Tag Archives: Forensics

THE REAL JACK THE RIPPER

AA11Who was the real Jack The Ripper? The man who terrorized London in the fall of 1888 by butchering at least five prostitutes is the world’s most famous serial killer who’s never been caught.  What did the original investigation tell us about him and what has modern forensics learned about his true identity? 

The name originates from a letter sent to police by someone claiming to be the murderer and it was signed ‘Jack The Ripper’. Like so much in the Ripper case, it’s difficult to sort fact from fiction as evidence has been lost over time and many ‘facts’ are actually opinions by writers from the past century.

AA12Jack The Ripper has remained in the public’s fascination thanks to the mass of publicity that the murders originally received in the press. It was at a time of immense social change and the public were becoming more literate. As well, technology had advanced and allowed the immediate flow of information to the world. Readers followed the case daily as the cat and mouse game between the police and the Ripper appeared to play out in the newspapers. The mysteries surrounding this killer add to the romance of the story and create an intellectual puzzle that people still want to solve.

Interestingly, the series of murders stopped as abruptly as they started. Over the years, hundreds of books have been written about the Ripper and dozens of suspects have been named. No one was ever charged, however strong accusations are now made as the result of applying modern forensic techniques to hundred year old evidence.

First let’s look at the crimes. 

AA5It’s not clear how many women Jack The Ripper killed. Five for sure. Probably six. And possibly up to eleven murders that occurred in the Whitechapel area of London over a several year period. The nexus (connection) to the core group, known as the Canonical Five, comes from the killer’s unique MO (modus operandi) and the proximity in area and time in which the bodies were found. The victims were:

  1. Mary Ann (Polly) Nichols – murdered 31 August 1888.

  2. Annie Chapman – murdered 08 September 1888.

  3. Elizabeth Stride – murdered 30 September 1888.

  4. Catherine Eddowes – murdered 30 September 1888.

  5. Mary Jane Kelly – murdered 09 November 1888.

AA10All of the victims were killed in the dark and in isolated locations. Pathology confirmed they were first strangled to unconsciousness, then finished off with lacerated throats. The degree of mutilation varied. One only had her throat slit (it may be that the killer was interrupted and scared off) while the others were extremely mutilated with organs removed. There was no evidence of recent sexual activity indicating, as with most serial killings, violence was the key element.

There’s been much speculation that the killer had advanced medical knowledge and used precision instruments in his work. This is not the case when analyzed objectively. The original autopsy reports are publically available, all confirming that the incisions and organ extractions could be done by anyone with reasonable strength using a large butcher knife in a rage.

There were an unconfirmed number of taunting letters received by the police and the press from different people, with different handwriting, claiming to be the killer.

AA13The first was on September 25th and was signed ‘Jack The Ripper’. None of the letters are believed to be from the killer and none contained what would be ‘hold-back’ information, known only to the police and the actual killer. It’s certain that most were from media people fueling newspaper sales and some came from quacks.

The investigation was principly handled by the City of London police with Scotland Yard assisting. Hundreds of leads were followed and forensic techniques of the day were applied, mostly sketches and photographs. This was long before DNA science and even proper fingerprinting, so there’s no actual evidence or signature available to identify the perpetrator. Unfortunately, most of the investigation files and physical exhibits were destroyed during the Blitz in World War Two.

Three men were primarily identified as suspects.

AA15M.J. Druitt was a troubled barrister turned teacher who committed suicide a month after the last murder. Aaron Kosminiski was a Polish Jew who was locked in an asylum shortly after the murders and died in 1919. Michael Ostrog was the third police suspect, but the evidence against him was non-existent except that he was a demented con-man.

Many conspiracy theories popped up over the decades blaming the Freemasons, Irish extremists trying to terrorize the British, occultists, and even the grandson of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert Victor. A visit to Wikipedia finds a list of twenty-eight documented suspects – some quite a stretch.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_the_Ripper_suspects

In 1988 the FBI did a psychological profile on Jack The Ripper, describing him pretty much as a white male with mommy issues. It’s an interesting read and can be downloaded here:  https://vault.fbi.gov/Jack%20the%20Ripper/Jack%20the%20Ripper%20Part%201%20of%201/view

AA4Recently, two books were published that profess to conclusively solve the Ripper mystery. One was by famed crime novelist Patricia Cornwell titled Portrait of a Killer – Jack The Ripper – Cased Closed. She identifies a tormented artist named Walter Sickert who undoubtedly penned a few of the Ripper letters and she makes a case at forensically proving his authorship. But she comes a long way from providing any link to his hands-on being the Killer and I’m surprised she stuck her neck out, given her prominence as a crime writer.

