Ever since he retired from the Bedfordshire County police homicide squad in 2002, Trevor Marriott has been researching what he considers the most famous cold case of all — the identity of Jack the Ripper.

And now after almost a decade’s worth of research Marriott has come up with the name of the man he believes is the best likely candidate — a German merchant sailor — Carl Feigenbaum.

What’s more he’s put together a composite sketch of the suspect from a description of him that was in documents when he was jailed in 1894 at Sing Sing after he was found guilty of murdering a woman in New York City.

Feigenbaum could have been the “first transatlantic serial killer,” Marriott told the Star in a phone interview.

He pins much of his argument on statements from Feigenbaum’s American lawyer as well as shipping documents.

Marriott found that the ship Feigenbaum was believed to be on — the Nordeutscher line’s Reiher — was in Whitechapel during each of the so-called Jack the Ripper murders, except for one.

But on that date another merchant boat from the same company was docked in Whitechapel. Feigenbaum could have switched ships on that occasion, Marriott speculates.

And once Feigenbaum was imprisoned for a New York murder in 1894, and then executed in 1896, there were no more Jack the Ripper killings. That is perhaps the clincher for Marriott.

The charge and execution stemmed from the murder of a New York woman that was very similar to the Jack the Ripper killings, where the assailant had cut the victim’s throat almost to the point of decapitation.

At the time of Feigenbaum’s trial his lawyer gave a news conference announcing that Feigenbaum had told him he was Jack the Ripper and he suffered from a “singular disease which manifests itself to force him to kill and mutilate women.”

The evidentiary trail pointing to Feigenbaum also included a long-bladed knife which was used to kill the women in London and New York, Marriott said. And Feigenbaum was believed to have had such a long-bladed knife.

Found among his possessions when he was arrested was a cloth case for a long-bladed knife and a pummel stone for sharpening, Marriott said.

Inquiries also revealed that Feigenbaum had from a very early age worked as a merchant seaman for the Nordeutscher shipping line. But the crew lists for the Reiher have long ago gone missing, Marriott said. The loss of these crew lists is a bit suspicious, he added.

“I suspect he (the lawyer) had the crew lists at one point,” Marriott said.

Feigenbaum’s New York attorney also told a news conference that he had done his own inquiries and he had placed Feigenbaum in Whitechapel at the time of the murders, Marriott said.

Marriott was not able to find a confession or other materials amongst the lawyer’s papers, but he did obtain Feigenbaum’s trial transcripts from the New York Municipal Archives.

They revealed a lot about the man, revealing him to be a thief and compulsive liar. He freely stole different people’s identities and Feigenbaum wasn’t even his real name. But he had used it for years.

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His correct name was Anton Zahn, Marriot said. And he was from Germany.

It’s highly unlikely Marriott will be able to find definitive evidence that will identify Feigenbaum, beyond the shadow of a doubt, as Jack the Ripper. But Marriott told the Star he believes Feigenbaum is the “best candidate.”

At one time or another more than 200 suspects have been named. Previous candidates for Jack the Ripper have included: Aaron Kosminski, Prince Albert Victor, the Duke of Clarence, and Francis Tumblety.

And according to an FOI request Marriott filed in 2008 the London police had even considered “R. Churchill” — or Randolph Churchill, a respected member of Parliament and Winston Churchill’s father — as a possible “perpetrator of Whitechapel murders.”

And one historian has gone so far as to suggest the killings were fiction — a forgery of newspapers to sell their product during a newspaper war.

But in Marriott’s mind none of these possibilities are credible.

Marriott said his investigation is almost done. He has a couple of loose ends to tie up, but he is now concentrating on a book about the case detailing the evidence about Feigenbaum as well as a screenplay.

Marriott’s sleuthing gets a thumbs up from Xanthe Mallet, a forensic anthropologist at the University of Dundee.

“I would say he is a reasonable suspect from the evidence I’ve seen,” she told the Star. “So many people have been suspected, but Feigenbaum seems like a good suspect.”

She’d like to see more work done on the victims and perhaps reviewing their inquests to see what they reveal about the possible killer.

The victims were all prostitutes, many of whom had nowhere to live and wandered the streets to get money for food and a bed for the night, except for Mary Jane Kelly who had a room of her own. In 1888, there were about 1,600 prostitutes operating in the Whitechapel area.