Jack the Ripper 'finally unmasked' after DNA breakthrough in 136 year mystery
The identity of Jack the Ripper has been a mystery the police, and later the world of true crime aficionados, have been grappling with forever.
There have been all kinds of claims made over the years, including suspicion that he was Queen Victoria's grandson or a famous French painter.
People have claimed all sorts of suspects as the true identity of the Ripper and whoever the notorious serial killer really was they are long dead now.
Most of what we know about the Ripper is what he did to five of his confirmed victims, and evidence from one of them has led an author to claim he's 'finally unmasked' the man behind the murders.
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The Ripper's fourth victim was a woman named Catherine Eddowes, who was found dead on 30 September, 1888, the same night the Ripper also killed Elizabeth Stride.
At the scene of Eddowes' murder was a shawl which was taken home by one of the police officers at the scene, which would later be auctioned off and bought by Russell Edwards.
He put it through DNA testing which found blood and semen stains on the shawl, with the blood matching a descendant of Eddowes.
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, Aaron Kosminski.
Edwards wrote a book called Naming Jack the Ripper in which he identified Kosminski has the infamous serial killer, and now has a new one out called Naming Jack the Ripper: The Definitive Reveal.
In the book he once again points the finger at Kosminski, writing that police believed him to have a 'great hatred of women, specially of the prostitute class, and had strong homicidal tendencies'.
However, the claims of getting DNA evidence from the shawl have been contested over the years.
In 2014, Ripper expert Andrew Smith said to solve the case 'we need forensic evidence and there isn't any', and that it was 'highly unlikely' that any DNA evidence on the shawl hadn't become contaminated over the years.
Mick Reed of the University of New England wrote in The Conversation that the authenticity of the shawl was in question and the cold case was still very much open.
Edwards had got Dr Jari Louhelainen of Liverpool John Moore's University to carry out forensic analysis on the shawl, but at the time of the original DNA work The Independent reported that a number of experts said there had been a 'serious DNA error'.
They claim he made an 'error of nomenclature' which if corrected would link the DNA to 'more than 99 percent of people of European descent'.
Do you think the Ripper case is done and dusted, or does Jack's true identity still remain a mystery to you?
Topics: True Crime, Crime
Joe Harker