Jack the Ripper: The Secret Police Files (27 page)

“The question of motive is comparatively unimportant where the other evidence points unmistakably to the guilt of a defendant. In the present case there could not under the circumstances be any evidence from a living witness (other than the defendant) of what had transpired between the defendant and the deceased before the son was awakened by the screams of his mother. Whether the defendant went into the room to steal the pocket book and was discovered by the deceased, and this led to the tragedy, is mere matter of conjecture. It is sufficient to say that the guilt of the defendant was satisfactorily proven. The case was ably tried before an experienced and able judge. The few exceptions taken raise no serious question and none have been relied upon by the counsel for the defendant. The charge was clear, careful and impartial, and it becomes our duty to affirm the conviction.”

I realised that despite gathering all this circumstantial evidence I was a long way away from being able to positively say that Feigenbaum was involved in the Whitechapel murders or in fact was the elusive Jack the Ripper. But then what I now believe to be some of the final pieces of the jigsaw came together.

Having dug deeper into everything connected to this murder and Carl Feigenbaum, more significant facts emerged which singularly did not amount to too much at the time but later collectively made my suspicions about him being concerned in the Whitechapel murders even stronger.

Feigenbaum was represented at his trial by a young attorney by the name of William Sanford Lawton who was a partner in a law firm Foote and Lawton who had offices in the Home Life Building New York City. Following Feigenbaum’s execution Lawton broke his code of confidentiality to the press revealing details of conversations he had with Feigenbaum and his past crimes. What he revealed would be crucial as far as the final pieces of my investigation were concerned.

During the two years between Feigenbaum being arrested and being finally executed Lawton saw him on many occasions and built up a rapport with him and was the only person Feigenbaum trusted. This is not unusual in murder cases for a prisoner to confide in his lawyer. However, any conversations between them at that time would have been the subject of confidentiality and Lawton would not have been permitted to reveal them to the police or the public without the permission of Feigenbaum, and during this confidentially period of time if Feigenbaum had committed other murders and had confessed them to Lawton he certainly would not have wanted them made public or to even give the authorities any inclination he may have committed other murders. Although the later revelations made by Lawton suggested that if he had confessed to any other such crimes it might have saved him from the electric chair.

Feigenbaum was tried and despite entering a plea of not guilty was convicted. He had protested his innocence right up until he was found guilty in court. He was still protesting his innocence even after his appeal failed and right up until the time of his execution.

Following Feigenbaum’s conviction and his appeal being rejected by the appeal court, Lawton submitted a clemency appeal on the grounds of Feigenbaum being insane. Had he admitted any more horrendous murders prior to this then it might have given more weight to this appeal. However, after he was medically examined by a state medical examiner he was deemed to be sane and the clemency appeal was rejected...

So what made Lawton break his client confidentiality? Before speaking, the lawyer explained that he revealed the secret because he felt it to be his duty to science and the law. So what did Lawton reveal? He stated, “
One night I stayed talking with him for over two hours and during this time, he told me, “I have for years suffered from a singular disease which induces an all absorbing passion, this passion manifests itself in a desire to kill and mutilate every woman who falls in my way. At such times I am unable to control myself””
Lawton went on to say, “
I began to search Feigenbaum’s record. I learned that he was in Wisconsin at the time the country was startled by the news of the murder and mutilation of several women there, when I saw him again I mentioned the Whitechapel murders to which he replied, “The lord was responsible for my acts, and that to him only could I confess.” I was so startled that for the moment I did not know what to do I then looked up the dates of the Whitechapel murders and selected two. When I saw Feigenbaum again and was talking with him I said: "Carl, were you in London from this date to that one," naming those selected. "Yes", he answered, and relapsed into silence. I then communicated with London and discovered that Feigenbaum was also there when other women fell victim to the knife of some mysterious assassin.”
Lawton then stated, “
I later questioned him closely and found that he could converse with intelligence on surgery and dissection. When I asked if he knew anything about these subjects he would feign an ignorance that was unnatural. The man was a devil,”
concluded Mr. Lawton
. “His motive for crime was his frightful desire for mutilation. I will stake my professional reputation that if the police will trace this man's movements carefully for the last few years their investigations will lead them to London and to Whitechapel. He had been all over Europe and much of this country. He seemed on first acquaintance to be simple-minded, almost imbecile, yet the man was crafty beyond measure. He had means of his own, as was proved by a will he made before his death, yet he always professed extreme poverty.”

