Aaron Kosminski was Jack the Ripper: DNA proof

[Tapeworm]

How did the Ripper come to be called Jack?

He tried Aaron the Acrimonious but no one took him seriously.

[Eric2]

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

WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Jack the Ripper unmasked: How amateur sleuth used DNA breakthrough to identify Britain's most notorious criminal 126 years after string of terrible murders

    DNA evidence on a shawl found at Ripper murder scene nails killer
    By testing descendants of victim and suspect, identifications were made
    Jack the Ripper has been identified as Polish-born Aaron Kosminski
    Kosminski was a suspect when the Ripper murders took place in 1888
    Hairdresser Kosminski lived in Whitechapel and was later put in an asylum






GUILTY: A DNA sample has proven Polish immigrant Aaron Kosminski was Jack the Ripper

It is the greatest murder mystery of all time, a puzzle that has perplexed criminologists for more than a century and spawned books, films and myriad theories ranging from the plausible to the utterly bizarre.

But now, thanks to modern forensic science, The Mail on Sunday can exclusively reveal the true identity of Jack the Ripper, the serial killer responsible for  at least five grisly murders in Whitechapel in East London during the autumn of 1888.

DNA evidence has now  shown beyond reasonable doubt which one of six key suspects commonly cited in connection with the Ripper’s reign of terror was the actual killer – and we reveal his identity.

A shawl found by the body of Catherine Eddowes, one of the Ripper’s victims, has been analysed and found to contain DNA from her blood as well as DNA from the killer.

The landmark discovery was made after businessman Russell Edwards, 48, bought the shawl at auction and enlisted the help of Dr Jari Louhelainen, a world-renowned expert in analysing genetic evidence from historical crime scenes.

Using cutting-edge techniques, Dr Louhelainen was able to extract 126-year-old DNA from the material and compare it to DNA from descendants of Eddowes and the suspect, with both proving a perfect match.

The revelation puts an end to the fevered speculation over the Ripper’s identity which has lasted since his murderous rampage in the most impoverished and dangerous streets of London.

In the intervening century, a Jack the Ripper industry has grown up, prompting a dizzying array of more than 100 suspects, including Queen Victoria’s grandson – Prince Albert Victor, the Duke of Clarence – the post-Impressionist painter Walter Sickert, and the former Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone.



It was March 2007, in an  auction house in Bury St Edmunds, that I first saw the blood-soaked shawl. It was  in two surprisingly large  sections – the first measuring 73.5in by 25.5in, the second 24in by 19in – and, despite its stains, far prettier than any artefact connected to Jack the Ripper might be expected to be. It was mostly blue and dark brown, with a delicate  pattern of Michaelmas daisies – red, ochre and gold – at either end.

It was said to have been found next to the body of one of the Ripper’s victims, Catherine Eddowes, and soaked in her blood. There was no evidence for its provenance, although after the auction I obtained a letter from its previous owner who claimed his ancestor had been a police officer present at the murder scene and had taken it from there.

Yet I knew I wanted to buy the shawl and was prepared to pay a great deal of money for it. I hoped somehow to prove that it was genuine. Beyond that, I hadn’t considered the possibilities. I certainly had no idea that this flimsy, badly stained, and incomplete piece of material would lead to the solution to the most famous murder mystery of all time: the identification of Jack the Ripper.


Gruesome: A contemporary engraving of a Jack the Ripper crime scene in London's Whitechapel

When my involvement in the 126-year-old case began, I was just another armchair detective, interested enough to conduct my own extensive research after watching the Johnny Depp film From Hell in 2001. It piqued my curiosity about the 1888 killings when five – possibly more – prostitutes were butchered in London’s East End.

Despite massive efforts by the police, the perpetrator evaded capture, spawning the mystery which has fuelled countless books, films, TV programmes and tours of Whitechapel. Theories about his identity have been virtually limitless, with everyone from Prince Albert Victor, the Duke of Clarence, to Lewis Carroll being named as possible suspects. As time has passed, the name Jack the Ripper has become synonymous with the devil himself; his crimes setting the gruesome standard against which other horrific murders are judged.

I joined the armies of those fascinated by the mystery and researching the Ripper became a hobby. I visited the National Archives in Kew to view as much of the original paperwork as still exists, noting how many of the authors of books speculating about the Ripper had not bothered to do this. I was convinced that there must be something, somewhere that had been missed.

