A leading criminologist believes he has finally solved the Jack the Ripper case and identified another victim. Despite decades of investigations into the horrifying femicides in East London, the case has still not been solved.
Due to the disturbing way in which five women were brutally murdered, they were all believed to have been killed by the same monster, nicknamed Jack the Ripper. Now, criminologist David Wilson, who specialises in murderers and serial killers, believes that he has found the killer, using geo-profiling to pinpoint where he likely lived based on crime locations, and the help of an information retrieval system that was set up following the failings related to the search for the Yorkshire Ripper – serial killer Peter Sutcliffe.
David believes it to be Polish barber, Aaron Kosminski, who historians have previously expressed suspicion over. However, the criminologist has presented new evidence in his book, A History of Modern Britain in Twenty Murders.
Because the killings took place near one another, he believed the killer lived locally. He explained that Kosminski lived with his brother and sister in Sion Square, in the centre of the murder sites.
He added that Kosminski had been suspected by the police at the time and allegedly believed he had a “great hatred of women”, especially prostitutes, and “strong homicidal tendencies”, reports The Sun.
Despite many Ripperologists discounting Kosminski because he had no medical training, David argued that there was no evidence of surgical knowledge in the murders.
The criminologist also believed his profession pointed to him as the murderer, because the attacks always happened in the early hours of a Friday or weekend, so he believed the killer would have had to be a worker who was busy during the week.
Medical records suggest the barber was institutionalised from 1891 with mental and eating disorders, aged just 26, according to the Jack the Ripper Tour.
Kosminski was committed to a workhouse on a number of occasions due to violent tendencies, which included brandishing a knife, before he was moved into Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, and later relocated to Leavesden Asylum in 1894.
David explained that due to the manner of the horrific killings, he believed the Ripper was likely insane.
This isn’t the first time evidence has emerged against the Polish barber, who fled as a child to East London to escape antisemitism in Poland.
Earlier this year, DNA was tested from a bloodstained shawl found at the scene of the murder of Catherine Eddowes, who is believed to be a victim of Jack the Ripper.
The shawl was bought at auction so a test could be carried out. One of Kosminski’s relatives shared her DNA to test against, which was allegedly found to be a “100% match” to the Polish barber.
However, some experts were sceptical and criticised the methodology – and the case remained open.
David also believes he has found a sixth victim after inputting all the femicides in Whitechapel from 1888 through to 1890 to HOLMES (Home Office Large Major Enquiry System), in one of his documentaries for the BBC.
He said this process identified six murders, not five, due to the pattern of the deaths. He believes Martha Tabram, who was found with 39 stab wounds at 5am in front of a block of flats on August 7, 1888, was the Ripper’s first victim.
The mum-of-two, who is believed to have had to turn to sex work during financial struggle, was brutally killed three weeks prior to the first victim, Mary Ann Nichols.
Between August and November 1888, Martha and five other women were horrifically murdered on the streets of Whitechapel in the early hours of the morning.