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So we're talking about this DNA evidence, supposedly according to this historian who worked with some forensic scientists matching DNA from one of the victim's silk shawl with this Polish barber, Aaron Kosminsky, who lived in the Whitechapel area. He was a barber. By all accounts, he had some mental health issues.
I think he was suffering from paranoia and delusions. Do you think that sort of fits, you know, with the gruesome nature of the murders or is it maybe a distraction from more tangible evidence.
I mean, great question, and I think the answer is we just don't know. Typically, serial killers, at least you know, from what I've learned, they're very sort of well put together in terms of their methodology and their thinking. They're very focused. They're very clearly focused. I was talking before the break, many of them sort of have this OCD component. With the respect to the BTK serial killer whose daughter I'd become friends with, interesting people hosting true crime shows.
But you know, he was able to literally one moment, Dennis Rader could be the president of the church. He was an animal control officer. He was a family man, but then he could compartmentalize and then go ahead and do this. But he, to you know, the average person, was seemingly a very normal, functioning member of society. And I was also, as you were reading about Aaron Kazminsky, he did have some mental health issues. He was a barber,
you know, he could fit the bill. But there are plenty of serial killers who obviously are depraved and demented, but at least they give the outward appearance that they are functioning normally in society, whereas Kuzminsky didn't. So maybe it was a bit of a red herring. We simply don't know.
Right because my understanding he was also confined to an asylum from time to time, raising some questions about the timeline timeline of the murders and could he have continued killing even while institutionalized. The other aspect here that has come to light is that, well Kuzminsky was a Polish Jew.
There were some tensions in Whitechapel at the time. In fact, I think some of the police that were investigating this wrote in sort of the margins of a police report referring to Cosminsky as a dirty Jew, raising the question that maybe this the suspicion surrounding because Minsky may have been influenced by anti Semitic attitudes of the period.
I'm so glad you brought that up. I am Jewish myself, and I guess not a lot changes over one hundred and thirty seven, one hundred and thirty eight years, because we see a big rise in anti Semitism today. But back then in eighteen eighty eight, obviously before World War One or World War two, but tensions were rising. It was a very poor, as I was saying, poor section of East London. The Jewish people were treated as scapegoats, and the media, you know, the media pretends to be objective.
I was once a part of legacy media, but back then the media was also a little bit unhinged and they would print things as fact, even though a lot of what they were saying was xenophobic and anti Semitic. But newspapers wodspread rumors that the killer was likely Jewish or a foreigner. Again, there were a lot of people coming in from Ireland at that time, immigrating into into London.
So again it could have been the power and influence of the media at the time that sort of drew people to think, Hey, maybe it's this Jewish guy Aaron Kasminsky, this Polish barber. Again, you know, this guy Russell Edwards, the British author and researcher. He is standing by his his findings, but not everybody is doing the same people.
It was. His study was put out in the Journal of Forensic Sciences, and afterwards the publication came out and says said it had its own concerns because this guy, Russell Edwards, could not produce a lot of sort of the original data that he was basing this on, and he was kind of struggling with questions over the method dollar to use. So the scientific journalist said, hey, wait a minute, So they're questioning it, but she is not.
And again, as you point out, the concern also is that the DNA evidence that was extracted from this silk shawl reportedly belonging to one of the victims, Catherine Edos. There's questions about the chain of custody. Was that, in fact, even found in a crime scene, did that shawl belong to Catherine Edos. I suppose what would be really handy to sort of help nail this case closed would be maybe a photograph of Catherine Edos wearing such a silk shawl.
But you know, photography was just sort of in its infancy back then, so that would be a very rare fine. But I mean, that would really go a long way to nailing this shut, don't you think.
Yeah? And you know, I'm sure they're looking for it and trying to find that. As far as I know, it has not been found. And again, this Journal of Forensic Sciences, where this this paper was essentially published saying it is a shawl belonging to Cathernetto's victim of Jack
the Ripper, the publication itself is questioning it. And there is sort of like a fierce combative I don't want to say a competition, but these researchers and criminologists and people who study this study ripperology, they want to be the ones to say, hey, I've unmasked this one hundred and thirty seven hundred and thirty eight year old mystery and others this happens, you know, And I'm not a scientist and was never really part of that world, but
I have friends who are. It's very competitive. People want to sort of win right. So there are other suspects out there. Other researchers are saying no, Russell Edwards is wrong. But he's gotten, to his credit, he's gotten family members from both sides, from Kozminski and from Catherine Edos to come forward and basically substantiate his findings, although they're not scientists and we're researchers, but are basically standing behind him saying, yeah,
this is one hundred percent who it was. This is Jack the Ripper. But I can tell you I don't think the debate is over. But to your point, again, they are able to find a photo and pinpoint this silk shawl actually belongs to Katherine Edos and was also at the scene, which is gonna be tough to do. You know, cell phones aren't that old, Richard. It's gonna be it's gonna be a challenge still to solve this.
