{"id":13097,"date":"2018-06-27T18:55:36","date_gmt":"2018-06-27T22:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/?p=13097"},"modified":"2020-12-29T11:53:59","modified_gmt":"2020-12-29T16:53:59","slug":"did-jack-the-ripper-visit-bridgeport-who-was-the-mysterious-fred-b-beleno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/heroes-and-villains\/did-jack-the-ripper-visit-bridgeport-who-was-the-mysterious-fred-b-beleno\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Jack the Ripper Visit Bridgeport? Who Was the Mysterious Fred B. Beleno?"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Michael J. Bielawa<\/strong><\/p>\n

One hundred and thirty years ago this autumn, in 1888, Jack the Ripper terrorized the Whitechapel neighborhood of London, England. The madman brutally murdered five women. Then vanished. Never to be heard from again. Or was he? Some 21st<\/sup> century Ripperologists, as Jack the Ripper investigators are dubbed, think that the unknown assailant journeyed to America. Did Jack the Ripper voyage to Bridgeport, Connecticut?<\/p>\n

It was Sunday, December, 20, 1903. The woman had been dead for half a day. Her body was discovered in the seedy three-story Kelly Hotel in Manhattan\u2019s waterfront district. Sarah Martin was her name. \u00a0Here on the rough streets along the East River she was known for the past fifteen years as Cob Dock Sallie. The cobblestone warren of alleyways was not unlike Whitechapel. And just like the Ripper\u2019s London victims Sarah Martin was a prostitute. Detectives examined her remains. The Martin woman had been strangled, slashed and then mutilated. The headline from the December 21, 1903 Bridgeport Evening Farmer<\/em> shouted, \u201c\u2019JACK THE RIPPER,\u2019 NOW UNDER ARREST\u2026\u201d The article also remarked that \u201cthe way the [crime]was accomplished, suggests the Whitechapel murders.\u201d New York City papers noted how this violent act resembled a murder which took place twelve years prior, in 1891, in the same Cherry Hill section of the city. In that case, Carrie Brown a prostitute by the street name \u201cOld Shakespeare\u201d (from her propensity to recite the Bard whenever she was intoxicated) was butchered in the same manner merely a block from where Sarah Martin was discovered.*<\/p>\n

Detectives recreated a timeline of Sarah Martin\u2019s final hours. On Saturday, December 19, 1903 at approximately 10:30 at night, an unidentified man walked into the Kelly Hotel (in a bit of lost Gotham vernacular this was known as a \u201cRaines law hotel\u201d which meant that according to New York State law alcohol could be served to lodgers on Sundays). The stranger who entered the ramshackle hotel was about thirty-five years old, five feet nine inches tall, broad shoulders, high cheek bones, blonde hair and a light mustache. Witnesses at the hotel bar said he looked Swedish. They all agreed that there was something unnatural about the man\u2019s eyes; a disturbing \u201cpeculiar\u201d or \u201cwild\u201d quality. After sharing a table and a couple of rounds of drinks (he drank beer while Sarah threw back whiskey) the couple requested a room. They registered as \u201cCarl Nilson and wife\u201d (some newspapers stated the name was \u201cNelson\u201d). Interestingly, the New York Times<\/i> (December 21, 1903) reported that the signature in the register was so poorly written that the police initially conceived the name as: Carl \u201cAlvinson\u201d or \u201cAldesen.\u201d About midnight Sarah ordered more whiskey. The bottle was delivered to the room by the cleaning lady, Jennie Starr; Sarah and Jennie shared the whiskey in the hallway. \u00a0When asked, Sarah told the chamber maid that the man was asleep. It was the last time anyone outside of that room saw Sarah Martin alive.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Meig’s & Co. building<\/p><\/div>\n

The next afternoon a cleaning woman (some say Jennie Starr), others report it was Mrs. Kelly, the wife of the hotel proprietor, found the body. Thinking Sarah was asleep the woman nudged the prone shape. Odd, Sarah was so cold. Pulling back the sheet the brutal crime became obvious. Sarah\u2019s throat was slit and she was gashed across the chest from armpit to armpit. There were other wounds, to the abdomen and \u201cseveral in other parts of the body\u201d which later court documents hinted at, but for decorum\u2019s necessity remained unmentioned. Police searched the hotel room for clues. They discovered two bundles: one holding a couple of soiled shirts and a second box containing an old pair of shoes. Scrawled in pencil on the wrapping paper outside the shoebox was the name \u201cFred B. Beleno.\u201d\u00a0 Detectives also gathered two crumpled sales receipts on the floor, one for a $3.00 sweater and the other for a $2.50 pair of shoes. The stationery bore a name: \u201cMeigs & Co., Bridgeport, Conn.\u201d New York Police Inspector McClusky immediately dispatched detectives McCafferty and Chandler to the Park City. Their mission: locate and apprehend the elusive Mr. Fred B. Beleno.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Meig’s Building block<\/p><\/div>\n

