Jack the Ripper unmasked after 140 years? Historian claims vicious serial killer's name is…

After 140 years, Jack the Ripper's identity is said to be revealed after testing DNA from a shawl found at a murder scene.

One of world's most notorious and oldest serial killer mysteries might have been solved almost 140 years later. The true identity of the 19th century serial killer “Jack the Ripper” has been revealed, claimed a English historian, the New York Post said.

After 140 years, historian Russell Edwards claims to have identified Jack the Ripper.(Representational)

Author Russell Edwards has revealed that he tested the DNA found on a shawl recovered from the scene of one of the killer’s murders. The test results have now revealed that the vicious murdered who terrorised Victorian London’s East End in the late 1800s was a 23-year-old Polish immigrant named Aaron 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. 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 has said.

Who was Jack the Ripper?

The unknown killer, who earned the name Jack the Ripper, had brutally raped, mutilated and murdered five women, most of them sex workers, in London's Whitechapel district between 1888 and 1891. However, historians believe that the number of victims was much higher.

The five victims were Mary Nichols, 43, Annie Chapman, 47, Elizabeth Stride, 44, Catherine Eddowes, 46, and Mary Jane Kelly, 25. Three of the women had their internal organs removed.

Edwards learned that a shawl had been found at the scene of Eddowes’ killing and purchased it in 2007. “It was a voyage of discovery, with many twists and turns. The adventure was thrilling from beginning to end and I was lucky to experience it," he said.

Who was Aaron Kosminski?

According to reports, Aaron Kosminski moved to England as a child, and worked as a barber in Whitechapel. Kosminski began exhibiting symptoms of mental illness in 1885 and was subsequently admitted to multiple asylums, where he remained until his death in 1919.

Before passing away at 53, he experienced auditory hallucinations, exhibited intense fear of others, refused to eat, and avoided bathing, according to Edwards.

Skeptics believe case still unsolved

Several online skeptics have cast doubt on Edwards’ findings, citing past allegations that he faked the discovery of a child’s skull in 2022, which led to a renewed police search for Keith Bennett’s remains.

The infamous Moors Murders, committed between 1963 and 1965 by the depraved duo Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, claimed the lives of five children in Manchester, England. Bennett remains the only victim whose body has never been recovered.