The second book is titled Naming Jack The Ripper. It’s by Russell Edwards who claims that he privately funded a research project which identified DNA linked to Aaron Kosiminski on a shawl associated to victim Catherine Eddowes. This molecular identification is seriously questioned by DNA experts, including the discoverer of the technique, Sir Francis Crick.

AA3And at this writing, August 2015, another forensic venture is underway in an attempt to solve the Ripper mystery. Dr. Wynne Weston-Davies claims in his new book The Real Mary Kelly that Jack The Ripper was actually Kelly’s husband who staged the first four murders in a set-up to hide his fiendish plan to kill his prostitute wife, making it look like a serial killer was at work. Weston-Davies has applied to the British Ministry of Justice for an exhumation order to dig up Mary Kelly for a DNA sample to support his belief that he’s Mary Kelly’s great, great nephew. How all that ties together, I’m not sure.

So who, really, was Jack The Ripper?

He remains a bogey-man from the shadows and it’s unlikely we’ll ever know his identity.

5 WAYS SHERLOCK HOLMES SHAPED MODERN FORENSICS

“In solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backward.” 

AC1So wrote Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as his literary counterpart, Sherlock Holmes, in A Study in Scarlet. Doyle was a scientist and a trained physician, so when he imagined the great detective, he used science to set him apart from other crime practitioners.

Where a policeman of the day would round up the usual suspects and beat a confession out of an unlucky bloke, Holmes employed deduction, the scientific method, and an acute sense of observation. Here’s five of his techniques that were ahead of his time.

1. Detective work.

 “I am glad of all the details … whether they seem to you to be relevant or not.”
– The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

AC4The fictional Holmes revelled in tiny details, and caught everyone by surprise by defining a subject with details relating to height, weight, gait, carrying a load, occupation and other surprising summaries simply by observing a wet foot print in a garden. He also explained how the evidence led to his accurate conclusion. And when the perpetrator was finally discovered and captured, the physical description was uncanny.

In addition, his ability to ‘reason backwards’ (looking at the criminal act and working his way backwards to lead him to evidence) helped guide him to a conclusion, a motive, and a culprit.

2. Fingerprints.

 “As you may know, no two human fingerprints are ever alike.”
– The Brass Elephant

AC6Holmes identified and used fingerprints initially in The Sign of Four, published in 1890. Scotland Yard did not adapt fingerprint recovery, comparison, and identification process until almost 11 years after The Sign of Four was published. He did not use fingerprints as the defining evidence, however — generally, the case was irrefutably solved by a variety of clues leading to the correct solution.

In The Adventure of the Norwood Builder, Inspector Lestrade thought he had his murderer when he was able to match a bloody print to John Hector McFarlane, an obvious suspect. Holmes was able to prove that MacFarlane was innocent.

Today, fingerprints are a standard method of identification for human individuals. Now stored in computer databases, analyzed and compared within seconds, fingerprints still require corroborating evidence to tell the whole story.

3. Ciphers.

 “But what is the use of a cipher message without the cipher?”
– The Valley of Fear

AC11In many cases in Victorian times, clues were hidden in ciphers, or coded messages which required a ‘key’ to ascertain letter substitutions. In The Dancing Men, Holmes analysed 160 separate cyphers, determined that the letter ‘e’ was the most common letter in the English language, and was able to proceed to the answer. In “The Gloria Scott”, he deduced that every third word in lines of gibberish created the message that frightened Old Trevor.

Many of these cipher techniques were applied during the World Wars to decipher messages from the enemy, and law enforcement in many countries have also worked through ciphers using procedures described by Conan Doyle.

4. Footprints.

“Footprints?” ” Yes, footprints.” “A man’s or a woman’s?”
“Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a giant hound.”
– The Hound of the Baskervilles

AC10From the very first story in the Holmes series to the 57th story (The Lion’s Mane from 1926), 29 of the 60 stories revealed and solved footprint evidence. Footprints were found in soil, mud, and clay. They were on carpet, in snow, ash, and even on drapes and doors — each mark was worth discussion, each print told a story that was instrumental to the outcome.

