Easily one of the most notorious -and first to gain notoriety- serial killers was Jack the Ripper. Though his identity remains unknown even today, yesterday a new claim was made as to who this barbaric killer might have been. You can read all about it here:
Many have pointed out the fact that this article comes from The Daily Mail (apparently not a very reliable “news” source) and that the person behind this claim is also (not so coincidentally) releasing a book to promote his views as reasons to be highly skeptical of the claims.
But even looking at them with as much neutrality as possible, one has to be impressed with at least one aspect of this new claim: The use of DNA testing in identifying a potential suspect.
If you don’t want to read through the article (though I recommend you do), the bottom line is that a shawl supposedly owned by Catherine Eddowes and taken from her by a policeman after she was found dead -a victim of Jack the Ripper-, was handed down over the years only to wind up with businessman Russell Edwards. The shawl was then tested for DNA.
Through this DNA testing and subsequent testing of distant relatives of one Aaron Kosminski, a match was made regarding material found on the shawl. Mr. Kosminski, it appears, left behind DNA traces on the murder victim’s shawl, probably in the form of semen, and that links him to this victim’s item. What makes this all the more fascinating is that the police back then viewed Mr. Kosminski as a suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders!
Anyway, I find the whole thing fascinating though I don’t believe it positively answers the question as to whether Kosminski was the Ripper. Even taking everything the article has at face value, what we ultimately have is Kosminski linked to a shawl that a victim and known prostitute had on her when she died. Kosminski could well be the Ripper, but he could have also been nothing more than a “client” of the victim. For all we know, he might have met her days, even weeks before she was eventually slain and this is how his DNA wound up on her shawl.
Still, the fact that we’ve been able, after all these years, to link one person, and this person in particular, to one of the Ripper victims is fascinating, though grim, stuff.