Was It Personal?

[CraveDisorder]

ive always thought fleming to be a much more likely suspect than barnett, especially with what we know of their history. its also far more logical as barnett would have been easily id'd if anyone had disturbed him.

I did think about that but didn't Barnett give a description of a man he saw when giving his police statement? If it was Fleming wouldn't he have said so?

[joelhall]

ive always thought fleming to be a much more likely suspect than barnett, especially with what we know of their history. its also far more logical as barnett would have been easily id'd if anyone had disturbed him.

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Hi Crave Disorder and welcome to the Boards.

Yes, it makes perfect sense and I totally agree with you that the murder of MJK appears to be 'personal' in a way that differs it from the other murders.
My only objection is that - although Barnett is a logical suspect since he had lived with her until a week prior to the murder, there also is another viable suspect in another one of her former spouses, Joseph Fleming, and whom she did see while she was still living with Barnett.

All the best

[CraveDisorder]

This is my 1st post, so be kind. Firstly just wanted to say have had an interest in JTR since i was about 13 and came across a book about the murders in a library, I'm now fast approaching 41!!

Anyway one of the things that has always struck me about the murder of MJK was the severe mutilation of the face. I have heard it argued that Jack had more time etc but surely with the other victims he could have done the same??? It seems to me that the MJK was personal, removing the features of the face to take away who she was so that he could deal with what he was doing. I know the others had facial mutilation but nowhere as near to the extent of MJK. It would be really usefull to know which mutilations came first, was the face mutilated at the start???

I think that Barnett was responsible for the murder, now wether that means he was the Ripper is another thing entirely. The fact MJK was a prostitute and lived close by links her to the other victims but to me whoever murdered MJK was doing something to destroy who she was, the others were being destroyed for what they were??

We can speculate that Barnett was in love with her and hated what she did, or he was the Ripper and it was only a matter of time, or they argued, he moved out etc. Perhaps the earlier vicitms were murdered because Barnett hated what MJK did and so took it out elsewhere eventually leading to that final terrible finale where he had to deal with the woman he loved.

It seems to me that a lot of killings in modern times have a lot in common with what happened in 1888 but I personally beleive that Barnett was repsonsible for MJK, I am however not at all convinced he was involved in the killings of the others.

I hope this made some sense.