|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
    
Leanne Perry
Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 351
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2003 - 9:30 pm: |       |
G'day,
ROBERT: What makes you say that the pipe was clean, non-descript and disposable? Abberline just told the inquest that a pipe was found in the room and Barnett had informed him that it belonged to him. He just had to own up to owning it, to cause Abberline to stop thinking about it!
If he had a seperate pipe for his pocket, one for Kelly's room and one for everywhere he went, how rich do you think this out-of-work fish porter was?
LEANNE |
Caroline Anne Morris
Detective Sergeant
Username: Caz
Post Number: 82
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 - 6:12 am: | |
Hi Leanne,
I really don't think anyone has described Joe's interrogation and release as 'absolute proof' that he was innocent. And I do think you are wrong to say that no one in 1888 knew that 'a person could have two totally different personalities'. I'm not sure what difference it would have made how much the police knew about serial killers in those days, or even if they suspected Joe to be the right 'type'. They would still have needed the evidence that he had committed murder - where do you suggest they could have found it had they looked more seriously at him and gone beyond what you insist was only 'standard detective work'? A forced confession maybe? If Joe was putting on such a clever act as the 'whimpering, grieving idiot of a lover', what could have broken his story and given him away?
'Perhaps the too-close-for-comfort aspect of the Kelly murder, was enough to bring the Ripper to his senses a bit and stop playing his little games!'
But it wasn't 'too-close-for-comfort' was it? The police were so satisfied with his performance that they let him go and never looked back. If he got away so easily with slicing up his own lover under their noses, what could possibly stop him after that? But I thought your theory was that the murders were only committed because of Mary, so once Joe had killed her too the game was over, explaining why the ripper stopped.
Now then, back to his choice of organs.
'If he tried to make Kelly's murder look like the work of the unidentified 'boogeyman', he would have taken her kidney or uterus.'
Well this was exactly my point. Whether Joe was Jack or not, if he was smart enough to reason that escaping with three organs was impractical and too risky, he was also smart enough to pull out all the stops (sorry!) and provide the hallmarks of another ripper killing. So if he was determined to add a new twist and leave Mary with no heart, he was smart enough to find a way of making the uterus disappear too. I can think of at least three quick and simple measures he could have tried. But he didn't. Why not?
He must have been pretty confident that the police would recognise the ripper's handiwork regardless of how he chose to modify it. Either that or he was in a devil-may-care mood and simply trusted to luck that no one would spot the difference when the former stranger-killer finally cut out the heart of the woman who had broken his.
It's a neat enough story, but I see a tidier ending if true, with Joe at the end of a rope, not laughing all the way to the 21st century.
Love,
Caz
|
Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 157
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 - 6:12 pm: | |
Hi Leanne
Re Claypipe Malice : OK, the pipe-puffing was a joke - a mere pipedream. But I sometimes think you believe Barnett to have been capable of anything!
Seriously, though, the pipe isn't just a side issue, is it? If Barnett brought that pipe over with him in the early hours of the ninth, and it was later found by the police, then it seems probable he'd actually have smoked it - or why take it out of his pocket? Now I find it bizarre that he'd have smoked it during or after the crime. Perhaps he smoked while chatting to Kelly before he killed her? But then it seems more likely that they'd have had a row than that they wouldn't have had a row (if Barnett was pleading to come back and a drunken Kelly was refusing him). Yet no one heard a row. Also (and I'm still going by your scenario) Barnett would have had to have been both very careful and very careless in that room. Very careful by keeping back a shirt from the fire so he could change into it later. Very careless by forgetting to take his pipe with him when he went. It just doesn't add up.
Actually, I don't see why the pipe couldn't have been there all the time - kept there by Barnett on a permanent basis. Surely these clay pipes were only cheap things? Why shouldn't he have had more than one? Again though, Barnett would have had to be very careful and very careless, for the same reasons as above. Or, in this case, very clever, if he reasoned that the pipe might have been noticed by some friend of Kelly's calling after he'd left Kelly on the 8th, and that therefore he'd better leave it in the room, as its absence rather than its presence would be suspicious. Now I have every respect for Barnett as a man, but I don't put his brain in the Professor Moriarty class.
Re Barnett having two totally different personalities, I think that's an understatement : the poor devil seems to have been saddled with four! (at last count). 1. There's the fit of jealous rage Barnett. 2. There's the cool calculating Let's Make This Look Like A Ripper Job Barnett. 3.There's the perverted whore- hating whore-ripping Barnett. 4. There's the humdrum, boring, stifling, moralising Barnett. F-f-four personalities! The man seems to have been his own worst enemies! If one personality didn't get him into trouble, another would manage it.
Poor old Joe!
Robert |
Leanne Perry
Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 357
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 - 9:03 pm: | |
G'day Caz,
I've had Joe's 2.5/4 hour interrogation by some of the greatest minds in criminal detection, thrown at me so many times, it aint funny. I'm not tyring to say they were idiots, just that a lot has been researched since and mandkind has had a lot of apparent motiveless murderers since then, to learn from.
