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:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2746321/Jack-Ripper-unmasked-How-amateur-sleuth-used-DNA-breakthrough-identify-Britains-notorious-criminal-126-years-string-terrible-murders.html

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.

Wouldn’t hold my breath here, but we have another individual -in this case retired homicide detective Trevor Marriott- presenting his evidence for the identity of Jack the Ripper…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/24/jack-the-ripper-solved-investigation-german-sailor_n_3981837.html

It seems every year or three another person comes forward with what they believe is iron-clad, indisputable evidence to who Jack the Ripper was…and we’re often given intriguing bits and pieces of information which never quite add up to as solid a case as we would have hoped…

And I keep reading the theories anyway! 😉

The fact is that the Jack the Ripper case is intriguing as hell and it shouldn’t be a surprise so many people have given it a look (and offered their theory).  Mr. Marriott’s theory is just as good as any of the others, and far more plausible than those implicating assorted figures within England’s Royal sphere, yet the same problem plagues this theory as the others:  1) So much time has passed and all the witnesses and/or suspects to these events are long gone, 2) There is simply very little actual physical evidence to be found, and 3) What evidence there is was collected by a police force that was operating on a level that was primitive by today’s standards.

I’ve noted before that I believe Jack the Ripper was probably someone like Mr. Marriott’s suspect Carl Feigenbaum.  A person with a deep, disturbing level of psychosis who probably came into London from outside (either that or his “work” was done with more finesse before this), did his nasty business, and either left the London area immediately afterwards or was killed or died naturally sometime shortly after the last victim was found.

Other than that, we’ll probably never know….

…which doesn’t mean it isn’t intriguing to offer guesses!