Jack the Ripper letter ‘could be worth £125,000’ after he’s ‘finally unmasked’ in bombshell DNA finding

A letter reportedly written about the prime suspect behind the infamous Jack the Ripper murders could now be worth a whopping £125,000.

Dating back to 1888, Jack the Ripper is one of the most famous criminal cases in the history of the UK after the murderer caused havoc around the slums of the East End of London.

With an identity that has been unknown for more than 130 years, the Ripper graphically murdered young women working as prostitutes.

Suspicion over who the criminal was saw numerous people thought to be the man behind the crimes, including a famous French painter and even the grandson of Queen Victoria.

Now, the identity of Jack the Ripper may finally have been solved due to advances in DNA and a letter authenticated by scientists.

Identifying Jack the Ripper

Do we finally know who Jack the Ripper is? (Getty Stock Images)

It all dates back to the Ripper's fourth victim: a young woman by the name of Catherine Eddowes, whose body was found dead on the same night as fellow victim Elizabeth Stride.

Police investigating Eddowes' murder scene on 30 September came across a shawl. Taken home by one of the police officers at the scene, it would later be auctioned off and bought by Russell Edwards.

Edwards put the item of clothing through DNA testing which found blood and semen stains on the shawl, with the blood matching a descendant of Eddowes.

And according to the Mirror, Edwards says the semen stains were a DNA match for a distant relative of one of the most prominent Ripper suspects, a Polish barber and hairdresser called Aaron Kosminski.

The £125k letter allegedly by Jack the Ripper

Was the Ripper a barber named Aaron Kosminski? (Getty Stock Images)

Reportedly found in an old book in Australia during a stock take at the University of Melbourne's Theology department, the 14-line letter potentially pinpoints the Ripper's identity.

Suggesting the Ripper is indeed Kosminski, the letter alludes to the Polish native attacking a woman with scissors less than one year after the murders in the Whitechapel area of London.

Sent by a Reverend William Patrick Dott in 1889, one line in the letter is what is convincing people the Ripper is Kosminski.

"It's a wonder he hasn't hung for what he did to those poor," the letter writes in an apparent reference to the murders.

Tim Atkinson has since bought the letter at auction site, and, working with experts at Liverpool University, forensically examined the letter using a Video Spectral Comparator, or VSC.

This kind of technology uses digital imaging, light sources, and filters to examine documents to spot details the human eye cannot see, or even alterations to the original text. In the case of the letter from Dott, it was the real thing with no alterations.

A computer-generated image of Aaron Kosminski (Russell Edwards)

Atkinson has since said his letter has a six figure valuation but that he has no interest in cashing in.

"I saw it on eBay and thought I'd take a punt on it and now I've got it authenticated and it came back as positive," Atkinson said.

"It's the most important letter to come to light. It proves Kosminksi was around and could be the murderer.

"It could be worth up to £125,000 but I'm not a money man."

Jeff Leahy, a documentary maker on the Ripper cases, added: "For the first time we have a connection to Aaron Kosminski being mad and violent, and to the Jack the Ripper murders."

So, is Aaron Kosminski really Jack the Ripper?

The author of the latter, Reverend Dott, sent the letter a year after the Ripper murders.

At the time, he had been attached to All Hallows Church in the Barking area of east London.

Obviously, it remains incredibly hard to directly pin this on Kosminski. The man died a long time ago, after passing away in an asylum in 1919. Right now, though, it's the closest we have to solving the famous cold case.