The term 'schizophrenia' wasn't even heard of until 1908, when a Swiss psychiatrist first used it. Before then sufferers were just "crazy". Only 10% of sufferers commit suicide.
I've read so many times that Jack the Ripper was the first 'Serial Killer', (or apparent motiveless killer). One difficulty they had back then was 'nailing' a man with no sufficient motive.
As for lack of evidence at Miller's Court, what about Joe's pipe? Did they ask him when he had first noticed that it was missing?; Why he didn't return to retrieve it?; Did he simply buy another one? They could have asked whether or not the kettle was damaged on another occasion.
By 'too-close-for-comfort', I meant that he had no obvious connection to the previous Ripper victims, and suddenly he was in the victims 'inner-circle', and he even appeared at her inquest!
A schizophrenic person is not stupid one minute and clear-thinking, smart the next. The Ripper was intensly angry/violent one minute and calm/normal the next!
Yes, the killer of Mary could have thrown her uterus onto the fire, but he obviously just wanted to get out of there, once he'd come to his senses. I like the witness who said she heard someone leave the court at 6am, but heard no sound of a door closing.
LEANNE |
Leanne Perry
Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 358
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 - 9:20 pm: | |
G'day Robby,
Why do you insist that someone would have heard a row? 13 Miller's Court was partitioned from McCarthy's storeroom, and if they did argue, why did someone have to be screaming?
Mary Kelly obviously enjoyed the fact that two men were trying to buy her love, so she could have just said "No." to Barnett's plead to have him back, but wanted to keep him trying!
LEANNE |
Caroline Anne Morris
Detective Sergeant
Username: Caz
Post Number: 88
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 22, 2003 - 7:48 am: | |
Hi Leanne,
'One difficulty they had back then was 'nailing' a man with no sufficient motive.'
Good to hear it! I'd be horrified to think they could have nailed Joe if they discovered he had threatened Mary with a knife for inviting her pals to stay, for example. They'd still have needed some evidence that this wasn't the empty threat of a man trying to maintain some control over his prostitute lover.
We don't know what they asked Joe or what they failed to ask him; what they were or were not able to confirm; what they asked and found out from others about him, his movements etc. All we do know is that everything they heard must have added up to the same thing: there was no doubt in their minds - or reported doubt in anyone's mind, either then or later - that the account he gave of himself was true. Had it been a case of not being able to nail it as false, they would have kept their eyes on him a lot longer. You can argue as much as you like that the police did no more than go through the motions by questioning Joe, but what would the point of that have been if they had no intention of checking his story properly? Unless you believe they were expecting him to be wearing bloodstained clothes and muttering that it served the whore right, and that when he wasn't doing either they let him go because they had nothing else to go on.
'Yes, the killer of Mary could have thrown her uterus onto the fire, but he obviously just wanted to get out of there, once he'd come to his senses.'
No 'obviously' about it. There are many possible reasons why the killer removed the uterus but left it with the victim this time. We don't know what became of the heart, but if he had 'come to his senses' and made a conscious decision to leave her without it, as I think has been suggested, he would also have been able - indeed, it would have been essential - to make other conscious choices about how to leave the scene. If he had made a bolt for the door (sorry!!) the instant he came to his senses, he could have left all sorts of incriminating evidence behind, like bloodstained pipes or hankies initialled JB. Joe, of all the suspects that ever were, was the one person who had to come to his senses and be thinking clearly, well before leaving that room, if he had just killed Mary there.
Love,
Caz |
Brian W. Schoeneman
Inspector
Username: Deltaxi65
Post Number: 263
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 22, 2003 - 4:50 pm: | |
Ugh.
I would have hoped that after a while this thread would go away, but like a bad headache, it keeps coming back.
Barnett's pipe is a red herring. There are about a thousand completely legitimate reasons why he would have a pipe in Kelly's room - not the least of which was that he used to live there. It would be the 1888 equivalent to leaving a toothbrush there. The police knew this, and it wasn't a big deal then, and it shouldn't be one now. If Barnet had killed Kelly, why would he so readily admit to leaving his pipe there? Why not just deny it? Who could contradict him? Why put a belonging of yours at the crime scene if you were, in fact, the killer? Common sense, people.
As Robert and others have said - you can't have it both ways. Barnett was either smart and clever enough to pull the wool over the entire worlds eyes, or he was so stupid that he couldn't even figure out when to lie to the police. Either way, you bump up against unexplainable problems with him as the Ripper or MJK's killer.
Which leads us back to the primary point that we've really got nothing on Barnett beyond supposition. I know, I know - which suspects do we have evidence on. Not that many. But there are better suspects with more going for them than a pipe, a possible witness, and romantic ideas of love and angst.
B |
Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 163
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 22, 2003 - 6:21 pm: | |
Hi Leanne
I don't insist that there'd have been a row that the neighbours would have heard - I just think it's more likely there would have been than that there wouldn't.
Kelly is known to have been noisy when drunk, and she was drunk that night. Now according to your scenario, Barnett was asking Kelly to do something she didn't want to do. He's supposed to have been near breaking point, and he'd walked over in the middle of a cold rainy night to speak to her. Probably all Kelly would have wanted to do would be either get some sleep or go out and find more trade.
