the key

[Phil H]

Sally

Exactlly so, Richard. And of his alibi for all the other nights in question. I think it probable - although without direct evidence it must remain conjecture - that an acceptable alibi for the other murder nights in this case constituted more than 'at home with the missus'

It is so obvious that Barnett would have been a person of interest to the police that they must have satisfied themselves of his whereabouts.

But my point is that, if the police were looking for someone who killed not only MJK, but Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes as well, an alibi that ruled him out for one or more of the other "canonicals", might have made them probe less rigorously at him as a suspect.

That is why I continue to include Barnett in my personal lists of "persons of interest" (if you and others will) - if you divorce MJK from her sisters in death, then you start to look at the case differently. At least that is what i have found.

One's perspective changes the view, as it were.

Phil

[Fisherman]

Sally:

"Fiskare! Välkommen tillbaka! Hur var din semester?"

Top notch! And LOTS of fish! Yellowfin tuna, Trevally, Mahi-mahi ... you name it!

" I see no reason to think that Barnett's struggle at the inquest wasn't simply due to his having just lost his girlfriend to the Whitechapel Fiend - enough to give anybody a few problems, I should think."

Exactly so.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Phil:

"But my point is that, if the police were looking for someone who killed not only MJK, but Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes as well, an alibi that ruled him out for one or more of the other "canonicals", might have made them probe less rigorously at him as a suspect."

I think, Phil, that the police would have taken an active interest in the spouses and friends and family of all the victims. That said, they would of course have worked from an angle based on a belief that there was a madman on the loose (a very correct assumption, of course!). But Kelly and Kidney, for example, would have been of interest to the police and checked out individually in the contexts of the two murders of the so called double event night. Anything else would have been negligence. The killer is normally to be found in a the circle of friends and relatives surrounding the victim. That is true today, it was equally true back then, and the police knew it.

Therefore, Barnett would arguably have been checked up on in two respects; as the potential killer of his fiancée - and as a potential Ripper. And I belive both checkouts resulted in the same: a verdict of not guilty, as proven by a useful and watertight alibi.

But since we do not have this on record, it is only fair to leave Barnett on the list of suspects; in the Kelly case we have parameters that are absent in the other murders (mainly the indoors killing) that point to a very clear possibility of an aquaintance inbetween killer and victim, and we all know that Barnett fits that score.The questions must be asked and his candidature must be - at the very least intermittently - upheld. But as it stands, I think he is a poor bid for both the roles he would have been cast in by the men investigating the case.

The best,
Fisherman

[Sally]

Phil

if you divorce MJK from her sisters in death, then you start to look at the case differently. At least that is what i have found.

Sure - but why would you? And how could you?

[Fisherman]

You forget the "should", Sally - the angle MUST be tried, I feel. Each case on it´s own, and all that. Phil is correct in trying the angle - but others have too, and still, Kelly ranks with the Rippers victim´s for most of them. And sensibly so, if you ask me!

The best,
Fisherman

[Sally]

You forget the "should", Sally - the angle MUST be tried, I feel. Each case on it´s own, and all that. Phil is correct in trying the angle - but others have too, and still, Kelly ranks with the Rippers victim´s for most of them. And sensibly so, if you ask me!

The best,
Fisherman

Agreed. The hiatus between Eddowes and Kelly is one of those things that makes it tempting to see a different hand at work - but that may have many explanations. Kelly is different in that she was killed indoors, in her own room - but although I think that has significance, I'm less sure that the significance lies in a different hand.

[curious]

One thing that I always thought belonged to this discussion is what the coroner said when Barnett left the stand at the inquest:
"You have given your evidence very well indeed."

To me, those are words of compassion, felt for a man who had been struck very hard by fate. And I think the foundation for them lay in a stance reached by the authorities after having questioned Barnett thoroughly, resulting in becoming convinced about the man´s innocence. I don´t know of anybody else who received such a line of recognition from the coroner throughout the murder series.

No proof, as usual - but a very fair indicator as far as I´m concerned!

