Jack the Ripper: The Not Quite Final Solution

Yet another new Jack the Ripper theory has recently cropped up. This theory is a slight variation on Stephen Knight's 1976 book, JACK THE RIPPER: THE FINAL SOLUTION, which inspired Bob Clark's 1979 film MURDER BY DECREE, Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell's graphic novel FROM HELL, Martin Short's 1989 follow-up book INSIDE THE BROTHERHOOD, and the Hughes Brothers' 2001 FROM HELL film adaptation. Only the suspect has been changed, from Sir William Gull to Aaron Kosminski. 

Here's an excerpt from Fred Kelly's 10-6-24 DAILY MAIL article entitled "Jack The Ripper: The Astonishing Freemason Connection that Explains His Motive and a 136-year Cover-up - As His Real Face Is Unmasked for the First Time":

[P]erhaps the most terrifying aspect of this quintuple homicide, committed over less than four months, is that for over a century, the killer's identity was a mystery. Instead, he simply became known as Jack the Ripper.

And then, ten years ago in 2014, the Mail exclusively revealed how amateur sleuth ­Russell Edwards had identified one Aaron Kosminski, a Jewish immigrant from Poland, as the fabled killer.

The evidence was as overwhelming as it was stomach-churning.

A decade on and the Mail can now reveal further astonishing evidence as to how ­Kosminski's hitherto-unknown ties to the highly secretive Freemasons motivated his sadistic killings – and how his Masonic ­connections shielded him from law enforcement, despite widespread conviction within the police that Kosminski was indeed the ­murderous Ripper [...].

In 2007, ­Russell Edwards – a ­businessman from North London and Ripper enthusiast – stumbled across a shawl at an auction in Bury St Edmunds alleging to have been found on Catherine ­Eddowes's corpse [...].

Edwards set to work examining the shawl for DNA alongside a crack team of forensic scientists. It wasn't long before Edwards had a positive match between the DNA in the blood stains and a direct descendant of the murdered ­Catherine Eddowes. In other words, the shawl was genuine.

Incredibly, Edwards's team was also able to identify the DNA found in the semen as Aaron ­Kosminski's. They did so by ingeniously ­matching it to the DNA of one of Aaron's sister's descendants, known only as 'M,' after requests to exhume Kosminski's body were rebuffed [...].

In February 2023 a series of photographs landed in Edwards' inbox. One in particular caught his eye. It looked like a class photo, 15 men – all dressed ­identically in suits with a flowing overgarment and remarkable handlebar ­moustaches – staring straight at the camera. These were all ­members of the Lodge of Israel, an order of Freemasonry set up for Jewish immigrants in Britain.

And among the group of men was none other than Kosminski's eldest brother, Isaac, a wealthy tailor who moved to London in April 1870 before changing his name to Abrahams [...].

But the role of the Freemasons doesn't stop there. Edwards acknowledges in his new book that there 'has always been a nod, or reference to a cover-up by the masons' to protect Kosminski.

However, his discovery of the photographs confirms it.

I laughed out loud when I read the above lines: "But the role of the Freemasons doesn't stop there. Edwards acknowledges in his new book that there 'has always been a nod, or reference to a cover-up by the masons' to protect Kosminski. However, his discovery of the photographs confirms it." How does said photograph "confirm" Edwards' theories regarding the identity of Jack the Ripper? It doesn't "confirm" anything. Furthermore, the DNA evidence to which the article refers is hardly definitive. Assuming the scarf was indeed owned by Catherine Eddowes, how could one know for sure that the DNA was left behind by Jack the Ripper? After all, the DNA could have come from one of Catherine's customers earlier in the evening (i.e., Kosminski). The fact that Kosminski had a sexual encounter with Eddowes doesn't prove he's the man who murdered her. 

Having said that, I've been fascinated by the Jack the Ripper case since I was a teenager, so a new theory at this late date--accompanied by some modicum of scientific evidence--is certainly intriguing. But if this current theory doesn't quite satiate your Ripper fix, you might want to spend your time listening to the late Colin Wilson delivering an hour-plus lecture at the first Jack the Ripper Conference, which occurred in April of 1996. This lecture was aired on an episode of the RIPPERCAST: THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS PODCAST back in 2018:

"We are very pleased to bring to you author Colin Wilson's talk at the first ever Jack the Ripper Conference, held in Ipswich 12-14 April, 1996. This 22 year old audience recording was rescued from a second hand bookshop by Mark Ripper and we are grateful to Mark for saving this piece of Ripperology history so that we may share it with you.

"Originally recorded on a 120 minute long cassette tape and sometime later transferred to CD, this recording is beginning to show its age, but its historical value outweighs the deteriorating quality of the audio."

By the way, one of my favorite pieces of fiction inspired by Jack the Ripper has always been Harlan Ellison's "The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World," which you can find in Ellison's breakthrough DANGEROUS VISIONS anthology (republished by Blackstone earlier this year). Another highly recommended Ripper book is Robert Bloch's excellent 1980s suspense novel, THE NIGHT OF THE RIPPER (republished this very month courtesy of Valancourt Books).