Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email 
 
 The true identity of Jack the Ripper may have finally been uncovered by a teacher - who claims it was the work of a renowned poet. 
 
 Richard Patterson has spent nearly 20 years investigating his case to prove that respected poet Francis Thompson was responsible for butchering five women in East London. 
 
 The 45-year-old claims that Thompson, from Preston, Lancs, not only wrote about killing people, but also had surgical experience and close links to at least one prostitute in the area where the grisly murders took place. 
 
 He said: "I'm grateful to have played some part in helping people understand Thompson, and why he might have been the Ripper . 
 
 "I'm excited that people are beginning to take the theory seriously, seeing Thompson and the crimes in a different light creates interesting possibilities." 
 
 (Image: Mercury Press) 
 
 Richard, from Australia, became convinced that Thompson was the killer when he read a book of his poetry as a student in 1997 and then discovered he had trained as a doctor too. 
 
 Now, after travelling the world searching for clues as to who the killer really was, Richard claims that evidence against Thompson is stronger than that of any previous suspects. 
 
 Richard, who is an English teacher at various schools in Byron Bay, New South Wales, said: "Thompson kept a dissecting knife under his coat, and he was taught a rare surgical procedure that was found in the mutilations of more than one of the Ripper victims. 
 
 Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now 
 
 "He helped with surgery and is known to have cut up heaps and heaps of cadavers while a student." 
 
 Thompson, originally from Lancashire, moved to London in 1885 with the hope of becoming a successful writer. 
 
 Already addicted to opium, the young poet lived rough in the city until a local prostitute is believed to have offered him a place to stay. 
 
 (Image: Mercury Press) 
 
 Their friendship is thought to have quickly turned into what was Thompson's only romantic relationship. 
 
 Richard believes that the mentally unstable poet snapped after she left him. 
 
 He is going to be publishing his findings in a book, Francis Thompson - a Ripper Suspect. 
 
 In it, he argues that the heartbroken writer started to take out his anger on other sex-workers in the area. 
 
 Richard said: "The moment he told her he was finally published, she said she was leaving him because the public would not understand their relationship. 
 
 "This was after Thompson's year long romance with the woman. 
 
 "Soon before and soon after the murders, he wrote about killing female prostitutes with knives." 
 
 The author's investigation has seen him visit Thompson's home town of Preston, and travel to the United States to view a collection of hand-written letters in Boston. ||||| Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email 
 
 The true identity of notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper can now be revealed thanks to a DNA breakthrough, it has been claimed. 
 
 Author and self confessed "armchair detective" Russell Edwards claims to have solved perhaps the most notorious whodunit ever. 
 
 Mr Edwards claims Aaron Kosminski, a 23 year-old Polish immigrant who ended up dying in an asylum, was "definitely, categorically and absolutely" the man behind the grisly killing spree in 1888 in London's East End. 
 
 He said a blood-stained shawl he bought in 2007 after an auction in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, held vital DNA evidence which led him to the killer. 
 
 "I've got the only piece of forensic evidence in the whole history of the case. I've spent 14 years working on it, and we have definitively solved the mystery of who Jack the Ripper was," he said. 
 
 "Only non-believers that want to perpetuate the myth will doubt. This is it now - we have unmasked him." 
 
 (Image: Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) 
 
 Jack the Ripper murdered at least five women, slashing their throats, removing some of their internal organs and leaving their mutilated bodied in Whitechapel's darkened alleyways. 
 
 Mr Edwards, 48, from Barnet, north London, was "captivated" by the murder mystery and had been investigating it in his spare time, but had come to the conclusion it could never be solved. 
 
 But then in 2007 he saw a shawl found by the body of Catherine Eddowes, one of the Ripper's victims, was up for sale. 
 
 He bought it, and enlisted the help of Jari Louhelainen, an expert in molecular biology, who used pioneering techniques to find DNA from her blood and that of the killer. 
 
 He said: "Here I am with the shawl and possibly the evidence to solve the most unsolvable murder in English criminal history. But where do I start? That was the big question. 
 
 "I enlisted the help of Jari and we embarked on a three-and-a-half year journey. 
 
 "When we discovered the truth it was the most amazing feeling of my entire life." 
 
 Mr Edwards said the discovery 126 years after the murders proves beyond doubt that Kosminski - one of the six key suspects commonly cited as the Ripper - was the actual killer. 
 
 He said the shawl had been taken by acting Sergeant Amos Simpson, who was on duty the night of Eddowes's death and wanted it for his wife. 
 
 But horrified at the blood-soaked wrap, she never wore it, and it was stored away and passed down through the generations until it came to auction seven years ago. 
 
 Mr Edwards said: "Thank God the shawl has never been washed, as it held the vital evidence." 
 
 The author, who said he was part-inspired to take up the search for the killer after watching the Johnny Depp film From Hell about the Ripper murders, said police had identified Kosminski as a suspect, but never had enough evidence to bring him to trial. 
 
 Kosminski was a Polish Jewish immigrant who, fleeing persecution in his Russia-controlled homeland, came with his family to England in 1881 and lived in Mile End Old Town. 
 
 He was admitted to a string of lunatic asylums, where he died in 1899 of gangrene in the leg. 
 
 Naming Jack the Ripper will be published by Sidgwick & Jackson on Tuesday and costs £16.99 for a hardback.
– Did life imitate art in the case of Jack the Ripper? An Australian English teacher, who claims to have solved the 127-year-old mystery, certainly thinks so, the New York Daily News reports. Richard Patterson believes Jack the Ripper, who killed five London prostitutes over 10 weeks in 1888, was actually poet Francis Thompson. According to the Mirror, Patterson read a book of Thompson's poetry in 1997 and became convinced he was the legendary killer. He's spent the years since attempting to prove his theory. "Soon before and soon after the murders, he wrote about killing female prostitutes with knives," Patterson says. And the Daily News quotes a graphic short story by Thompson about a woman being stabbed to death. In addition to Thompson's grisly writings, Patterson points to his experience as a surgeon and his troubled relationship with a local prostitute, the Mirror reports. Patterson says Thompson kept a dissecting knife under his coat and knew a rare surgical procedure that was used to mutilate some of the victims. He also lived with a prostitute with whom he began a romantic relationship. When that relationship ended, Patterson says Thompson "snapped." "I'm excited that people are beginning to take the theory seriously," says Patterson, who is publishing it in a book. The Jack the Ripper case was eventually closed in 1892, and Thompson died 15 years later, according to the Christian Science Monitor. In the years since the slayings, scholars, amateur sleuths, and others have identified up to 100 suspects. (This Hollywood director thinks Jack the Ripper was actually a popular singer.)