As you may have read over the weekend, an author has claimed to have "definitively" identified who Jack The Ripper really was via DNA testing. According to this author, the killer was a 23-year-old Polish immigrant who was on the (very long) list of suspects at the time of the murders, and who later died in an asylum. Reading the comments on some of the reports of this so-called monumental identification tells you two things; those familiar with the case and particularly Ripperologists, are quite reluctant to accept this as gospel, while those who have only ever heard of the case a few times have already accepted it as gospel. Someone said, "This is Jack The Ripper, here's his DNA" and everyone who either doesn't care much about the case or doesn't know much about it said, "Oh, well that's good to know".
For those not familiar, Jack The Ripper was likely the world's first serial killer, murdering four (and possibly five) women in the seedier side of London in 1888. Most of the victims were prostitutes, all of them had their throats slit and were mutilated post-mortem with most of the damage being inflicted on their sexual organs. The brutality with the crimes, combined with how each victim was posed, led many to believe the killer had an intense hatred of women, and possibly of prostitutes. It was also rumored that he possessed great anatomical knowledge and surgical skills because of the way he cut open the victims and exposed, and in some cases removed, their internal organs. The murders took place over a three month span, during which the police were desperately trying to identify the killer and the public was equal parts alarmed and fascinated by the case. The name "Jack The Ripper" originates from one of three letters sent to the police and media, only one of which is believed to be authentic (and there's even debate over that). Ironically, the name does not come from the authentic letter, but a fake that gained media attention when it spoke of cutting off a victim's ear, something that did indeed happen to the next victim (but it was believed to be an incidental nick inflicted during the frenzy, not an intentional attempt to cut off her ear). The letter that was believed to be from the actual killer included half of a human kidney, an organ that was missing from another victim. In November of 1888, the murders curiously stopped altogether and the case itself also stalled. Little has changed since then. Every few years, somebody comes along with a TV special or a new book and claims they have solved the mystery, and there's no shortage of suspects to choose from. Everyone from the Queen's personal physician to a number of immigrants were named as potential suspects in the case.
This author is getting more attention than previous identifiers of Jack The Ripper because he has DNA evidence to back up his claim. DNA is a powerful thing when it comes to identifying criminals, even those from hundreds of years ago. But with older DNA, the conditions have to be near perfect to get a match because DNA degrades over time, especially if it is not kept in the best of conditions. This author says he got his DNA match from a scarf that belonged to one of the victims. This blood-stained scarf was taken from evidence by an officer assigned to the case and, for reasons I don't think I even want to know, he gave it to his wife as a gift. She was understandably creeped out by the gesture and put the scarf in a closet, where it remained until her death. It was later passed on through the generations of the family until it came up for auction in 2007, where this author paid quite a bit for it. Eventually, a DNA expert was able to extract a sample of DNA that did not belong to the victim and, using DNA samples from the descendants of both her and the alleged killer, got a match. Curiously, the author chose to partner with the Daily Mail newspaper to finance and announce all of this, rather than publish in a peer journal for review. And that has only added to the disbelief that he has actually solved the 126-year-old mystery. One would think if you legitimately want to put forth your findings, and aren't in it just for the cash and notoriety, you would go the route of credibility instead of teaming with a newspaper of questionable repute. But that's not the only problem with his declaration that he has solved the mystery and anyone who doubts his findings does so only to "perpetuate the myth" of Jack The Ripper.
I'm one of those is not drinking the Kool-Aid just yet. I've read countless books on the Ripper murders and while this potentially adds an intriguing chapter to the story, I find some issues with certain things. First, and this would be as big an issue in 1888 as it is now, the chain of custody for the scarf is ridiculous. You have a nobody officer (not even a detective) who stole evidence from the biggest case the world had ever seen and gave it to his wife as a gift. She shoved it into a box and it's touched Fonz knows how many hands since then; family members, friends of family members, other people attempting to solve the crime. The touch DNA on that thing has to be in the hundreds, if not thousands. There is no way to tell where it has been, or what the officer did with it prior to giving it to his wife. A jury would have a HUGE problem with that, to the point where it's likely this would not be admitted as evidence and, even if it were, it would be of value only to the defense. Furthermore, the DNA belonging to this immigrant is semen - and the victim was a prostitute. For all we know, he could've just been another john on the night her life came to an end. Hell, he could've been a john sometime before that since most of these women stayed in boarding houses or lived on the street at the time. I'd like to know what other DNA samples, both from the 1800's and later years, were actually on that shawl. And also, why was this guy's family the only ones tested for DNA? There were numerous suspects, all of whom presumably have descendants that are still alive today. Are we to believe this guy said the Polish immigrant was the one, took only his DNA and managed to hit the jackpot? That's some one in a million type odds there, if so. For this to be a believable comparison/elimination of all other suspects, he would have to get DNA from the descendants of those suspects and take any and all samples that exist on the scarf. And even then, you're left with the fact that she was a prostitute and he could've been a customer. It should also be noted that no shawl appears on the police list of effects found with this particular victim's body.
