Naming Jack the Ripper: The Biggest Forensic Breakthrough Since 1888 (18 page)

The name of the ‘charwoman’ who supposedly owned the shawl is missing from the story. If the tale is genuine (and it is almost too bizarre to have been invented)
and the shawl mentioned was actually the one supposedly taken from Catherine Eddowes, then the identity of the ‘charwoman’ could have been Amos Simpson’s wife, Jane, who we know
did not like or want the shawl.

Records of Jane’s employment status are very thin on the ground; in the census records for most of her adult life, the relevant section was left blank, as it was on her marriage
certificate. However, in the 1871 census, Jane (Wilkins) of Bourton-on-the-Water, aged twenty-three, is listed as housemaid to John Bundy and his daughter Elizabeth at their home at 46 Crowndale
Road, St Pancras. Jane Wilkins would marry Amos Simpson at Old St Pancras Church three years
later in the presence of Elizabeth Bundy, and perhaps by the early 1890s,
working as a domestic elsewhere, she was giving serious consideration to getting the shawl out of her home, a plan that never reached fruition. Although she was married to a policeman and had two
children to care for, like many women Jane may have worked as a cleaner to add to their income, although this is purely supposition on my part. The
Collector
article is a possible
near-contemporary reference to the shawl. It may simply be a coincidence, but David Melville-Hayes told me when I met him that he believed a relative, possibly Amos’s son, worked at the
Cheshire Cheese pub at around the time that the shawl was offered for sale in 1891, staying there until 1900.

By the time Bill Waddell at the Scotland Yard Black Museum was made aware of the shawl’s existence a hundred years later, David Melville-Hayes had removed two pieces and
framed them for John and Janice Dowler. David first approached the museum in late 1991: he felt the museum was the right home for such a bizarre item as the shawl. Waddell was interested in finding
out more, and so Hayes was invited to Scotland Yard to show the shawl. Impressed, Waddell asked Hayes if he was prepared to let them have the shawl as part of their collection and Hayes agreed, on
the proviso that it was strictly ‘on loan’. With the museum not open to the public, the shawl spent the next six years hidden away, safe but inaccessible to all but those privileged
visitors to ‘The Black’. It was in 1997 that Andy and Sue Parlour became involved.

The Parlours’ interest in Jack the Ripper was sparked around 1992 when, during research into Andy’s family tree, they discovered that he was descended from George Nichols,
the cousin of Mary Ann Nichols. Andy himself hailed from the East End and had moved with his family to Essex in the 1960s, as many East Enders had done before (and still do). From
there on, the Parlours began researching the murders in earnest, visiting the crime scenes and archives across the country, as well as creating their own research business, ASP Historical Research,
and Ten Bells Publishing, named after the famous Spitalfields pub.

Living in Clacton-on-Sea, the Parlours had heard the story that a local resident owned a shawl associated with one of the Ripper’s victims. By now, the framed cuttings had passed from the
Dowlers to an antiques dealer in Thetford and the Parlours were able to buy them from there. The hunt was soon on to find the mysterious owner of the rest of the shawl. They found him, but not in a
way they would have anticipated.

One Sunday morning, early in 1997, the Parlours were at a local antiques fair, looking for old London prints and other related ephemera, when they fell into conversation with a stall owner, a
distinguished-looking gentleman who asked them why they were specifically looking for items relating to the East End. Hearing that they were researching the Ripper murders, the stallholder said
that he had a connection to the story, adding that he was in possession of an artefact directly relating to Catherine Eddowes. By some amazing stroke of serendipity, the Parlours had found David
Melville-Hayes. Letting him know that they were the current owners of the framed sections, they asked where the rest of the shawl was and he told them that it was in the Black Museum at Scotland
Yard.