By 2007, I felt I had exhausted all avenues until I read a newspaper article about the sale of a shawl connected to the Ripper case. Its owner, David Melville-Hayes, believed it had been in his family’s possession since the murder of Catherine Eddowes, when his ancestor, Acting Sergeant Amos Simpson, asked his superiors if he could take it home to give to his wife, a dressmaker.

Incredibly, it was stowed without ever being washed, and was handed down from David’s great-grandmother, Mary Simpson, to his grandmother, Eliza Smith, and then his mother, Eliza Mills, later Hayes.

In 1991, David gave it to Scotland Yard’s Crime Museum, where it was placed in storage rather than on display because of the lack of proof of its provenance. In 2001, David reclaimed it, and it was exhibited at the annual Jack the Ripper conference. One forensic test was carried out on it for a Channel 5 documentary in 2006, using a simple cotton swab from a randomly chosen part of the shawl, but it was inconclusive.

Most Ripper experts dismissed it when it came up for auction, but I believed I had hit on something no one else had noticed which linked it to the Ripper. The shawl is patterned with Michaelmas daisies. Today the Christian feast of Michaelmas is archaic, but in Victorian times it was familiar as a quarter day, when rents and debts were due.

I discovered there were two dates for it: one, September 29, in the Western Christian church and the other, November 8, in the Eastern Orthodox church. With a jolt, I realised the two dates coincided precisely with the nights of the last two murder dates. September 29 was the night on which Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes were killed, and November 8 was the night of the final, most horrific of the murders, that of Mary Jane Kelly.

I reasoned that it made no sense for Eddowes to have owned the expensive shawl herself; this was a woman so poor she had pawned her shoes the day before her murder. But could the Ripper have brought the shawl with him and left it as an obscure clue about when he was planning to strike next? It was just a hunch, and far from proof of anything, but it set me off on my journey.

Before buying it, I spoke to Alan McCormack, the officer in charge of the Crime Museum, also known as the Black Museum. He told me the police had always believed they knew the identity of the Ripper. Chief Inspector Donald Swanson, the officer in charge of the investigation, had named him in his notes: Aaron Kosminski, a Polish Jew who had fled to London with his family, escaping the Russian pogroms, in the early 1880s.

Kosminski has always been one of the three most credible suspects. He is often described as having been a hairdresser in Whitechapel, the occupation written on his admission papers to the workhouse in 1890. What is certain is he was seriously mentally ill, probably a paranoid schizophrenic who suffered auditory hallucinations and described as a misogynist prone to ‘self-abuse’ – a euphemism for masturbation.

McCormack said police did not have enough evidence to convict Kosminski, despite identification by a witness, but kept him under 24-hour surveillance until he was committed to mental asylums for the rest of his life. I became convinced Kosminski was our man, and I was excited at the prospect of proving it. I felt sure that modern science would be able to produce real evidence from the stains on the shawl. After  a few false starts, I found a scientist I hoped could help.

Dr Jari Louhelainen is a leading expert in genetic evidence from historical crime scenes, combining his day job as senior lecturer in molecular biology at Liverpool John Moores University with working on cold cases for Interpol and other projects. He agreed to conduct tests on the shawl in his spare time.

The tests began in 2011, when Jari used special photographic analysis to establish what the stains were.

Using an infrared camera, he was able to tell me the dark stains were not just blood, but consistent with arterial blood spatter caused by slashing – exactly the grim death Catherine Eddowes had met.

But the next revelation was the most heart-stopping. Under UV photography, a set of fluorescent stains showed up which Jari said had the characteristics of semen. I’d never expected to find evidence of the Ripper himself, so this was thrilling, although Jari cautioned me that more testing was required before any conclusions could be drawn.

Obsession: Russell Edwards points to Hambury Street where one of the murders took place

He also found evidence of split body parts during the frenzied attack. One of Eddowes’ kidneys was removed by her murderer, and later in his research Jari managed to identify the presence of what he believed to be a kidney cell.

It was impossible to extract DNA from the stains on the shawl using the method employed in current cases, in which swabs are taken. The samples were just too old.

Instead, he used a method he called ‘vacuuming’, using a pipette filled with a special ‘buffering’ liquid that removed the genetic material in the cloth without damaging it.

As a non-scientist, I found myself in a new world as Jari warned that it would also be impossible to use genomic DNA, which is used in fresh cases and contains a human’s entire genetic data, because over time it would have become fragmented.

But he explained it would be possible to use mitochondrial DNA instead. It is passed down exclusively through the female line, is much more abundant than genomic DNA, and survives far better.

