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Trevor Marriott
This face reconstruction is based on a description of German merchant seaman Carl Feigenbaum contained in New York prison records. Feigenbaum is among scores of potential suspects in the 1888 "Jack the Ripper" murders.
A reconstruction of a murderer's face has reawakened interest in one of the world's most famous unsolved mysteries: Who was the serial killer behind Britain's "Jack the Ripper" murders in 1888?
More than 100 suspects have been suggested over the years, including Lewis Carroll (author of "Alice in Wonderland") and Victorian painter Walter Sickert (who was fingered in a book by crime novelist Patricia Cornwell after a $4 million investigation). This week, the BBC is throwing a spotlight on a dark-horse candidate: German merchant seaman Carl Feigenbaum, who was executed in New York in 1896 for a totally different killing.
Feigenbaum was convicted for the murder of his landlady in Manhattan, and his attorney, Willam Sanford Lawton, said afterward that his client admitted to having an "all-absorbing passion ... to kill and mutilate every woman who falls in my way." It was Lawton who first suggested that Feigenbaum was behind the murders of women in London eight years earlier.
More than a century later, retired British police detective Trevor Marriott has put together Lawton's claims and other evidence to build a case against Feigenbaum, and the case received a big boost from the BBC One program "National Treasures Live."
Marriott matched up shipping records with the timing of some of the murders, and suggested that Feigenbaum's ship could have been docked in London at the time. He also argues that not all the killings attributed to Jack the Ripper were done by the same person, based on his analysis of the locations and the different ways in which the the victims were slashed to death.
The traditional lore surrounding Jack the Ripper is that he must have been familiar with anatomical dissection, because he removed the internal organs of his victims so quickly and skillfully. Marriott contends that the organs couldn't have been cut out at the scene of the crime, but were removed at the London mortuary by doctors in training.
To add a little spice to the story, Marriott provided the BBC (and Cosmic Log) with a reconstruction of Feigenbaum's face, based on a description of the suspect from his New York admittance form.
Does Marriott make his case? Xanthe Mallett, a forensic anthropologist from the University of Dundee who reported on the story for BBC One, says she's still on the fence. "Initially, I thought Carl Feigenbaum was that serial killer. His profile fit," she writes on the BBC website. "But further evidence ... may show these murders were not all committed by the same person. Feigenbaum could have been responsible for one, some or perhaps all."
Others put less stock in Marriott's hypothesis. In a detailed analysis published on "Casebook: Jack the Ripper," one of the best-known websites for Ripperology, Wolf Vanderlinden says Marriott's theory is "plausible but not proven":
"Could the Ripper have been a German sailor? Or an American sailor? Or a Portuguese sailor? Or a Malay sailor? Of course. Could he have been a butcher, baker, tinker, tailor, beggar man or thief? Of course. Could he have been Carl Feigenbaum? Not with the almost complete lack of evidence that has been presented to support his candidacy. Wishful thinking cannot solve this puzzle."
In an email, Marriott acknowledged that his theory has been a hard sell among "hard-line Ripperologists," particularly because of the dissection issue:
"The thought that the killer, after killing the victims, removed these organs has been an integral part of the Ripper mystery for 123 years. In fact it is one of the reasons that has kept the Ripper mystery alive all of these years. So of course there are those that for whatever reason want to keep it as it is and choose not to accept new findings."
What do you think? Will the mystery ever be solved, or will it continue to be one of the world's best-known unsolved "cold cases"? To add to the mystery, here are some links to past speculation in the case of Jack the Ripper:
- Analysts put a mustached face on Jack the Ripper
- Records shed light on the Ripper's victims
- History's greatest unsolved crimes
- Casebook: Jack the Ripper
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding me to your Google+ circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.
Leave a Comment:
I love the old movie........only God knows the real ending.
It's really sad to think of all the money that has been spent trying to prove something that for all intents and purposes can't be. And, even if it could to what avail? I just think that those monies could have been better spent on the living.
If the "Jack the Ripper" murders stopped when this guy was executed then that could be a clue. Otherwise, it is a big no.
There were no more ripper like murders following his arrest
Perhaps, but a good killer would know to end it when a prime suspect is found. More than likely, Jack the Ripper was a socialite with surgical skills with a distaste for prostitutes, enough that he would have continued his hobby to scare others from their trade (what better way than to leave other hookers gutted in plain site) if the police weren't so close. This could mean that he actually had a moral reason to do this, and not because it was a pathological compulsion that would have kept him looking for more victims even if he risked getting caught. Pathological serial killers kill until they are stopped. Being the 19th century, he could have done this in other cities or countries and traveled doing this with little risk of being found. There might have been a simular murder in New York, but that could have been anyone. Most likely Jack the Ripper retired at some point and will be the only one who knew the true story.
Maybe it was Popeye the Sailor.
Couldn't have been Popeye. He had an all-consuming, life-long obsession with the--to him--sexiest dame in the World. Miss Olive Oyl.
Following several years of extensive research into the matter, I think I actually know who Jack the Ripper was. Note: he more closely resembles the mustachioed crime artists rendering than the ambiguous sino-european drawing. Furthermore, he was an American who made a multitude of trips back and forth from America to England with extended stays in London, a rooming house near the Whitechapel district, during the 1888 period during which the prostitutes were slain. He returned to America near the end of 1888 and only made two verified trips to England after that time.
