Free Republic

On this date in 1896, New York City electrocuted Carl Feigenbaum. He’d been convicted of slaying the widow from whom he rented a room at eight cents per day … but many at the time suspected his homicidal exploits might also have traced to Whitechapel, under the dread sobriquet Jack.

And so one of the West’s greatest, most enduring mysteries, which has spurred numerous failed attempts to crack it, continues. It’s the saga of Jack the Ripper, who committed at least five grisly murders in East London in the autumn of 1888 and then, poof, disappeared, never to be identified.

THE search to uncover the identity of Jack the Ripper appears to be over. DNA on a shawl found near one of the victims, Catherine Eddowes, reportedly contains a match to both her and one of the chief suspects, Aaron Kosminsky. The Polish hairdresser, who moved to England with his family in 1881, was committed to a mental asylum at the peak of Ripper hysteria. Is this Jack the Ripper? Revealed? ... DNA evidence reportedly confirms that Aaron Kosminski is Jack the Ripper. Picture: Supplied The breakthrough came when Dr Jari Louhelainen, an expert in historic DNA, was commissioned to...