kosminski's sister. So, yeah, don't get your hopes up until there is a 3rd party confirmation, but this is completely plausible, despite the terrible source.
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Sep 8, 2014 15:32
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Slanderer posted:Oh, not at all, as far as I'm aware. Mitochondrial DNA testing is cool for a couple reasons: Oh yeah, mitochondrial DNA is definitely much easier to find on old evidence. It's a really cool thing. Even with this benefit though, it just seems strange for this piece of evidence to have any intact DNA on it after so long. It's not like people from over a century ago had any concept of DNA and that it could somehow be used as evidence down the line, and it also seems super morbid to keep a bloody family heirloom around to remind you of your prostitute ancestor who got butchered by an awful killer. You'd think the next person to carry it would wash it at least, especially if it was as nice a piece of clothing as they made it out to be (apparently it was "too expensive" for her to have, and thus was likely given to her by the killer, which is a huge stretch as a theory). But that's a circumstantial argument against the whole thing so it's not like that makes the whole thing impossible. I actually kind of hope they are right, because telling someone they are a relative of a horrible, infamous monster for no reason other than personal gain is pretty hosed.
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Sep 8, 2014 15:45
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Guys, your missing the real Ripper with all this nonsense talk of "DNA analysis" or "logic" or "police work". Jack The Ripper was Prince Albert Victor, who later changed his name to Adolf Hitler quote:
http://deep-high.blogspot.ca/2008/06/who-was-really-hitler.html Nckdictator has a new favorite as of 16:20 on Sep 8, 2014 |
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Sep 8, 2014 16:06
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Lumberjack Bonanza posted:Oh yeah, mitochondrial DNA is definitely much easier to find on old evidence. It's a really cool thing. Even with this benefit though, it just seems strange for this piece of evidence to have any intact DNA on it after so long. It's not like people from over a century ago had any concept of DNA and that it could somehow be used as evidence down the line, and it also seems super morbid to keep a bloody family heirloom around to remind you of your prostitute ancestor who got butchered by an awful killer. You'd think the next person to carry it would wash it at least, especially if it was as nice a piece of clothing as they made it out to be (apparently it was "too expensive" for her to have, and thus was likely given to her by the killer, which is a huge stretch as a theory). But that's a circumstantial argument against the whole thing so it's not like that makes the whole thing impossible. The victim's family didn't keep the shawl--I think I read that a cop stole it for his wife, his wife was like "WTF?", and then their family kept it as a weird souvenir of the crime. So, presumably it wasn't washed.
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Sep 8, 2014 16:08
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Slanderer posted:The victim's family didn't keep the shawl--I think I read that a cop stole it for his wife, his wife was like "WTF?", and then their family kept it as a weird souvenir of the crime. So, presumably it wasn't washed. Oh, I thought the article said different. Well that's way the gently caress more morbid.  Nckdictator posted:Guys, your missing the real Ripper with all this nonsense talk of "DNA analysis" or "police work". Do people believing in numerology count as unnerving? Because I find it pretty unnerving how often people think assigning numbers to poo poo and adding it up in a way that makes sense to your crazy moon logic somehow proves anything.
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Sep 8, 2014 16:14
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Nckdictator posted:Guys, your missing the real Ripper with all this nonsense talk of "DNA analysis" or "logic" or "police work". This is exactly as stupid and crazy as the Shakespearean authorship conspiracy, right down to the thinly-veiled classism running through it all. I guarantee the writer is an Oxfordian.
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Sep 8, 2014 17:37
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hitchensgoespop posted:Basically yes. See also, all the other "evidence" over the last 20 or so years that "solve" the crimes. Alan Moore's From Hell has an afterword, "Dance of the Gull Catchers," which is a really good essay on Ripperologists and the quagmire that surrounds it. 
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Sep 8, 2014 18:39
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Nckdictator posted:Guys, your missing the real Ripper with all this nonsense talk of "DNA analysis" or "logic" or "police work". Must have been really upset about being kept in a can, I guess.
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Sep 8, 2014 18:39
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Nckdictator posted:Guys, your missing the real Ripper with all this nonsense talk of "DNA analysis" or "logic" or "police work". comment on the blog posted:This theory, though interesting, has more holes in it than the ripper's victims.
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Sep 8, 2014 18:42
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Ague Proof posted:This is exactly as stupid and crazy as the Shakespearean authorship conspiracy, right down to the thinly-veiled classism running through it all. I guarantee the writer is an Oxfordian. Any more on this? I've never heard of a Shakespeare conspiracy.