More than that, I will not say but I do have forensic evidence to back up my conclusions.
Wordsmith: Why won't you say? Are you afraid he is going to come after you?
My money is on the "ripper" being either a Chupacabra or somebody from Sarah Palins front porch
I went on a Jack the Ripper tour in London several years ago.
It was fascinating, but what I came away with was that no one will ever know for sure who he was.
I see where Mr. Marriott is going and what has not been expressed well is that the very idea of crime scene investigation was almost non-existant. There was no by the book, because there was no book.
What he's suggesting is this:
1. The body is found and police sent for, while crowds gather. Things are chaotic and maybe hysterical.
2. Police come, semi-examine the body and look around the crime scene. Mind you. It's night and there are no flashlights as we know now. Therefore, they cannot really see what exactly has been done to a badly mutilated body. It's just a bloody mess with clothing mussed and dark and wet with blood in a dark night, lit by lanterns.
3. Photographer comes... photography is still new... and night photography is really new. There is no such thing as exposure correction, zoom lens, or close-up focus. What you get is what you get from flash powder.
4. Police order cart to take the body to the closest mortuary. They'll worry about the body tomorrow when the coroner or police doctor is available. (Does anyone know if the coroner or police doctor came to the scene of Catherine Eddowes' murder?) The body is not going to walk away. In the meantime, they'll scour for witnesses and see if any clues have been left.
5. First thing in the morning, the medical students show up at the mortuary. They were mad about acquiring organs and bodies (Early bird gets the worm!). It was the only way they had to study and hone surgical skills (BTW... even today, medical students have been known to perform minor surgeries on each other for practice). You can bet your bottom dollar that medical students hit every mortuary as soon the mortician arrived. He'd probably be all too happy to let them do their deed in return for cash.
6. The police doctor or coroner then shows up at a respectible hour to find that organs are missing. Is the mortician going to say what happened to them? I doubt it. He's got extra cash in his pocket.
I think the big question would be "Was any instruction given to the person who took the body to the mortuary or the person there (often morticians lived above the shop) not to tamper with the body? One would think so, but if everything was chaotic, maybe not. It's also possible that morticians gave medical students a key, so that they could come in early, particularly if they had a retainer arrangement. Maybe the medical students took the organs before the mortician was aware. Then the question becomes: What would be their reason not to tell? Answer: they may not have known whose body they took the organs from. It was just some poor woman whom they might have assumed had been run over by a carriage... They were busy med students and not the least interested in the person... just what the could get from the body. If there was never any publicity given to where the victim's body had been taken, they'd have no way of knowing whose organs they took.
It's plausible, but the only way Jack the Ripper will be solved is for a long lost Ripper diary or letters or something from a victim to show up in some attic or trunk with a note attached. Weirder things have happened.
Victim #2 Annie Chapman: "With her death the unease that had been brewing in the area over the previous two murders gave way to outright panic" 8 Sept 1888
victims #3 & #4: Just forty-five minutes after the body of Elizabeth Stride had been discovered, the body of a second prostitute, Catherine Eddowes, was found in Mitre Square" 30 Sept 1888
By the time Eddowes was found, all London knew about the murders and you can bet the medical students or anyone else connected with the morgues and mortuaries knew about it and were on the lookout for bodies that had been mutilated.
The picture of the supposed JTR is a computer generated face from descriptions provided, not an actual picture.
I don't believe the puzzle of who he was will ever be known nor let go of. The human drive to "find out" will keep it popping up from time to time.
the idea that it was the medical students that removed the internal organs makes no sense
he was called 'the ripper' beause when the women were found they had been been torn and their entrails pullen out over the room, a mighty grusome sight even for seasoned police officers
no one will ever know who JTR was but i do know one thing he was a very smart killer.
Comments by a bunch of retards and bigots. What a reflection of this nation.
He looks like Stu Rubin from "Drag Me to Hell"
It was VAN DER SLOOT!
dear ol' Jackie was a mental patient named James Kelly... google the name and look at the evidence..
He looks German to me, he certainly doesn't look Asian, German's have beady eyes, small. But I agree with the comment who cares what he looks like, who cares who was the real Jack the Ripper after all these years.
While in London several years ago, my girlfriend and I took the "Jack the Ripper" walking night tour. While on the tour, a modern police car rode by with several cops inside, and they could see that we were on the tour, so they yelled out the window: "We're still looking" ....
Highly unlikely, I have a premonition for the Jack the Ripper name's.. It sure is not this fellow. I will reveal Jack the Ripper's full name shortly to end the case.... I have no attachment to the case or the man, just a name......Thru premonitions.. It is what it is....
It's is a Obama and Bush fault,LOL
I just couldn't help it,LOL
I'm sure if "they" (whoever they" are) really wanted to solve the Ripper crime, "they" could. I'm sure there was tangible evidence collected at the scenes and with today's DNA technology and the cooperation of the decendants of the "suspects"....MYSTERY SOLVED! However, it's more fun not knowing.
Wait a minute. What happened to the theory that the Ripper was a member of the Royal Family, protected by a deep conspiracy of the Grand Lodge of england and the Royal Family?
He looks like such a nice young man.