Violent?

[Phil H]

If I ever commit a crime, Sally, I hope you have to interview me. I'll run rings around you!

Where's your cynicism, your lack of surprise at how deeply human evil can run?

Where's the rigourous questioning ans scepticism required?

And as for the brutality of Kelly's murder beinga little extreme, don't you think? - how often have police been shocked that their presumptions and presuppositions have misled them?

Oh and is being "boring" (even "Deeply" boring) a reason why someone cannot be a killer?

Sorry to challenge you (I do it with a twinkle in the eye, I assure you!),

Phil

[Sally]

If I ever commit a crime, Sally, I hope you have to interview me. I'll run rings around you!

Where's your cynicism, your lack of surprise at how deeply human evil can run?

Where's the rigourous questioning ans scepticism required?

And as for the brutality of Kelly's murder beinga little extreme, don't you think? - how often have police been shocked that their presumptions and presuppositions have misled them?

Oh and is being "boring" (even "Deeply" boring) a reason why someone cannot be a killer?

Sorry to challenge you (I do it with a twinkle in the eye, I assure you!),

Phil

Phil

This has nothing at all to do with my cynicism, sceptisim, or lack of either. It has everything to do with logical deduction. Its all well and good to talk about suspects in Kelly's murder; but I think it might be better if there was actually some reason for suspicion, you know?

There is nothing - nothing - to suggest that Barnett was ever anything other than the boyfriend. If you fancy him for doing in Kelly, then great - but for what reason? You don't appear to have one.

When I said her murder was a little extreme, it was meant in context - in this case under the consideration that her murder was domestic killing. I repeat - if Barnett wanted rid of Kelly, he could simply have left her.

You ask where my cynicsim is - I could as well ask you where your sense of discrimination is?

[Phil H]

I always understood that in the case of murder a VERY high proportion were actually committed by someone close to the victim.

Just as most harm to children is caused by those close to them.

Phil

[Abby Normal]

Hi Barnett Fanciers,

So in recent weeks you've smashed your way into headlines around the world by killing and mutilating unfortunates in the streets of Spitalfields and suddenly you've flipped and done an even more thorough job on your ex common law missus, on the very bed you were sharing until a few days ago.

You know the cops are going to be all over you like a rash, so what do you tell them and what do you keep your trap shut about? Of course, silly me. You volunteer the information that your slaughtered ex had told you the only man who frightened her was yours truly, during the rows you had with her.

So what does that make you? A serial killer who is so thick that you only got away with this memorable series of murders because the cops were even thicker than you? Or are you a master of bluff and double bluff?

I'm sorry, but if Barnett did it, Barnett would almost certainly have hanged for it. But he wouldn't have handed his guilt to 'em on a bloody plate.

Didn't the poor man suffer enough?

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz
You make absolute reasonable sense. but affairs of the (missing) heart are not always so reasonable.

[Abby Normal]

I always understood that in the case of murder a VERY high proportion were actually committed by someone close to the victim.

Just as most harm to children is caused by those close to them.

Phil

Bingo. And what transpired between Joe and Mary on their last visit? Perhaps poor Joe finally realized they were done.

[Phil H]

Sorry, Abby - I don't follow the logic of your last post.

[caz]

For instance, if the police were taking the view that MJK was a JtR victim, Barnett may have been able to provide alibis not only for the night Mary was killed, but for some or all of the other murders. Did the police ask the right questions? Did they let their assumptions lead them? I do not know - thus I cannot dismiss Barnett.

To be fair, if Barnett killed MJK he could hardly have provided a 100% satisfactory alibi, and it's not as if the conversation went:

"Did you kill her, Joe?"

"Nnnnnnn-no."

"Okay then, off you go."

There was at least one news report, claiming that a different motive was being considered for MJK's murder, which, if correct would place it in an entirely different category. Now if your average journalist was open to such a suggestion, when arguably it didn't get any better from his point of view than a horrific new ripper murder to wax lyrical about, then I don't doubt the likes of Abberline and co would have kept the theory in mind themselves, at least until fully satisfied that Barnett was more victim than anything else and could not help with their enquiries.

I always understood that in the case of murder a VERY high proportion were actually committed by someone close to the victim.

Just as most harm to children is caused by those close to them.

Phil

All the more reason to think the police looked so closely at Barnett that they would have seen right through him if he had just been slaughtering his ex in their tiny hovel.

