Jack the Ripper, the notorious serial killer of the late 19th century who left even Scotland Yard baffled, was a Polish immigrant named Aaron Kosminski, DNA evidence reveals.
Dr Jari Louhelainen, a Finnish molecular biologist and a self-described "armchair detective," claims to have solved the 126-year-old 'Whitechapel murders' that took place in the impoverished Whitechapel district of East End London between April 3, 1888 and February 13, 1891.
Dr Louhelainen arrived at the conclusion by using a technique called 'vacuuming', which removed DNA from a stained shawl that supposedly belonged to one of Jack's victims, Catherine Eddowes. Businessman Russell Edwards and the author of the novel 'Naming Jack the Ripper' bought the shawl at an auction and sought help from Dr Louhelainen to find any evidence associated with the grisly killings of five Whitechapel prostitutes, reports the Daily Mirror.
"I've got the only piece of forensic evidence in the whole history of the case. I've spent 14 years working, and we have definitely solved the mystery of who Jack the Ripper was. Only non-believers that want to perpetuate the myth will doubt. This is it now - we have unmasked him," said Edwards, reports The Independent. "Thank God the shawl has never been washed, as it held the vital evidence."
Dr Louhelainen compared the DNA samples recovered from the shawl, most likely from the blood of Eddowes and the semen of Kosminski. He then concluded that Kosminski was the real Jack the Ripper. Eddowes was 46 when she was killed and mutilated in the early hours of Sept. 30, 1888. A day later, a letter was sent, signed 'Jack the Ripper,' claiming responsibility for the murder. The signature led to the killer being given the famous name.
Kosminski has long been one of the prime suspects of the case. He was a Polish Jew who emigrated to England in the 1880s. He was born in the Polish town of Kłodawa in Congress Poland, then part of the Russian Empire.
Kominski was placed in Mile End Old Town workhouse twice - once in July 1890 and another time in February 1891 for insanity. He was then taken to Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, where he remained for the next three years until he was admitted on 19 April 1894 to the Leavesden Asylum.
It is said that Kosminski had been ill since at least 1885 and his insanity took the form of aural hallucinations, a paranoid fear of being fed by other people that drove him to pick up and eat food dropped as litter, and a refusal to wash or bathe, according to the report 'The case of Aaron Kosminski: Was he Jack the Ripper' that appears in the Psychiatric Bulletin. The cause of his insanity was recorded as 'self-abuse,' which is thought to be a euphemism for masturbation. He died at the age of 53 in March 1919.