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Sep 8, 2014 19:16
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Lumberjack Bonanza posted:Oh yeah, mitochondrial DNA is definitely much easier to find on old evidence. It's a really cool thing. Even with this benefit though, it just seems strange for this piece of evidence to have any intact DNA on it after so long. It's not like people from over a century ago had any concept of DNA and that it could somehow be used as evidence down the line, and it also seems super morbid to keep a bloody family heirloom around to remind you of your prostitute ancestor who got butchered by an awful killer. Cloth covered in blood is a surprisingly popular souvenir: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27145411
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Sep 8, 2014 19:18
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Canemacar posted:Any more on this? I've never heard of a Shakespeare conspiracy. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_authorship_question
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Sep 8, 2014 19:20
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Canemacar posted:Any more on this? I've never heard of a Shakespeare conspiracy. We know precisely gently caress-all about Shakey, so pretty much any contemporary playwright was considered as a candidate for writing his plays. It's pretty much slightly a step above the "Paul is dead" thing.
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Sep 8, 2014 19:23
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The Shakespeare thing is mostly because he kind of came out of nowhere with no formal education/training. There's also some classism to it where the "real" authorship is attributed to various lords.
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Sep 8, 2014 19:29
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He was probably exactly that, someone with no formal education and whose only training was being an actor. The guy invented an absurd number of new words, and when you do something like that, you're either trailblazing an area where no language can properly describe it yet, or you're just wingin' it and making poo poo up.
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Sep 9, 2014 01:21
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Davfff posted:The second one, as amazing as this may seem most of the general public don't know a lot about forensic DNA analysis or 1800s police procedure. Okay, here's what the presence of DNA on something means. It means at some point something came into contact with that thing that had come into contact with a DNA containing substance, or something that had contact with that substance and transferred. Everyone always thinks this means fresh blood, but it doesn't, it could be semen or skin or even saliva or waste sometimes. If you sit on a chair, your DNA is on the chair due to constantly shedding skin cells. The next person to sit on that chair might pick them up. That person then goes to a cab and murders the taxi driver. Hey what's that? Your DNA in the back seat! DNA isn't radioactive, it doesn't stop being viable at a certain point. You bleed on something, your DNA is there until someone cleans it off. The people that inhabited London near the turn of the century were densely, densely, densely packed into it. This is in the very start of ideas like "building codes" and "occupancy limits" and you'd probably get contact DNA from a dozen people walking down the street. And that's if your job description doesn't read "get paid for fluid exchange" (we're also long before the days of condoms here too), in which case your livelihood is literally collecting DNA samples. Of course nobody knew this in the police force back then, because nobody on the planet knew it, but the idea of preserving a crime scene was just about as foreign. We can only guess how many people saw this body and this evidence before the police attempted to keep the crowds back. Someone scavenges the corpse for valuables, they leave DNA behind. Someone spits on it, they leave DNA behind, someone drags it out of the way so their horse can get through without getting dead prostitute on it's hooves, DNA on it. Not to mention transfer from police. A cop shoves an overeager gawker back from the body, then picks up some evidence, DNA transfer. Cop arrests someone that morning then arrives on scene to investigate, DNA transfer. And all of that is assuming that no transfer has occurred in the past century while this object apparently hasn't been preserved at all and drifted around as a sort of weird keepsake. They say you share half your DNA with your parents so some ancestor of this guy touches it who knows what that does to this test (I honestly don't, I've never dealt with a test that this many generations have passed since). And that's all assuming the DNA test was done correctly, which you should be skeptical of in the first place when it's being used to push a new book.
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Sep 9, 2014 02:25
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Canemacar posted:Any more on this? I've never heard of a Shakespeare conspiracy. It's analyzed pretty deeply in this video.
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Sep 9, 2014 02:38
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SlothBear posted:Okay, here's what the presence of DNA on something means. It means at some point something came into contact with that thing that had come into contact with a DNA containing substance, or something that had contact with that substance and transferred. Everyone always thinks this means fresh blood, but it doesn't, it could be semen or skin or even saliva or waste sometimes. If you sit on a chair, your DNA is on the chair due to constantly shedding skin cells. The next person to sit on that chair might pick them up. That person then goes to a cab and murders the taxi driver. Hey what's that? Your DNA in the back seat! DNA isn't radioactive, it doesn't stop being viable at a certain point. You bleed on something, your DNA is there until someone cleans it off. Okay, let me just say that this post is mostly bullshit, sorry. Let's go over some key points: 1. For the most part, contact does not impart a significant amount of DNA. Modern techniques can isolate DNA from trace sources like this, but only under ideal conditions. Trace contamination of a much, much larger DNA sample (ie, a few skin cells falling onto a big bloodstain) is not a huge issue, if testing is done correctly. 2. DNA profiling requires amplifying the amount of material present. Specifically, this means running a sample many times through a PCR machine to replicate the DNA present. This will amplify contamination from skin cells, for instance, but it will do so proportionally--there will still probably be thousands as times as much of the original sample. 3. Mitochondrial DNA analysis still works with degraded samples, much more so than with nuclear DNA. This is at least partially because mtDNA has a 2nd layer of protection (the mitochondrial double membrane). Additionally, there are many more copies of mtDNA, and it's pretty small. 4. mtDNA sequencing relies on the HV1 and HV2 (highly variable) regions. They are rather short regions, and they are directly sequenced. I have no loving clue how this part works. However, direct sequencing means that it is easier to detect and deal with contamination (as well as a highly-fragmented original sample). 5. It's statistically unlikely you'll get a false positive mtDNA match. False negatives are way more likely, as far as I'm aware. Really, mitochondrial DNA sequencing is loving amazing. We can do mtDNA sequencing of caveman bones and poo poo. An old shawl that people probably touched? Yeah, that's totally doable. Slanderer has a new favorite as of 03:00 on Sep 9, 2014 |
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Sep 9, 2014 02:58
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http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/09/09/347105526/canada-says-its-found-ship-from-doomed-1845-arctic-expedition I definitely recall reading about this one in the earlier thread, and now they found one of the ships!
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Sep 10, 2014 00:48
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If you want to talk about Franklin's Lost Expedition and get creeped out, let me introduce John Torrington. He died at the beginning of the Franklin Expedition in 1846, but that was exhumed in 1982. He'd been buried in the permafrost and his body had been perfectly preserved. Natural mummies are pretty unnerving, so please post all your favorite mummies.
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Sep 10, 2014 01:41
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Dr. Dos posted:http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/09/09/347105526/canada-says-its-found-ship-from-doomed-1845-arctic-expedition  Here's some footage of the site.
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Sep 10, 2014 04:17
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The sad fact is is that almost none of the people suspected of being Jack The Ripper were probably him. With what we know about the type of serial killer JtR is now and what they knew then him being caught or even suspected by police of that era was probably very very low. Basically he was in the same category of killer as Ted Bundy. He was probably smart, fairly charming and good looking, he planned his killing in areas not patrolled or monitored by law enforcement and where he had time to mutilate his victims. He fit in enough that he was able to blend in to the crowd and not be noticed travelling through the areas where he killed people. The stereotype of a killer at the time was of a raving lunatic who stalked the alleyways grinning evilly while drooling foam from his ravid mouth, not a normal person who blended into crowds and cut up prostitutes as a leisure activity. The real Ripper probably stood around and watched as the cops arrested a bunch of immigrants and random people who weren't liked or who fit the idea of a Victorian lunatic killer and laughed as he continued stabbing people to death in the night. Also from what we know about serial killers now we know he probably was either killed or moved because they rarely stop killing people once they start although it's not unheard of in the slightest. Even though it probably wasn't him, this is why some people point fingers at that one sailor who got arrested for very similar crimes in a totally different place some years later (and who had been in the area at the time the ripper murders happened). Also it's important to note that all the Ripper crimes were linked together but most likely only a couple were done by the same person and even then some people think that none of them were done by the same person at all. Stabbing was pretty much how people were murdered in Victorian London (with a side of shootings) and hookers getting killed isn't terribly remarkable unfortunately. So while the ones with the organ mutilation and cuts are probably the same person, it's not likely that the few others that were just normal stabbings were the same killer. And while its true a lot of the letters written to the press contained knowledge that only the police knew at the time, there were lots of witnesses to the crime scene and the police were far from not-corrupt so it's not unlikely that they were hoaxed by someone in order to sell papers (the info being leaked by a police officer would also follow with the evidence that accompanied the letter vanishing).
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Sep 10, 2014 04:43
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Or another possibility is that the murderer was a foreigner and an immigrant and a member of a visible minority or someone already vilified in the neighborhood or someone with an obvious mental illness. Not that I think that's the case this time, and a book promotion running in the Daily Mail doesn't strike me as the place for a definitive revelation to appear. Would everyone calling bullshit about the forensic techniques used in this case feel the same if they were being used to exonerate the 'suspect' in a century-old case where a black American youth was controversially hung for a murder he probably didn't commit? C'mon sons
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Sep 10, 2014 05:26
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:He was a mean guy...ungood, if you will. I still use this in casual conversations.
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Sep 10, 2014 05:35
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BUTT PIPE posted:Or another possibility is that the murderer was a foreigner and an immigrant and a member of a visible minority or someone already vilified in the neighborhood or someone with an obvious mental illness. Not that I think that's the case this time, and a book promotion running in the Daily Mail doesn't strike me as the place for a definitive revelation to appear. Immigrants and people with mental illness are statistically less likely to commit crimes. But keep on fuckin that chicken.
