Modern Mysteries

DNA testing offers possible breakthrough in Jack the Ripper case

By T.K. Randall
October 8, 2024 ·  15 comments

Who was Jack the Ripper ? Image Credit: James Wilson Carmichael It's one of the most chilling and enduring murder mysteries the world has ever known, yet more than 130 years after Jack the Ripper's killing spree through the streets of London, there has never been a definitive answer as to who he really was.

Several individuals have been put forward as potential suspects, but given the primitive forensic techniques available at the time of the murders, key pieces of evidence that would have likely identified the culprit had this been a modern case were missed.

Such clues included DNA evidence on items of clothing retrieved from the murder scenes and even basic fingerprints which were not yet widely used as a way to identify a suspect at the time.

But what if we could apply these techniques to the evidence now ?

Author Russell Edwards has done just that.

Previously, Edwards was able to win an auction for a shawl that had been taken from the home of Catherine Eddowes - one of Jack the Ripper's murder victims.DNA testing of the shawl not only found blood that matched one of Eddowes' descendants, but other DNA traces that happened to match one of the main suspects - Aaron Kosminski.

In his latest of two books detailing the find, Edwards describes Kosminski as harboring a "great hatred of women, specially of the prostitute class, and had strong homicidal tendencies".

Not everyone, however, is convinced that Kosminski has been definitively shown to be the killer.

Some argue that the DNA on the shawl may have been contamination or would have degraded too much to offer a reliable match, while others believe that the test itself was done erroneously.

So was Aaron Kosminski really Jack the Ripper ?

We may never know for sure.

Source: Lad Bible | Comments (15)

Tags: Jack the Ripper