Born on September 11, 1865, Aaron Kosminski grew up in Klodawa, near Warsaw, the youngest of seven children.
When he was eight his father died and his mother remarried. Records suggest the young boy may have suffered sexual abuse.
In 1882 the family fled to London to escape anti-Semitism in Poland and settled in the East End, where Kosminski allegedly became a serial killer at the age of 23.
At the time of the Ripper murders, the head of the London CID, Dr Robert Anderson, already suspected him to be the perpetrator.
Confidential police reports revealed police believed Kosminski to have a ‘great hatred of women, specially of the prostitute class, and had strong homicidal tendencies’. However, police had no hard evidence and feared accusations of anti-Semitism.
In 1890 Kosminski had a suspected schizophrenic breakdown and threatened his sister with a knife.
He was committed to Colney Hatch lunatic asylum in north London the following year.
A new computer generated image of Aaron Kosminski, a Jewish immigrant from Poland rumoured to be the fabled killer Jack the Ripper
A newspaper cutting of the Whitehall murders – a series of brutal killings which took place in 1888
The Whitechapel Murders were truly most foul. Each of the five female victims was savagely disfigured and her blood left to spill across the cobbles of Victorian London
He died 28 years later in the Leavesden Asylum, Hertfordshire.
His eldest brother, Isaac, was a wealthy tailor who moved to London in April 1870 before changing his name to Abrahams.
Author and Ripper researcher Russell Edwards has uncovered photos showing Isaac dressed as a member of the Lodge of Israel Freemasons, which may explain why Kosminski escaped justice.
He believes Kosminski’s mutilation of the victims was linked to the masonic blood oaths which refer to cutting throats and the removal of certain body parts.
Mr Edwards recently used photos of Kosminski’s family and facial remodelling technology to create a composite of what the Ripper suspect looked like in real life.