This meant that in order to give us something to test against, I had to trace a direct descendant through the female line of Catherine Eddowes. Luckily, a woman named Karen Miller, the three-times great-granddaughter of Eddowes, had featured in a documentary about the Ripper’s victims, and agreed to provide a sample of her DNA.

Jari managed to get six complete DNA profiles from the shawl, and when he tested them against Karen’s they were a perfect match.

It was an amazing breakthrough. We now knew that the shawl was authentic, and was at the scene of the crime in September 1888, and had the victim’s blood on it. On its own, this made it the single most important artefact in Ripper history: nothing else has ever been linked scientifically to the scene of any of the crimes.

Months of research on the shawl, including analysing the dyes used, had proved that it was made in Eastern Europe in the early 19th Century. Now it was time to attempt to prove that it contained the killer’s DNA.


The suspects: The long line of men believed to be Jack the Ripper include, from top left to right, Prince Albert Victor, Edward VII’s son, allegedly driven by syphilis-induced madness, Sir William Gull, Queen Victoria’s doctor, painter Walter Sickert, a Jewish shoemaker, a polish barber who later poisoned three women - and Kosminski

Jari used the same extraction method on the semen traces on the shawl, warning that the likelihood of sperm lasting all that time was very slim. He enlisted the help of Dr David Miller, a world expert on the subject, and in 2012 they made another incredible breakthrough when they found surviving cells. They were from the epithelium, a type of tissue which coats organs. In this case, it was likely to have come from the urethra during ejaculation.

Kosminski was 23 when the murders took place, and living with his two brothers and a sister in Greenfield Street, just 200 yards from where the third victim, Elizabeth Stride, was killed. As a key suspect, his life story has long been known, but I also researched his family. Eventually, we tracked down a young woman whose identity I am protecting – a British descendant of Kosminski’s sister, Matilda, who would share his mitochondrial DNA. She provided me with swabs from the inside of her mouth.

Amplifying and sequencing the DNA from the cells found on the shawl took months of painstaking, innovative work. By that point, my excitement had reached fever-pitch. And when the email finally arrived telling me Jari had found a perfect match, I was overwhelmed. Seven years after I bought the shawl, we had nailed Aaron Kosminski.

As a scientist, Jari is naturally  cautious, unwilling to let his imagination run away without testing every minute element, but even he declared the finding ‘one hell of a masterpiece’. I celebrated by visiting the East End, wandering the streets where Kosminski lived, worked and committed his despicable crimes, feeling a sense of euphoria but also disbelief that we had unmasked the Ripper.

Kosminski was not a member of the Royal Family, or an eminent  surgeon or politician. Serial killers rarely are. Instead, he was a pathetic creature, a lunatic who achieved sexual satisfaction from slashing women to death in the most brutal manner. He died in Leavesden  Asylum from gangrene at the age of 53, weighing just 7st.

No doubt a slew of books and films will now emerge to speculate on his personality and motivation. I have  no wish to do so. I wanted to provide real answers using scientific evidence, and I’m overwhelmed that 126 years on, I have solved the mystery.
Shawl that nailed Polish lunatic Aaron Kosminski and the forensic expert that made the critical match

By Dr Jari Louhelainen


When Russell Edwards first approached me in 2011, I wasn’t aware of the massive levels of interest in the Ripper case, as I’m a scientist originally from Finland.

But by early this year, when I realised we were on the verge of making a big discovery, working on the shawl had taken over my life, occupying me from early in the morning until late at night.

It has taken a great deal of hard work, using cutting-edge scientific techniques which would not have been possible five years ago.

To extract DNA samples from the stains on the shawl, I used a technique I developed myself, which I call ‘vacuuming’ – to pull the original genetic material  from the depths of the cloth.

I filled a sterile pipette with a  liquid ‘buffer’, a solution known to stabilise the cells and DNA, and injected it into the cloth to dissolve the material trapped in the weave of the fabric without damaging  the cells, then sucked it out.

I needed to sequence the DNA found in the stains on the shawl, which means mapping the DNA by determining the exact order  of the bases in a strand. I used polymerase chain reaction, a technique which allows millions  of exact copies of the DNA to be made, enough for sequencing.

When I tested the resulting  DNA profiles against the DNA taken from swabs from Catherine Eddowes’s descendant, they were a match.

I used the same extraction method on the stains which had characteristics of seminal fluid.

Dr David Miller found epithelial cells – which line cavities and organs – much to our surprise, as we were not expecting to find anything usable after 126 years.