Would he make of the claim that Aaron Kosminsky or whomever is Jack was Jack the Ripper may have had an accomplice. I mean, I've heard the rumblings about this. Is there any evidence that you've read or come across suggesting someone else was acting or was involved or to your mind, is it pretty well settled that Jack Ripper was acting alone.
No heard the same thing as you have that you know that there are quote unquote co conspirators, but you know, you see that today. One of the cases that we obviously cover very closely here is the tragic and brutal murders of the four University of Idaho students, and the accused killer there is a guy named Brian coberg Or. In just last week, they came out and said that one of the victims has three different foreign forms of
male DNA under her fingernails. Now, that comes from a lot of different things, But there are a lot of people who are into conspiracy theories and believe there's no way Brian coburg Or acted alone. And I think that plays to the same point as Jack the Ripper. People, you know, think that these acts, these gruesome murders, you know where he's disemboweling people just simply couldn't be carried
out by one person, same way Brian koberg Er. People say there's no way he could have murdered four college kids basically in fifteen minutes and left without much of a crime scene behind him. There's had to be tons of blood, there was very little at the scene, none in his car. So all this sort of you know, uh,
perpetuates these conspiracy theories. And while people say that Jack the Ripper had an accomplice, I think most people who really are into ripperology as it is known, I think most people who are really into it and dedicated to it, they believe that it was all perpetrated by one killer.
Now maybe it's just me, but it seems like, I mean, we have now the newspapers filled with you know, mass killings and mass shootings unfortunately, but serial killers. I mean, I'm trying to remember the last sort of high profile serial killer. And you mentioned, of course, the BTK killer Dennis Rader, and his killing spree ran almost twenty years, but it ended around nineteen ninety one. And I'm trying to think, like the era, if we can use that term of the serial killer, it seems like we just
don't hear a lot about them anymore. What do you suppose that is? I mean, does it have anything to do with hitchhiking? For example, hitchhikers were like common prey for serial killers. Nobody hitchhikes anymore. Do you think those that's related.
These are great questions. I mean, I think the bottom line is, well, two things. There are definitely still serial killers out there among us. However, it is just becoming across the board. And this is a great thing. It's becoming so much harder to commit rhymes and get away with them. You know, there have been instances in the last couple of years of just men going missing in Austin, Texas and a lot of them found drowned, you know, in a lake there, so people suspect maybe there's a
serial killer there. There's no question that there's people still actively committing these murders on a grand scale, but it is also becoming next to them possible to commit like the perfect murder. I mean, digital forensics is just advancing. It's such a rapid pace that if you're going to do something in this day and age, you're likely going to get caught. But if you go back, you know, like you said, the days of Ted Bundy or Ed Gean or these other guys, John Wayne Gacy, it was
just a different time. You know, no cell phones, people weren't taking pictures of every single thingying. There wasn't social media. Now, if you're going to do something untoured. You're definitely you're definitely getting caught on a camera by someone somewhere somehow. And I think it's just much more difficult to perpetuate a series of murders than it was, you know, even a decade or two decades, definitely three decades ago.
Right, everyone's submitting DNA voluntarily now to ancestry dot com and twenty what is it twenty three and me. So even if you have no prior record, no prior run ins with police where you haven't given fingerprints or DNA evidence, they just you know, if they suspect you, they go to a relative and they get their DNA.
Yeah, one hundred percent. I mean you'll see headlines if you look. I mean I'm looking more than most people because it's kind of the world I live in right now. But almost every day there's a company in Texas called as Ran. They do great work in terms of like DNA sequencing and tracing, and they're fine killers daily from like fifty you know, fifty sixty years ago. You know one serial killer who is fine Bars right now making a lot of headlines as the Long Island serial killer.
The accused. There is a guy named Rex Sheuerman, who is said to have killed all these sex workers in Long Island. So and he was operating till fairly recently, but they believe, you know, he could be responsible upwards of forty or fifty possibly more murders. And they're still investigating that. And you know, they were just able to they were tracked him down through a pizza crust DNA on a pizza crust led investigators back to him.
Do you believe we're finally getting close to solving the mystery of Jackie Ripper with the identification of Aaron Kasminsky or do you think this case is going to remain unsolved with more questions than answers.
Great question and for complete transparency. I honestly don't know. My gut tells me. My gut tells me that it is not this guy kauz Minsky. He doesn't exactly fit the bill. It'd be fascinating, Richard, for you to get a criminal profile or on maybe and I could suggest some to you to kind of look at his background much more extensively. It's an entire science onto itself. But
there are other big name suspects. I don't think they're gonna be able to go off of the kind of degraded DNA from one hundred and thirty seven years ago, not to mention the fact that they're not one hundred percent certain that that even belonged to Katherine Edos or was even at the crime scene. But it makes for amazing headlines. It obviously stirs up the conversation again. It
also energizes the other ripperologists who are studying this. I think eventually we're gonna get a name that more people agree upon, and there will be some sort of consensus. The science now is just too good. The question, of course, is if they can get material that's strong enough from that many years back.
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