the key

[Fisherman]

Heinrich:

"He wasn't going anywhere, Fisherman; the Norwegian police had their man and, unlike the Metropolitan Police, there was no chance they would be letting him go home."

Which was why they really did not need to ask him about accomplices, other bombs, planned deeds, other terrorist cells, who had provided the explosive stuff etcetera, etcetera...?

You see, Breivik admitted what he had done already out on Utøya. And that was not the focus of the police´s seven hour interrogation afterwards. They had more pressing questions to ask, and for all they knew, time could well have been very much of the essence.

It is in that light that you should look upon the four-hour interrogation of Joseph Barnett. It is in no meaning a short interrogation, but instead quite an extensive one. And very early in it, the question would have been asked about an alibi. And we can of course not be sure, but guessing that people were sent out to check up on that alibi immediately would not be very bold. And so, after four hours, including many a question that would help the police in their work even if Barnett was NOT the killer, and including an extensive search for signs on his clothes of being the killer, he was let loose.

As for my manners, Heinrich, I think you will find that they improve immensely once you refrain from suggesting that I am not informed about what I speak of.

The best,
Fisherman

[curious]

Even if Joseph Barnett had been sharing a room, Curious, it does not follow that he would necessarily have woken up the whole house should he have decided to sneak out in the dead of night.



Who knows what variety of logic the police used?



And remained true to form, Curious.

Heinrich,
Nor does it necessarily follow that he would NOT have awakened people as he tried to sneak out. Sharing a room with people makes it extremely unlikely he could have left without being noticed as people had to sleep with one eye open to be sure their bunk mates were not robbing them. Then there are creaking floorboards, etc. Then there is actually being there as people woke up . . . no having to check back into the house and again make his way through a crowded room back to his bed. Any of these actions would have destroyed his alibi.

It would have been easy to know that if he was not there in the morning, someone would have noticed and said so as they themselves were arising.

Nope, he was with people and someone could account for him. It is really simple, Heinrich, if you simply open your eyes and examine things logically.

I have yet to see you display any logic and think it is funny you question the logic of the police.

Have you checked the definition of logic or is it like you accusing Barnett of being a sociopath when you did not understand that no facts of his life support that or even that the word is no longer in use?

The police were chasing a serial killer (I'm not sure Mary was part of that series for many, many different reasons than you can fathom, Heinrich). Even with today's more enlightened procedures, a child killer roamed the streets of Atlanta, Ga., for much longer than the Ripper cut through London. Police equipped with much better knowledge and equipment still don't solve cases.

Heinrich, I suspect you enjoy being perverse just to see if you can make people forget their manners.

more kindly than you will ever suspect (or likely deserve),

curious

[Hatchett]

Hello Curious,

Like I have said before it does not necessarily follow that Barnett was not charged because he had an air tight alibi, it would have been because the police did not believe that they had the evidence to convict him. If they were attempting to charge him with being Jack the Ripper his alibis for the nights of the previous murders would have been just as important as his one for the Kelly murder.

Another point to take into account is that there is serious concern as to the actual time of death of Kelly. Certainly the murderer would have definately known what time she died.

If the police were asking questions about the wrong time then anyone could create an air tight alibi for a time time when the murder wasnt actually committed.

Best wishes.

[Abby Normal]

Hello Curious,

Like I have said before it does not necessarily follow that Barnett was not charged because he had an air tight alibi, it would have been because the police did not believe that they had the evidence to convict him. If they were attempting to charge him with being Jack the Ripper his alibis for the nights of the previous murders would have been just as important as his one for the Kelly murder.

Another point to take into account is that there is serious concern as to the actual time of death of Kelly. Certainly the murderer would have definately known what time she died.

If the police were asking questions about the wrong time then anyone could create an air tight alibi for a time time when the murder wasnt actually committed.

Best wishes.

Hi Hatchett
I agree and good point.

Also, whereas I don't neccessarily agree with Heinrich on the police being incompetant-How do we know they checked out Barnett's alibi? If there is not any evidence they did then we are just assuming. You would think its a no brainer they did but perhaps they were impressed enough by his 4 hour interrogation, that he came forward himself and his inquest testimony.

So, I don't think its a given they went to his doss house and questioned people. Or maybe they did but just not that in depth.

On the other hand, at the height of the ripper scare, I am sure that folks would be chomping at the bit to help solve the case (get there 15 minutes of fame) so If someone noticed Barnett missing or sneaking around in the middle of the night they would have told the police.

[Ausgirl]

Heinrich, thank you for the clarification.

Wasn't it this Fleming fellow and not Barnett who treated Mary badly prior to her death, though? I suppose it could feasibly be said that Barnett killed her in a fit of jealousy or out of some warped desire to protect her. But he just doesn't seem very warped on the whole, and there aren't any comments at all that I have found as to his owning a dangerous or terribly suspect disposition despite more than a century's opportunity for people to muckrake those details from associates and relatives and descendants thereof, as has happened with other suspects. I have read of some terrible one-off 'crimes of passion' - notably one in Australia in which a woman killed, decapitated and skinned her ex-lover, cooked bits of him and hung his skin up like a windsock in the entrance hall. But then she, like all the other perpetrators of very gruesome murders and mutilations I have ever heard of, suffered extreme mental illness that manifested quite clearly to all who knew her.

A very, very few killers capable of that degree of mutilation can and do live outwardly normal lives, because they are sociopathic (do forgive my apparently archaic usage of the term) and masking themselves is part of the thrill, or part of their general psychopathy. But they are a rarity. People who can murder, then flense and gut, another human being have something -seriously- wrong with them. If Barnett -had- done this to the woman he loved and claimed to have given up on due to her low-life habits, then imagine what an utterly cold monster he'd have to be to stay so cool-headed and polite through police interviews and in front of all the people who must have thronged about him afterward asking questions.

