Jack the Ripper ’finally unmasked after 136 years’ as DNA breakthrough identifies serial killer
The identity of Jack the Ripper has been a mystery for over 130 years - but one author believes he has unmasked the serial killer and even created an image of what he would have looked like
This is the face of the world’s most notorious serial killer, according to an expert who has spent nearly three decades investigating the Jack the Ripper case.
Ripper researcher Russell Edwards has utilised cutting-edge facial reconstruction technology to create a black and white CGI image of the killer’s likely appearance at the time.
Edwards’ breakthrough came after he used DNA evidence from a victim’s shawl to "prove" that Jack the Ripper was actually Aaron Kosminski who was a key suspect during the Whitechapel murders.
In his second book on the case, Edwards claims to have not only conclusively identified the Ripper but also uncovered the motive behind the brutal mutilations and how the killer evaded justice.
(Image: Russell Edwards)
Between August and November 1888, Jack the Ripper brutally murdered at least five women in Whitechapel, east London, sparking widespread terror, reports the Express.
The removal of internal organs from three victims led to speculation that the killer had medical or surgical expertise.
The police investigated 11 brutal killings of women, mostly prostitutes, between April 1888 and February 1891, known as the Whitechapel murders.
It is widely accepted that the third to seventh murders, known as the Canonical Murders, were committed by the Ripper, claiming the lives of Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly over nine weeks. The victims all had their throats slit, post-mortem injuries, including to the vagina, and body parts were removed from Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly.
(Image: AFP/Getty Images)
So, how did Mr Edwards "confirm" Kosminski as the Ripper?
PC Watkins was the officer who found the brutally mutilated body of the Ripper’s fourth victim, Catherine Eddowes, on a pavement in Mitre Square on September 30, 1888.
Her head was almost completely severed and her nose sliced open. She was his second victim that same night.
A silk shawl she owned was drenched in blood.
Fast forward nearly 120 years to 2007, when Mr Edwards, a businessman from north London, stumbled upon the alleged shawl at an auction in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.
(Image: Getty Images)
Intrigued yet doubtful, he purchased it and discovered it was remarkably well-preserved, with what seemed to be blood and even semen stains still visible on the fabric.
It was later revealed that as her body was transported to the morgue, acting Police Sergeant Amos Simpson took it as a somewhat grim "gift" for his wife, Jane.
Despite never wearing it, it stayed within the family for generations until it was put up for auction by Sergeant Simpson’s great-great-nephew, David Melville-Hayes.
Mr Edwards was taken aback that such an elaborate silk scarf, adorned with flowers, could have belonged to Ms Eddowes, who was known to be a destitute alcoholic.
(Image: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
However, the design and dyes used seemed to match those produced in St Petersburg at the time. This led Mr Edwards to ponder whether it could have actually been a possession of Ripper suspect Kosminski, who originated from the Russian empire.
He pondered whether he could have left it at the scene. This sparked a lengthy series of DNA tests on the suspected blood and semen stains, aided by distant relatives of both the victim and suspect.
Incredibly, there was a positive match for the blood stains and an unnamed direct descendant of Ms Eddowes.
Despite a request to exhume Kosminski’s body being declined, the DNA found in the semen stains also matched one of Kosminski’s sister’s descendants.
According to Mr Edwards, this provides definitive proof of Jack the Ripper’s identity - a case that has remained unsolved since 1888.
Kosminski was born on September 11, 1865, making him 22 and 23 during the time of the murders. He was raised in Klodawa, near Warsaw, as the youngest of seven children, with his father passing away when he was only eight.
(Image: PA)
His mother remarried and records suggest he may have been sexually abused by his stepfather. In 1882, six years prior to the murders, the family fled to London’s East End to escape the rising anti-Semitism in eastern Europe following the death of Tsar Alexander II a year earlier.
During the murder investigation, Dr Robert Anderson, head of the London Criminal Investigation Department, had identified Kosminski as the prime suspect.
Previously confidential police reports, published in 1894 as the Macnaghten Memorandum, noted that detectives believed he harboured a "great hatred of women, specially of the prostitute class, and had strong homicidal tendencies".
With not a single confirmed photo of Kosminski in existence, Mr Edwards reached out to the man’s family for old portraits to use in a high-tech computer programme designed to reconstruct his face based on his kin’s features.
The resulting portrait?
A brooding young chap with cropped hair, prominent cheekbones, and an intense gaze.
Mr Edwards has since dug deeper, convinced that the real reason Jack the Ripper dodged capture was because his brother had ties to freemasonry. He’s also keen to disclose the sinister reasons behind those infamous mutilations.
Come February 2023, several snaps landed in his hands, one showing a dapper bunch of 15 gents donning handlebar moustaches and sharp suits draped in equally impressive outerwear. Turns out, they were members of the Lodge of Israel, a freemason group set up for Jewish immigrants making a home on British shores.
Standout among them was Kosminski’s big bro, Isaac, a tailor who’d made it good since relocating to London in 1870 and swapping his surname for Abrahams. And here’s where it gets eeriea dusty Masonic Code recounts how a "Master Mason" by the name Hiram Abiff was done in by three so-called "The Juwes" because he kept shtum about secret matters.
This ghastly tale ended up spawning several Masonic oaths, grim enough to describe throat-slitting, tongue-yanking, and other gruesome acts.
Mr Edwards is dead set on the idea that the Ripper wasn’t just a random murderer, but was following a Masonic script. He’s also of the mind that it was the Masonic ties of his own bro that shielded him from being nabbed by the copsto keep the heat off the Jewish community.
(Image: Getty Images)
But what’s truly bone-chilling is the cryptic message found at the Eddowes crime scene. Right there in chalk was this puzzling line: "The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing."
And get this ’Juwes’, jotted down just like the Masons would have it.
Despite all this spook, Kosminski roamed free, and come 1890, after going bonkers thinking he’s hearing voices and pulling a knife on his sis, he got shipped off to the Colney Hatch loony bin up in North London.