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Phil A.
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, June 13, 2003 - 12:26 pm: |       |
For those who support Barnett so greatly,
How is Barnett such a large suspect? A lot of your case against him is only supported by "maybes" and "perhaps'" He could have AT MOST killed Kelly and that's it, but they were supposedly on good terms sometime after their argument.
The most important thing againsnt him is not their, and that is the "for sures"
-Phil- |
Leanne Perry
Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 428
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 18, 2003 - 6:08 pm: | |
G'day Phil,
Oh Phil, the person who said they parted on good terms was Joseph Barnett himself...at the inquest, where he contradicted other statements, like his reason for leaving her in the first place!
On the 9th of November, he told Inspector Abberline that he left her: 'in consequence of not earning sufficient money to give her and her resorting to prostitution,..' Then at the inquest he told the Coroner: 'I left her because she had a person who was a prostitute whom she took in and I objected to her doing so, that was the only reason, not because I was out of work.'}
Some eyewitness reports described Jack as being 30 years old, 5ft 7or 8ins tall, of medium build, with a fair complexion and moustache - an exact description of Joseph Barnett.
Catharine Eddowes was killed next to an orange market where Barnett may have occasionally worked.
He was known to strongly dislike prostitutes and blamed them for Mary Kelly's downfall. Do you think that the Ripper must have had a more understandable motive? Written somewhere in black and white?
LEANNE
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Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 291
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 18, 2003 - 7:02 pm: | |
Hi Phil
Barnett was surrounded by prostitutes and not one of them reports a raised hand or an insulting word.
Obviously a devilishly cunning man!
Robert |
Leanne Perry
Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 430
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 18, 2003 - 11:32 pm: | |
G'day,
Oh of course, how silly of me!
Jack the Ripper must have been somewhere on the police records for assaulting prostitutes!!!!!
LEANNE |
Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 294
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 19, 2003 - 8:00 am: | |
Hi Leanne
Actually, I meant the women in the Kelly case, and the things they said - or didn't say. But yes, the point can be extended.
The Barnett theory points to the Dorset Street connection, and supposes a close-knit social circle, where both Kelly and Barnett know the victims. If we're going to have this close-knit world, then it seems reasonable to ask : if Barnett had shown contempt or violence towards any of the prostitutes in the general area, wouldn't word have got around? We hear no rumours about Barnett. Isn't this strange?
As far as we know, Barnett never so much as threatened a fly.
"D-d-dead right, unless it was b-b-buzzing round my m-m-mackerel."
Robert
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Caroline Anne Morris
Detective Sergeant
Username: Caz
Post Number: 149
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 19, 2003 - 9:35 am: | |
Hi Leanne,
Robert's point is valid. Barnett was questioned when Kelly was found murdered. You say he 'was known to strongly dislike prostitutes' and therefore this gives him a motive. Yet Kelly was a prostitute when he met her and chose to stay with her and he lived in an area thick with them. Is your argument that Barnett always had this strong dislike, but had no trouble keeping it well in check until the summer of 1888, when he suddenly let rip at least four times, then just as suddenly managed to control himself again for the rest of his life, after butchering his ex because of this dislike? As Robert says, there are no reports from anyone that Barnett so much as raised his hand or swore at Kelly or any of the women who prostituted themselves in the area. If his dislike was so strong that it could turn, on a number of occasions, from merely expressing it verbally - or with his feet, by leaving Kelly - to the most extreme violence, don't you think it's odd if there was not a sausage in between?
Regarding Barnett's stated reasons for leaving, I don't see any fatal contradiction here. It looks to me as if the latter statement is simply a clarification of the former, ie he left because she had resorted to prostitution, and taken in another prostitute, in consequence of his not earning enough. The prostitution was the reason he left, his lack of earning power the reason for the prostitution. He didn’t leave because he was out of work. Indeed, not earning enough implies that he was getting some work, as you yourself allow, when you argue that Barnett may have occasionally worked at the orange market close to where Eddowes was killed.
In fact, a guilty Barnett would have done far better to stick with the earlier line that could have implied he left Kelly when he found he was unable to provide for her. Oddly, he chose instead to emphasise that it was his distaste for sharing a room with working prostitutes that had caused him to move out.