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Sep 10, 2014 06:19
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HelloIAmYourHeart posted:If you want to talk about Franklin's Lost Expedition and get creeped out, let me introduce John Torrington. One of their ships has just been found: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29131757 (Apologies if that's what promped your post already.) E:f;b
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Sep 10, 2014 06:19
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I've been reading a lot about Franklin's Lost Expedition lately (nonfiction and fiction both) so this timing is great for me. Like, I'm reading "Frozen in Time" right now and they find the actual ship right as I'm reading about it? So cool.
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Sep 10, 2014 13:52
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If anybody is interested Philip Sugden wrote a great book on Jack the Ripper called The Complete History of Jack the Ripper. It's good because he doesn't have a pet theory and he is deeply suspicious of anybody who does. He also works directly with the primary sources (something hardly anybody cares to bother with any more) and directly addresses the myths peddled by so many respected 'Ripperologists'. It's amazing to discover how many people have written books on Jack the Ripper without even once reading the primary source materials, you would think that was the first place to start. El Estrago Bonito posted:He was probably smart, fairly charming and good looking, he planned his killing in areas not patrolled or monitored by law enforcement and where he had time to mutilate his victims. He fit in enough that he was able to blend in to the crowd and not be noticed travelling through the areas where he killed people. It's been a few years since I was into the case but I seem to recall one of the women was murdered right smack in the middle of a policeman's regular round and the policeman was agonisingly close to the murder when it happened. As in he walked his circuit and saw nothing, walked it again and found the still warm body. I believe another one of the murders was interrupted as it was happening, which is why no mutilations were found on one of the bodies. Well drat, now I'm all interested again. Somebody who knows a lot about the case go start an ask/tell so we can invent our own conspiracy theories. Dr Scoofles has a new favorite as of 14:11 on Sep 10, 2014 |
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Sep 10, 2014 14:08
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Another really interesting book about the murders is Jack the Ripper and the London Press. It doesn't dwell a lot on the whole "who done it?" issue (although there is a little discussion of the suspects). Instead, the authors discuss how the media of the time dealt with the murders, and how the media's treatment of the murders reflects the anxieties and biases of Victorian London. There are excerpts from a lot of the newspaper stories of the time, from the "respectable" papers such as the London Times to the lowbrow tabloid-type dailies peddled on the streets.
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Sep 10, 2014 14:23
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nocal posted:Immigrants and people with mental illness are statistically less likely to commit crimes. But keep on fuckin that chicken. Serial killers are the picture of mental health, actually!!!
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Sep 10, 2014 14:25
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Lumberjack Bonanza posted:I just really find it strange and intriguing how people are so eager for fame that they will grasp desperately at infamy if it's their best bet. JonBenet Ramsey NOPE Basically, guy confesses to killing JonBenet Ramsey, . . . but NOPE! There's even a picture of, I believe, the district attorney of Boulder on a plane back from picking this guy up, and the two are toasting with champagne, although I might have just been imagining that.
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Sep 10, 2014 14:48
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Dr Scoofles posted:It's been a few years since I was into the case but I seem to recall one of the women was murdered right smack in the middle of a policeman's regular round and the policeman was agonisingly close to the murder when it happened. As in he walked his circuit and saw nothing, walked it again and found the still warm body. I believe another one of the murders was interrupted as it was happening, which is why no mutilations were found on one of the bodies. You can never tell whether these uncaught killers were clever or just. Insanely lucky. The Zodiac was almost caught a few times, I think. Apparently a report for a person matching his appearance was made but the police missed him because the report they were given specified he was black. Gee, I wonder how that kind of mix up could have happened?
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Sep 10, 2014 14:56
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HelloIAmYourHeart posted:If you want to talk about Franklin's Lost Expedition and get creeped out, let me introduce John Torrington. For all of you goons interested in Franklin and polar exploration (and disasters) we have a thread on the subject in the Book Barn: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=3655083&perpage=40&pagenumber=1#pti35 Come join us for tales of frostbite and husky-eating! 
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Sep 10, 2014 15:07
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Ague Proof posted:You can never tell whether these uncaught killers were clever or just. Insanely lucky. The Zodiac was almost caught a few times, I think. Apparently a report for a person matching his appearance was made but the police missed him because the report they were given specified he was black. Gee, I wonder how that kind of mix up could have happened? Well he had a close call the first time because he took the time to stop at a payphone not far from the sheriff's office to report one of his own crimes. And yeah the second time there were actually witnesses to the murder that described him, but for some reason the dispatcher told police to look for a black suspect so the cops most likely drove right past him because he just kind of walked away from the scene.
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Sep 10, 2014 15:32
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