The best,
Fisherman

Agatha Christie wrote a book "Trial by Innocence" that discussed the ordeal of innocent people caught up in an unsolved murder. The loved ones feel the agony of loss and knowledge their beloved endured a horrifying death, perhaps even guilt that they should have been able to do something to prevent it -- then they are subjected to speculation and suspicion until the real culprit is discovered.

For me, that is what is so sad about Joe Barnett (whom I consider a victim as well) and others against whom there is no evidence but whose names are still being bandied about as possible murderers 120+ years after the fact.

Of course, legally, a dead person can not be slandered or libeled, but it is very distasteful. Compassion appears in very short supply for real people who endured a very traumatic, horrific season in their lives as we armchair detectives poke and prod about in all the corners of their lives that we can discover.

And to what real end?

[Fisherman]

Curious:

"Agatha Christie wrote a book "Trial by Innocence" that discussed the ordeal of innocent people caught up in an unsolved murder. The loved ones feel the agony of loss and knowledge their beloved endured a horrifying death, perhaps even guilt that they should have been able to do something to prevent it -- then they are subjected to speculation and suspicion until the real culprit is discovered.

For me, that is what is so sad about Joe Barnett (whom I consider a victim as well) and others against whom there is no evidence but whose names are still being bandied about as possible murderers 120+ years after the fact.

Of course, legally, a dead person can not be slandered or libeled, but it is very distasteful. Compassion appears in very short supply for real people who endured a very traumatic, horrific season in their lives as we armchair detectives poke and prod about in all the corners of their lives that we can discover.

And to what real end?"

It is a complex question, Curious; but if we look at it from the other side of the mirror, we can of course theorize that IF we can put a name to the Whitechapel killer, then we would be able to exonerate all the others that have undeservedly suffered the fate of being pointed out as this horrific fiend. I suppose that would be the alibi that some Ripperologists use to justify their theories.

On the whole, I think we sometimes forget that we are dealing with real people as we discuss these crimes. An element (or two, or three, or ...) of fiction has crept in over the years, as the one fantastic theory after the other have been presented. Thus we may perhaps not always treat the persons involved with all the respect they deserve. Then again, maybe we sometimes treat some of the actors in this drama with MORE respect than they actually deserve; who knows? Stereotypes have, I feel, been formed in some cases, and most of us are sometimes guilty of choosing either black or white as we describe things, instead of going for different shades of grey.

At any rate, yours is of course a good reminder not to be too lighthearted about what we propose. But let´s also keep in mind that most of us do what we do since we would like to see some sort of justice be done, no matter how illogical that suggestion may sound in this particular case ...

The best,
Fisherman

[Heinrich]

Stephen Knight, in his book Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution, mentions having interviewed an elderly nun who, in her youth and not long out of the novitiate, was told by a then elderly nun, who in turn worked among the poor of Whitechapel and had a special mission among the prostitutes, that "Were it not for Mary Kelly, none of the others would have been murdered." Mary Kelly was a Catholic and nuns back then got to know a whole lot about the goings-on among the common people.
The case of Mary Kelly is strikingly special in attempting to piece the evidence together. She was murdered in her own dwelling, a place which she had until recently co-habited with Joseph Barnett! As I mentioned in Post #20, Barnett "was well aware of how to gain access to the dwelling anytime he wished" (the main subject of this thread). Secondly, she was mutilated in a far more gruesome manner than any other victim, suggesting a possible special interest in her, perhaps as the recent partner of Joseph Barnett who was defying his will by consorting with prostitutes and resolving to continue that lifestyle herself. And thirdly, the murders ceased after Mary Kelly's slaughter (provided we keep to the canonical five) and only after Joseph Barnett had been interviewed under suspicion by the police when the heat was on in earnest.
The key, so to speak, is in understanding Mary Kelly's murder and the most obvious culprit has to be Joseph Barnett.

