Two men claim to have identified Jack the Ripper using DNA found on a shawl owned by one of the killer’s victims, saying the murderer was Aaron Kosminski, a Polish immigrant.

DNA 'Proves' Aaron Kosminski was Jack the Ripper

In the new book Naming Jack the Ripper, author Russell Edwards claims to have finally solved the mystery of Jack the Ripper, the infamous serial killer who originated in 19th century London. Edwards, self-identified as an “armchair detective,” bought a bloody shawl that supposedly belonged to Jack the Ripper victim Catherine Eddowes at an auction in 2007 and got in touch with molecular biologist Jari Louhelainen to see if modern science could finally reveal the identity of Jack the Ripper.

“I’ve got the only piece of forensic evidence in the whole history of the case. I’ve spent 14 years working on it, and we have definitively solved the mystery of who Jack the Ripper was,” Edwards said.

DNA evidence gathered from the bloody shawl and compared the DNA found to the DNA of a descendent of Aaron Kosminski’s sister. The first of two tests was a 99.2% match, the second was a perfect match, they claim. Kosminski was born in Poland and moved to London in 1881 with his Jewish family, fleeing persecution. He would have been 23 at the time of the murders, and was sent to an insane asylum as an adult, where he eventually died from gangrene in 1899.

The supposed identification of Kosminski as the Ripper is not altogether surprising – Kosminski is one of six commonly known suspects. However, many Ripper scholars are quick to poke holes in Edwards’ conclusion. Richard Cobb, a Ripper enthusiast who runs Jack the Ripper conventions, for example, stated that, the DNA evidence did little more than prove that Kosminski might have visited Eddowes, a prostitute.

“The shawl has been openly handled by loads of people and been touched, breathed on, spat upon. My DNA is probably on there. What’s more, Kosminski is likely to have frequented prostitutes in the East End of London. If I examined that shawl, I’d probably find links to 150 other men from the area,” Cobb said.