Naming Jack the Ripper: The Biggest Forensic Breakthrough Since 1888

by Edwards, Russell

  Jari had also discovered during the different-light analysis that the large stain in the middle of the shawl, the one with the secondary oblong shape in the middle, showed evidence of different bodily fluids owing to the way the stain fluoresced. The results clearly suggested to him that residue – such as faeces or intestinal fluid – from split body parts was present, and this was why he had been grinning so widely when I got back to the lab. At this stage it was impossible to deduce which specific body parts they were from because it was not possible to differentiate DNA from the liver, from, say, lung tissue. Tissue-type can be determined using so-called ‘gene expression profiling’ but given the age of the samples involved with the shawl, Jari thought that this would not be possible to do as RNA (ribonucleic acid) would be needed, and RNA is known to degrade even more readily than DNA.

  The traces of split body parts were a clear reminder of what Jack the Ripper did to mutilate Catherine’s body. What was also interesting was that the stain that indicated different fluids appeared to be replicated at the other end of the shawl, suggesting that the shawl had been folded over the object that left those marks. This was incredible stuff, and I was particularly thrilled by the words, ‘This would be very difficult to forge.’ Even Jari’s sangfroid was momentarily overcome.

  Great progress had been made. To summarize, we had now confirmed that there was human blood on the shawl, possibly semen and, most excitingly, evidence of split body parts. Remember, Catherine Eddowes had had her uterus and left kidney removed. I felt we were close to establishing a proper, scientific link between the events in Mitre Square and what appeared on the shawl, which at the time of its retrieval must have been in quite a mess. There was, of course, so much more to be done, but things seemed to be moving in the right direction.

  CHAPTER NINE

  FINDING DNA

  While I was waiting for Jari to do more testing, I set off on another leg of the research: I decided to find out about the shawl itself. After all, it was no good finding it had human blood and semen on it, if it then turned out not to be old enough to date back to the time of Jack the Ripper. I was sure it was at least that old, but I needed to prove it.

  Not long into my research I made another, massive discovery, a leap forward that I had not expected.

  Considering where it was found, it seemed logical to assume that the shawl had been made in Spitalfields, which was known as a centre for the silk-weaving trade around the eighteenth century, when the Huguenot silk weavers colonized the area, and built the beautiful town houses that have now been preserved. From the late 1600s onwards the area to the east of the City of London, where open fields provided perfect conditions for growing mulberry trees (for silkworms) and the laying out of tenter grounds (for drying and stretching cloth), silk weaving was the major occupation in what is now the East End. The Huguenot houses can be identified by the long windows in their attic spaces, designed to capture as much light as possible for the delicate weaving process. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Spitalfields silk was highly prized thanks to the skill of the craftsmen, and the area itself built up into a very prosperous neighbourhood.

  A mixture of the industrial revolution, when new mechanized weaving technology replaced the traditional looms, and changes in the laws regarding the importation of silks from abroad signalled the end of Spitalfields silk’s halcyon days. The Huguenots gradually left the area for the suburbs and Home Counties and the district gradually fell into a deep decline and, as we’ve seen, by the 1880s was known for its poverty, crime and vice. Those weavers who remained lived in considerably less salubrious surroundings than their predecessors and ultimately the East End translated their traditions into the general ‘rag trade’. This line of work was eventually picked up by the eastern European Jewish immigrants and, later still, by settlers from Bangladesh.

  Even to my unpractised eye, the shawl seemed to be of high-quality fabric, so I felt it was a remnant of the glory days of the silk weaving trade. By this time in my Ripper quest I had become a tenacious and more experienced researcher, and so I set out on my own silk road, and in the course of one afternoon I sent a blizzard of emails which, with results coming in over the next few weeks, changed my direction entirely.

  My first contact was with the Huguenot Library in London who directed me to a number of publications relating to such silks and pattern-books where I might be able to find something similar to the design on the shawl. Searching online I discovered that Spitalfields silk designs were very distinctive, featuring a much more ‘open’ floral pattern, in contrast to the tightly packed Michaelmas daisies on the shawl. I could not see anything that even vaguely looked like my shawl.

  I contacted the textiles department of the Victoria and Albert Museum, but even though I was passed from one expert to another, I ended up, after some weeks, with no definitive information from them.

  I received some information from Christie’s and Sotheby’s, the big auction houses, when I sent them photographs of the shawl. The Director of the Textiles Department at Christie’s dated it at around 1800 to 1820, and said it could have come from Spitalfields or Macclesfield, another centre for silk weaving, although it was not a typical pattern. She added, ‘It could equally be continental.’ The Sotheby’s expert thought the shawl could be later in the nineteenth century, and possibly French. They were working without handling and looking at the shawl, so I was not expecting them to be able to give me more than this.

  But in the meantime I had struck gold. I discovered a website devoted to English and French antique textiles run by a lady called Diane Thalmann, a noted expert on shawls, who lives in Switzerland. Having sent her photographs of the shawl, she said: ‘I am fairly sure this shawl is early 1800s. However, it is not really familiar to me, and not English. I’m sure you realize that, as it is in pieces, it has no value. What a terrible shame! It would only be suitable for use for documentation or crafts. The quality of silk, as far as I can see, is typical of silk circa 1810 to 1830, but more I can’t say.’