Love,
Caz
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Andrew Spallek
Sergeant
Username: Aspallek
Post Number: 24
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 19, 2003 - 3:25 pm: | |
Joseph Barnett has a number of personality traits that one might associate with a serial killer: underachiever, unemployment, dislike of a certain class (prostitutes), humiliating disability (echolalia), etc. Yet I see not one shred of compelling evidence to suggest he is the killer of any of the Ripper victims. Furthermore, serial killers don't normally murder their sexual partners (with the exception of those who kill a series of spouses, such as Chapman, but these are usually spouses of convenience rather than sexual interests) or other loved ones (though spree killers do sometimes kill their parents).
Joe Barnett is one of thousands who fit this description.
Andy
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Caroline Anne Morris
Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 151
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 20, 2003 - 6:07 am: | |
I agree Andy. Three serial killers who spring to mind, who did kill close relatives were Fred and Rose West and John Christie. The Wests included daughters among their victims of sexual abuse and torture, and I believe Christie's wife may have become a victim because she was in the way and could have known too much.
In these cases, the victims were mostly murdered at the killers' homes and the bodies concealed there. It does seem pretty unprecedented for a serial killer to do his business out on the streets, then turn on his own sexual partner in her home, leaving the results of his attack on show - and get away with it, or even expect to. If the Wests had done the same with a daughter, or Christie with his wife, the game would surely have been up for them a whole lot quicker.
Love,
Caz |
Leanne Perry
Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 433
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 20, 2003 - 6:47 am: | |
G'day,
ROBERT: If you're reffering to MY beliefs as 'The Barnett theory' in mentioning Dorsett Street as popping up a lot, I meant to suggest that this coincidence happened a bit too must to just ignore or take lightly.
I also didn't mean to imply that Kelly and Joe were personal friends to the victims. If Jack did live in or around Dorset Street or had other reasons for being there, (Barnett had moved out remember), why should anyone in the general area have started any rumours?
CAZ: Are you implying that Joe took Kelly, (who was a prostitute), and chose to live with her 'in an area thick with them', so he therefore couldn't have hated them too much? Do you think that the Whitechapel Murderer couldn't have lived in the East End because it was thick with them? The killer may not have had any choice!
ANDREW: If only the Ripper had have written his name all over the victim's bodies with blood!
LEANNE |
Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 299
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 20, 2003 - 5:02 pm: | |
Hi Leanne
Well, the Barnett theory comes in a variety of forms. If you hold a version of it which doesn't emphasize the likelihood of Joe and Mary knowing the victims, then that's fine.
The fact remains that Joe was no Leather Apron. None of the women in the Kelly case report his ever being violent or abusive to them, or to any woman they knew. As for Kelly, Barnett seems to have shown her only patience and kindness.
Furthermore, for a brief period after Mary's murder Barnett was probably one of the most famous men in London - yet we hear of no women stepping forward with stories of how "that man in the papers" had punched them, threatened to rip them up, etc, etc.
Also, the police received daily letters from members of the public pointing accusing fingers at people they knew. Did they ever receive one about Barnett, particularly after the Kelly murder when he was briefly a celebrity? I'm not saying there were no such letters - I'm just curious to know.
Sure Barnett disliked prostitutes. He wasn't, and isn't, unique in that. But it's not enough to hang a murder rap on, surely?
Robert |
Leanne Perry
Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 440
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, June 21, 2003 - 5:55 am: | |
G'day,
The Whitechapel murderer wouldn't have been foolish enough to threaten prostitutes while he was in a good mood. That would have been like yelling: "Here I am, come and get me!"
He didn't give them a chance to report him when he was in a bad mood, because he'd slice their throat!
Catharine Eddowes was about to report her suspicions to the police, then someone finished her!
LEANNE |
David O'Flaherty
Detective Sergeant
Username: Oberlin
Post Number: 90
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, June 21, 2003 - 12:34 pm: | |
Hi, Leanne
If the story about Eddowes's knowing who the Ripper was is true, and she really was about to report her suspicions to the police, then why didn't she once she was arrested? Drink certainly makes for loose lips. At least, I've heard it does.
Or if drink had incapacitated her, then why didn't she say anything once she'd sobered up?
Cheers,
Dave |
Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 304
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, June 21, 2003 - 5:08 pm: | |
Hi Leanne
You're saying that Barnett would have been careful how he behaved, for fear of drawing suspicions that he was the Ripper. Now, Barnett is supposed to have lost his job around August, and this is supposed to have precipitated the murders. However, he'd been living in Miller's Court for several months prior to August, and he'd lived in the East End all his life. Yet still we hear nothing.
