Jack the Ripper breakthrough as newly uncovered letter 'identifies prime suspect'

A Bradford carpet fitter says tests show a note he bought online for £240 claiming Ripper suspect Aaron Kosminski attacked a woman with scissors is genuine

A letter bought on eBay which appears to identify Jack the Ripper has been authenticated by scientists.

The 14-line note, which was snapped up by a Bradford carpet fitter for £240, could now be worth £125,000 after scientists found it was written at the time of the Ripper murders. It describes how one of the main suspects in the case - Aaron Kosminski - had attacked a woman with a pair of scissors less than a year after the killings.

In an apparent reference to the Ripper murders, the author wrote: "It's a wonder he hasn't hung for what he did to those poor girls". The identity of the killer of five women in the East End of London in 1888 has remained a mystery. Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Kate Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly were all vulnerable and sleeping on the streets when they were murdered.

The letter is thought to have been found in an old book in Australia during a stock take at the University of Melbourne's Theology department. Tim Atkinson, 58, bought it from the online auction site and commissioned a scientist at Liverpool University to forensically examine the note using a Video Spectral Comparator.

The VSC uses digital imaging, light sources, and filters to examine documents under various wavelengths of light to spot any hidden details and possible alterations. It found the paper had not been altered and the handwriting and fountain pen used were correct for the period. The paper was original and had not been artificially aged.

Mr Atkinson said: "I saw it on eBay and thought I'd take a punt on it and now I've got it authenticated and it came back as positive. It's the most important letter to come to light. It proves Kosminksi was around and could be the murderer. It could be worth up to £125,000 but I'm not a money man." Jeff Leahy, who has made a documentary on the murders, said: "I understood the scepticism when the letter first surfaced on ebay because we've been plagued by fake diaries, forged letters, and most recently a DNA exaggeration. So the new results are very exciting as we now have another credible Jack the Ripper ‘source’. For the first time we have a connection to Aaron Kosminski being mad and violent, and to the Jack the Ripper murders."

Sceptics of the Kosminski theory claim that the Polish barber could not have committed the killings because he was in a psychiatric hospital. But the letter appears to show this not to be the case. The letter was sent in 1889 from a Reverend William Patrick Dott and talks of an attack on a woman named Mary by a 'Kosminski' who ran screaming at her with scissors in the East End. It mentions a "Tilly" - thought to be a reference to Matilda Kosminski, the suspect's sister. Mr Atkinson discovered that the letter's author was attached to All Hallows church, Barking, east London, at the time.

He matched the signature on his letter with that of the Reverend's on a parish register from 1897. Police reports from 1894 revealed detectives believed he had a "great hatred of women, especially of the prostitute class, and had strong homicidal tendencies". But Kosminski was never arrested and died in an asylum in 1919.