Assistant District Attorney Vernon M. Davis, who prosecuted Feigenbaum, said: “
If it were proved that Feigenbaum was 'Jack the Ripper' it would not greatly surprise me, because I always considered him a cunning fellow, surrounded by a great deal of mystery, and his life history was never found out. The case was an odd one, and the People had to furnish a motive for the murder. This was the money which was kept in Mrs. Hoffman's closet or trunk
.”

I have to sympathise with Lawton with regards to the position he found himself in as far as the confidentially aspect is concerned. I myself now work as a defence advocate and on a daily basis attend police stations to advise persons in custody. Over the years I have represented murderers, rapists and robbers. I always make a point of asking the client if he is guilty of the offence for which he has been arrested for, and if they have committed any other similar offences which may come to light through the police enquiry whilst in custody.

There are times when I ask this question and a client will openly confide and tell all. However, there are other times when clients will just sit and smile. When this happens my years of experience tell me that they are hiding perhaps guilt and other offences. More persistent offenders play the system. They may have committed other offences but they also know that unless they make a full and frank admission to the police, there is every likelihood that there will not be any evidence to convict them. Of course in this day and age with modern technology, offences do come to light sometimes several years after the offence was committed. But way back in Victorian times they did not have the benefit of these sciences. So my interpretation of Feigenbaum’s reaction and silence when questioned by Lawton is that he had very likely had committed other offences.

So what is known about Carl Feigenbaum? He himself stated that he came from Karlsruhe in Germany. However, during the trial a prosecution witness told the court that Feigenbaum had stated that he came from a town called Capitolheim. The court stenographer may have recorded this detail wrongly, as I can find no other reference to a town or city of that name in Germany.

Feigenbaum told the court that he arrived in the USA in 1890. This may be another lie, however, as there would be later evidence I discovered to suggest that he may have been travelling back and forth between Germany and the USA but did not take up residence until possibly 1891 or even later, as was mentioned during the trial. He had told another witness that he was married but gave no details of his wife or where she was or what happened to her. However, when spoken to by a police officer after his arrest, he stated that he was single.

Another prosecution witness testified that Feigenbaum had stated that he was married and had children. Feigenbaum told the court that he had two sisters and a brother who were in Germany. Later during his trial he stated that he had a brother called John, who was living in Brooklyn, New York. Feigenbaum gave no specific details as to how he himself had arrived in the USA or where he had been or what his early work was. I could not find his name or any name he is known to have used on any official immigration records I checked. I firmly believe that he did not arrive as an official immigrant.

Feigenbaum stated that shortly after arriving in the USA he had been to Orange County, but it is unclear which one he meant, because there is an Orange County in California and another is a district of greater New York. During the trial he was asked if he had been to the following towns in the USA: Port Austin in Michigan, Sioux Falls in South Dakota and South Falls in Oregon. Astoria was also mentioned, but is not known which of the three US towns of this name was being referred to, as one is in Illinois and another in Oregon. Or the one that is again, a suburb of greater New York. It never became clear what the relevance of these questions was, but there must have been evidence to suggest that he had been to these places, probably from papers and documents found by the police which were subsequently connected to him and which are discussed later.

