A RESEARCHER who says he revealed Jack the Ripper’s identity has told of his joy at finding a 100 per cent DNA match with his suspect.
Russell Edwards’s bombshell finding has led the descendants of victims to call for an inquest in the hopes of finding closure.
SuppliedAaron Kosminski’s DNA was found on a bloodied shawl[/caption]
Serial killer Jack the Ripper mutilated his victims in London
The blood-covered shawl is believed to contain DNA from a both butchered victim and the Ripper
He extracted DNA from a shawl recovered from the scene of one of the slayings, and claimed the murderer was Aaron Kosminski, an emigre from Poland, who worked as a barber.
Russell said: “It’s very difficult to put into words the elation I felt when I saw the 100 per cent DNA match.
“This brings closure and it’s a form of justice for the descendants.
“He can’t be prosecuted because he’s dead but this is the closest thing they can do.
“This man committed atrocities towards their ancestors and we know it’s him and we want the courts to say, ‘Yes, you’re right’.”
Meanwhile Karen Miller, 53, whose ancestor Catherine Eddowes was brutally murdered, says it is time for an inquest to name the killer.
She said: “We have got the proof, now we need this inquest to legally name the killer.
“It would mean a lot to me, to my family, to a lot of people to finally have this crime solved.”
A bloodstained shawl said to have been found on Ms Eddowes’ body in 1888, which was purchased at auction in 2007 by Russell, was later found to have the DNA of both the victim and Kosminski.
He has hired a legal team to fight for an inquest on the grounds that there is further evidence for a coroner to consider about the circumstances of the death and crucially who was responsible.
A campaign has been backed by the descendants of both Ms Eddowes and Kosminski, who say it is time to unmask the true killer and get justice for the women involved.
The ripper also took the lives of Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride and Mary Jane Kelly in the most heinous fashion, earning him his sinister moniker.
Who was Jack the Ripper?
SERIAL KILLER Jack the Ripper caused mass hysteria like no murderer had done before.
The story was kept alive for generations after no one was ever caught for killing working women in the East End of London.
Jack the Ripper was the pen name that signed off on a chilling letter alleged to be from the killer printed in London newspapers at the height of his terror.
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.
All were murdered in the most brutal fashion imaginable around the Whitechapel area between August and November 1888.
Their bodies were mutilated, many of them being disembowelled.
Chapman’s uterus was taken, Eddowes had her uterus and a kidney removed and her face mutilated, while Kelly’s body was completely destroyed and her face hacked away.
Such was the fear at the time that the streets of London emptied after nightfall, leaving the once bustling Victorian capital deathly silent while the Ripper roamed the streets.
Jack the Ripper committed at least five murders in or near the Whitechapel district of London’s East End.
All of the victims were prostitutes and all of their corpses had been mutilated.
Scotland Yard was inundated with criminal investigations in rough East End leaving them overstretched and under-resourced.
Their lack of arrests and the continuing murder spree led to widespread criticism verging on derision of the police effort to catch the Ripper.
Volunteer citizens put themselves forward to try to help with the case and the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee was formed.
Its members patrolled the streets looking for suspects and hired private detectives to bring the menace to an end.
Top of the list of suspects were local butchers and surgeons because of the brutality of the killings — the Ripper was clearly not averse to blood.
Even Queen Victoria was made aware of the harrowing killings and formed her own theories that the Ripper must be a butcher.
The fact that many killings took place on weekends or public holidays also suggested the killer was a regular worker who lived nearby.
While investigations proved fruitless at the time, “ripperologists” are still trawling through evidence to find the true identity of the killer.
The number of named suspects reaches over one hundred.
Among them is cotton merchant James Maybrick who died a year after the last of the Ripper murders.
A diary allegedly belonging to him detailed the murders but its authenticity is disputed.
Thomas Cutbush, a violent criminal, is also among the list of suspects.
He worked in Whitechapel at the time of the killings and allegedly harboured a hatred for prostitutes and a grim fascination with medicine and surgery.
Respected poet Francis Thompson is alleged to have carried out the murders because he wrote about killing people, had surgical experience and was known to be close to one prostitute in the Whitechapel area at the time.
The Ripper case was the first to cause a worldwide media frenzy, and fervent speculation continues to this day.
Indeed, in January 2018 the mystery seemed to have inched closer to being solved when an expert matched the handwriting of two letters claiming to be from the killer.
Hundreds of such letters were sent to police and media, and their origin has remained a mystery with many believing they were written by journalists in an attempt to boost circulation.
But a scientific study seemed to shed new light on the mystery, focusing on the ‘Dear Boss’ letter, in which the name Jack the Ripper appears for the first time, and the ‘Saucy Jacky’ postcard.
It found similar linguistic constructions in both letters, such as the phrasal verb ‘to keep back’, as well as similarities in the handwriting.
A recent theory which came to light in February 2018, is that the Ripper may have been a Dutch serial killer and sailor.
Crime historian Dr Jan Bondeson named Hendrik de Jong as a prime suspect.
De Jong murdered two wives in his homeland and is believed to have travelled to London regularly.
Another suspect to emerge is the American serial killer HH Holmes.
Lawyer Jeff Mudgett, is the great-great-great-grandson of Holmes, who murdered at least nine known victims.
Read more here.
The Jack the Ripper murders took place in the East End of London in the 1880sCorbis – Getty
PA:Press AssociationScientific evidence is now said to point to Polish barber Aaron Kosminski[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
