New DNA twist in the Jack the Ripper mystery

The Ghost of Whitechapel Lives On

In the late 1880s, a shadowy figure infamously known as Jack the Ripper stalked the dimly lit alleys of Whitechapel in London’s East End. Over a few brutal months in 1888, five women – the “canonical five” victims – were murdered and mutilated in a manner so gruesome it shocked Victorian society and spawned the world’s most famous unsolved mystery. More than 137 years later, the case still captivates and horrifies in equal measure. True crime enthusiasts and curious travelers continue to explore these same cobblestone streets on Jack the Ripper tours, peering into history’s dark corners in search of answers. The old East End atmosphere survives on these walks: gaslight-era pubs, cobbled lanes, and tales of the Whitechapel murders that refuse to fade away. It’s an enduring legend that has made the area a focal point of London crime history tourism, with countless investigators and fascinated tourists having visited and revisited the murder sites over the years. But could modern science finally cast a light on the Ripper’s identity and bring closure to this Victorian whodunit? A Case Frozen in Time – Until NowFor well over a century, Jack the Ripper’s identity has remained a maddening enigma. Police of the time interviewed suspects and even Whitechapel locals mounted citizen patrols, yet the killer vanished like London fog. The mystery persisted through the 20th century, giving rise to “Ripperology” – an entire field of amateur and professional study – and a list of suspects ranging from barbers to aristocrats. It sometimes seemed that every new theory only added another layer to the legend. Even as true crime tourism blossomed – with guided walking tours retracing the Ripper’s bloody trail – the question “Who was Jack the Ripper?” hung in the air, unanswered. That question, however, has roared back into headlines in the past year. In an age of DNA forensics and genetic genealogy, investigators have revisited century-old evidence in hopes of cracking this coldest of cold cases. And remarkably, new DNA analysis results emerged within the last 12 months that claim to identify Jack the Ripper at last.

If true, modern science may have finally caught up with a killer who walked Victorian streets long before DNA testing was even imagined.The Shawl that Sparked a RevelationThe center of this new development is a tattered Victorian shawl linked to one of the Ripper’s victims. The shawl was reportedly found near the body of Catherine Eddowes, the fourth canonical victim, murdered in Mitre Square on September 30, 1888. This blood-stained relic survived the ages and fell into the hands of a researcher named Russell Edwards, a self-described “Ripperologist.” In 2019, parts of the shawl were tested for genetic material. Amazingly, forensic scientists extracted DNA that matched both Catherine Eddowes and one of the top Ripper suspects of the era, Aaron Kosminski.

Kosminski was a Polish immigrant and Whitechapel barber who, at age 23, had been an early suspect in 1888 but was never charged. The DNA findings seemed to resurrect this long-dead case: could it be that the murderer’s identity was woven into the very fabric left at a crime scene?Edwards, determined to prove his case, spent years on this quest.

By early 2025, he announced what he calls definitive results. According to Edwards, the shawl’s DNA provided a 100% match to DNA from a living descendant of Aaron Kosminski, essentially naming Kosminski as the Jack the Ripper. To obtain this match, Edwards worked with scientists who compared mitochondrial DNA (passed through female lineage) from the shawl’s blood stains to that of Eddowes’ descendants, and did the same with DNA from semen stains and Kosminski’s relatives. The conclusion was startling: the genetic signatures pointed to victim and suspect coming into contact on that fateful night. “It’s very difficult to put into words the elation I felt when I saw the 100 percent DNA match,” Edwards told the press, expressing confidence that the mystery had finally been solved.

Identifying a Suspect:

Aaron Kosminski for those familiar with the case, the name Aaron Kosminski is not a random newcomer. Kosminski’s name appears in historical police memos and also margin notes by investigators who worked the Whitechapel murders. At least two senior officials at the time – Melville Macnaghten and Donald Swanson – privately pointed to a Polish immigrant suspect (identified in documents as “Kosminski”) whom an eyewitness allegedly identified as the killer, though no formal charges were brought. Kosminski was later committed to an asylum in 1891 and died in 1919, having never answered to the Ripper allegations. Ripper historians have long debated his guilt or innocence, but he consistently ranked high on lists of possible culprits.

The new DNA evidence, if accurate, appears to confirm an old theory rather than introduce a new suspect. It effectively ties Kosminski to the Eddowes murder scene – a tantalizing link that previous generations of detectives could only dream of. To many, this genetic clue bolsters the case that Kosminski was indeed the Ripper, reinforcing what some Victorian investigators suspected all along. As one true crime observer noted, this is the first time any physical evidence has ever been able to even potentially name the notorious killer. In the lore of unsolved crimes, that is a seismic development.

