Jack the Ripper: Has a DNA breakthrough finally unmasked the murderer who terrorised Victorian London? | Research News

The gruesome nature of the Ripper murders, combined with the impoverished conditions of his victims, shed light on the dire living conditions in the East End, sparking public outrage against its overcrowded and unsanitary slums. But who was Jack the Ripper? Who were his victims? And was there ever a man behind the terrifying legend as recent reports have claimed?

East End, London in the late 19th century

East End in the 1800s was a vast, dirty, overcrowded slum struggling to cope with the sheer number of people living there. Much of this, according to Edwards, was owing to the ‘stink industries’ located there including breweries, slaughterhouses and sugar refineries, which had attracted many migrant workers to the area during the Industrial Revolution.

Among those who sought a roof here were the victims of the Irish potato famine in the mid-1800s, and later the Eastern Jewish refugees. The latter is an intriguing case.

In March 1881, the assassination of Tsar Alexander II of Russia sparked unfounded rumours that Jews were responsible, leading to widespread persecution and violent attacks known as ‘pogroms’ (destruction) across Eastern Europe. Fleeing oppression, thousands of Jewish Russians, Germans, Hungarians, and Poles sought refuge in London and the East End neighbourhood of Whitechapel housed 28,000 Jewish immigrants by 1887.

Their arrival triggered resentment among the local population and other immigrant groups. As Edwards describes, “Typhoid, cholera, and venereal disease were rife, and the area had the highest birth rate, the highest death rate, and the lowest marriage rate in the whole of London.”

Men took on casual work, with some turning to petty and violent crime, making Whitechapel unsafe after dark. Women struggled to survive, selling flowers, embroidery, matches—or, in desperate times, themselves. With no shelter for their trade, they resorted to dimly lit alleyways, charging as little as four pence—the cost of a night’s lodging.

“Prostitution was illegal, but the police turned a blind eye, believing that if they routed it out of the East End it would spread into more respectable areas,” notes Edwards. Vulnerable and exposed, these women became easy prey for street robbers and were frequently subjected to brutal attacks.

The canonical five

Five brutal murders, known as the canonical five, are widely attributed to Jack the Ripper. As Edwards describes, the hallmark of these attacks was their “virulent savagery.” The victims—Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly—shared striking similarities. Most were estranged from their husbands, struggling to survive, and battling severe alcoholism.

Mary Ann Nichols, the first known victim, married printer William Nichols in 1864. Their tumultuous relationship saw multiple separations, and by 1880, they parted for good with William blaming her drinking. He initially sent her a weekly allowance of five shillings, but upon learning that she had turned to prostitution by 1882, cut off the payments.

The fateful night was August 30, 1888. Mary Ann was last seen alive at 2.30 am, as recalled by her friend Emily, after a brief conversation. She then walked eastward along Whitechapel Road—never to be seen alive again.

Hours later, two carmen stumbled upon her lifeless body. P C Neil, arriving at the scene, illuminated the horrific sight with his lantern. As Edwards describes, “Her open hands were palm upwards, and her legs were laid out and slightly apart. Blood was oozing from a gash in the woman’s throat.”

Despite the horror, no suspect was found.

Panic escalated just nine days later with the discovery of another brutally murdered woman—47-year-old Annie Chapman. The manner of her killing bore striking similarities to that of Mary Ann Nichols.

Newspapers captured the growing panic in exaggerated terms, with none more dramatic than the Star: “London lies today under the spell of a great terror. A nameless reprobate – half beast, half man – is at large, who is daily gratifying his murderous instincts on the most miserable and defenceless classes of the community…”

The next murders took place in the early hours of September 30, 1888, less than three weeks after Annie Chapman’s death. “Two prostitutes were killed within an hour of each other,” notes Edwards, “and in two different locations; it would later be hailed in Ripper folklore as the ‘Double Event.’” The victims were Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes.

The final of his five brutal murders was Mary Jane Kelly, whose body was discovered on the morning of Friday, November 9, 1888. In his post-mortem report, Dr Thomas Bond, the police surgeon for A Division (Westminster), noted that the severity of Kelly’s injuries made it clear that the killer lacked even basic anatomical knowledge: “In my opinion, he does not even possess the technical knowledge of a butcher or horse slaughterer or any person accustomed to cut up dead animals,” as cited by Edwards.

Suspects

Jack the Ripper became one of the first serial killers to capture widespread 19th-century media attention. As reports of suspicious men emerged, outbreaks of civil unrest followed at East End. Since the death of the last victim, the Whitechapel murderer was variously identified as a Jewish slaughterman, an escaped lunatic, a deranged medical student, a murderous midwife, and even a member of the royal family.

Several names surfaced over time, including Charles Ludwig, a volatile German hairdresser who had once pulled a knife on a woman in a dark alley. Another suspect, Nikaner Benelius, a Swedish-born traveller, was interrogated after Elizabeth Stride’s murder despite not matching the descriptions of the killer. He was later arrested again in Mile End but was cleared of suspicion.

One theory, widely debated, suggested the killer might have been a woman—Jill the Ripper, possibly a midwife who performed illegal abortions and had access to the women of the East End.

Another intriguing theory emerged in 1970, when Dr Thomas Stowell, a respected physician, proposed that Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward – known as Prince Eddy – suffering from syphilis-induced madness, had ventured into the East End to murder prostitutes.

While numerous other suspects have been named in books detailing their backgrounds, one name persisted: Aaron Mordke Kosminski. The son of a tailor, Kosminski was born in the Province of Kalish in central Poland in 1865. Barely 10, he lost his father. Their family later fled to England, with new anglicised first names.

By 1888, the East End, a focal point for Jewish immigrants, had become a hotbed of anti-Semitic resentment. Jewish settlers were blamed for taking jobs from unemployed British-born workers and driving down wages. This period of intense hardship affected many immigrants, including the Kosminski family. It is against this hardship that several experts, including Edwards, contend that Aaron Kosminski was in close proximity to the Ripper murder scenes.

Case resolved?

Driven by curiosity and determination, author Russell Edwards and Dr Jari Louhelainen, a UK-based academic, embarked on a relentless quest in 2011 to unravel one of history’s most chilling crime mysteries.

Their journey began when Edwards purchased a shawl, believed to have belonged to Catherine Eddowes, one of the Ripper’s victims, at an auction in 2007. Through a meticulous process that involved DNA analysis of Karen Miller, the three-times great-granddaughter of Catherine Eddowes, they confirmed the shawl’s connection to her. With this breakthrough, they then sought out a descendant of the Kosminski family to determine whether Aaron Kosminski was, indeed, Jack the Ripper, whose DNA material was also found on the shawl.

After several setbacks and referencing the works of earlier authors who had delved into the case, they finally traced a descendant of Aaron Kosminski’s sister Matilda Lubnowski, who agreed to undergo the test. The results were astonishing. “What Jari had found was a 99.2 per cent match when he ran the alignment in one direction, and going the other way, it was a 100 per cent perfect match,” says Edwards.

Around 2013, they had the critical evidence to definitively name Aaron Kosminski as Jack the Ripper. With a perfect match between his DNA and that of his sister’s descendant, the case seemed closed.

Reflecting on their painstaking investigation, Edwards concludes, “That name will never go away. But now, thanks to the shawl, the scientific brilliance of Jari Louhelainen, and my determination, persistence, and refusal to be sidetracked, we have his real name.”

Yet, some still argue that the evidence remains insufficient to prove that Kosminski was truly Jack the Ripper. Was he working alone? Were only five women murdered? Can one shawl alone confirm that all five murders were committed by him? The answers continue to be shrouded in mystery.