How many cases do you know where a boyfriend of the deceased turns out to have savagely murdered her, leaving her body to be discovered very quickly, but was able to carry on with his life without a hint of suspicion following him round like a bad smell, either on the part of the police, his near neighbours or the public in general - until many decades after his death when theorists who didn't know the man from Adam started seeing him in a potentially guilty light?

We can't analyse the man himself and can only speculate on the likelihood that he was Jack, or at least acted in a very Jack-like manner on the one occasion only, on a lover who happened to live like Jack's previous victims, in the very centre of Jack's comfort zone. But we can take our lead from the reaction to him after the event, by the police and by everyone else living at the time.

In short there was no reaction. The man left no guilty footprint behind.

Love,

Caz
X

[Sally]

I always understood that in the case of murder a VERY high proportion were actually committed by someone close to the victim.

Mmm. Doesn't appear to have been the case with these murders, though, does it? Perhaps so in the case of Kelly - but Barnett isn't the only candidate for a perpetrator 'close to the victim' - just the worst one.

[Phil H]

I repeat what I have said before several times: I have no particular belief that Joe Barnett killed MJK, but he remains a candidate for me along with others of her "intimate" acquaintance. (I have defined what I consider that to be, before.)

Caz - your arguments are interesting and may be true - but they are supposition. We know little about what Abberline thought or did. I don't deny your case, I just put less emphasis on it than you appear to do.

ME: I always understood that in the case of murder a VERY high proportion were actually committed by someone close to the victim.

SALLY:Mmm. Doesn't appear to have been the case with these murders, though, does it?

Well, I seem to recall some pretty specific speculation about Eddowes' partner Kelly on Casebook! Were he her killer, and Kidney killed Stride, that would mean a high proportion of the "canonicals" were actually "domestics". [Keep you hair on, all - I'm not suggesting that. YET!!]

On a separate point, I think we really should give time and thought to a totally new reading of these murders - look at them with a wholly open mind. I remember being shocked when the first book came out suggesting that there was NO JtR - that he was a creation of the media. I didn't want to hear such a thing.

But now, the notion having soaked in slowly, I am prepared to re-examine the arguments.

I no longer believe the conventional wisdom on the "canonical five", but believe we can only really assign three killings to "Jack". Did something happen to "Jack after Eddowes' murder? I look at Smith and Tabram and wonder whether there was a link there - multiple hands in each case? I try to examine MJK's death in a fresh light and I have multiple possibilities in mind - Barnett or an intimate is one; a "political" involvement is another.

I hear what you say Sally and Caz, I do not ignore your arguments, but I lack your seeming certainty.

Phil

[Sally]

On a separate point, I think we really should give time and thought to a totally new reading of these murders - look at them with a wholly open mind. I remember being shocked when the first book came out suggesting that there was NO JtR - that he was a creation of the media. I didn't want to hear such a thing.

Phil - Firstly, it is not possible to look at anything with a 'wholly open mind'. It cannot be done. Many years ago, as a know-it-all undergraduate student (hard to believe, I know) I would have argued with that; but of course, it is quite true. The very best we can hope for is to be aware of our own cultural and personal bias when we approach a question.

Secondly, there is a distinction to be drawn between Jack The Ripper being a media creation in name; and in fact. I agree that there probably was no individual calling himself 'Jack The Ripper' to begin with - and that the name was a media creation. That does not mean either that the individual didn't exist - whatever he/she called themselves; nor even that they didn't later think of themselves as 'Jack'.

But this has little to do with Barnett and his speculated violence.

[Phil H]

...this has little to do with Barnett and his speculated violence.

It does, if the killing of MJK can be divorced from the "canonical 5" (IMHO).

...it is not possible to look at anything with a 'wholly open mind'.


Perhaps true from a "philospohical perspective, and we are all, of course, "a part of all that we have met" (to misquote, I think, Tennyson).

But I would disagree to the extent that I think we can go back to the evidence and re-examine it and see whether there are other connections, other readings than those arrived at before. Surely, that is what has been done with the memorandum and the marginalia - old readings have been re-scrutinised and new ones reached - it;s called textual criticism.

... there is a distinction to be drawn between Jack The Ripper being a media creation in name; and in fact. I agree that there probably was no individual calling himself 'Jack The Ripper' to begin with - and that the name was a media creation. That does not mean either that the individual didn't exist - whatever he/she called themselves; nor even that they didn't later think of themselves as 'Jack'.

On the contrary, I think there are those (and I would include myself) who ARE prepared to, and DO, consider an interpretation of the Whitechapel murders that has a number of different killers with differing motivations.