Then I used a new process called whole genome amplification to copy the DNA 500 million-fold and allow it to be profiled.

Once I had the profile, I could compare it to that of the female descendant of Kosminski’s sister, who had given us a sample of  her DNA swabbed from inside  her mouth.

The first strand of DNA showed a 99.2 per cent match, as the analysis instrument could not determine the sequence of the missing 0.8 per cent fragment  of DNA. On testing the second strand, we achieved a perfect  100 per cent match.

Because of the genome amplification technique, I was also able to ascertain the ethnic and geographical background of the DNA I extracted. It was of a type known as the haplogroup T1a1, common in people of Russian Jewish ethnicity. I was even able to establish that he had dark hair.

Now that it’s over, I’m excited and proud of what we’ve achieved, and satisfied that we have established, as far as we possibly can, that Aaron Kosminski is  the culprit.

Dr Jari Louhelainen is a senior lecturer in molecular biology at Liverpool John Moores University and an expert in historic cold-case forensic research.

© Russell Edwards 2014

Naming Jack The Ripper,  by Russell Edwards, will be  published by Sidgwick & Jackson on September 9, priced £16.99.

Read more: 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#ixzz3CfbDJ5l0
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I find this fascinating. Old crimes of such notoriety being solved, this should make quite a book to read and movie if done right.

[SF1900]

I have noticed an interest phenomena. People never want to accept those truths which shatter the mystery of things. These mysteries are what keep life interesting. Many people were and are highly interested in finding out who Jack the Ripper was. They read books, watched tv shows, discussed it with people who had the similar interest. They probably even visited forums that discussed these sort of mysteries. Now that the mystery is no more, they feel a lack a lack of depth in their lives. As though they needed the mystery to keep life interesting. I think this is the sole reason why people are denying this. Science could produce all the evidence and people would still be denying it. The mystery is what keeps them going.

[tu_holmes]

Not sure if I buy it...

126 year old DNA... sure... but it could have come from the fact she was a prostitute, no?

[tom joad]

That's not Jack Tripper

haha

[Sam]

As somebody who has studied the case extensively and used to do ''ripper walks'' for tourists in london i suspect that this new ''evidence'' is deeply flawed. For a start to obtain DNA from a shawl that is 128 years old is very difficult especially since it appears to have been mended and most def contaminated over the years. Secondly, the shawl which this guy talks about was not left by the body of Catherine Eddowes in Mitre Square, as he suggests but was left in Goulston Street a few streets away, so he cant even get this fact right.

I suspect bullshit in this article...

[FitnessFrenzy]

Cannot rule it out, but why would a misogynist hairdresser want to have sex with a hooker? It maybe plausible, but it seems that he got off on killing them. Getting off on the physical act of killing them, possibly destroying the power that they (woman) hold over him (man).
He apparently either lived near there or worked near there, and he must have seen them and other prostitutes around. And we cannot rule out maybe even having sex with one of them.
Let's also not forget that he was a suspect for a reason.

Why not? He was insane and was later put on an asylum.

[OTHstrong]

Yeah but according to all accounts she was killed first by someone slicing her carotid artery. Then she mutilated which was said to have taken around 5 minutes. Then apparently he took the time to jizz on her. It doesn't say in the autopsy whether they checked her internally for sperm. Also if he did have sex with her he could have wiped himself off with her shawl.

"I believe the perpetrator of the act must have had considerable knowledge of the position of the organs in the abdominal cavity and the way of removing them. The parts removed would be of no use for any professional purpose. It required a great deal of knowledge to have removed the kidney and to know where it was placed. Such a knowledge might be possessed by one in the habit of cutting up animals. I think the perpetrator of this act had sufficient time ... It would take at least five minutes. ... I believe it was the act of one person."

scary shit man

[dr.chimps]

Even a 120 years ago the immigrants were up to no good!

Always taking local murderers' jobs.

[BigCyp]

If Aaron Kosminski was alive today he would probably be one of Uncle Junior's drinking buddies 

[Darren Avey]

Dam immigrants.

[BigCyp]

Guy was the top of the suspect list for over a hundred years, now they find his semen on the same shawl that had cartoid artery blood spatter from one of the victims.

He is then interned in a nuthouse, and the murders magically stop.

Yep, he must have slept with the victim, spunked on her shawl (all prostitutes wore scarves in bed lol) and then she happened to have been slashed to death by someone else, whilst wearing her favourite BJ Scarf lol

[TrueGrit]

Guy was the top of the suspect list for over a hundred years, now they find his semen on the same shawl that had cartoid artery blood spatter from one of the victims.

