Content warning: This article contains graphic details of gore and violence.
The streets of Whitechapel never slept as something sinister stalked its inhabitants in the night. A phantom in the dark lurked in the streets, leaving behind nothing but death and panic. He was never caught, never unmasked, never even given a proper name — only a chilling moniker scrawled in red ink could identify him: Jack the Ripper. The police hunted him, the people feared him, and history immortalized him.
Whitechapel, London, England, circa 1888
The district of Whitechapel was a dire place, notorious for its high levels of crime and violence despite the number of skilled immigrants that had settled there. Prostitution ran rampant throughout the streets, being legal unless it caused a public disturbance. The harsh reality was that nobody would bat an eye at the murder of a “lady of the night” as these women faced violent assaults often, with some of them proving fatal.
In August, a chained series of killings started that proved to be far more than a coincidence. These murders were cold and calculated, devoid of human emotion, and filled with so much hate that no normal person could fathom having done such a thing. The victims, in order, included Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly. They all had two things in common: they were women, and they were prostitutes.
Jack the Ripper killed all his victims by strangulation and proceeded to lay the women on the ground and slit their throats before beginning what seemed like a ritualistic operation. As the killings progressed, they began to get more and more gruesome. All of Jack the Ripper’s victims were found dead with their legs spread and their knees off the ground. His first and third victims seemed to have been the least morbid of deaths, probably because they were all discovered warm, which meant that something may have prevented the killer from continuing.
The rest of the victims, on the other hand, suffered a more ghastly death. His second victim was found with her intestines removed and strategically hung on her shoulders. Her uterus and bladder were also missing. His fourth victim had her intestines strewn around her body, under her arm and over her shoulder. Her nose was cut off, and her face was filled with gashes and incisions, with her womb and kidneys also missing. The last victim was mutilated beyond recognition, with almost all her organs removed and placed on her nightstand. From the way this man committed his crimes, it was clear that his hatred for women was fueling his rage.
At the time in which these deaths happened, criminology was only able to decipher certain things about the killer. The precision and cleanliness of the cuts the killer made suggested that he knew human anatomy. The killer would also only attack in the early hours of the morning and exclusively on weekends. These details were telling of his character, suggesting that he may have been single since he could be out so late without alerting someone. They also showed that he was most likely employed since he was absent from the streets Monday through Thursday. As media attention and police presence grew, the killings stopped. For years, police tried to figure out who could have done such things, but with no luck. Until now — nearly 140 years later.
Unmasking the killer
Historian Russell Edwards claims that then-23-year-old Polish immigrant and barber Aaron Kosminski was the infamous Jack the Ripper. Edwards told Today Australia in an interview that a shawl belonging to victim Eddowes was tested for DNA, coming back with a 100% match to Kosminski.
“When we matched the DNA from the blood on the shawl with a direct female descendant of the victim, it was the singular most amazing moment of my life at the time,” Edwards stated in the interview. He continued, “We tested the semen left on the shawl. When we matched that, I was dumbfounded that we actually had discovered who Jack the Ripper truly was.”
Edwards purchased the shawl in 2007 after learning that it had been at the crime scene of Eddowes’s killing. “It was a voyage of discovery, with many twists and turns,” Edwards said. “The adventure was thrilling from beginning to end, and I was lucky to experience it.”
According to Edwards, Kosminski moved to England as a child and worked as a barber-surgeon in Whitechapel. Kosminski was committed to numerous insane asylums later in his life, showing signs of mental illness and experiencing auditory hallucinations. An 1891 document cited by Edwards showed that Kosminski was a “strong suspect” in the case, but due to lack of evidence, police could not prosecute him. Edwards is currently requesting permission to initiate the legal process to reopen the case, stating that “We now know the name, and we’ve placed the murderer at the murder scene… Now we want that to be public knowledge though, accepted by the courts.”
After more than a century of speculation, theories, and endless investigation, the question of who Jack the Ripper was indeed seems to have been solved. The Ripper’s crimes were brutal, and his motives unclear, having left a legacy of terror in Whitechapel. Thankfully, advancements in forensic science were able to give some comfort to the current families of the victims. The only question that remains is: Is this case truly closed?