Halloween Edition: Catch Me if You Can, Jack the Ripper

By: Stacy Marris

Prince Albert Victor. Walter Sickert. Dr. John Williams. Lewis Carroll. These men have all been accused of being the infamous Jack the Ripper since his reign of terror in the fall of 1888.[1]  Over 500 people have been accused of being the Ripper since he began his killing spree in London’s East End.[2]  One of the Ripper victims, Catherine Eddowes, provides the basis for the most recent and most assertive accusations in the Ripper case.[3]

“Armchair detective” and author Russell Edwards has stated he “definitely, categorically and absolutely” determined the identity of Jack the Ripper: a Polish immigrant, Aaron Kosminski, a main Ripper suspect.[4]  In 2007, Edwards purchased a shawl at an auction, which presumably belonged to Catherine Eddowes.[5]  Edwards had Doctor Jari Louhelainen, a senior lecturer in microbiology at Liverpool John Moores University, test the shawl for DNA evidence.[6]

Louhelainen tested DNA from Catherine Eddowes’ descendant to determine whether the DNA of the bloodstain on the shawl belonged to Eddowes.[7]  It was a match.[8]  Louhelainen then tested DNA from a semen stain, also on the shawl, with the DNA of Kosminski’s descendant.[9]  It was also a match.[10]

Russell Edwards is convinced the mystery has been solved: “Only non-believers that want to perpetuate the myth will doubt. This is it now—we have unmasked him.”[11]  Non-believers are not the only skeptical ones.  In fact, if the Ripper case was a modern criminal case investigated in the United States, it is doubtful the DNA evidence from the shawl would be admissible in court.

When DNA evidence was introduced to court proceedings in the 1980s, the debate was whether or not DNA evidence could be admitted generally.[12]  In 1993, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals set the standard: Federal Rules of Evidence Rule 702 would apply, meaning scientific evidence would be admissible if it was “supported by appropriate validation… ‘good grounds,’ based on what is known.”[13]

As DNA evidence has become widely accepted, the question is not whether DNA evidence is admissible generally, but rather whether specific DNA evidence can be admitted.[14]  This question of specific admissibility hinges on “compliance with appropriate standards and controls,” a “laboratory’s protocol” or the “methodological validation process.”[15]

This is where Edwards’ DNA evidence unravels.  There are numerous problems with the methodology used to test the shawl.  British geneticist Alec Jeffreys explains that it is the practice of the industry to have DNA evidence tested multiple times by unbiased third-party laboratories.[16]  Edwards has not allowed such testing.[17]

Further, the shawl is 126-years-old; there is no chain of custody and there is no determining whether the shawl has been washed, which would partly destroy the DNA evidence.[18]  The shawl was also not properly treated as evidence.  Peter Gill, a pioneer of DNA profiling, explains the shawl “has been handled by several people who could have shared” the DNA profile.[19]

Because the DNA evidence was not derived from appropriate standards or controls, and because Louhelainen and Edwards have not abided by proper testing protocol and methodological processes, it is not likely the DNA evidence would be admissible in a modern U.S. criminal trial.  As a whole, Edwards’ DNA evidence presents an interesting, but inconclusive finding.[20]  Thus, the mystery of the world’s first celebrity serial killer, Jack the Ripper, remains unsolved, 126 years later.

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