I've never really bought the idea that Eddowes knew who Jack was, whether it was Cutbush, Hutchinson, or somebody else who is supposed to have killed her to stop her talking. In the case of Barnett, it would be very strange if Eddowes - a woman who may have stayed a few nights in the shed next door - knew that Barnett was guilty, whereas Kelly - a woman with whom Barnett shared a room barely bigger than a phone box - was unaware of his secret.
Robert |
Leanne Perry
Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 442
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, June 22, 2003 - 4:12 am: | |
G'day Robert,
I don't believe that the loss of Joes job was the sole cause of his going berserk. It was just one of many causes that built up to an explosion point. The loss of his well-paying job meant that he could no longer be a great provider to Mary Kelly. He also had to worry about the continual visits from Kelly's former lover, her drinking instead of paying the rent, and her return to prostitution. If George Hutchinson knew her for three years, that would mean she could have been selling herself all the time she was with him!
If Eddowes often stayed in the shed next door, she may have seen something to cause her to be suspicious. If we want to talk about this subject, we should start a new thread on her board...'Catharine's Suspicions' or 'What Katie Saw!'
LEANNE |
Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 308
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, June 22, 2003 - 5:39 pm: | |
Hi Leanne
That's just my point! If Joe was Jack, his dislike of prostitutes, and his mental problems, would have existed before August i.e. before the period when he'd have had to watch his behaviour for fear of drawing attention to himself. Yet there are no stories about him.
There's a point I'd like to make about Barnett's choice of accommodation, but I'll wait to see what Caz says because your point was addressed to her.
If you want to talk about Eddowes, we could re-open the "Did Eddowes Know Who Jack Was?" thread.
Robert |
Phil A.
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, June 22, 2003 - 12:47 pm: | |
Leanne,
How could Joesph have had had a "well payed" job? He lived in the East End which was the slums in a small ROOM shaped like a box! If he was so well payed, I'm sure he'd get out of their as soon as possible. Sounds to me that you don't have many facts straight.
-Phil- |
Phil A.
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, June 19, 2003 - 1:54 pm: | |
Leanne,
That's the point of not being for sure on things. I think Robert's and Caroline’s arguments are very important and the fact that she mentioned the case about the orange market. This is not known for sure, you state he "may" have worked their. You have no fact on many cases against Barnett, therefore how do you know for sure that he did it?!
If you were to put this in a court, do you really think Barnett would be found guilty when you and many others don't even know for sure the simple facts of him?
-Phil-
|
Leanne Perry
Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 445
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 6:41 am: | |
G'day Robert,
But he had Mary Kelly! Do you think he would have used prostitutes also? Then when he lost his job, he also started losing her back to prostitution.
We'll never know what Catharine Eddowes was going to tell the police, because she was killed before she spoke!
LEANNE |
Leanne Perry
Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 446
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 7:06 am: | |
G'day Phil,
Reading Bruce Paley's book: 'Porters were paid by the piece, (the amount of fish), at varying rates, so wages varied, but a steady diligent worker could earn as much as 3 pound per week - a considerable sum for a labourer at the time, and one that put him at the top of his class.' Rent at Millers-court was just 4 shillings 6 pence per week. There were 20 sillings per pound, with 12 pence to the shilling. WORK THAT OUT!
LEANNE |
Leanne Perry
Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 447
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 7:48 am: | |
G'day Phil,
Joseph Barnett sold oranges on the streets after he lost his job as a fish porter! See 'The Boston Daily Globe', 10 November 1888. (It is listed here on Casebook as '10 October', but since it tells of Mary Kelly's murder and she didn't die until November, I's say this is an error!)...."STEPHEN!!!!"
The 'Illustrated Police News' 17 Nov 1888 tells of Maurice Lewis's sighting of Mary Kelly drinking with "Dan" on the night before her murder, but I'd say it was Barnett because he added: "...a man selling oranges in Billingsgate and Spitalfields Markets, with whom she LIVED UP TILL AS RECENTLY AS A FORTNIGHT AGO".
LEANNE |
Caroline Anne Morris
Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 155
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 1:35 pm: | |
Hi Leanne,
I notice you failed to address any of the points I made except the one about Joe choosing to live with (albeit subsequently trying to reform) a prostitute, then managed to turn it into an implication that I don't think I did make, that he 'chose' to live 'in an area thick with them'.