Another potential issue has to do with the letter(s) sent to the media and police. This man was a young Polish immigrant in an area that was chock full of other immigrants. The letter that's believed to be authentic was not exactly written in perfect English, but that's not unusual given the time. But despite the misspelled words, it doesn't show any telltale signs of being written by someone who was not a native English speaker. Would this immigrant, who no doubt spent at least some of his time with others who had immigrated from his own country, have a good enough grasp on the language to write such a letter? Immigrants were discriminated against often back then so I'd also question whether he'd have the balls to challenge the cops in such a way. Committing murders is one thing, but risking that you may lead the police right to your door is quite another.
Finally, there's the fact that the murders lasted only three months and then abruptly stopped. We didn't know what a serial killer was back then, or how they operated but we know now that they are driven to kill and they only stop for two reasons - they die or they get caught. There were rumors that Jack moved to the U.S. and continued to kill, and I read a book on these murders, but the M.O. is completely different. Jack killed five women, two of them in one night, and as far as we know the police were nowhere close to apprehending him. There was no reason for him to change anything about his M.O. and it is extremely rare a serial killer does so, even if they should (for example, Ted Bundy came close to getting caught several times and still never changed the way he did business, which eventually did get him caught). With each murder the adrenaline rush grows, as does the feeling of invincibility. It's no longer, "I hope I don't get caught", it's, "They can't/won't catch me". And thus there's no reason to change what you're doing. Serial killers are creatures of habit. And that also makes the night that two murders were committed a bit curious, leading many to believe the reason there were two victims in one night was because he was interrupted during the first murder. He wasn't "done" and needed to find another victim, one could say. You can compare serial killers to any other predator in the sense that they attack when they get hungry, when the impulse strikes them. That hunger is different for each one; Bundy's was ignited when he saw women with a certain hair color and style, the Zodiac killer went after couples, Jack The Ripper targeted prostitutes. Part of the definition of a serial killer is that they have lulls in between their kills, and those lulls can last any period of time. But they always kill again. That means Jack either died in November of 1888, was caught or committed, or he moved and continued killing and no one else caught on. Given the media attention at the time, the last theory is highly unlikely. Any murders with the same kind of brutality as the London killings would have made news, especially if there were a number of them. If this man was the Ripper, then why did he suddenly stop killing? We know he was not committed until 1891, which leaves a three-year period where he could've continued his reign of terror. There are only two reports of violent incidents during his time in the asylum, where he died in 1919 at the age of 53. One these incidents involved him threatening his sister with a knife, but I don't think there's much to read into that. Someone with the kind of hatred and aggression likely isn't going to be able to keep it in check, particularly after they have let it consume them a handful of times. But, if the actual Ripper was apprehended for, say, another crime then why didn't he come clean while in prison? Maybe he only did a short stint, or only intended to do a short one and died while in custody. The one thing that seems to be true of every serial killer is that once they are caught, they absolutely love to talk about their crimes and how they got away with them for so long. It's unlikely the Ripper would've wanted to let the mystery continue if he was in a situation where he was never going to get out of prison. I think the most likely scenario is that he died.
The idea that Jack The Ripper has been identified is an intriguing one but I don't think anyone can say it has definitively happened. This man was and still remains a suspect, one of dozens, none of whom will likely ever be proven to be the actual killer. There's also always the possibility that the killer wasn't even on the radar of the police. I think it's one of those things that we will never really know for sure. People will continue to surface with stories and claims but after 126 years, it's next to impossible to get enough evidence against anybody. Short of a detailed account of each murder written by the killer himself, I doubt the mystery will ever be solved.