Smith & Tabram - a gang?

Nichols, Chapman & Eddowes - "Jack"/Leather Apron?

Stride - Kidney?

MJK - A N Other?

Castle Alley murder - (same hand as Nichols etc above or a copycat)

Torso killings & Pinchen St - unknown.

So there is a view - and books have been based on it - that the murderer who kept the East End in terror was not a single hand, and that the separate killings were woven into thread by the yellow press.

Phil

[Sally]

Mmm...

It does, if the killing of MJK can be divorced from the "canonical 5" (IMHO).

On what grounds, exactly? If it looks, sounds and walks like a Duck - then it probably is a Duck. Yes I know that there is a view that separates Kelly from the others, but it appears to be chiefly on the grounds that her murder occurred after a hiatus. Not very convincing.

Perhaps true from a "philospohical perspective, and we are all, of course, "a part of all that we have met" (to misquote, I think, Tennyson).

Not from a philosophical perspective - in actual fact. One has only know a little about historiography to grasp that every generation reinterprets the 'facts' of the last one. It isn't (necessarily) that the latest interpretations are the best ones; but rather that they're the current ones.

But I would disagree to the extent that I think we can go back to the evidence and re-examine it and see whether there are other connections, other readings than those arrived at before. Surely, that is what has been done with the memorandum and the marginalia - old readings have been re-scrutinised and new ones reached - it;s called textual criticism.

Well, obviously, Phil. I wasn't suggesting that re-examination should never occur - far from it. Re-interpretation can of course be valuable - and every so often somebody does make a ground-breaking discovery. Most 're-examination' leads only to revisionism as a general point; which rarely stands the test of time. And I'm not sure it is called 'textual criticism' actually.

On the contrary, I think there are those (and I would include myself) who ARE prepared to, and DO, consider an interpretation of the Whitechapel murders that has a number of different killers with differing motivations.

Smith & Tabram - a gang?

Nichols, Chapman & Eddowes - "Jack"/Leather Apron?

Stride - Kidney?

MJK - A N Other?

Castle Alley murder - (same hand as Nichols etc above or a copycat)

Torso killings & Pinchen St - unknown.

Yes I know Phil, but I'm afraid that I think most of that arises from our inability to determine the identity of 'Jack'. If you split up the murders and say that multiple perpetrators were at work you have much more chance of success of satisfying yourself of a conclusion than you do if insist on chasing the bogeyman. Its a cop out.

[Phil H]

No its not a cop out.

Following the same well-trodden paths that have got us not very far is akin (IMHO) to those who believed the world was flat. Their minds were closed to other possibilities and the opportunities afforded by "striking out boldy".

I think the "cop out" is sticking to the conventional wisdoms.

Most 're-examination' leads only to revisionism as a general point; which rarely stands the test of time.

Frankly, codswallop. That is just a generalisation with no relation to the real world. In the case of Richard III, for instance, the conventional wisdoms of 50 years ago have been essentially consigned to the dustbin, permanently. That is only one example.

And I'm not sure it is called 'textual criticism' actually.

What I'm talking about is!!

Once again we;ll have to disagree, and, I think take our debate elsewhere if we are not to hijack the thread!

Phil

[Wickerman]

.... If you split up the murders and say that multiple perpetrators were at work you have much more chance of success of satisfying yourself of a conclusion than you do if insist on chasing the bogeyman. Its a cop out.

Actually, I would call it, being realistic..

Regards, Jon S.

[claire]

Is 'textual criticism' the same as secondary analysis? I'd not want to pronounce the former after a gin or two.

Seriously, being open to possibilities is absolutely crucial to any form of investigation. I won't discount Barnett. But I do very much doubt that he could have been responsible for the Kelly murder, for the reasons (not speculation, I think, but well-argued reference to the available facts) Caz put forward. I don't think it suggests closed-mindedness to prefer the single-killer argument (personally, I'm sometimes happy to count out 2 of the 5, but I'm conscious that's just my reading)--it's just one, justifiable, way of reading the series. Statistically, it's highly unlikely (to the point of the impossible) there was more than one killer with a similar (and genuine) MO. But saying that leads to one of two conclusions: 1) That there was one killer; or 2) that there were other reasons for copycatting.

If 2), then we might look more closely at those close to Kelly. Or, we can start disseminating suppositions about political conspiracies. Those with a penchant for the latter will always argue closed-mindedness on the part of their detractors.

Rambling post.