After 136 years, one of the most notorious cold cases has been solved. Jack the Ripper was a serial killer in Whitechapel, London, England from 1888 to 1891. The killer is credited with five brutal deaths of women but may be responsible for up to eleven. It was always speculated why the killings abruptly stopped, with some wondering if Jack relocated to another country, possibly the United States.
At the time, many believed the killer to be either a butcher or a doctor due to the precision of the killing and mutilation. Russell Edwards, a researcher of the case, finally believes he identified the killer. Edwards claims that the identity is “100 percent” confirmed through a DNA match which was extracted from a bloodstained shawl found at the crime scene of Catherine Eddowes.
The DNA led to the match of Aaron Kosminski, a 23-year-old Polish-born barber. At the time, Kosminski was a prime suspect but was never charged due to the lack of evidence. Many of the files related to the Jack the Ripper case were destroyed in the Blitz between 1940 to 1941. Kosminski was matched to his descendent, a three-time great-granddaughter.
The descendant of Catherine Eddowes, Karen Miller, wants the case to be resolved by an inquest, “It would mean a lot to me, to my family, to a lot of people to finally have this crime solved.”
Edwards and the descendant of Kosminski agree and back Miller in her fight for the official resolution.
Kosminski was born in Poland in 1865 and migrated to London in the early 1880s following antisemitism in Poland. Not much else is known of his life aside from his admittance to Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum following a schizophrenic episode where he allegedly threatened his sister with a knife. Kosminski remained in asylums for the remainder of his life. He died in Hertfordshire’s Leavesden Asylum in 1919 of gangrene at the age of 53.
The alleged match has received criticism based on the lack of peer review and the inability to produce the original data.
Regardless of the validity of the tests, the family of the victims feel that the victims need justice and to be remembered. The victims’ names of the “canonical five” are Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly. The uncredited victims’ names are Rose Mylett, Alice McKenzie, Frances Coles, and the “Pinchen Street Torso.”
