I allow for the benefit of the doubt until their work is disproved. Did I, or anybody for that matter, use the word "conclusive?" I think you are first and only poster to use the word in this thread. Time will tell whether it is "conclusive" or not. Read the article through for their modus operandi. And yes, there will certainly be challengers. I am sure they are keeping this in mind and will be able to furnish the necessary answers in due course.
Jack The Ripper Unmasked?
by metatron 29 Replies latest jw friends
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dropoffyourkeylee
While I initially found the article on the whole very persuasive, after looking it over I'll reserve judgement until the other side weighs in. One thing the first article did not say is that there is indeed a book, to be available next week.
So it suggests that the news article is intended to stump for the book sales.
Why would anyone give is wife a blood stained shawl? And she didn't wear it because she didn't 'like' it? My wife would be grossed out - no way. Then to store it away like a family heirloom, to be sold at auction over 100 years later? Hmm.
It is possible that the whole thing is a hoax, beginning to end. Even the shawl could be a forgery, who knows at this point?
Just my 2 cents
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Viviane
I allow for the benefit of the doubt until their work is disproved.
Why? Would you do the same with someone predicting the end of the world, claiming they really honestly scout's honor decoded the date this time? Why would you wait for something this lacking in evidence to be disproved when it's in no way been proved?
Did I, or anybody for that matter, use the word "conclusive?" I think you are first and only poster to use the word in this thread.
You are 100% correct. Consider my question changed to "why do you consider this legitimate?". It's a distinction without a difference. Given the lack of details and evidence, why do you consider this legitimate, particualy considering all of the competing claims out there? Why does which word I mean make a difference here?
Read the article through for their modus operandi.
You shouldn't assume I didn't read the article. It could possibly be where my questions came from. I know, crazy, right, to read the subject matter before developing questions?
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Vidqun
If someone predicted the date of the end of the world, wait until the date given, and then decide whether it is conclusively legitimate. If nothing materializes (or dematerializes) it is inconclusively illegitimate. Not a difficult concept to grasp. But I think we are digressing from the thread, but you seem to like that. Back to the business at hand. Of all the books I've read, and documentaries I've watched, dealing with the subject, this is the best explanation yet. I also believe it was quite brilliantly done. This remains my personal view, whether you like it or not.
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Viviane
If someone predicted the date of the end of the world, wait until the date given, and then decide whether it is conclusively legitimate. If nothing materializes (or dematerializes) it is inconclusively illegitimate. Not a difficult concept to grasp.
You've managed to completely miss the point. Apparently it was more difficult than you thought.
But I think we are digressing from the thread, but you seem to like that.
We're discussing why you would consider something with such sketchy details legitimate. You've not been able to answer that, so I'm attempting to use analagous examples to help move the conversation along and gain a better understanding of how you evaluate evidence.
Of all the books I've read, and documentaries I've watched, dealing with the subject, this is the best explanation yet.
Why, with such looming questions about the legitimacy, the evidence and the methods?
I also believe it was quite brilliantly done.
Again, why, with such looming questions about the legitimacy, the evidence and the methods?
This remains my personal view, whether you like it or not.
I don't like it or not like it. I'm far more interested in why someone would form that opinion given the complete lack of reason to do so from an evidence standpoint.
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Vidqun
Are you sure you read the article?
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Viviane
Why are you attempting to divert attention from your lack of ability to answer questions about your beliefs?
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Comatose
Unless they were lying intentionally, the DNA work done was what seemed to me to be the best evidence for a culprit so far. I have read a few of the books in the past. They were all circumstantial, this is too, but it has the added weight of DNA that no one else yet has.
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Vidqun
This thread has absolutely nothing to do with my beliefs. Rather let's go to the article. Notice how he sketches the provenance of the shawl:
By 2007, I felt I had exhausted all avenues until I read a newspaper article about the sale of a shawl connected to the Ripper case. Its owner, David Melville-Hayes, believed it had been in his family’s possession since the murder of Catherine Eddowes, when his ancestor, Acting Sergeant Amos Simpson, asked his superiors if he could take it home to give to his wife, a dressmaker.
Incredibly, it was stowed without ever being washed, and was handed down from David’s great-grandmother, Mary Simpson, to his grandmother, Eliza Smith, and then his mother, Eliza Mills, later Hayes.
In 1991, David gave it to Scotland Yard’s CrimeMuseum, where it was placed in storage rather than on display because of the lack of proof of its provenance. In 2001, David reclaimed it, and it was exhibited at the annual Jack the Ripper conference. One forensic test was carried out on it for a Channel 5 documentary in 2006, using a simple cotton swab from a randomly chosen part of the shawl, but it was inconclusive.
Most Ripper experts dismissed it when it came up for auction, but I believed I had hit on something no one else had noticed which linked it to the Ripper. The shawl is patterned with Michaelmas daisies. Today the Christian feast of Michaelmas is archaic, but in Victorian times it was familiar as a quarter day, when rents and debts were due.
I discovered there were two dates for it: one, September 29, in the Western Christian church and the other, November 8, in the Eastern Orthodox church. With a jolt, I realised the two dates coincided precisely with the nights of the last two murder dates. September 29 was the night on which Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes were killed, and November 8 was the night of the final, most horrific of the murders, that of Mary Jane Kelly.
See how he went about his business and the people he asked to assist:
Dr Jari Louhelainen is a leading expert in genetic evidence from historical crime scenes, combining his day job as senior lecturer in molecular biology at Liverpool John Moores University with working on cold cases for Interpol and other projects. He agreed to conduct tests on the shawl in his spare time.
The tests began in 2011, when Jari used special photographic analysis to establish what the stains were.
Using an infrared camera, he was able to tell me the dark stains were not just blood, but consistent with arterial blood spatter caused by slashing – exactly the grim death Catherine Eddowes had met.
But the next revelation was the most heart-stopping. Under UV photography, a set of fluorescent stains showed up which Jari said had the characteristics of semen. I’d never expected to find evidence of the Ripper himself, so this was thrilling, although Jari cautioned me that more testing was required before any conclusions could be drawn.
Then he goes on to describe how they were successful in utilizing mitochondrial DNA in their identification. Quite impressive, if you ask me.
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Viviane
Unless they were lying intentionally, the DNA work done was what seemed to me to be the best evidence for a culprit so far.
There are a host of possibilities besides outright lying as to why this should be suspect.
They were all circumstantial, this is too, but it has the added weight of DNA that no one else yet has.
It *may* have the added weight of DNA.