Location Argues Against Barnett?

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Hello Glenn,
That a domestic murder can be the most horrendous one can imagine, and horrendous just like Mary's, is obviously undisputable. You showed it so many times, even years ago, and you are perfectly right about this.
Of course, that is not enough to prove that Miller's Court murder is a domestic one, and Barnett's candidacy is another (and partly subsequent) problem.

Amitiés très sincères,
David

Hello David,

We are unfortuantely not in the position to be able to prove anything one way or the other. All we're dealing with here is circumstancial scenarios. Barnett is in my view not the most interesting suspect, but as the victim's spouse (leaving her one week prior to the murder and in connection with a quarrel) we has to be up there on the list just the same, just as any spouse to a female murder victim in a domestic environment.
But as I said, there are suspects of bigger interests.

All the best

[Red Zeppelin]

Barnett is in my view not the most interesting suspect.........

That's the way it usually goes though isn't it?

[Red Zeppelin]

Barnett didn't do it.

He was checked out.

End of story.

Peter Sutcliffe wasn't the Yorkshire Ripper.

He was checked out.

End of story.

Considering a lot of incompetence of the police in both cases, I don't place too much faith there.

[Barnaby]

Hi all,

Thanks for all of the great replies. Here was my thinking behind the initial post: If Joe wants to pull off a copycat Ripper crime, then why not kill her in the streets like all of the previous victims? Why draw unnecessary attention to yourself by killing her in a place that you frequent? Of course, this assumes premeditation. To those of you who believe that Joe did kill Mary AND that it was premeditated, do the advantages of the relative privacy outweigh the risks that Joe could easily have been identified by neighbors? Of course it mattered little in the end, but would this be classified as a tactical error?

Cheers!

[Fisherman]

Hi Barnaby!

My own feeling on the question you ask, is that if Joe was her killer and planned the crime meticulously as a copycat strike, then it stands to reason that he would want to be able to control as many parameters as possible. His mindset would be of a totally different kind than that of the Ripper, who either enjoyed risks or couldn´t care less about them.

Therefore I would say that killing her and cutting her up in the middle of Flower and Dean Street would involve huge risks, risks that I think would not suit the thinking of a very controlling killer. To kill her in the privacy of her own room would be a much better opportunity, and the way to get away with it for a controlling and planning killer would lie in the alibi part: With a strong enough alibi and no physical evidence left at the crime scene, a strike in her own room would allow for control of a maximum of parameters.

In the end, however, I do not think that Joe did it – but that was not what you asked about, was it?

All the best, Barnaby!

Fisherman

[The Good Michael]

Barnaby,

To piggyback onto Fisherman's reply, I will say that it doesn't appear that the authorities saw any significant difference between a prostitute being murdered outdoors or indoors. The differences between an old, beat up apartment and an alley probably didn't raise an eyebrow. If a killer plied his trade today in, for example, the national parls of the United States, and victims were found in tents, under the stars, and in small cabins, would we say that it had to be different killers? Location wouldn't seem to play a factor in my mind. Similarly, I don't know that it's possible to negate a suspect because of an indoor location in the Whitechapel murders. Perhaps a small partitioned room is a step up from a gate, but only just, and probably devoid of meaning.

I may be wrong.

Cheers,

Mike

[Graham]

My usual disclaimer that I haven't been following this thread...

Had Kelly been discovered in the road, an alley, a quiet square, a roof-top or wherever, the police would still have hauled in Barnett because his friendship with her was well-known around and about. Unfortunately we don't have any record of his 4-hour interview with the police, but he must have convinced them that he didn't kill her, plus he had an alibi which one assumes was followed up. How it was followed up, and who by, we don't know, but I think we know enough about Victorian police methods to take it for read that it was checked out. I would also expect that the police carried out a good deal of checking into his background, outside his interview with them. Maybe they instructed him not to leave the area, or to report back to the police at some later date - we just don't know. But the police in 1888, crude by today's standards their methods may have been, were not dummies - I'm positive that had they entertained for one moment any suspicion that Barnett killed Kelly he'd have been in custody for a hell of sight longer than 4 hours.

Cheers,

Graham

[perrymason]

The thing with the death of Mary Kelly is that she is the ONLY Canonical that the killer may have had to go to specifically...trawling known pick-up zones is much different than approaching a potential victim in their own home. If she was asleep....he has to get in without her screaming. The windows, and the door, are still steps from her bed.

How does a man unknown to Mary do that around 3:30-4:00am?

It is not a known fact that Mary was at home asleep when she meets her killer, but.... it is a very realistic idea based on the courtyard evidence,... and it would represent a fairly signifigant MO revision if so. One that must put into question the possible motive for this murder as compared with other Canonicals.