Meigs & Co. was a popular retailer located in the heart of the Bridgeport shopping district. The clothing store was filled with Christmas shoppers when New York City investigators questioned the clerks. Seems the suspect was memorable even amidst the holiday throng. The detectives spoke with Parker T. Silvernail who sold the suspect a blue sweater. Louis T. Baldwin was the clerk who helped with the unidentified man\u2019s shoe purchase. Baldwin distinctly remembered the odd-cobbled shoes the man wore when he came into the store: they had a homemade repair job of copper tacks arranged in the right sole allowing space for the man\u2019s painful corns\u2026 and the shoes resembled those worn by sailors. The suspect stood out from the overflow of customers in the hectic store for another reason; he shared a sad tale with the shoe salesman about being shipwrecked off of Cape Cod and spending an extended time recuperating at New Haven Hospital.** The police anxiously made their way to Bridgeport Harbor. They inquired about Fred Beleno, the name written on the wrapping paper found in Sarah\u2019s hotel room.<\/p>\n

The authorities were surprised to discover that \u201cFred B. Balano\u201d was not a man\u2019s name at all, but rather the name of a schooner. The vessel was unloading lumber at the Farist Dock located at the foot of East Main Street. Captain Orlando C. Sawyer told the police that he had discharged deckhand Carl Nilson on Saturday, December 19. It was learned that the suspect departed for New York by train.<\/p>\n

Detectives McCafferty and Chandler excitedly telephoned the news back to their boss in the city. Headquarters arranged a stakeout of the most likely place a sailor might be found. Police went to the Sailors Union on South Street, New York City looking for a blonde man wearing a blue sweater and new shoes.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Portion of Bridgeport Harbor, late 19th Century<\/p><\/div>\n

The suspect was immediately located. The man they approached admitted he sometimes used the name Carl Nilson when signing aboard ship, it was his mother\u2019s maiden name, and was easier to employ than his true name, Emil Totterman. Totterman explained that he was thirty-three years old and had been born in Finland. He denied ever visiting the Kelly Hotel or knowing anyone by the name of Sarah Martin. And Totterman vehemently denied killing anyone. But Totterman\u2019s shoes told a different story. They were stamped, \u201cMeigs & Co.\u201d<\/p>\n

A parade of witnesses identified the blonde sailor. Folks at the Kelly Hotel and the Meigs clerks all recognized Emil Totterman, alias Carl Nilson. His handwriting matched the hotel register. A sailor\u2019s clasp knife was found on his person dotted with human blood stains. Totterman\u2019s clothes also proved to contain blood.<\/p>\n

The trial took place in early 1904. Totterman smiled horribly when brought to court for sentencing. When the Judge pronounced the decision that Totterman should die in the electric chair the condemned prisoner \u201cburst out laughing.\u201d Totterman was \u201cstill laughing when he was taken out of the<\/p>\n

\"\"

Farist Dock<\/p><\/div>\n

room.\u201d He was transported to Sing Sing State Prison on March 2, 1904.<\/p>\n

However, within a few months Totterman\u2019s sentence was commuted. Due to his valor aboard the battleship USS Iowa, and in Cuba, during the Spanish American War Totterman had been awarded three medals, including a citation for life-saving from Congress. As a result of Totterman\u2019s bravery in the US Navy he was granted leniency. The sailor would spend the rest of his life in prison. But this tragic and bizarre tale was far from over. Emil Totterman escaped from Sing Sing in August 1916 while working in the \u201chonor camp\u201d at a convict farm outside the penitentiary\u2019s walls. During Totterman\u2019s time on the run Bridgeport police felt that there was a chance that the escapee lurked in the Park City. Frightening headlines in the local press shouted how a fervent police \u201cdragnet\u201d hounded the Ripper here in Bridgeport. In a terrible coincide, during Totterman\u2019s eight months on the lam authorities questioned whether he was implicated in another Bridgeport slaying. Michael Yorko, a one-legged man, was butchered in Bridgeport on October 22, 1916. The unfortunate victim had been mutilated in the same manner as Old Shakespeare and Sarah Martin. Yorko was found naked in a field near Railroad and South Avenues; he had been disemboweled and nearly decapitated. Totterman was recaptured during April, 1917 in Buffalo, New York and returned to Sing Sing.<\/p>\n

