Is this the proof Jack the Ripper killed six? Victorian killer’s crime scenes are recreated as Silent Witness star Emilia Fox joins forces with a real-life criminologist – with all evidence pointing to Polish butcher suspect

• Jack the Ripper murdered six women in East London in 1888, experts believe
• New BBC documentary uses modern forensic techniques to re-examine case
• Silent Witness star Emilia Fox uses world’s first virtual reality dissection table
• Programme also finds evidence that Polish barber Aaron Kosminski was killer

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He is the world’s most infamous serial killer, partly thanks to him never being caught despite a huge manhunt involving hundreds of officers.

But an end is finally in sight to the case of Jack the Ripper, who can now be revealed to have murdered six, rather than five, women in 1888 in Whitechapel, East London.

A new BBC One documentary hosted by Silent Witness star Emilia Fox has applied cutting-edge forensic techniques to re-examine the murders and finally solve them.

Working with criminologists, she believes Polish barber Aaron Kosminski was Jack the Ripper after fresh DNA tests were taken from a blood-stained shawl.

The programme also found evidence that the Ripper had six victims, not five, with Martha Tabram murdered on August 6, 1888 – before the other women. 

Emilia Fox uses cold case technology such as the world’s first virtual reality dissection table

A crime scene investigation recreates the scene at 29 Hanbury Street in Whitechapel, East London, where Annie Chapman was murdered by Jack the Ripper and her uterus was removed

The woman, who was estranged from her husband and sold sex to fund her alcohol habit, was stabbed 39 times including in her breasts and genitals.

The show sees Fox, 44, stage a crime scene reconstruction with modern day investigators using scene photographs and notes from detectives at the time.

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Fox also uses cold case technology such as the world’s first virtual reality dissection table and a bespoke computer system to analyse criminal activity patterns. 

She is joined by criminology expert David Wilson to investigate who the killer could have been, what motivated his crimes and how he avoided justice.

Fox said: ‘Having worked on crime drama for many years this project has been a truly fascinating insight into how current real police procedure, forensics and technology can be applied to the most famous of unsolved historical crimes. 

The programme has found Polish barber Aaron Kosminski (left) was Jack the Ripper – and that he had six victims, not five, with Martha Tabram (right) murdered on August 6, 1888

Fox is joined by criminology expert David Wilson to investigate who the killer could have been

Victorian murderer Jack the Ripper killed at least five women in 1888 in the East End of London 

‘Working alongside Professor David Wilson, we have approached it as a cold case might be investigated now, and with the help of other leading experts, have taken another look at the mind and actions of this brutal murderer.

Jack the Ripper’s SIX women victims in 1888 

• Mary Ann Nichols was disembowled on Buck’s Row.
• Annie Chapman‘s uterus was removed at 29 Hanbury Street
• Elizabeth Stride‘s throat was cut at Duffield’s Yard, Berner Street
• Catherine Eddowes‘s uterus and kidney were removed and her cheeks torn on Mitre Square
• Mary Jane Kelly was completely mutilated and her heart was removed at 13 Miller’s Court 

It is also now claimed Martha Tabram was murdered by the Ripper in 1888

‘This documentary appealed to me hugely because of my interest in crime, forensics and pathology and also because it looks at the victims – the women Jack the Ripper chose and what left hem so vulnerable to his brutality.

‘It’s been an immense privilege to get this behind-the-scenes insight into real crime-solving on such a fascinating case.’

BBC commissioning editor Craig Hunter said: ‘Jack the Ripper is synonymous with murder and intrigue – even if you don’t know all the details, you will have heard of the case.

‘It is remarkable to think that today’s scientific techniques can be used to help try and tackle unanswered questions which are more than a century old.’ 

It comes two weeks after Kosminski was separately revealed to be Jack the Ripper following the fresh DNA tests carried out on the shawl shawl.  

