Naming Jack the Ripper: The Biggest Forensic Breakthrough Since 1888 (24 page)

So the natural dye used on the shawl strongly suggested a date in keeping with the probability that it existed before 1870, which tied in with what the experts at Christie’s and
Sotheby’s had told me when I asked for their advice. But now we had more than expert opinion, we had proof. Even more excitingly, Fyaz Ismail felt that the dye also had characteristics
similar to those he had seen before which came from Russia, notably the St Petersburg area.

Dyes apparently have different properties owing to the different ingredients available for their synthesis in any given locale. Also, silk dyeing was a competitive and secretive business, and
very little was written down – the recipes were handed down from generation to generation. Consequently they all differed, and it was possible to pinpoint a specific area. This was another
significant and exciting discovery which made me feel that fate was on my side, and that my gut feelings were being transformed into real evidence. I remember thinking: I keep unpeeling this onion,
and as every layer comes off it’s a massive, breathtaking moment. Is this all too good to be true?

We were now ready for what was going to be the most important test so far – the comparison of the DNA extracted from the bloodstains on the shawl
with that of Karen Miller.

To do this it was vital that we had what are called ‘control samples’ from various individuals who had handled the shawl over the previous twelve months, in order to eradicate any
potential recent traces of anybody else’s DNA. These samples were taken from myself and all the members of the team who had worked on the shawl, including Jari. Along with the sample from
Karen Miller, all were purified, meaning that the DNA itself from each sample was isolated using a combination of physical and chemical methods. Since the shawl was over a hundred years old,
unsurprisingly, the genomic DNA from it was found to be fragmented and not appropriate for use. Fortunately, we also had samples of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is of course passed down
intact over many generations via the female line. We therefore had a direct, uninterrupted genetic link along the female line between Karen Miller and Catherine Eddowes and thus Karen’s mtDNA
should, we hoped, be identical to that of Catherine.

Due to the age of the material on the shawl, the human mtDNA was amplified in seven small segments to facilitate the analysis. If Jari had tried to amplify a larger DNA fragment in one go, there
was a high chance of a double strand break (i.e. the DNA is cut into two pieces) somewhere in the segment and the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) would fail. By doing smaller segments, there was a
higher chance of finding an intact fragment. This approach is normally required with ancient or damaged DNA samples, because of the risk of fragmentation with age, even when properly stored. PCR is
currently the standard method used in DNA base forensics and also medical
diagnosis. It basically replicates a single section of DNA strand millions of times, thus giving a
sound base to work from. The amplification process was performed with a method which responded specifically to human DNA samples, so that any stains consisting of animal blood would not produce a
result.

To find out the possible matches and mismatches, DNA needs to be sequenced. The DNA is made of four components called nucleotides which are adenine (A), guanidine (G), cytosine (C) and thymine
(T). In DNA these are arranged in a chain which can have any of these in any order (or there can be a stretch of nucleotides which are the same, for example like AAAA or GGGGGG). Between two
individuals the DNA sequence is identical for a vast majority of the sequence which is why it is necessary to select an area which is known to have some variation between individuals of the same
species. In mtDNA there are two areas called hypervariable region I and hypervariable region II, which are known to contain variations in a normal population, so when two normal individuals are
compared there are likely to be differences. The mtDNA segments which were amplified were all in these two regions. When this was performed on our control samples and to the samples extracted from
the shawl, we could then compare them by looking at the order of those nucleotides.

Six out of seven of the mtDNA segments subjected to DNA sequencing analysis were successful, in other words, we had six complete DNA profiles that could be used for profiling. Only results
fulfilling the highest quality control were accepted and this was done using the Phred quality score, a widely used method of measuring the quality of a DNA sequence. The most commonly used method
is to work with a Phred score
of 20 or above, which dictates that the level of accuracy will be 99 per cent or higher.

The result of the first complete DNA profile was an incredible ‘Eureka!’ moment, and confirmed that the shawl contains human mtDNA identical to Karen
Miller’s, based on that particular mtDNA segment.

Jari was still being a scientist, and stressing caution. He had to stay neutral, but even he was admitting it was a very good match. For me, it was cause for a celebration and I must admit to
visiting the pub and sinking a few pints. Just occasionally, I had to let my hair down and revel in how far we had got.

When work started analysing the other mtDNA sections, it was found that two others showed contamination from fresh DNA (matching with one of the reference samples). However, this is a well-known
and well-documented problem with ancient DNA samples as fresh, non-fragmented DNA amplifies much more readily than older DNA and so contamination like this is known to occasionally take place.
However, such contamination could not be responsible for the match between the mtDNA sequences from the shawl and that of Karen Miller.