Behind bars Totterman continued his sentence as a model prisoner. His name again appeared in newspapers when, during Memorial Day 1927, he adroitly scampered up the towering height of Sing Sing\u2019s damaged flagpole to reattach the American flag. To the cheers of fellow inmates Totterman unfurled Old Glory for three hundred World War One imprisoned veterans. Just over two years later the governor of New York began a review of Emil Totterman\u2019s case. It was decided that Totterman\u2019s case involved circumstantial evidence and the fact that Totterman was intoxicated at the time should have ruled the crime as murder in the second or third degree. The lifer was pardoned. Officially the decree took effect on Christmas Eve 1929. The New York governor was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Totterman returned to Finland and was never heard from again.<\/p>\n

Yet the question remains, if it wasn\u2019t Emil Totterman, then who murdered Sarah Martin?<\/p>\n

There has been a lot of discussion among Ripperologists regarding whether Emil Totterman\u2019s age configures to his being old enough in 1888 to commit the crimes associated with Jack the Ripper\u2019s killing spree. According to government documents and newspaper interviews Totterman\u2019s year of birth has been assigned various dates ranging from 1861, 1863, 1870 and 1875. Assuming the former year, Totterman would have been twenty-seven years old during the London murders and forty-two years of age when he was in Bridgeport. Totterman\u2019s own World War One draft registration (which was completed while in prison) states he was born on April 28, 1870 which would have made him an estimated eighteen years of age during the Whitechapel atrocities. Old enough to be Jack the Ripper.<\/p>\n

There is a list. An inventory of evil. A ghastly catalog compiled over a century of intense investigation which gathers the names of likely Jack the Ripper suspects. Ripperologists carefully mull over this dark litany of demons. One of whom may have been the infamous Jack. Included among these suspected Rippers there appears the name Emil Totterman. Emil Totterman, who beyond any shadow of a doubt did walk the streets of Bridgeport.<\/p>\n

* An April 25, 1891 article in The Day<\/em> (of New London, CT) entitled, \u201cJack the Ripper Again\u201d states \u201cThe strong probability that London\u2019s fiend in human form, \u201cJack the Ripper,\u201d has transferred his field of operations from Whitechapel to the slums of New York has sent a thrill of horror throughout the metropolis.\u201d In the case of Carrie Brown, a French speaking Algerian, Ameer Ben Ali, was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to a mental institution. Eventually he was declared innocent of the crime.<\/p>\n

** Authorities contacted New Haven Hospital to ascertain if the suspect had indeed been a patient at the facility. A person by the name of John Anderson, who did survive a shipwreck, fit the physical description of the man being sought.\u00a0He had convalesced at the hospital for a head injury during 1904. Strangely, the “Anderson” name employed by the hospital patient resembles the name the New York police first thought was written in the Kelly Hotel register: “Alvinson” or “Aldesen.”<\/p>\n

Sources <\/strong><\/p>\n

Bridgeport newspapers on microfilm, including Bridgeport Evening Farmer, Bridgeport Evening Post <\/em>and Bridgeport Morning Telegram and Union<\/em> [available on microfilm at the Bridgeport History Center]\n

Ansestory.com; Emil Totterman\u2019s Sing Sing State Prison documents. [available at all BPL locations]\n

New York Times<\/em> [no subscription fee necessary, NYT microfilm is free at BPL]\n

***************<\/p>\n

Images:<\/strong>
\nEmil Totterman\u2019s 1904 mugshot from the New York Sun (personal collection)
\nMeig\u2019s & Co. Building (BPL HC postcard)
\nMeig\u2019s store location from Sanborn Insurance Map (BPL HC)
\nFarist Dock at the foot of East Main Street from Sanborn Insurance Map (BPL HC)
\nBridgeport Harbor c. 1900 (BPL HC)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Michael J. Bielawa One hundred and thirty years ago this autumn, in 1888, Jack the Ripper terrorized the Whitechapel neighborhood of London, England. The madman brutally murdered five women. Then vanished. Never to be heard from again. Or was he? Some 21st century Ripperologists, as Jack the Ripper investigators are dubbed, think that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":13114,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[254,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-article","category-heroes-and-villains"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13097"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13120,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13097\/revisions\/13120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}