Dr Drew Gray on…Jack the Ripper. Case Cracked? (Probably not)

It’s a mystery that has remained in public debate for 130 years, but recent news reports have suggested the real identity of Jack the Ripper has been confirmed via a DNA match…but does this mean the case has been cracked?

One academic at the University of Northampton might be best placed to unearth fact from fiction – Dr Drew Gray.

Dr Drew Gray is the Head of Culture (Humanities, Media, Performance) whose research specialisms revolve around the history of crime, specifically the role of magistrates/justices of the peace in the period 1750-1914, and the police courts of London in the Victorian era. His research also explores the mythology surrounding crime and criminality, notably the Whitechapel murders of 1888-91.

With rumours, fact and fiction flurrying across the news channels, Drew Gray shares his thoughts on cracking the case below…

(Warning – this blog includes brief graphic descriptions of some historical victim injuries).

Recent news stories have suggested we might finally be close to solving the most enduring murder mystery of them all: Who was Jack the Ripper?

One media source reported: “After years of research, Russell Edwards believes he has finally uncovered the identity of Jack the Ripper. A bloodstained shawl found at the crime scene of victim Catherine Eddowes was tested for DNA evidence. The results reportedly match Aaron Kosminski, a Polish-born barber who has long been a suspect.”

Edwards, the author of Naming Jack the Ripper, bought the shawl at auction in 2007, had it tested for DNA and is so convinced that Kosminki was the murderer that he and Eddowes’ great-great-granddaughter Karen Miller are jointly calling for the High Court to hold an inquest to establish the identity of the killer, ultimately bringing ‘justice’ to the victims’ families.

It is a powerful story, and given that modern forensics make the identification of suspects in crime investigations so much easier than was the case in 1888 (when the Whitechapel murders took place), on the surface it seems persuasive.

Let us pause and go back to 1.45am on the morning 30 September 1888, when PC Watkins entered Mitre Square, near Aldgate and found Catherine Eddowes’ body lying in a dark corner of the square. Poor Kate had been brutally murdered: her throat had been cut before the killer savagely mutilated her body, cutting ‘v’s under her eyes, clipping the tip off her nose, and slicing her right ear. He then opened her abdomen, removing her uterus and her left kidney.

According to Edward’s story, a bloodstained shawl was found by Eddowes’ body that night. Sergeant Amos Simpson, a policeman from another division who happened to be in Mitre Square that morning, accompanied Eddowes’ body to the mortuary where he asked a superior if he might have the silk shawl for his wife, a dressmaker, to repurpose. Apparently, the officer agreed, despite the fact that at this point it was one of a very few clues ever left by the killer.

Mrs Simpson was so horrified by the bloody cloth she stashed it in a box, unwashed, where it remained for years, being handed down through the family. In 1991 the shawl was handed over to Scotland Yard’s Black Museum by David Melville-Hayes, a descendant of Sergeant Simpson. The museum stored it but didn’t display it was they had no proof of its connection to the Whitechapel case. Hayes took it back in 2001 and in 2006 it was inclusively tested for DNA.

Hayes decided to sell the shawl which is where Edwards became involved. He now set out to prove the connection and Dr Jari Louhelainen from Liverpool John Moores University, an expert on historic DNA analysis. Those interested enough to explore the process and outcome (which pointed to a connection to Kosminski) should read Edwards’ book – however I’d just like to stop and consider some basics before we agree that Edwards has solved this case “100 per cent,” as he claims.

The first problem is the shawl itself. Whose was it: Eddowes’ or Kosminky’s? Edwards accepts it is unlikely that Kate would have owned such a valuable item as a large silk shawl and not pawned it to buy shelter, food and drink when she and John Kelly were so short of money that week. So, it must have belonged to the killer. But that begs the question why the Inspector in charge allowed a colleague from another division to take away one of the few pieces of evidence that linked the murderer to the crime series?

Moreover, the police were careful to record every detail, with sketches, of the injuries inflicted on Kate and the items found by her body. And there is no mention of a large and valuable silk shawl covered in blood. This means we have no concrete evidence that the shawl Edwards has had tested for DNA was ever in Mitre Square at all.

But let’s overlook that dilemma temporarily, and accept the shawl was taken home by Sergeant Simpson. Given the lack of understanding of forensics in 1888 for many years thereafter, it is unlikely that anyone handling the shawl took the necessary precautions to avoid corrupting evidence with their own DNA. Even Edwards himself has been seen handling the shawl without gloves so we can safely assume many others have over the course of time.

Besides this evidence, there is another problem with the shawl for me. The Whitechapel murderer struck twice on the night he killed Kate. Less than an hour earlier, at 1am, the body of Elizabeth Stride was found in Dutfield’s Yard, Berner Street. Stride had been seen talking to a man who threw her to the ground not long before she was killed and sighted earlier that evening further up Berner Street. No witnesses mentioned seeing a man with a large silk shawl. Edwards seems to suggest that Kosminsky left the shawl at the scene of his crime in Mitre Square as some form of message, but why then and there but not at Berner Street or at any one of the previous murder sites?

Which bring us to Kosminsky himself – do we even know who he was? ‘Kosminsky’ is named as one of three suspects in Sir Melville MacNaghten’s memoirs and, since this was revealed, researchers have largely agreed that the individual he referred to was an inmate of various asylums in London. But this is far from being conclusive proof that MacNaghten’s Kosminski was the same person that Edwards’ DNA trail identified.

All in all, we have a shawl with DNA which might link it to one of the Ripper victims and to a possible suspect which we cannot prove was at the scene of the crime. I doubt it would stand up in court today so I’m not sure that reopening the inquest would bring the clarity that Edwards and, more importantly, the families of the Whitechapel victims might desire.

US crime writer, Patricia Cornwell tried the solve the murder mystery using modern forensics, arguing Walter Sickert’s DNA could be found in letters sent to the police and press at the time of the killings. Personally, I don’t think science will solve the mystery. If the truth is out there then it likely exists in police or government documents which have been lost or hidden since the late 1880s, or in the memories of long dead witnesses and their ancestors.

I doubt we will ever know who Jack the Ripper was and, personally, I’m comfortable with that. There are much more important things to think about in regards to the Whitechapel case, not least the prevalence of violent misogyny and our inability, as a society, to be able to eradicate it despite all the supposed advances we have made in gender equality.

At the University of Northampton, Drew teaches a module called ‘Jack the Ripper’s London: Crime and Popular Culture in the Late Victorian City’ as part of the History and Law with Criminology degree courses. He has written several books on crime and punishment including his most recent, Nether World: Crime and the Police Courts in Victorian London (Reaktion Books, 2024).