The mystery of Jack the Ripper’s real identity has been a question many have been trying to solve since the gruesome killings took place
More than 130 years after Jack the Ripper stalked the dark, fog-filled streets of Victorian London, forensic scientists believe they could have finally uncovered the killer’s identity, and it’s a name that has long been associated with the gruesome killings.
A series of genetic tests published this week claim the infamous murderer was indeed Aaron Kosminski, a 23-year-old Polish barber and one of the Metropolitan Police’s prime suspects at the time. Kosminski was a Polish-born Jewish immigrant who settled in London’s East End after fleeing persecution in the late 1800s. Cutting hair in Whitechapel, he would have lived right at the heart of the Ripper’s killing zone and showed early signs of severe mental illness.
In 1891, just a few years after the murders, he was admitted to Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum after being diagnosed with paranoia, hallucinations and a refusal to wash or eat food prepared by others. Though clearly disturbed, staff didn’t consider Kosminski violent, and he spent the rest of his life in institutions until his death in 1919.
Police officials later named a him as a major suspect, with one senior officer claiming an eyewitness had even identified him but refused to testify. The findings linking Kosminski to the killings have sparked headlines around the world, experts are warning that the evidence still falls short of actually closing what is Britain’s most notorious cold case.
The latest twist centres around a silk shawl that was said to have been discovered next to the mutilated body of Catherine Eddowes, who was the Ripper’s fourth victim and died in 1888. Forensic teams analysed DNA from blood and semen found on the cloth and compared it with samples from living relatives of both Eddowes and Kosminski.
According to the new study, the DNA show what’s called a genetic match with some of Kosminski’s descendants. If true, it would be the strongest scientific link yet between Kosminski and the horrific killings that left five women dead. Several experts have pointed out that the study doesn’t actually publish the genetic sequences found, and instead displays them as coloured blocks on a chart, which makes them difficult to verify.
The authors say that UK privacy laws prevented them from revealing more detail. Forensic experts have however dismissed this explanation, pointing out that mitochondrial DNA poses no privacy risk and could definitely have been included. And that’s not the only problem. Some historians insist there’s no proof the shawl was ever at the crime scene, while others believe it may have been contaminated many times over the past century.
