Jack the Ripper Solved! Notorious Killer Identified as Aaron Kosminski

He was a mystery, a legend that inspired plenty of slasher films, a household name that can instill fear in the hearts of many - he is Jack the Ripper, and after all these years, he finally has a name.

At least that's how it seems to be.

In a report by the New York Daily, author Russell Edwards, in his book "Naming Jack the Ripper", identified a Polish immigrant with the name Aaron Kosminski as the notorious killer from 19^th Century London.

World-renowned DNA expert Dr Jari Louhelainen claimed that he was finally able to work out the identity of Jack the Ripper by taking DNA samples from a bloody shawl from one of his victims, Catherine Eddowes. Louhelainen then compared the DNA from the scarf to the relatives of Kominski, a man said to have emigrated from Poland who ended up staying in an mental asylum.

The shawl from Eddowes was passed down from generation to generation of her family and was sold at an auction seven years ago. The shawl was purchased by Edwards, as he was eager to finally put an end to the story of the ripper.

Edwards told The Mirror, "I've got the only piece of forensic evidence in the whole history of the case. I've spent 14 years working on it and we have definitively solved the mystery of who Jack the Ripper was. Only non-believers that want to perpetuate the myth will doubt. This is it now - we have unmasked him."

He also added, "Thank God the shawl has never been washed, as it held the vital evidence."

Kominski has long been regarded as one of the main suspects of the man dubbed as Jack the Ripper, mutilating and murdering around five people during his time, slashing their throats, removing internal organs, and leaving their mutilated bodies in alleyways in Whitechapel.

Eddowes was a 46-year-old woman whom he killed in the early hours of September 1888, and a day after she was killed, a letter claiming responsibility for her murder arrived, signed with the name Jack the Ripper.

This is not the first time that the mystery was deemed solved. Last year, a crime writer, Patricia Cornwell, claimed that the murderer was artist Walter Sicker, her claim based on 11 years of researching documents and "confessional and violent letters" from Jack the Ripper that matched the paper Sickert used in his art.