Mystery remains over the true identity of Jack the Ripper

Aaron Kosminski was not Jack the Ripper and the killer’s true identity might never be revealed, a leading expert on the murders said today.

Last month, it was claimed that forensic evidence proved Polish-born Kosminski was the Whitechapel killer.

A shawl found next to the body of Catherine Eddowes was analysed by Dr Jari Louhelainen, who found DNA from the alleged killer alongside the victim’s blood.

But according to Andrew Smith, a Gothic expert and leading authority on the Ripper murders, the DNA was contaminated and therefore the evidence is “very shaky”.

He said: “Kosminski’s name has been around for a long time but we need forensic evidence and there isn’t any.

“I do not believe it is Kosminski. The idea that his DNA hasn’t been contaminated is highly unlikely. After 126 years the identity of Jack the Ripper remains a mystery.”

His words come as the British Library opens its Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination exhibition today. The collection includes the “Dear Boss” letter — a note arguably written by the Ripper that was posted to the London Central News Agency in September 1888. It was forwarded on to Scotland Yard two days later.

Written in red ink, the writer boasts that the last killing was “grand work” and that they “gave the lady no time to squeal”. They say the next time they will “clip the ladys [sic] ears off” and assert that the police will never “catch” them.

The letter was initially dismissed as a hoax but after Ms Eddowes was found dead with a severed earlobe, police looked at it more seriously. The letter disappeared after the final Ripper killing, but was returned to the Met in 1987. It has since been kept in The National Archives in Kew.

Other highlights of the exhibition include manuscripts of classic novels such as Frankenstein, Dracula and Jane Eyre as well as gothic paintings and prints like Henry Fuseli’s Hamlet, Prince of Denmark and Nathaniel Grogan’s Lady Blanche Crosses the Ravine.

Lead curator of the exhibition, Tim Pye, said there were also vinyl records from the early Goth music scene, so there is “something for everyone”.