the key

[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]

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]

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

[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

[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