And it's not a case of whether Joe could have hated prostitutes too much if he took up with one in such an area. It's whether he could have hated the trade enough to do what you are suggesting he did to the women who plied it, including the one he had chosen to live with, despite the way she was used to making her drink money.
I don't know what choice Joe had about where he could live, except that by your own argument, while he was earning a fish porter's wage, he would appear to have had the means to whisk Mary off to a hovel in a slightly less dreadful area of town than Dorset Street, where she would have been less prey to bad influences, if that had been his main priority. And by all accounts, it doesn't seem likely that she would have complained or refused to budge from Miller's Court if something better had been on offer.
Love,
Caz
|
Leanne Perry
Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 454
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 5:30 pm: | |
G'day Caz,
Could you please give those points to me again, one-by-one. I was referring to a comment you made on Thursday June 19, when you said: '...Yet Kelly was a prostitute when he met her and chose to stay with her and he lived in an area thick with them...'
I'm sorry if I ever gave the impression that I believe that Joe planned to murder the woman he had chosen to live with. I believe her murder happened in a fit of rage!
I don't know why they chose to live in that hovel of a street! Remember the room at Miller's court was in HER name.
LEANNE |
Leanne Perry
Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 455
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 5:36 pm: | |
G'day,
The couple had lived at three addresses outside of Dorset Street first, since they met in 1887. Maybe it was part of her plan to get rid of him, and go back to Joseph Flemming!
LEANNE |
Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 312
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 6:33 pm: | |
Hi Leanne
Yes, Barnett had Kelly for his sexual needs, but what difference would that have made to how he treated prostitutes in the months prior to the murders? After all, according to your theory Barnett killed several women while he was still with Kelly!
Caz has made the point that I was going to raise about the accommodation - Barnett could have afforded to live in a less prostitute-ridden area (until he lost his job). If you say that for some strange reason Kelly insisted on living in Miller's Court, there's the fact that Barnett told the inquest that he and Kelly first lived in George Street, where he was known - so he'd probably lived there at some point before he ever clapped eyes on Kelly. And George Street was pretty downmarket.
The only way I can see Barnett being forced to live in the Court, is if he had a family to support, and he was paying maintenance, which would have been a drain on his finances. But the jury's still out on a Barnett family, isn't it?
The fact that Eddowes was killed before she could speak, makes me suspect that she wasn't going to say anything very important. Why didn't she go to the police on her first day back in London?
Robert |
Caroline Anne Morris
Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 158
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 8:06 am: | |
Hi Leanne,
At the risk of boring everyone else, could I just ask you to reread my post of June 19th at 9.35am if you want to know what points I was making that you failed to address.
We seem to have a bit of a problem understanding each other's points! You haven't given me the impression that you believe Joe planned to murder the woman he had chosen to live with. I am well aware that your argument is that he killed her in a sudden fit of rage. I just find this whole theory a bit of a dog's breakfast - one minute the argument is that Joe hated all prostitutes and the trade itself to the point of murder, the next that he killed the other women simply to 'persuade' the woman he loved off the game and, when this failed, flipped and ripped this woman, yet calmly gave an account of himself that was believed, when one might have expected him to:
a) crack under the strain from guilt and self-loathing that he had destroyed his love in a moment of madness and red mist, or
b) blame prostitution and the women who resorted to it for Mary's ultimate fate, and continue to direct his supposed great rage towards them from that day forward.
Ok, so you don't know why the couple chose to live in that hovel, but the room being rented in her name doesn't alter the fact that he did choose to live there with her until she started taking other working prostitutes in, at which point he stood up for himself and left. If Dorset Street and all it stood for had made Joe feel so murderous while he was there, it doesn't quite add up that he would at the same time be too wet to stand up to Mary and insist they live elsewhere. It's not much good suddenly flipping and turning on your loved one if you have previously given her no indication (apart from cryptically killing a handful of women far older and frailer than her) of just how strongly you hate your shared environment and object to her habits there. For someone who was supposedly so abysmal at communicating his feelings and getting what he wanted from his life with Mary, Joe did a pretty amazing job of communicating his 'innocence' to the police immediately afterwards. Perhaps he should have shacked up with Abberline.
Love,
Caz
(Come on Tim!) |
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