He is then interned in a nuthouse, and the murders magically stop.

Yep, he must have slept with the victim, spunked on her shawl (all prostitutes wore scarves in bed lol) and then she happened to have been slashed to death by someone else, whilst wearing her favourite BJ Scarf lol

Exactly. Just like OJ didn't do it too.

[BigCyp]

Exactly. Just like OJ didn't do it too.

Of course OJ didn't do it duh? He would have gone to jail. You don't brutally murder someone, get covered in blood and then get off scott-free bro.

[Army of One]

Guy was the top of the suspect list for over a hundred years, now they find his semen on the same shawl that had cartoid artery blood spatter from one of the victims.

He is then interned in a nuthouse, and the murders magically stop.

Yep, he must have slept with the victim, spunked on her shawl (all prostitutes wore scarves in bed lol) and then she happened to have been slashed to death by someone else, whilst wearing her favourite BJ Scarf lol

lol,exactly,he was also the police at the times top suspect, with the commisioner at the time saying in 1910 it was him and they threw him in a nuthouse.it's only in recent years that the other suspects were throw in the mix and gained popularity.

[Parker]

Why not? He was insane and was later put on an asylum.

Insane at that time was different now. The way many "normal" people now act would be quite strange behavior back then. Rich Piana might have been put in an asylum for all his tats and PMMA usage.

[JOHN MATRIX]

Back in the days before the internet, he was a pioneer of letter-ownings 

[Parker]

http://io9.com/three-things-to-keep-in-mind-about-the-big-jack-the-rip-1631736706?utm_source=recirculation&utm_medium=recirculation&utm_campaign=mondayAM

[Sam]

http://io9.com/three-things-to-keep-in-mind-about-the-big-jack-the-rip-1631736706?utm_source=recirculation&utm_medium=recirculation&utm_campaign=mondayAM

^^^ THIS

[Disgusted]

scary shit man

Been reading about this for years. I would hope that he is the guy just to put an end to all the speculation, but at the same time I don't think we will ever know. I'm not 100% sure why he was considered a suspect. It could have been because he had a history of bedding prostitutes. and was seen with her that night. He also lived near by.

The only part I don't find too plausible is he took the time to wack off after he spent the time to gut her. He took enough risk spending the amount of time he did stick around.

[The True Adonis]

Been reading about this for years. I would hope that he is the guy just to put an end to all the speculation, but at the same time I don't think we will ever know. I'm not 100% sure why he was considered a suspect. It could have been because he had a history of bedding prostitutes. and was seen with her that night. He also lived near by.

The only part I don't find too plausible is he took the time to wack off after he spent the time to gut her. He took enough risk spending the amount of time he did stick around.

Why do you think it was after he killed her and not before?

[The Abdominal Snoman]

that's not Aaron Singerman

[Parker]

Why not? He was insane and was later put on an asylum.

That's why I asked the question. Either he hated women, but at the same time needed a release, this hating them more, due to the "power that they held over him" via sex. A weaker person, a woman at that having power over him. Hating that he needed them. Also, maybe due to religious and ethnic reasons. There are many routes to take with him.

When somebody starts gutting prostitutes, and in such a vicious way, is says something about them.

[polychronopolous]

That's why I asked the question. Either he hated women, but at the same time needed a release, this hating them more, due to the "power that they held over him" via sex. A weaker person, a woman at that having power over him. Hating that he needed them. Also, maybe due to religious and ethnic reasons. There are many routes to take with him.

When somebody starts gutting prostitutes, and in such a vicious way, is says something about them.

From what I recall of the Ripper documentaries I have seen they were able to tie together a "Polish Jew" named Aaron Kasminski living in that area who was admitted into an asylum shortly after the last murder and from there they checked through the old files of the asylum.

Supposedly Kasminski was able to answer questions upon admittance but obviously was in bad enough shape mentally to be locked up.

However that same guy was so far gone 3 years later he wasn't even able to answer for himself. He had reached a level of insanity to that degree.

If that was the same person who actually was Jack the Ripper then he was absolutely capable of the whole semen issue and all the other terrible things he did to the prostitutes.

It's been a while since I've watched anything on Jack the Ripper so someone maybe could disprove everything I just wrote but that is what I recall of it.

[Rudee]

How is this proof he murdered the woman?  She was a prostitute wasn't she?  She probably had semen from many men on her clothing.