Jack the Ripper Researcher, Who Claims to Have Identified the Serial Killer with 100% DNA Match, Seeks ‘Closure’

One of the biggest serial killer mysteries of all time — the identity of Jack the Ripper — has finally been solved, according to a British researcher who is now seeking legal confirmation on behalf of a victim’s family.

Over a century after he murdered and mutilated London women in 1888, the long-mythologized killer’s identity has allegedly been confirmed by DNA found on a shawl, historian Russell Edwards said.

Edwards claimed that Aaron Kosminski — a Polish barber who was 23 at the time of the murders — is the Ripper based on what he said is a 100% match with DNA found on the attire piece, he told Today Australia in a Feb. 1 interview. Kosminski was a suspect in the original investigation, but was never arrested.

The shawl that ultimately incriminated Kosminski, per the researcher, was taken from the scene of Catherine Eddowes’ 1888 murder in London’s Mitre Square, which later came into Edwards’ possession in 2007. (Eddowes was the fourth of five women whose deaths were linked to a single killer, believed to be the Ripper.)

Speaking about the alleged killer with Today Australia, Edwards said Kosminski had schizophrenia and was admitted into an asylum. The historian also noted that in 19th-century London, his occupation as a barber — or “barber-surgeon,” as it was called at the time — further points to him fitting the Ripper bill.

“In those days, you had anatomical knowledge [as a barber], which when you know the case, you know that the murderer must have had anatomical knowledge to commit the crimes that he did,” Edwards told the outlet.

Citing an alleged 1891 document that named Kosminski “a strong suspect,” the researcher also said that the barber “had strong homicidal tendencies” and “was prone to solitary vices and auditory hallucinations.”

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. 

Edwards, who is the author of the book Naming Jack the Ripper, has long believed Kosminski to be the infamous London serial killer, a claim he first made over a decade ago.

The historian allegedly confirmed that Kosminski’s DNA was on Eddowes’ shawl with the help of Doctor Jari Louhelainen, a senior lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University, who isolated small segments of DNA from blood stains on the garment, per CBS News.

The segments were then matched with a direct descendant of Eddowes, while DNA from semen stains on the shawl was matched with a descendant of Kosminski.

Some people doubt Edwards’ findings, as the DNA evidence integral to his claim has not been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Yet he — along with 10 descendants of Eddowes “who all want closure” — are seeking legal acknowledgement that Kosminski is the man responsible for her and the other victims’ murders, a lengthy process they have already begun.

Part of this closure, the historian said, will come from seeing Kosminski’s name linked to the murders — not Jack the Ripper.

“Really what we want is to stop the name being bannered around,” he told Today Australia, “because the name actually was created by an enterprising journalist and actually doesn’t have anything to do with the murder whatsoever, but this is the name given to this murderer.”

The historian also hopes to see “no more people coming up with false — I would say — suspects,” he told the outlet. “So we basically want to close the story.”