Families Seek Closure Through an Inquest

News of the DNA match did not just excite Ripper enthusiasts and the media – it also reverberated among descendants of those directly affected by the 1888 crimes.

In January 2025, family members of Catherine Eddowes and other victims publicly backed a call for a new coroner’s inquest into the Ripper murders. They argue that with DNA evidence “in hand,” a formal legal proceeding could finally name Aaron Kosminski as the perpetrator in the public record, correcting history’s open verdict. “We have the proof. Now we need this inquest to legally name the killer,” said Karen Miller, one of Eddowes’ great-great-great-granddaughters, expressing her desire for official closure.

For these families, a century of uncertainty has been a lingering ghost. A posthumous naming of Jack the Ripper would be more than academic – it would be, in their view, a measure of justice and a chance to lay the matter to rest.Edwards and his legal team have begun the process of petitioning Britain’s High Court for an inquest and re-examination of the long-dormant case. It’s an extraordinary step: essentially asking the modern justice system to pronounce judgment on a Victorian serial killer. If granted, such an inquest would sift through both old evidence and new science in a courtroom setting.

It could result in an official declaration of Kosminski as the killer of Catherine Eddowes (and possibly the other victims), finally closing the file on Jack the Ripper – at least in a legal sense. As one might imagine, this effort is being watched closely by historians, forensic experts, and London’s true crime tour guides alike. After all, a court stamping “Case Closed” on the Ripper saga would mark a historic moment in both crime history and the public imagination.Science or Sensationalism?

Debating the DNA Evidence

Despite the excitement, not everyone is convinced that the Ripper’s ghost has been definitively vanquished by science. Skepticism remains high in the forensic community about the recent DNA claims. One major point of contention is the quality and handling of the shawl evidence over 135+ years. The shawl’s provenance is murky – it was never officially logged in police evidence in 1888, and stories suggest a policeman may have removed it from the crime scene as a souvenir, meaning it passed through many hands. This raises obvious chain-of-custody issues. Could DNA on it have come from contamination at any point since the Victorian era? It’s quite possible. The cloth wasn’t stored in sterile conditions; people handled it, and even pieces of it were cut off and sold over time. That’s hardly ideal for preserving genetic material for a century.Then there is the matter of the DNA analysis itself. The 2019 testing of the shawl (conducted by biochemist Dr. Jari Louhelainen and colleagues) was published in a peer-reviewed journal, but curiously did not include the actual genetic sequences in its report. Some experts found this omission troubling, as it prevents independent reviewers from verifying the match. “Otherwise, the reader cannot judge the result,” observed Walther Parson, a respected forensic scientist, when the findings first came out. In other words, the study asked everyone to take the authors’ word for it – a big ask for an extraordinary claim. Additionally, the DNA type used for comparison was mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is useful for excluding suspects but cannot pinpoint a unique individual with absolute certainty. Hansi Weissensteiner, another genetic expert, noted that many people can share the same mitochondrial profile if they have a common maternal ancestor. So while the shawl’s mtDNA might match Kosminski’s distant relatives, it doesn’t prove no one else in Victorian London could have left that same trace.Even Dr. Louhelainen himself has acknowledged some flaws and limitations. He admitted that the shawl’s chain of custody was broken and some of the analysis had issues, conceding that the evidence “wouldn’t be conclusive in a modern court” on its own. Louhelainen also offered a alternate explanation for the genetic link: as a local barber, Kosminski could have transferred his DNA to Eddowes through casual contact (barbers often had close contact with many residents, and Eddowes was known to frequent the area). In an overcrowded district like Whitechapel, where daily interactions and packed lodging houses were the norm, a trace of someone’s DNA might end up on a garment without any murderous intent. And if that sounds far-fetched, consider that even a confirmed DNA match doesn’t explain how it got there. As some observers have pointed out, if Aaron Kosminski was indeed the source of the shawl’s semen stain, it could mean he had solicited Eddowes for sex on the night she was killed – a salacious scenario, but one that still does not irrefutably prove he committed the murder. There is a big leap from “their DNA was in the same place” to “he wielded the knife.” The former might bolster a narrative; the latter still requires a convincing case built on all evidence combined.In short, the new DNA evidence, while fascinating, is not an open-and-shut case. Many Ripperologists and scientists urge caution about declaring the mystery solved. The latest genetic clue bolsters one long-held theory and has certainly reinvigorated the discussion, but it hasn’t unanimously ended the debate. As history has shown, Jack the Ripper’s story tends to resist simple answers. Each time a researcher proclaims, “Case closed,” the fierce discussions begin anew in pubs, universities, and in Whitechapel.