Jack the Ripper's 'true identity' was revealed after DNA breakthrough on key piece of evidence
Topics: True crime, History, Crime
Niamh Shackleton
Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Image
Topics: True crime, History, Crime
Jack the Ripper's identify is thought to have been revealed with the help of one key piece of evidence.
The crimes of Jack the Ripper have remained one of the more notorious cold cases in British history.
The culprit, long believed to have been a man, took the lives of five women in 1888: Elizabeth Stride, Mary Jane Kelly, Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman and Catherine Eddowes.
Not only did he murder them, but the bodies were mutilated and had their organs removed. The victims were all believed to have been sex workers.
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Over a 100 years later and historian Russell Edwards believes he's revealed who the notorious criminal was — and it could have well been one of the men police identified as a suspect at the time.
In 2007, Edwards purchased a shawl once owned by Eddowes to put through DNA testing and the results showing blood and semen stains on it.
The blood was a match of one of Eddowes' descendants, while the semen matched a man who Edwards has claimed is a distant relative of one of the Ripper suspects, Aaron Kosminski, the Mirror previously reported.
His claim was made in Edwards' book, titled Naming Jack the Ripper: The Definitive Reveal, the sequel of his original book Naming Jack the Ripper.
“He is no longer just a suspect. We can hold him, finally, to account for his terrible deeds," he wrote.
"My search is over: Aaron Kosminski is Jack the Ripper."
Experts, however, have aired concerns about the accuracy of assessing mitochondrial DNA, and the likelihood of a false match.
In the wake of his findings, Edwards expressed his hopes of having the decades-old case reopened.
As of February 2025, he'd penned a letter has been sent to the attorney general requesting permission to go to the high court and initiate the legal process, Newsweek said at the time.
Discussing this, Edwards shared: "We now know the name and we've placed the murderer at the murder scene. Now we want that to be public knowledge though, accepted by the courts."
Family members of the one of Jack the Ripper's victims have also called for the case to be reopened.
Karen Miller, a direct descendant of Eddowes, wants Kosminski legally named in court.
"The name Jack the Ripper has become sensationalized. It has gone down in history as this famous character," she told Daily Mail in January. "People have forgotten about the victims, who did not have justice at the time. Now we need this inquest to legally name the killer."
Miller added: "Having the real person legally named in a court which can consider all the evidence would be a form of justice for the victims."
At the time of writing, it doesn't appear as if the case has been reopened — yet.