After 126 years, a new book claims to have uncovered the true identity of Jack the Ripper - with the help of DNA evidence. London's notorious serial killer has been named as 23-year-old Polish immigrant Aaron Kosminski.
A new book has claimed to have solved arguably the biggest unsolved murder case in history. Based on DNA evidence, Russell Edwards, self-proclaimed "armchair detective" and author of the new book "Naming Jack the Ripper," has identified a 23-year Polish immigrant as the murderer behind the myth that has become Jack the Ripper.
Edwards, who said he was partly inspired to take up the search after watching the 2001 film "From Hell," starring Johnny Depp, joined forces with Jari Louhelainen, a Finnish geneticist and lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University, England.
For over three and a half years, Louhelainen used pioneering techniques to analyze DNA from a blood-stained shawl belonging to one of the Ripper's earlier victims. Catherine Eddowes was found in London's Mitre Square on the morning of September 30, 1888 with her throat slit and abdomen cut open and with her left kidney and part of her womb removed.
SuspectEdwards said Kosminski, was "definitely, categorically and absolutely" the killer behind the gruesome murders of five women between August 31 and November 9, 1888.
Kosminski, who had fled persecution in Poland, then under Russian control, arrived in England with his family in 1881 where he lived in Mile End, east London.
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Kosminski died in a lunatic asylum in 1899 after contracting gangrene in his leg.
http://www.dw.de/new-book-names-jack-the-ripper/a-17907069
