A Descendant Of One Of Jack The Ripper’s Victims Wants The Serial Killer Named In Court Following A Possible Breakthrough In DNA Evidence
After a possible breakthrough in DNA evidence, a descendant of one of Jack the Ripper’s victims has demanded a new inquest into one of the most notorious serial killers in history.
The true identity of Jack the Ripper has always been something of a mystery. He committed many gruesome murders, terrorizing the slums of Whitechapel in east London in 1888. The murders all took place within a mile of each other.
In 1998, the FBI prepared a criminal personality profile for Jack the Ripper. The report suggested that the serial killer was a white male of average intelligence between 28 and 36-years-old.
He was a quiet loner who was withdrawn from society and had difficulty interacting with people, particularly women.
He was possibly raised by a female figure who drank heavily and consorted with many different men. Before the murders, he drank in local pubs.
He was also observed walking all over Whitechapel in the early hours of the morning as he did his hunting at night.
There have been dozens of suspects with varying backgrounds, from royalty and prime ministers to butchers and bootmakers.
In 2014, DNA was extracted from a shawl recovered from one of the crime scenes. It was believed that the killer was Aaron Kosminski, an emigrant from Poland who worked as a barber.
According to the story, the shawl comes from the murder scene of Catherine Eddowes, the Ripper’s fourth victim. She was murdered on September 30, 1888.
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An expert from Liverpool John Moores University isolated seven small segments of DNA from bloodstains on the shawl. They were a match with the DNA of Karen Miller, a direct descendant of Eddowes.
“On the testing, the first result showed a 99.2 percent match. Since the DNA has two complementary strands, we went on and tested the other DNA strand, which game a perfect 100 percent match,” said Dr. Jari Louhelainen.
DNA from stains on the garment matched with a descendant of Kosminski. As a result, an inquest was demanded into the unsolved murder.
“The name Jack the Ripper has become sensationalized. It has gone down in history as this famous character,” Miller said.
“People have forgotten about the victims, who did not have justice at the time. Now we need this inquest to legally name the killer.”
The descendants of Kosminski have supported the inquest, hoping it will lead to what really happened all those years ago. It is up to the attorney general to approve the inquest.
Kosminski was born on September 11, 1865, in Klodawa in central Poland. His family fled to east London during the early 1880s.
He lived near the murder scenes. At some point, he was taken in by police to be identified by a witness who had seen him with one of the victims.
However, the witness did not provide sufficient evidence to incriminate him, so the police had to let Kosminski go.
In 1889, he entered a workhouse and was discharged later that same year. Soon, he ended up in a mental asylum, where he died from gangrene on March 24, 1919. Three days later, he was buried at East Ham Cemetery in east London.
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