16. Several investigators believed Kosminski was Jack the Ripper
For nearly 100 years, a suspect listed in the police files concerning the Whitechapel murders was known only as Kosminski. Born in Poland, Kosminski moved to London where he worked – when he worked – as a barber in Whitechapel. In Macnaghten’s 1894 report he referred to the suspect as Kosminski, and noted he was incarcerated in an insane asylum, after having threatened a woman with a knife. Macnaghten wrote Kosminski “had a strong hatred for women”, though he stressed his belief that Druitt was the murderer known as Jack the Ripper. Macnaghten also wrote that “no-one ever saw the Whitechapel murderer”. Then Assistant Commissioner Sir Robert Anderson disputed that assertion, claiming an eyewitness identified Kosminski. However, both the eyewitness and the suspect were Polish Jews. The eyewitness refused to testify against a fellow Jew, according to Anderson.
Sir Henry Smith, Acting Commissioner of the City of London Police when the murders took place, contradicted Anderson. He referred to the anti-Semitic nature of Anderson’s remarks, calling it a “reckless accusation”. In 2014, a shawl found at the scene of Catherine Eddowes’ murder was examined for mitochondrial DNA. The examiners claimed to have found DNA evidence linked to the families of Eddowes and Kosminski, and named the latter as the murderer, and hence, Jack the Ripper. Almost immediately the claim was disputed, both over the nature of the testing and the fact that contemporary documents did not describe a shawl recovered from the scene of the murder. So, whether or not Kosminski killed Catherine Eddowes, or any of the other victims, remains a point of dispute.