At that time, the Parlours were working on a book about the Ripper murders, which was being written with author Kevin
O’Donnell, the book I first saw at the
auction. In late 1997, the Parlours and O’Donnell made arrangements to visit the Black Museum to see the shawl for themselves, accompanied by respected Ripper and true-crime researcher Keith
Skinner, who had very close links with the museum. By this time, the curator was John Ross, an ex-Metropolitan police officer. Ross retrieved the shawl from his office – it was obviously not
on display – and showed it to the visitors. He admitted that he was not convinced that the shawl had once belonged to Catherine Eddowes, going on to say that the Black Museum only kept
artefacts that were unequivocally proven to have been connected with famous crimes. After a few minutes of looking at it, the shawl was taken back to whatever obscure storage area it was being kept
in.

The visit to Scotland Yard that day left the Parlours bemused: they felt the shawl was not being given its due by the museum. Back in Clacton, they told David Melville-Hayes that the shawl was
not on display. He was disappointed and decided that, as the museum wasn’t doing anything with it, he might as well have it back. He entrusted the Parlours to make the arrangements to have
the shawl returned, and they contacted John Ross on his behalf – who in the end seemed reluctant to let it go. Nonetheless, the shawl was ‘on loan’ and David Melville-Hayes could
have it back whenever he chose and so a date was arranged for it to be picked up. The Parlours were advised to bring a letter of confirmation from David, which they did. Before leaving with the
shawl, Ross asked the Parlours when they would be bringing it back, and they replied with a diplomatic, We’ll have to speak to the owner.’ Before they returned the shawl, Scotland Yard
had also taken a small sample of their own, which measured 2 by 4 inches.

Once David had the shawl back in Clacton, he decided to let the Parlours look after it, which they were more than pleased to do. The shawl was kept by the Parlours for
many years and generated great interest. It was displayed in a glass case at the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank, and in 2001 it went to Bournemouth where it was shown (with other Ripper
ephemera, including the famous ‘Dear Boss’ letter) at the annual Jack the Ripper conference. These conferences, first held in Ipswich in 1996, provide Ripper experts and enthusiasts
with the chance to get together, hear speakers on the subject and share information and ideas. For many years the venues alternated between Britain and America, where interest in the Ripper has
never abated.

Despite all the interest in the shawl and its potential importance in the case, it had never been authenticated or scientifically tested. In 2006, Atlantic Productions, a television company
specializing in factual programmes, asked if they could feature it in a documentary they were working on. Executives from the company met the Parlours, explaining that they would like to have the
shawl tested for DNA by an expert, on camera for the programme. David Melville-Hayes gave permission but insisted on being present at the examination.

Testing took place at the Parlours home in Clacton on 30 August 2006. That morning, the film crew from Atlantic arrived, followed by John Gow, a leading DNA forensics expert and his assistant
Jennifer Clugston, who were flown in from Glasgow to conduct the testing. The shawl was laid out in a spare room and John and Jennifer spent much time examining it, surprised by its size and
concluding that the large, torpedo-shaped stains appeared to be dried blood that had spattered across the surface. Several swabs were taken
from the areas that John and
Jennifer believed were stained with blood, human or otherwise. Interviews with Gow and David Melville-Hayes were filmed and eventually the film crew packed up their equipment and the experts were
driven to the airport for their return flight to Scotland.

The finished documentary was aired in November 2006 and strangely, despite being featured quite a lot, there was hardly any specific discussion about the shawl. One of the interviewees, John
Grieve, the Metropolitan police’s first Director of Intelligence, was asked if he felt that the shawl was genuine.

"The DNA testing was inconclusive,’ he answered.

This was a big disappointment and the Parlours and David Melville-Hayes have never been given the DNA test results by Atlantic. Apparently they had been taken away by a police officer based in
Glasgow. Frustratingly, nothing had been proved: they were no nearer knowing whether the shawl belonged to Catherine Eddowes, whether it had been found at Mitre Square or indeed whether it had any
link whatsoever to the Ripper story.

By the beginning of 2007, David Melville-Hayes had made the decision to sell the shawl. Now in his seventies, suffering from poor health and with his own two sons not interested in taking on
custody of the shawl, he felt it was time to pass this peculiar family heirloom on to a permanent owner who, appreciating its potential significance, would look after it as well as he had done. He
told me that whenever he took the shawl out of its wrapping he felt a coldness descend on the room, and a strange feeling would come over him, which strengthened his resolve to sell it. An auction
seemed to be the logical step
forward and Melville-Hayes decided that proceeds from any sale would go to the Royal National Lifeboat Institute. This is where I came into the
picture.

