Jack the Ripper’s identity may finally have been revealed as a Polish barber, claim scientists using DNA from scene
JACK the Ripper who stalked London more than 130 years ago was a demon barber with a taste for human flesh, according to startling new scientific evidence.
A blood-covered shawl found at one of the murder scenes is believed to contain DNA from both butchered victim Catherine Eddowes and the world's most infamous serial killer.
Researchers at Liverpool John Moores University conducted genetic tests on the sample long-thought to have belonged to the Ripper himself, who they now believe to be Pole Aaron Kosminski.
“We describe for the first time systematic, molecular level analysis of the only surviving physical evidence linked to the Jack the Ripper murders,” the authors wrote in the Journal of Forensic Sciences.
“Finding both matching profiles in the same piece of evidence enhances the statistical probability of its overall identification and reinforces the claim that the shawl is authentic.”
The bloody shawl is linked to the double murder of victims three and four, Elizabeth Stride and Eddowes, on the night of Sept. 30, 1888 in Whitechapel.
Stride’s throat had been cut, but the rest of her body was mostly intact - unlike most of the infamous killer's victims.
It's long been thought that the Ripper - said to have killed anywhere between five and 18 women - had been interrupted in his work and was still on the hunt for more unfortunate victims.
An hour later he butchered Eddowes tearing her apart and taking her kidney as a trophy - before sending the sickening 'From Hell' letter in which he claimed he had eaten it.
Five women — Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly — are widely held to have been victims of the Ripper, although later murders were attributed to him.
This isn’t the first time Kosminski has been linked to the crimes. But it is the first time the supporting DNA evidence has been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
This was "confirmed" after comparing fragments of mitochondrial DNA taken from the shawl with those taken from Kosminski's known living descendants.
Investigators identified Kosminski as their prime suspect in the killings in 1888. However, they did not have enough proof to solve the case.
The DNA testing suggests that the Ripper had brown eyes and brown hair. This matches evidence from eyewitness reports.
The researchers say their new study provides "the most systematic and most advanced genetic analysis to date regarding the Jack the Ripper murders."
And it's not the first time DNA evidence has pointed to Kosminski as the killer.
Jari Louhelainen, a biochemist at LJMU and one of the coauthors of the current study, first conducted testing on the suspect's DNA years earlier.
He obtained the samples after receiving the stained shawl from an author named Russell Edwards, who bought it in 2007.