[Sally]

Stephen Knight, in his book Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution, mentions having interviewed an elderly nun who, in her youth and not long out of the novitiate, was told by a then elderly nun, who in turn worked among the poor of Whitechapel and had a special mission among the prostitutes, that "Were it not for Mary Kelly, none of the others would have been murdered." Mary Kelly was a Catholic and nuns back then got to know a whole lot about the goings-on among the common people.

Stephen Knight, eh?

Kate Conway was a Catholic too. D'you reckon there's a link?

The case of Mary Kelly is strikingly special in attempting to piece the evidence together. She was murdered in her own dwelling, a place which she had until recently co-habited with Joseph Barnett! As I mentioned in Post #20, Barnett "was well aware of how to gain access to the dwelling anytime he wished" (the main subject of this thread). Secondly, she was mutilated in a far more gruesome manner than any other victim, suggesting a possible special interest in her, perhaps as the recent partner of Joseph Barnett who was defying his will by consorting with prostitutes and resolving to continue that lifestyle herself. And thirdly, the murders ceased after Mary Kelly's slaughter (provided we keep to the canonical five) and only after Joseph Barnett had been interviewed under suspicion by the police when the heat was on in earnest.

Yes. Well, there are obvious reasons for all of the above which in no way implicate Barnett. This looks like 2 and 2 making 5 as far as I can see.

The key, so to speak, is in understanding Mary Kelly's murder and the most obvious culprit has to be Joseph Barnett.

No.

[Heinrich]

.... Kate Conway was a Catholic too. D'you reckon there's a link?

I do not know about this person.

Yes. Well, there are obvious reasons for all of the above which in no way implicate Barnett.

I think it does, ... big time.

[c.d.]

Just a few points...

Mary was a prostitute just like the rest of the C5. The fact that she was killed indoors can easily be explained by the fact that she was the only one of the C5 with her own room.

If Mary opened the door to her room and admitted her killer, the whole key issue becomes moot.

Her extensive mutilations compared to the other C5 can easily be accounted for by the killer having more time and privacy.

We don't know why the murders stopped after Mary Kelly. The reason might have absolutely nothing to do with her.

c.d.

[Sally]

I do not know about this person.

I expect you do. You know her as Catherine Eddowes.

I think it does, ... big time.

Fair enough - but there doesn't seem to be any solid basis for that belief. I guess if you have a conviction, no amount of rational debate is going to make a difference.

[curious]

The key, so to speak, is in understanding Mary Kelly's murder and the most obvious culprit has to be Joseph Barnett.

I understand that anyone first looking at these murders naturally looks at each individually and explores the people closest in the victims' lives. We do get hung up on minutiae and want to explore every facet -- like the key -- in an attempt to solve the crime. Our minds settle first on this, then on that, as we explore the facts. We ask questions, we look at maybes or possibilities or what ifs.

However, how anyone can read and understand what was done to Mary Kelly (not to mention looking at those photographs) then believe for even a nanosecond that the person who committed that atrocity could possibly live nearly 4 decades as a normal, ordinary person . . . . well, it is just unfathomable.

Someone spent hours stripping her flesh from her bones -- hours! and pulling all the organs from her body . . . . removing her face and her identity . . .

We're not discussing a crime of passion here, a sudden fly off the handle and before we realize it someone is dead, but hours and hours of activity so horrific -- could a normal mind survive it?

Could a normal mind guilty of such actions satisfy a four-hour grilling by the authorities?

We do know that after the events of 1888 Joe Barnett led a very mundane, ordinary life until 1926 -- close to 4 decades of crime-free normal life.

Now reread what was done to Mary Kelly. . .

[curious]

But let´s also keep in mind that most of us do what we do since we would like to see some sort of justice be done, no matter how illogical that suggestion may sound in this particular case ...

The best,
Fisherman

I suspect that desire to see justice done in this case is illogical, but I understand and feel that same desire for the crimes to be explained or made sense of so that the culprit will be suitably vilified and the innocent set free.

There are very intelligent people doing bona fide research that allows us to know more of Whitechapel and the era in which these people lived. And who allow us to hope that perhaps someday . . .