Sherlock Holmes ‘wrote’ an educational treatise on the preservation of footprints, entitled “The tracing of footsteps, with some remarks upon the uses of Plaster of Paris as a preserver of impresses”. The techniques so described have become a mainstay in preserving prints of shoes, tires, tools, and other depressions by police departments worldwide.

5. Handwriting.

“We must look for consistency. Where there is a want of it we must suspect deception”
– The Problem of Thor Bridge

In Victorian London, handwriting was more prevalent than it is today.

AC12Holmes was able to deduce many details from the written word. By inspecting the pressure, angle, swirls, and consistency, Holmes could tell the gender, class, and maturity of the author. He could also make determinations about the character of the person whose penmanship was under scrutiny. In The Norwood Builder, Holmes determines by the timing of the imperfections in the scrawl of a will, that it was written aboard a train. Knowing that such an important document would not be transcribed in such a fashion, he correctly assumed duress.

Today, handwriting analysis is used to determine forgeries, psychological profiling, and alterations in handwriting due to the influence of drugs, alcohol, duress, exhaustion, or illness.

The ransom note left at the scene of the JonBenet Ramsey murder is a prime example. It was intensely scrutinized and attempts were made to tie it to one of the parents.

The results remain inconclusive.

*   *   *

AC13This article was originally published by my friends at Forensic Outreach, one of the best forensic education sites on the internet. They’ve now launched a new site called CASE Academy which I’m proud to support.

AC15Doug Filter wrote this article for Forensic Outreach. He’s worked in legal support for three decades, developing visual communication tools that help litigators, prosecutors, and defense attorneys tell stories in court. Doug is an author, presenter, and designer. He’s worked on cases ranging from mapping body locations by interviewing a serial killer to explaining and animating the life style of trout in a water pollution case.

Doug’s speciality is learning scientific, technical, medical and complex case details and then explaining them to an audience of fact finders in a courtroom setting. He’s worked in jurisdictions in North America, South America, and Europe.

FORENSIC FACTS IN THE JFK ASSASSINATION

Forensic WorkshopHere’s a bit of news for DyingWords followers that I’m kinda proud to share. I’ve been invited to present at the 4th International Conference on Forensic Research & Technology being held on September 28-30, 2015, in Atlanta.  I’ll be doing a 2 hour workshop on The Forensic Facts in the JFK Assassination. 

The theme of this years conference is From Evidence To Verdict . It’s a prestigious event attended by hundreds of prominent forensic scientists and tech wizards from around the world, so it’s really humbling to be recognized for my dig into the JFK murder. Here’s the abstract I submitted which outlines the presentation.

LHO Backyard 6Fifty-one years after United States President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, nearly eighty percent of Americans polled believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was involved in a conspiracy to murder JFK. A portion even think that Oswald might have been completely innocent – the ‘patsy’ which Oswald claimed to be.

The JFK evidence was never presented in a trial and Oswald’s ‘twelve peers’ were never asked to deliver a verdict because Oswald was murdered before he could stand trial. Six different government investigations have resulted in conflicting conclusions. In fact, the last probe in 1978 found a possibility that a second gunman fired, therefore there was a ‘probability’ of conspiracy.

CE399A half century has produced many forensic breakthroughs, some of which applied to the JFK homicide give us a better understanding of what really went down in Dealey Plaza, on November 22nd, 1963, and a clearer look at Lee Harvey Oswald’s guilt or innocence.

If you were presented the factual forensic evidence, what would your verdict be?

LHO Rifle -Lt DayJoin retired homicide detective, forensic coroner, and firearms expert Garry Rodgers as he lays out the forensic facts in the JFK case and how modern science interprets it. Rodgers’s life-long study of the most thoroughly investigated, highest profile homicide case of all time is delivered in an easy to follow and understand look at the ballistics, acoustics, autopsy, photographic, fingerprint, document, and other forensic evidence.

Attend this two hour workshop and deliver your own verdict on who murdered America’s 35th President.

Here’s the link to the conference website  http://forensicresearch.conferenceseries.com/ There’s a cool promo-banner there.

JFKSome additional news is that my book Lone Nuts – A No BS Guide to the JFK Assassination is with Wiley Publishing to be released as The JFK Assassination For Dummies.