My belief in the importance of the shawl increased the more I knew about it: the provenance sounded authentic, although I am always cautious of stories that have been handed down through
families. But here there was enough powerful detail to convince me. The next, obvious, step was to take up where the TV documentary failed: I determined to find scientific proof to back up the
history of the shawl. Despite their inconclusive testing, I was convinced that the key lay in the scientific developments of recent years.

CHAPTER EIGHT

FINDING HUMAN BLOOD

I
was driving along the M6 on my way to North Wales, where my business was based. I had to make an important phone call at 6.30 p.m., so I pulled
into the service station on the toll road that loops around Birmingham, and called the number.

We can’t nail this until we can test a living descendant of Catherine Eddowes,’ said Ian Barnes, Professor of Molecular Palaeobiology at the University of London. I had called Ian
soon after I started my search for a scientist who could investigate the shawl for possible DNA. It was the summer of 2007, and I had approached Mark Thomas, Professor of Evolutionary Genetics at
University College London. Professor Thomas was an expert in ancient DNA and in 1994 was one of the first people to read the DNA sequence of the extinct woolly mammoth. He put me on to Ian Barnes,
one of his colleagues and another specialist in ancient DNA.

Ian was very enthusiastic about the project, and we chatted more over the phone over the next few days. I was keen to find out if the stains on the shawl were human blood.

But it was the phone call I made from the service station car park that shifted my research up a gear. Ian told me then that
the only value of extracting DNA from the
shawl would be if there was something to compare it with, and we would need the DNA of a direct descendant of the victim. Just getting DNA from the shawl was a pointless exercise: it proved nothing
unless it could be tied to Catherine Eddowes.

So this had to be my next effort. I am not a trained researcher, although I have become much better over the years since I started this quest, but I soon heard about a book which gave family
trees for the descendants of the Ripper victims. It was out of print, and I found that there were only a couple of places in the country where I could see it. One was the Cambridge University
Library, which was where I chose to go, as we were living in Newmarket at the time. I went into the hallowed library on a day pass, having been photographed, issued with a badge, and told that I
had to make notes in pencil (to prevent books being defaced) and that I could not photocopy more than 10 per cent of the book. I ordered the book, waited about twenty minutes until it arrived, and
then began excitedly tracing Catherine’s family.

To my great disappointment the family tree ended with Catherine Sarah Hall, who was descended from Catherine Eddowes’ daughter, and who died in Blackheath in the 1950s. It was interesting
to see that the name Catherine had come down through the family, but ultimately very frustrating because I was no closer to finding a living descendant. Then I wondered if the author of the book
had deliberately kept the family tree short of the present generation, perhaps to protect the family from unwanted attention.

I managed to make email contact with him, tracing him through a Jack the Ripper website. His response to my request for help was a sharp rebuff. The message was clear: leave well
alone. I was disappointed and annoyed at his attitude at the time, but today I can understand that he was protecting the family members. Interest in anybody descended from a victim
(or suspect) in the Ripper case is very strong and the author of the book had spent many years gaining their trust and treating their stories with sensitivity. He probably felt that the last thing
he needed was some newcomer to the field barging in and potentially spoiling the relationship. At the time, however, it was quite a blow. All my attempts to find a living descendant had stalled. I
felt, as I have done at several points on this journey, as if I was trying to run uphill in flip-flops and the hill was getting steeper all the time.

For a time it went on to the back burner, because I was completely absorbed in family matters and business problems. I put the shawl out of my mind but I never forgot about it, and would from
time to time take it out and look at it, but it was certainly not centre stage in my life.

I was trying to sell my care homes business, and the sale was long and protracted, and took more than six months, and was a time-consuming and complicated affair. The shawl and the Ripper were
not at the forefront of my mind. Eventually the sale went through in the spring of 2008, and I made a good enough profit to be able to take some time off from business and decide what I was going
to do next.