She may have been killed by Jack, or she may not, but either way it would appear he may have known her. Not likely Joe B.....but there are other Joe's. One of which we know is destined for an asylum.

Best regards all.

[Sam Flynn]

trawling known pick-up zones is much different than approaching a potential victim in their own home.

We don't know that all the Ripper's victims were patrolling a pick-up zone when he accosted them, Mike - in fact, we don't know for certain that all of them were actively soliciting on the mornings of their deaths. Some might have been shuffling along the back-streets in search of shelter, for all we know.

[Moriarty]

Barnett didn't do it.

He was checked out.

End of story.

Just as a matter of interest, was Peter Sutcliffe ever "checked out" by the police over the Yorkshire Ripper murders?

[Moriarty]

My usual disclaimer that I haven't been following this thread...

Had Kelly been discovered in the road, an alley, a quiet square, a roof-top or wherever, the police would still have hauled in Barnett because his friendship with her was well-known around and about. Unfortunately we don't have any record of his 4-hour interview with the police, but he must have convinced them that he didn't kill her, plus he had an alibi which one assumes was followed up. How it was followed up, and who by, we don't know, but I think we know enough about Victorian police methods to take it for read that it was checked out. I would also expect that the police carried out a good deal of checking into his background, outside his interview with them. Maybe they instructed him not to leave the area, or to report back to the police at some later date - we just don't know. But the police in 1888, crude by today's standards their methods may have been, were not dummies - I'm positive that had they entertained for one moment any suspicion that Barnett killed Kelly he'd have been in custody for a hell of sight longer than 4 hours.

Cheers,

Graham

The logic of this post is the following: we can rule out as a viable suspect anybody who was questioned by the police at the time.

Not a logic I'd personally endorse....

[Brenda]

Personally, I think George Hutchinson and his "Astrakhan Man" story went a long ways toward taking a lot of the heat and scrutiny off of Barnett. I feel like the police would have looked at Barnett at least a second time, but they were by then looking for a man of a totally different description due to Hutchinson's story.

Also, I am always struck by how the police at that time would bypass deep scrutiny on those deemed "respectable".

[dixon9]

surely if Barnett killed MJK he must have done so after Blotchy face had left(if we are to believe Mary Ann Cox)the room.
I say this as surely Mary Cox would have been able to ID Joe if he was the man going into the room with MJK.

[Phil H]

When Barnett first began to be touted as a possible "Jack" I was dismissive of the idea. The logic proposed and the psychology simply did not convince me.

However, having now embraced the possibility that MJK was NOT killed by JtR/the Whitechapel murderer, I have begun to be open to new possibilities.

As I have argued on other threads recently, I believe that MJK was probably killed and mutilated by someone who knew her and knew her well. This best fits with gaining access to the room where the door lock (and temporary opening arrangements) appear to have fooled the police only hours later; with MJK's nakedness and folded clothes, with the likelihood that she was asleep at the moment of the attack etc.

Thus Barnett has come back into the frame for me, if this killing was a "domestic" and other murders do not have to be ascribed to his hand. But I would also not rule out other former lovers of MJK - Moganstone(?); and Flemming of whom we know (and the later was alleged to ill-use Mary, was he not; but what of other partners of whom we know nothing?

The police dismissed Barnett as a suspect, and that (together with what else we know about him) tends to reduce the probablility for me that he killed MJK - I'd put it at 40:60. Flemming I'd like to know more about. But as has been noted earlier in this thread, the police have been known to get things wrong over the years and to pass over the actual killer. They MAY have done so in this case - we'll probably never know.

If it was Barnett then I think the murder was certainly unpremeditated. Many scaenarios could be invented, but he could have returned after seeing her the previous evening, frustrated and libidinous. Perhaps she said as it was late he could share the bed - hence her possible position on the far side - but maybe she refused sex; or the way she did so; or something dismissive or humiliating she said, made something snap in him. Frankly I dunno, but I can see the possibilities.

With Flemming or A N Other it might have been premeditated - he tricks his way in with sweet words, she goes to sleep and he strikes. Motive - to deny her body and beauty to others? To revenge himself on past humiliations?

But I don't think the location, per se, argues against Joe Barnett or any other intimate of MJK's.

I do think we need seriously to examine this murder as a one off, only tangentially connected to the other murders. Though, that said, it may have been a JtR hit - I try to retain an open mind.

Phil

[Phil H]

And also

I forgot to say in my previous post that I'd be very interested to know more about Danny Barnett, Joe's brother.

He probably knew MJK well, would have known about the door, and she could have been fond of him. isn't there a possible sighting of them together on the night of her murder? (Lewis?)