Jack the Ripper Suspect – Carl Ferdinand Feigenbaum

Feigenbaum was arrested in 1894 in New York City for cutting the throat of Mrs Juliana Hoffmann. After his execution on 27 April 1896, his lawyer, William Sanford Lawton, claimed that Feigenbaum had admitted to having a hatred of women and a desire to kill and mutilate them. Lawton further stated that he believed Feigenbaum was Jack the Ripper.

Though covered by the press at the time, the idea was not pursued for more than a century. Using Lawton’s accusation as a base, author Trevor Marriott, a former British murder squad detective, argued that Feigenbaum was responsible for the Ripper murders as well as other murders in the United States and Germany between 1891 and 1894.

According to Wolf Vanderlinden, some of the murders listed by Marriott did not actually occur; the newspapers often embellished or created Ripper-like stories to sell copy.

Lawton’s accusations were disputed by a partner in his legal firm, Hugh O. Pentecost, and there is no proof that Feigenbaum was in Whitechapel at the time of the murders.

Conclusion: It is highly unlikely that Carl Ferdinand Feigenbaum was Jack the Ripper.