Key item that ‘revealed’ identity of Jack the Ripper after 130 years with 100% DNA match

The true identity of Jack the Ripper has been 'revealed' after 130 years, according to a ‘Ripperologist’.

Researcher and historian Russell Edwards has been studying the case of the unidentified serial killer for years, after he terrorised London’s Whitechapel district back in 1888.

Jack the Ripper claimed the lives of at least five women by the names of Mary Ann Nichols, 43, Annie Chapman, 47, Elizabeth Stride, 44, Catherine Eddowes, 46, and Mary Jane Kelly, 25, between August 31 and November 9 of that year.

Most of the women were sex workers and three of the victims had their internal organs removed.

And this year, it's been claimed that the identity of Jack the Ripper is no longer a mystery after an '100 per cent DNA match' was discovered on an important piece of evidence.

The key item that ‘revealed’ the identity of Jack the Ripper

Russell Edwards believes he has cracked the Jack the Ripper case (Russell Edwards)

Edwards purchased a shawl recovered from the scene of Eddowes' brutal killing in 2007, which he and Jari Louhelainen, a biochemist at Liverpool John Moores University, extracted a DNA sample from.

“When we matched the DNA from the blood on the shawl with a direct female descendant of the victim, it was the singular most amazing moment of my life at the time,” he told Today in Australia.

“We tested the semen left on the shawl. When we matched that, I was dumbfounded that we actually had discovered who Jack the Ripper truly was.”

Who has been identified as Jack the Ripper?

The researcher says there was a 100 percent DNA match with the relative of Aaron Kosminski (Russell Edwards)

Edwards said the results identified 'Aaron Kosminski', a barber from Poland who emigrated to London, as the man behind the murders, who also happened to be a suspect at the time of the murders.

The researcher went and found a living relative of Kosminski who was happy to be tested against, and following the positive match, the Ripper expert believes that he has finally cracked the case.

“It was a voyage of discovery, with many twists and turns,” he added (via The New York Post). “The adventure was thrilling from beginning to end and I was lucky to experience it.

“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.”

Critics say there is still a lack of evidence

However, critics have argued that there is no way to prove that the shawl was ever at the crime scene.

Also, the fact that the genetic sequences of the living relatives have not been published in the findings due to 'UK law', we do not have the full results.

Walther Parson, a forensic scientist at the Institute of Legal Medicine at Innsbruck Medical University in Austria, believes that the DNA sequences pose no risk to privacy and should be shared.

"Otherwise the reader cannot judge the result," Parson insisted, according to science.org. "I wonder where science and research are going when we start to avoid showing results but instead present coloured boxes."