Editorial Article: Has ‘Jack the Ripper’ Been Identified Using DNA Coding and NMR Technology?

Identity of Jack the Ripper - 126 years after the murders

Cutting-edge DNA coding has enabled leading forensic geneticist, Dr Jari Louhelainen of Liverpool John Moores University, UK, to discover the identity of the legendary ‘Jack the Ripper’, a serial killer who murdered at least five victims in London, almost 126 years after the last murder victim was discovered.

Three years of scientific analysis of a shawl taken from the scene of the fourth victim, Catherine Eddowes, was combined with the search for the descendants and the man who Russell Edwards (author of the new book, Naming Jack the Ripper, to be published on September 9th 2014), suspected was Jack the Ripper. DNA coding confirmed the authenticity of the shawl, and the identity of the killer from blood and cells from semen stains on the shawl.
 
Dr David Miller, Reader in Molecular Andrology at the University of Leeds, UK, spoke to SelectScience about the technology used to extract the cells used in the DNA coding from the shawl: “From only a few threads of the precious shawl, I managed to extract just half a dozen squamous epithelial cells from the seminal fluid present in the shawl. Squamous epithelial cells are present in many bodily fluids, so this is not unusual; I did not, however, find any sperm cells.”
 
The cells Dr Miller extracted were then stained and observed using a light microscope and CytoSpin technology, to create a single spot of cells, for the slide. Dr Jari Louhelainen then removed these cells from the slides and extracted the DNA used to help identify the notorious murderer.

Also present on the shawl was a blue dye, which on further investigation using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) by LJMU lecturer and molecular chemist, Dr Fyaz Ismail, suggested that the shawl was of fine quality, Russian in origin and that it predates the murders. The NMR data analysis led to a region of Poland where Kosminski lived and was under Russian control, and suggested that the shawl belonged to the killer, not to the victim.

With this data at his fingertips and with the help of genealogists, Russell Edwards then traced a Polish woman thought to be a descendant of Aaron Kosminski. The woman offered samples of her DNA to make the crucial comparison. Dr Jari Louhelainen then matched DNA, using DNA sequencing, from the semen stains on the shawl to the descendant of Aaron Kosminski.

Could cutting-edge science technologies have solved one of Britain’s greatest mysteries?