A compilation of illustrations from the Jack the Ripper murders in 1888 (Photo by Art Images via Getty Images)
A historian claims he has identified the infamous serial killer known as Jack the Ripper.
In an interview with “Today” in Australia, historian Russell Edwards revealed his alleged identity – a name that’s long been floated as the likely killer.
Who was Jack the Ripper?
The backstory:
Jack the Ripper was an infamous serial killer who murdered five women in the impoverished Whitechapel district of London in 1888.
According to The Mirror, the victims – Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly – were all killed in a nine-week period. All of them had their throats slit, post-mortem injuries, and body parts were removed from Chapman, Eddowes, and Kelly.
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The murders shocked the world, according to the Jack the Ripper Museum, and were the inspiration for countless theories, books and films.
He got the name after the Central News Office in London received a letter about the killings, signed by “Jack the Ripper.”
What was Jack the Ripper’s real name?
What they’re saying:
Edwards, who has written two books about Jack the Ripper, claims the killer is Aaron Kosminski, a Polish man who moved to London and became a barber.
Kosminski was 23 at the time of the murders and was long considered a suspect. At the time of his death in 1919, he was in a mental institution because of schizophrenia. He’d been institutionalized for the last 28 years of his life.
According to The Mirror, police reports disclosed in 1894 showed that investigators believed it was Kosminski because he had “great hatred of women, specially of the prostitute class, and had strong homicidal tendencies.”
The other side:
Police at the time concluded that the victims were all prostitutes, but that’s never been fully proven, according to Penguin Books.
“All of the women except one were killed in the open, under the cover of darkness and this led the police to assume that these women were lured there by a maniac killer for sex, even though the coroner’s inquests ascertained that Jack the Ripper never had sex with any of his victims,” Penguin reported.
“In fact, three of the women frequently slept on the street and on the nights they were killed, they didn’t have money for a lodging house. The coroner’s inquests demonstrated that all of the women were murdered in reclining positions and there was no sign of struggle. Rather than reach the conclusion that Jack the Ripper killed women whilst they slept, the police were committed to the theory that the women were prostitutes and the papers, eager to make money, ran with this story.”
How did Edwards identify Jack the Ripper?
Dig deeper:
Nearly 120 after the murders, Edwards said he purchased a blood-soaked shawl purportedly left at the scene of one of the crimes. Edwards said he had doubts, but DNA tests of semen found on the scarf were linked to a relative of Kosminski’s sister.
Edwards named Kosminski as the killer in his first book, published in 2014, Science reports.
“But geneticists complained at the time that it was impossible to assess the claims because few technical details about the analysis of genetic samples from the shawl were available,” Science reported in 2019.
The evidence was later boosted by a DNA sample from Kosminski’s oldest brother’s great-great-granddaughter, Edwards said.
Edwards said his research has also linked Kosminski to the highly secretive Freemasons, which may have been a motive in the horrific murders and also may have shielded him from law enforcement, The Daily Mail reports.
Has Jack the Ripper officially been named?
What’s next:
Edwards and some of the victims’ descendants are now asking Britain’s High Court for an inquest to officially name Kosminski as the killer.
Karen Miller, the great-great-great-granddaughter of Eddowes, said having the killer’s name in official records would bring justice to victims who weren’t able to get justice so long ago.
“It has all been about him, this iconic name, but people have forgotten about the victims who did not have justice at the time,” she told The Daily Mail. “What about the real name of the person who did this? Having the real person legally named in a court which can consider all the evidence would be a form of justice for the victims. It would mean a lot to me, to my family, to a lot of people to finally have this crime solved.”
The Source: This report includes information from Today in Australia, the Mirror, The Daily Mail, Penguin Books and the Jack the Ripper Museum.