  It was that phrase ‘not English’ that inspired me to make a great mental leap, especially as it was backed up by the Christie’s expert saying it could be continental. It had been staring me in the face since I had hit on the relationship between the last three murders and the dates of Michaelmas. What if this shawl did not belong to Catherine Eddowes at all? What if it had been left at the scene of the crime by the Ripper himself?

  It suddenly made so much sense. Catherine was very poor, and the day before her death she and her partner John had pawned a pair of his boots, no doubt very worn, for enough money to buy themselves some food. Surely, if she’d had an expensive silk shawl, they would have pawned that for considerably more money? And where would she, with her history of poverty and privation, have acquired an expensive shawl?

  I also realized that, for the Michaelmas daisies to have real significance, they had to be connected to the Ripper. Perhaps he had left the shawl at the scene of the crime as an obscure clue to the police as to when he would strike again. Perhaps he had intended to take it away with him, but was using it in his disturbed mental state because of its Michaelmas symbolism. Whatever he meant by leaving it there, it suddenly seemed blindingly obvious that it was nothing to do with Catherine and was entirely to do with him. He had taken the shawl with him on the night of 29 September, with the intention of killing, and he signalled that he would kill again, on the Michaelmas date that was (if he was Aaron Kosminski, as I strongly believed) part of his own background and the culture of his homeland, not this new Michaelmas he had had to learn in England.

  Kosminski’s family were certainly not wealthy, but they were not semi-destitute, as Catherine was. And in the escape from Poland the shawl could easily have been brought along among his possessions.

  I was bowled over by the realization, but there was a lot more work to be done. I emailed Diane back immediately.

  ‘One last thing, could the shawl have originated in Poland or Russia?
’

  I knew, from the research I had done into Aaron Kosminski, (which we will get to in due course) that he had lived in Poland when it was under Russian rule (hence the need for the Jews to flee) and also possibly in Germany – we know some of his family moved to these countries, and we’re unclear at that stage of his life who, among his siblings, he had lived with.

  Her prompt reply said: ‘I honestly can’t say, but it is possible. I don’t usually have a problem identifying shawls from Western Europe, but this is a bit of a mystery to me – yes, it could be either. Russia of course had a culture of high fashion at the beginning of the 1800s especially.’

  I hit the internet. One of the greatest manufacturers of textiles in Eastern Europe throughout the nineteenth century was based at Pavlovsky Posad, sixty-eight kilometres from Moscow, a fact that I very quickly uncovered. The town of Pavlovsky Posad was founded in 1845 on the site of a number of villages, namely Pavlovo, Dubrovo, Zaharovo and Melenki. From the very beginning the textile industry was its main business, particularly because the original village of Pavlovo had the Pavlovo Posad factory which produced shawls and handkerchiefs. It had been founded in 1795 by Ivan Labsin, a farmer who set up a small workshop to produce silk shawls. Although demand for silk shawls has dwindled over the decades, this factory still operates, mainly making woollen shawls, scarves and kerchiefs, and Russian Orthodox women use the colourful, floral shawls to cover their heads in church.

  Patterns of daisies were one of the popular flower motifs in the production of shawls and scarves at Pavlovsky Posad. The choice of daisies was not surprising, since the religious make-up of the region was Eastern Orthodox Christian, which celebrates Michaelmas as a major feast. Although it was by no means the only possible manufacturer of the shawl, Pavlovsky Posad was a good example of the eastern European silk manufacturing tradition, and my gut instinct took over again, telling me I had found the place where the shawl was made. I was now totally convinced that I was heading full speed in the right direction.

  I was very excited, and again the only person I could share my breakthrough with was Jari. I sent him a message there and then, with a link to the website:

  I’ve just had a breakthrough. Shaking actually. This is strictly between us. I went back to the specialist who told me the shawl isn’t English, and I asked if it could be Russian or Polish. She confirmed it could well be. It has nothing to do with the Huguenots at all. Pavlovsky Posad made shawls from the early 19th century and deeply religious Eastern orthodoxy is where we get the Michaelmas daisies from. He brought it over from Poland with him, and now we have a trail to him.

  Need a pint!!!!

  Jari, as usual, responded encouragingly: ‘Definitely the same style, and the material looks similar.’ He stressed, in typical Jari style, that this new information was not going to influence him or his work. Quite right, but I was desperate for even more progress. I’d been immersed in the Ripper case for twelve years at this point, and it felt as if I was on a pebble beach, turning over every pebble to find something. Every so often, I turned the right pebble and the case moved forward.

  Now the big question facing us was: we knew that the stains on the shawl appeared to contain human DNA, most likely to originate from human blood and other bodily fluids, including semen. We also knew that the shawl almost certainly predated 1888, the year of the Ripper. But could we link the garment conclusively with the murder in Mitre Square? To discover if the DNA recovered from the shawl was truly that of Catherine Eddowes, I would have to find a living descendant who was willing to give us a reference DNA sample for comparison. But my previous research into the Eddowes family tree had hit a dead end.

