Six years ago, I published a book outlining the evidence for and against 333 Jack the Ripper suspects. Since then, the number of people accused has risen again. My most disturbing finding was the number of plausible candidates, men capable of committing such terrible atrocities. Given the lack of direct evidence my preference is to concentrate on those known to have committed violent crimes. Emil Totterman, alias Carl Neilsen, is one of the few to be convicted of killing and mutilating a woman.

On 19 December 1903, fifteen years after the Ripper murders, Totterman murdered Sarah Martin, a prostitute, at Kelly’s hotel in New York. His only explanation for the crime was that he woke up with a knife in his hands and did not understand how he came to rip her up. He avoided execution because of his acts of bravery in the Spanish American War.

Totterman escaped from prison in 1916, during another war, and was recaptured eight months later. He was released on Christmas Eve in 1929. Official documents give his age as 29 in 1904, meaning he was too young to be Jack the Ripper. His crime, the 1891 murder of Carrie Brown in close proximity to Kelly’s hotel and many others, are indicative of a very violent era where the Ripper was far from unique.