The prosecution may have been aware of other murders or non-fatal attacks on women in those towns and were trying to link him to them. Even so, these questions raised in court appear to corroborate Lawton’s statement that Feigenbaum had travelled the country. But because they were not directly connected to the trial they were never properly expanded upon. Nevertheless, they would turn out to be important to my investigation, because some of those towns mentioned in court are located in the Midwest, and in the Midwest town of Hurley, there was an undetected Ripper-like murder; this further corroborates Lawton’s statement that he knew Feigenbaum to have been in those locations at the time of the murder and that, in his view, he could have been the person responsible.

Feigenbaum gave his occupation as a flower gardener and indicated that he had followed this trade in Germany. At his trial the prosecution were able to portray him as a loner, drifter during the months leading up to his arrest, producing evidence that he moved from lodging house to lodging house, staying for only a few days before moving on, sometimes owing money for rent. Coincidentally, women ran all of these lodging houses.

Police inquiries at one of the lodging houses where he had stayed revealed a small box, containing papers and letters, which, it was suggested, he had left behind. Some of the papers were letters and documents in the names of men who had resided at lodging houses where Feigenbaum had stayed. It is very likely that Feigenbaum had stolen these papers and, if so, I assume that was in order to appropriate the owner’s identities. However, what would turn out to be significant in my investigation were letters addressed to a man by the name of Anton Zahn. These would later add weight to my belief that Feigenbaum could have been involved in the Whitechapel murders and had been working as a German merchant seaman visiting London at the time of the Whitechapel murders.

At first, Feigenbaum denied both that the box was his and that his name was Anton Zahn but admitted he had been using this name to stay at the lodging houses mentioned in court. He stated that Anton Zahn was someone he had befriended. Anton Zahn, he said was a merchant seaman working as a fireman, on a Bremen registered vessel named either the Emms or the Eider, and Feigenbaum had been collecting his mail from the local post office in that name and had opened it. He stated that he did not know of this man’s current whereabouts and that his reason for opening the letters was to reply to Zahn’s sister in Germany.

Coincidentally, my enquiries revealed that the ships Feigenbaum mentioned were in fact two steamers operated by the Norddeutsche Line of Bremen. These two vessels operated a passenger service between Bremen, Southampton and New York and were from the same merchant line that operated the merchant vessels, which were sailing between Bremen and London at the time of the Whitechapel murders.

I knew I had to reopen the previous line of enquiry with regards to the merchant seaman theory. First, I needed to look into the two boats mentioned by Feigenbaum and their movements and whereabouts at the time of the murders. Then I had to see if any crew lists for any of these boats were still in existence. In doing so, I hoped to gain information that would positively link Feigenbaum to either the Reiher or other boats by showing a crewman in the name of Carl Feigenbaum, or Anton or Carl Zahn. If I could show that he had been a merchant seamen on the Reiher it would further corroborate the statement made by his lawyer William Lawton.

My first line of inquiry into the two ships proved very interesting. Feigenbaum has stated that Anton Zahn was a fireman on either the EIDER or the EMMS. By his own admissions, he was referring to a period of time shortly before his arrest. However, it is a fact that the EIDER ran aground off the Isle of Wight in January 1892, over two years before his arrest. So Feigenbaum must have had some knowledge of, or direct contact with, the boat before January 1892.

In the crew lists for these two boats for the period 1888-94, I could find no other references to Anton Zahn, Carl Zahn or Carl Feigenbaum. So, if Feigenbaum had been a merchant seaman during these years, he was not shown under the names I had for him on the transatlantic routes from Bremen to New York between August and November 1888. Had he been shown there, he could be eliminated from any involvement in the Whitechapel murders or being the elusive Jack the Ripper.

So where was he? Well, as I have suggested previously he could have still been working as a merchant seaman, travelling back and forth between Bremen and London and other European ports. In any event, Lawton had stated that he himself had discovered that Feigenbaum was in London at the time of the murders, but we don’t know what enquiry he carried out to confirm Feigenbaum’s movements. Could Lawton have got hold of the crew lists back in 1894? Was this how he had linked Feigenbaum to Whitechapel at the time of the murders? Sadly we may never know due to the passage of time and the missing crew lists.