  And then, fortune stepped in yet again. Although I have gone down many blind alleys, and most of the achievements in this quest have been the result of dogged, time-consuming research, I also know that from time to time I have some good luck. This was one of those occasions.

  Throughout late 2011, the digital TV channel Yesterday had been broadcasting a programme called Find My Past. Each episode set out to reveal how three people were related to characters from a significant historical event by searching the records on www.findmypast.co.uk. Usually, the programme would take on one specific theme per episode, such as the Dam Busters raids, the Gunpowder Plot, the Titanic and the mutiny on the Bounty. Often the characters from these events had some interaction with each other; in a programme about Dunkirk, for example, the story of how one soldier saved the life of another was covered and their descendants introduced to each other.

  In the sixth episode of the first series, first broadcast in November 2011, the theme was Jack the Ripper. Three descendants of people directly linked to the Ripper case were featured: Oliver Boot, the great-grandson of journalist Henry Massingham, deputy editor of the radical Star newspaper which created so many sensational stories during 1888; Dan Neilson, whose ancestor George Hutt was the duty officer at Bishopsgate Police Station the night Catherine Eddowes was taken there for being drunk and incapable the evening before her death; and finally, Karen Miller, the three times great-granddaughter of Catherine Eddowes herself

  I missed the programme when it was first broadcast but saw it online in April 2012, after hearing about it from a Ripper website.

  Catherine Eddowes’ only daughter, Catherine ‘Annie’ Conway, had married Louis Phillips in Southwark in 1885 and together they had seven children. Their eldest daughter Ellen (born 1889) married Joseph Wells in 1912 and they had six children, one of whom was Catherine Annie Wells who married Albert J. Foskett in 1943. In turn their daughter, Margaret Rose, married Eric Miller in 1965 and to them Karen Elizabeth was born in 1971. I now had my direct living descendant of Catherine Eddowes.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. A descendant of Catherine’s was, at that moment, my Holy Grail. And there she was, on the screen, talking openly about the tragic incident in her family’s past. Following clues in the programme and doing some detective work of my own, I discovered where Karen worked and quickly found her contact details.

  The thought of cold-calling a direct descendant of Catherine Eddowes to tell them about the blood on the shawl and ask for DNA samples was rather a daunting one. At first, I felt that somebody else should do it, somebody I could find who would have perhaps more gravitas or standing in historical research than I did and therefore could add the required authority to the request. My lack of confidence was mainly because of the abrupt response I had received from the researcher with links to the victims’ families. I did not want to frighten her off, and see another door close in my face. In the end, I opted to do it myself, schooling myself to be as sensitive as possible.

  I knew this phone call to Karen Miller could go either way – acceptance and cooperation, or the conversation cut short by the sound of the receiver being slammed down. On the positive side, I had seen a couple of Ripper documentaries that were made with the cooperation of the other victims’ families and they appeared to accept their lineage. One showed a Ripper expert taking a direct descendant of Mary Ann Nichols around the East End, even showing her the site where her ancestor had met her death and kick-started history. After the initial shock of discovering they were descended from a Ripper victim it seemed these descendants were keen that the memory of their ancestors should be kept alive because, regardless of the terrible ends these women met, it was history on a wider stage, as well as their own personal family history.

  Still, despite this encouragement, I was aware that this had to be approached correctly and unsensationally. In May 2012, I bit the bullet and made the call. I made it clear to Karen early in the conversation that I am a married man with children: I didn’t want her to think I was a stalker or loner living in a garret with the walls covered in Ripper photos and memorabilia.

  I need not have worried: Karen is a lovely person, and she was very receptive to what I had to say. She, too, could see the importance of directly linking the shawl to her great-great-great grandmother. She said she was very happ
y to supply me with a sample of her DNA, on swabs taken from inside her mouth.

  In criminal cases, the use of DNA evidence has become increasingly common and we read about it all the time in court cases. Where evidence of DNA is found at a crime scene, reference samples are required from a relevant party for comparison purposes. The preferred form of reference sample is a buccal or oral swab. Buccal cells are found inside the mouth, lining the cheeks (buccal is Latin for cheek) and are easy to collect; collection devices are simple to use, inexpensive, and most importantly buccal cells are a reliable source of DNA, hence their frequent use.

  I wrote a letter of confirmation to Karen to effectively seal the deal and then sent her the clean and sterile swabs in their required storage containers with a stamped-addressed envelope to return them to me. And then nothing happened. I was anxiously checking the post every day, and nothing came. I was very worried, convincing myself that she had had second thoughts, that she had talked to someone who had persuaded her against helping. I was on tenterhooks. Thank goodness for my wife Sally, who took a much more sensible perspective, and told me not to bombard Karen with phone calls, texts or emails until at least two weeks had elapsed. I found it hard being patient: here was vital evidence, and it was dangling just out of reach.

  But Sally was right. After the prescribed two weeks, in which I kept myself busy and tried not to think about it, I texted Karen, asking, ‘Is everything all right?’ Back came the reply: it seemed my swab containers had arrived just before she went away for a fortnight’s holiday. It was a salutary reminder to me that normal life went on outside my project, and I could not expect others to share my urgency.