A handout photograph released in London on June 18, 2009 shows Jack the Ripper murders published in the Illustrated Police News
IN PHOTO: A handout photograph released in London on June 18, 2009 shows Jack the Ripper murders published in the Illustrated Police News, on October 27, 1888. Think the heinous crimes, disastrous wars and seemingly never-ending financial scandals of recent years are something new? Then think again. Courtesy of the British Library, readers can now immerse themselves in vivid newspaper accounts of a 19th Century society that appears to have changed little from today's chaotic world. Evocative descriptions of children as young as nine smoking and getting drunk, a banking collapse in 1878 and first-hand reports of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 can all be pored over for free online. REUTERS/British Library/Handout (BRITAIN) CRIME LAW SOCIETY) NO COMMERCIAL OR BOOK SALES. NO SALES. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS Reuters

The world's greatest murder mystery is now allegedly solved. Author Russell Edwards, who describes himself as an "armchair detective," claims to have solved the mystery behind the man who committed the gruesome murders that had left investigators mystified for over a century.

Edwards stated that he has found evidence of Jack the Ripper's identity; he was a 23-year-old man named Aaron Kosminski, a Polish immigrant. Among several failed attempts to solve the mystery, Edwards claims that he solved the long-standing mystery from DNA evidence. According to The Independent, Edwards said that "Kosminski was definitely, categorically and absolutely" the man behind the killing spree that occurred almost a century ago.

Jack the Ripper was a serial killer who was behind the ghastly murders of five women, all found in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The women were all reported to be prostitutes. He slit their throats, threw out their internal organs and left their bodies in dark alleyways.

Edwards said that to identify the murderer, he tracked down the DNA on the shawl of one of the Ripper's victims, Catherine Eddowes, which he had bought at an auction in 2007. The shawl still had genetic materials on it, which Edwards used to trace the Ripper's descendants.

He said that he only had that single piece of forensic evidence in the whole history of the case, and after 14 years of research and investigation, he finally confirmed who the Ripper was.

"Only non-believers that want to perpetuate the myth will doubt. This is it now -- we have unmasked him," he stated.

Describing the course of the investigation, Edwards said that he first contacted an ace molecular biologist, Dr. Jari Louhelainen, who helped him analyse the shawl. After 3.5 years of fact-finding and keen research, he said that they discovered the truth. "It was the most amazing feeling of my entire life," Edwards said.

Dr. Louhelainen said that they used novel "cutting-edge scientific techniques," which was unavailable a few years ago. "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," explained Dr. Louhelainen.

The mitochondrial comparisons showed a 99.2 percent match. They were then wondering about the "missing 0.8 percent fragment of DNA," but he stated that on testing the second strand, they saw a 100-percent match.

At the time of the gruesome murders, police cited a Plolish man in an insane asylum they called "Komniski" (no first name) as one among the six key suspects, but a lack of sufficient evidence stopped the authorities from bringing him to trial.

Aaron Kominski, on the other hand, was a Polish Jew immigrant who had landed in London to save himself and his family from prosecution in his homeland when it was under Russian control. He died in 1919 from gangrene.

Edwards' novel, "Naming Jack the Ripper," will be published by Sidgwick & Jackson on Tuesday and costs £16.99 for a hardback. There are speculations, however, that the armachair detective's claims to have finally solved the case of Jack the Ripper is just a huge PR stunt.