One of the amplified mtDNA segments from the blood found on the shawl matched Karen’s, and had a sequence variation which gave a match with the mtDNA of Karen Miller
only
and did
not match any of the other control samples. The variation is known as a Global Private Mutation, a rare gene variation that is usually found only in a single family or a small population. According
to the database of the Institute of Legal Medicine and based on the latest information available, the variation that both Karen’s DNA and the DNA from the
bloodstains
on the shawl shared has a frequency estimate of only 0.000003506, in other words, it is present in only 1 in 290,000 of the world’s population.

To put the genetic variation discovery into context, it means that as the United Kingdom currently has a population of around 63,750,000, Karen Miller is one of only around 223 people in the
country
who possesses this genetic variation. If that ratio was the same back in 1888, when the UK population would have stood at about 36,000,000, Catherine Eddowes, whose blood (also
containing that variation) appears to be on the shawl, would have been only one of about 136 people in the country with that variation. To work proportionally with that statistic, Catherine would
have been one of only about a dozen people with that variation in London in 1888 when the population stood at about 4,000,000. Karen Miller is one of about twenty-five people in London with the
variation today. Considering that Catherine Eddowes’ daughter Annie’s descendants stayed in the same area of London (Bermondsey and Southwark) for generations, and Karen herself was
born in South London too, this really does narrow down the field.

Jari sent me a summary of his findings, which more or less repeats what I have explained, but may be of more interest to any scientists reading this:

So there it is, in Jari’s dispassionate prose: ‘Hence the analysis strongly suggests that the shawl could contain the DNA of the Jack the Ripper victim Catherine
Eddowes.’

Science appears to have proven that the shawl was what it was said to be. It
must
have been at the scene of the crime back on 30 September 1888 and shows traces of Catherine
Eddowes’ blood, proven to match that of her direct female descendant. On its own, this makes the shawl probably the single most important find in Ripper history; no knife, diary or letter has
ever been linked with these murders so conclusively. For me this was an incredible ‘wow’ moment. Despite all the peaks and troughs of this journey, things were suddenly going in a way
that vindicated the shawl and my reasons for buying it.

But there was still a long way to go. Research had shown that
the shawl was the right age, was most likely eastern European in origin and was present at the Eddowes
murder. My feeling that it had come from the killer himself was growing stronger by the day and the figure of Aaron Kosminski was looming larger in my thoughts. We knew the shawl also contained
other human material, and this time we would be using this evidence not to prove simply that the shawl was genuine and had been at the scene of the crime, but to solve the greatest murder mystery
of all time: the true identity of Jack the Ripper.

CHAPTER TEN

NARROWING DOWN THE SUSPECTS

I
t was in 2007, soon after Alan McCormack gave me the name, that I started my research into Aaron Kosminski. But then the other aspects of the
investigation took centre stage, and it wasn’t until many years later that I started looking at him in earnest again. There was still a niggling doubt in my mind: yes, we had almost certainly
got the Ripper’s DNA. But what if the Ripper was not Kosminski? I was going on what Alan had told me, but there were other plausible cases made for suspects who seemed, at first sight, to be
just as possible as him.

So before I go into the story of Kosminski, let’s look at the other possible Rippers.

The official files were not released to the public until the 1970s, and the detectives and senior policemen who were on the case in 1888 left nothing more than oblique references in their
memoirs, so the case was wide open to all sorts of mad theories being put forward. With so little actual evidence, it was possible to make a case for almost anyone, many suggestions bizarre and
almost laughable.

In the years since the last victim’s death, the Whitechapel murderer has been a Jewish slaughterman, an escaped lunatic, a mad medical student, an avenging doctor,
a homicidal midwife and even a member of the royal family. One early theory was that the killer was several men who came from Portugal on the cattle boats. It wasn’t ruled out by the police,
and it joined a slew of other tip-offs about foreign sailors who worked on ships that were berthed on the Thames. Extensive searches of the docks and the ships that were moored there on the nights
of the murders were made and every man was expected to account for himself.

A popular belief was that the Ripper was an escaped lunatic, and this story was even more sensational if the lunatic also happened to be foreign. In the official files now held at the National
Archives, there are numerous reports of suspects in this category. Jacob Isenschmid, known as the ‘mad butcher’ and who had spent some time in an asylum, became a suspect after the
murder of Annie Chapman when the police were tipped off about his unusual and often aggressive behaviour. Inspector Abberline heard about Isenschmid, and he was promptly found and incarcerated
while the police made their enquiries. In fact Abberline went so far as to believe that he sounded just like the man that Mrs Fiddymont and friend had seen in the Prince Albert pub on the morning
of the Chapman murder. From what we can see from the reports, Isenschmid was an individual of great interest to the police, but he was believed to be so insane that the doctors would not allow him
to be used in an identity parade. Eventually the fact that he was safely out of circulation in custody when the later murders occurred proved his innocence, if not his sanity.