Is this Jack the Ripper?

A suspicious character ... an etching of a 'vigilance committee' identifying possible suspects in London in 1888. Picture: The Illustrated London News Source: Supplied

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.

Revealed? ... DNA evidence reportedly confirms that Aaron Kosminski is Jack the Ripper. Picture: Supplied Source: Supplied

The breakthrough came when Dr Jari Louhelainen, an expert in historic DNA, was commissioned to study a shawl found with Eddowes, the second-last "confirmed" victim of the Ripper more than 125 years ago.

The shawl — which still retained historic stains — had been bought by a businessman at an auction in 2007.

"It has taken a great deal of hard work, using cutting-edge scientific techniques which would not have been possible five years ago," Dr Louhelainen told a British newspaper.

"Once I had the profile, I could compare it to that of the female descendant of Kosminski's sister, who had given us a sample of her DNA swabbed from inside her mouth.

"The first strand of DNA showed a 99.2 per cent match, as the analysis instrument could not determine the sequence of the missing 0.8 per cent fragment of DNA. On testing the second strand, we achieved a perfect 100 per cent match."

Killing sports ... this map of Whitechapel in the 1800s shows Flower and Dean Streets in purple and the sites of some killings as red spots. Picture: Supplied Source: Supplied

Kosminski was born in Poland in 1865 before moving to Whitechapel, England, in 1881.

The murders attributed to Jack the Ripper began in 1888, with up to 11 deaths around the Whitechapel area linked to the killer.

Frances Coles, believed to be the Ripper's last victim, died in February 1891 — the same year Kosminski was forcibly put in Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum.