A Jack the Ripper expert is convinced that he has solved the 130-year-old mystery after suggesting the London killer had a sixth victim.
Humanity has always had a interesting obsession with serial killers, with popular Netflix and true crime series emphasising exactly that, but they have been present throughout human history.
Perhaps the most famous unsolved murder cases of all time are linked with Jack the Ripper, also known as the Whitechapel Murderer and Leather Apron, who was active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London in 1888.
Over 130 years later and police still haven't been able to 100 per cent confirm the identity of the killer, as the lack of things such as DNA tests and CCTV footage obviously made things a lot harder for police back then.
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But people across the world are still determined to name the killer, who had previously been credited with murdering five women in the area, although an expert believes he has now identified a sixth.
Criminologist David Wilson explained to the The Sun that Martha Tabram may well have been the serial killer's first victim. The mum-of-two, who had turned to sex work during hard times, was found with 39 stab wounds around three weeks before the serial killing spree began.
Wilson explained how he used HOLMES (Home Office Large Major Enquiry System) to identify Martha as another of Jack the Ripper's victims, while he also believes it confirms the theory of the killer being Polish barber Aaron Kominski.
He said: "For one of the documentaries I did for the BBC with Amelia Fox, I got the entire Whitechapel docket run through HOLMES.
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"HOLMES is the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System, which was introduced in the wake of the failings related to the search for the Yorkshire Ripper. So it's an information retrieval system.
"And for the documentary, I got the lead trainer to run the Whitechapel docket.
"All the murders of women in Whitechapel from 1888 through to 1890, I got the lead trainer to run all those through Holmes.
"And that lead trainer identified six murders, not five murders."
Kominski was previously identified as a suspect by police and experts think they finally found their man earlier this year, when extracted DNA from a recovered shawl found on Catherine Eddowes was matched with a descendant of the Warsaw native.
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It is perhaps the mystery surrounding the Ripper which has made him infamous, as other more deadly serial killers throughout history have been given far less media attention.
Wilson said: "Even though there were serial killers before Jack the Ripper, he's the one who's come to public attention in the widest possible sense.
"His long-lasting fame is because of the Ripperology, the phenomenon of Ripperologists who are constantly wanting to ID who might have been responsible."
However, with Wilson's latest theory backing up the DNA evidence which points towards the killer being Kominski, then perhaps Jack the Ripper will soon be a distant memory.
Topics: Jack the Ripper, True Crime, London, Crime
James Moorhouse