Fox said it had been ‘an immense privilege to get this behind-the-scenes insight into real crime-solving on such a fascinating case’

Fox said she had worked alongside Mr Wilson and other leading criminology experts

New evidence found that two sets of DNA traces on the clothing matches that of both Kosminski and one of his murdered victims, Catherine Eddowes.

The Polish immigrant lived with his two brothers and a sister in Greenfield Street, just 200 yards from where his third victim, Elizabeth Stride, was killed.

The identity was confirmed by researchers from Liverpool John Moores University who shared their findings in the Journal of Forensic Sciences.

Businessman Russell Edwards, 48, who bought the shawl at auction in 2007, contacted the scientists several years ago.

It had been found next to Eddowes’ body and was stained with what was believed to be her blood after she was slaughtered on the night of September 30, 1888.

Her kidney was hacked out and her cheeks ripped apart. The serial killer is then rumoured to have eaten her kidney in a revolting and twisted act of pride.

Jack the Ripper – The Case Reopened is on BBC One next Thursday at 9pm 

From hell: The infamous serial killer who terrorised Victorian London

Jack the Ripper is thought to have killed at least five young women in Whitechapel, East London, between September and November 1888, but was never caught.

Numerous individuals have been accused of being the serial killer.

At the time, police suspected the Ripper must have been a butcher, due to the way his victims were killed and the fact they were discovered near to the dockyards, where meat was brought into the city.

There are several alleged links between the killer and royals. First is Sir William Gull, the royal physician. Many have accused him of helping get rid of the alleged prostitutes’ bodies, while others claim he was the Ripper himself.

A page from the Illustrated Police News page covering the murders of Jack the Ripper

A book has named Queen Victoria’s surgeon Sir John Williams as the infamous killer. He had a surgery in Whitechapel at the time.

Another theory links the murders with Queen Victoria’s grandson, Prince Albert Victor, the Duke of Clarence.

At one point, cotton merchant James Maybrick was the number one suspect, following the publication of some of his diary which appeared to suggest he was the killer.

Some believe the diary to be a forgery, although no one has been able to suggest who forged it.

Other suspects include Montague John Druitt, a Dorset-born barrister. He killed himself in the Thames seven weeks after the last murder.

George Chapman, otherwise known as Severyn Kłosowski, is also a suspect after he poisoned three of his wives and was hanged in 1903.

Jack the Ripper is thought to have killed at least five young women in Whitechapel, East London, between September and November 1888

Another suspected by police was Aaron Kosminski. He was admitted to Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum and died there.

Dr Thomas Neill Cream poisoned four London prostitutes with strychnine and was hanged in 1892.

Some of the more bizarre links include Lewis Carroll, author of the Alice in Wonderland books, who taught at Christ Church until 1881 – which was at the forefront of the Ripper murder scenery.

Winston Churchill’s father – Lord Randolph Churchill – has also been named as a potential suspect.

Crime writer Patricia Cornwell believes she has ‘cracked’ the case by unearthing evidence that confirms Walter Sickert, an influential artist, as the prime suspect. Her theories have not been generally accepted.

Author William J Perring raised the possibility that Jack the Ripper might actually be ‘Julia’ – a Salvation Army soldier.

In The Seduction Of Mary Kelly, his novel about the life and times of the final victim, he suggests Jack the Ripper was in fact a woman.

Police discovering the body of one of Jack the Ripper’s victims, probably Catherine Eddowes

In February 2019, it was suggested that Jack the Ripper may have been a sinister Dutch sailor who murdered two ex-wives in his homeland and bludgeoned to death two other women in Belgium.

Crime historian Dr Jan Bondeson has named Hendrik de Jong as a prime suspect for the most notorious set of unsolved murders in history.

At the time of the Whitechapel murders, de Jong is believed to have worked as a steward on board a ship which made frequent trips from Rotterdam to London, providing him with the perfect means of getting out of the country after his heinous crimes.

He later murdered two of his ex-wives in his native Netherlands in 1893 and bludgeoned to death two women above a pub before attempting to set their bodies on fire in Belgium in 1898.

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