My point being, nobody's ever stepped forward to say, as far as my admittedly very limited knowledge of him goes (please do correct me if I'm wrong), "Oh yes, that Barnett chap, I never did like him, gave me the willies," or "He used to set fire to cats as a boy," or, "He's not so nice when you get to know him," and the like, which is what I'd expect to hear in regard to somebody who could be so dispassionate after committing such an unspeakably heinous crime. Barnett seems all in all quite affable and eager to help, which really is not a get-out-of-suspect-lineup-free card, I must admit. But Mary wasn't just strangled or stabbed in a garden-variety passion murder, she was --gutted and defleshed and her face was hacked off -- and people who commit one-off crimes of passion, especially very horrible ones like that, are generally less inclined to keep their heads together under pressure, let alone for years and years afterward.

So - as I see it, Barnett either really was Jack the Ripper, serial killer par excellence. Or just a man who loved Mary enough to forgive her shady past, but not so obsessively that he'd let her drag him down into the gutter with her.

[GregBaron]

Murder of passion?

Very well said Ausgirl,

Few seem to understand this isn't a one-off lose your temper type murder. Copycats don't go to this extreme. This was a lust murder of an extremely mentally ill person. IMHO John Douglass's Book said that some surgeons thought the murderer may have spent 2 hours in there! (Off the top of my head). A 2 hour murder of passion? Please..........


Greg

[c.d.]

Scotland Yard detectives couldn't figure out that an alibi needs to be checked out and substantiated? I can just see it now. A long line of suspects entering police headquarters and detectives seated behind a table.

Police: Do you have an alibi for the night of the murder?

Suspect: Yes.

Police: All right then. Next!

Jeez no wonder they couldn't catch anyone. C'mon guys this is just laughable.

c.d.

[Ben]

I really don't understand why some people are dismissing the "intruder" premise on the basis of the room's "darkness". I might agree that a complete stranger might have trouble immediately locating Kelly within that small room, but this would not have been any obstacle to someone with a passing familiarity with the layout of the room (a previous punter, for instance), especially when aided by the light of a smoldering fire. Bear in mind that the killer had no trouble negotiating the extreme darkness of the corner of Mitre Square where Eddowes was killed.

[Robert]

I guess an intruder would have located Mary OK. He'd have found her in the general direction of where the cry "Oh murder" came from.

[Fisherman]

Abby:

"How do we know they checked out Barnett's alibi? If there is not any evidence they did then we are just assuming. You would think its a no brainer they did but perhaps they were impressed enough by his 4 hour interrogation, that he came forward himself and his inquest testimony."

The things you guys suggest! The polce searched Barnetts clothes for bloodspots. That is hardly something they would do if they were impressed enough by his coming forward to throw all suspicions overboard, is it?

He was interrogated, and the first question they would have asked would be where he was during the murder night. To even speculate that they may have dropped the idea of checking it out afterwards is not a very viable idea.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Greg:

"This was a lust murder of an extremely mentally ill person."

That is a point that can very easily be made, and it has got tons of things going for it. And still, I would say that in the series of killings, ranging from Nichols to Kelly, the one murder that I do not regard as neccessarily being lust driven, is the Kelly killing.
Search the net for Ed Gingrich, amishman and wifekiller, and you may realize what I´m after here, greg!

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

C.d:

"Police: Do you have an alibi for the night of the murder?

Suspect: Yes.

Police: All right then. Next!"

Did Monty Python try that one? Should have, leastwise...!

Good to see you out and about, C.d. And a fair, fair point!

The best,
Fisherman

[c.d.]

Hello Fisherman,

Thanks for the kind words. And to you as well.

Barnett was questioned by detectives (plural) was he not? And wouldn't those same detectives have submitted a report? So at least more than one person would have had to have dropped the ball big time not to have verified Barnett's alibi.

Abberline: So did you find the statements made by his fellow lodgers to be credible?

Detectives: What statements?

c.d.

[c.d.]

By the way...with regard to the pronunciation of Abberline's name, is it lean or line?

c.d.

[GregBaron]

Funny, disagree, agree....

"Police: Do you have an alibi for the night of the murder?

Suspect: Yes.

Police: All right then. Next!"

Thanks c.d. I'm with Fisherman here.......this made me laugh......

That is a point that can very easily be made, and it has got tons of things going for it. And still, I would say that in the series of killings, ranging from Nichols to Kelly, the one murder that I do not regard as neccessarily being lust driven, is the Kelly killing.
Search the net for Ed Gingrich, amishman and wifekiller, and you may realize what I´m after here, greg!

Yes Fisherman, if MJK was taken in isolation one might suspect an Ed Gingrich type but on the tale of at least 3 similar murders I find it less convincing....

I really don't understand why some people are dismissing the "intruder" premise on the basis of the room's "darkness". I might agree that a complete stranger might have trouble immediately locating Kelly within that small room, but this would not have been any obstacle to someone with a passing familiarity with the layout of the room (a previous punter, for instance), especially when aided by the light of a smoldering fire. Bear in mind that the killer had no trouble negotiating the extreme darkness of the corner of Mitre Square where Eddowes was killed.

I agree with Ben here....it wouldn't take a navy seal to sneak in that apartment in the middle of the night......remember stalking and sneaking is what serial killers do.........it's part of the game......Ted Bundy would have laughed at such an easy entrance.....


Greg