The businessman who had Dr. Louhelainen test the shawl is named Russell Edwards – he owns the shawl and also had a book coming out named “Naming Jack the Ripper”. This claim coming out right around the time his book was meant to was probably done to boost sales.
Scientists quickly pointed out that he had made an error in his calculations. The mutation that he claimed to have matched was 314.1C. This is a very rare mutation and could be used as evidence, except for the fact that he had made an error – the mutation he actually looked at was 315.1C – a mutation that’s shared by about 99% of Europe.
Dr.
Louhelainen’s work hasn’t been peer reviewed (as best as I can tell, at least, as I haven’t found anything from him but if anyone does, then yay peer reviewed article?). That doesn’t mean it’s valid or not, and there certainly are articles that have been published in a peer-reviewed journal that…should not have been, but still, it’s a bit odd that he’s made this claim and I haven’t seen it published in any journals.
The shawl has been touched by many people over the years, and there may be DNA from other researchers on there – it’s not a clean piece of evidence to use.
As of yet it’s just him and his team claiming they’ve found this match, and unless it’s been replicated by others, it’s not a valid claim.
Oh gosh I remember this. Seconding the above and adding “it sure is interesting how Jack the Ripper was ‘revealed’ to be a Jewish Polish immigrant at the exact same time prejudice towards all three of those groups was on the rise in Britain”