There were two holes in Kelly's window through which sound could pass. Cox said she'd been able to hear Kelly singing. She also said she heard sounds of men going in and out of the Court. It wasn't uncommon to hear cries of "murder" in the Court, and two people - one in the room over Kelly's - heard such a cry the night Kelly was killed.
I don't suppose people had their windows open on such a cold night, but the doors and windows were probably ill-fitting and would have allowed sound to pass in or out.
Robert |
Leanne Perry
Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 360
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 22, 2003 - 6:26 pm: | |
G'day everyone,
I'm flying to Vanuatu this afternoon, so don't worry if I don't make a post for then next ten days. I aint taking any Ripper books!
Behave till I get back!
LEANNE |
Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 164
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 22, 2003 - 6:55 pm: | |
Leanne, have a great holiday!
Vanuatu? Sounds like a place that needs disemVowelling.
PS Should we open a "Leanne Perry is on Vacation" thread?
Robert |
Leanne Perry
Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 364
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 22, 2003 - 9:19 pm: | |
G'day Robert,
I know you don't think Joe's pipe was an important clue and you know why this thread wont just go away? Because Barnett as a suspect just can't disappear!
See why on the board about Barnett's pipe!
LEANNE |
Richard Brian Nunweek
Inspector
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 181
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 23, 2003 - 6:13 am: | |
Hi Brian,
Leanne is right,Barnett as a suspect can not disappear!
He does not have to have been that clever, to have got away with murder, in present times extremely so, but in 1888,with the police looking for a man of genteel appearence or a man with a fine astracan coat , complete with spats, they would simply have quickly elimatated him from their enquirys, checked his personal belongings for traces of blood, and questioned him for a short period of time.
He may have been a trifle lucky , but not clever, there are many clues about Mr Barnett spread throughout these present boards , and the old format. regarding the pipe, Which reports suggest Barnett admitted being his,I cannot understand what clue the police may have aquired from the pipe remaining intact, for they knew who the pipe belonged two.Unless the pipe in its unbroken state, might have proved guilt against Barnett in some way?.
Richard. |
Caroline Anne Morris
Detective Sergeant
Username: Caz
Post Number: 99
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 23, 2003 - 7:08 am: | |
Look, forget the pipe. Joe admitted it was his, so if anyone at any time thought it could belong to the killer, it wouldn't matter if it had been destroyed or not - Joe would have been questioned about it, and as thoroughly as it took to satisfy them that he and his pipe were unconnected with Mary's murder.
I don't see the problem anyone has with this.
Love,
Caz |
Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 166
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 23, 2003 - 1:00 pm: | |
Hi all
As far as I can see, if anything the pipe works in favour of Barnett's innocence, rather than his guilt. But if anyone wants to talk about the pipe, shall we go to the pipe thread so as not to cloud (sorry) the issue?
Robert |
Leanne Perry
Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 371
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 04, 2003 - 8:29 pm: | |
G'day,
If the pipe was intact and exactly how it was found with it's contents included, they could have been able to determine, when it was last smoked.
If Mary placed it on the mantlepiece herself, because Joe had left it there earlier, surely she would have emptied it's ashes into the fireplace.
If it's contents were still in it, that would indicate that Barnett returned there after his last visit. If he placed it on the mantlepiece himself at 7:00, without emptying the barrel first, he must have had intensions of returning!
LEANNE |
Richard Brian Nunweek
Inspector
Username: Richardn
Post Number: 188
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2003 - 5:06 am: | |
Hi Leanne.
A excellent point,If the pipe had been intact and the contents in it, it would indicate that Barnett left the pipe on the mantlepiece, with matters on his mind such as the murder he had just committed, if it had been an old pipe of his the contents would have been emptied.
I would have thought even if the pipe had been smashed in the fireplace the police would have been able to filter through any contents that the bowl may have had, and determined if the tobacco was fresh, if not then the pipe would not hold any relevance, but if the tobacco was fresh, then Barnett would have left it there on his last visit?.
Richard. |
Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 225
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2003 - 3:08 pm: | |
Hi Leanne and Richard
It looks to me like Kelly is being touted as the first known victim of passive smoking!
I'm not quite sure what proposition is being advanced, here and on the pipe thread. Are you saying that Barnett deliberately left the pipe on 8th, intending to return later and kill Kelly? Or that he deliberately left it on 8th, intending to return and talk to her?
Robert |
Leanne Perry
Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 374
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2003 - 4:53 pm: | |
G'day Robert,
I'm just trying to point out that the pipe could have been tell-tale evidence that was overlooked/destroyed. It could've showed that Barnett either deliberately left it there as an excuse to return, or perhaps he clumsily left it there when he did return!
LEANNE |
Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 230
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2003 - 7:24 pm: | |
Hi Leanne
I can't see Barnett being so cunning that he deliberately left his pipe, as an excuse to return, and then so clueless that he forgot to take it away after murdering Kelly. Or so clever that he thought of taking it, but decided he'd better leave it in case one of Kelly's friends had noticed it in the room after he left on 8th.
Even if the pipe was ready to be smoked, and stuffed with fresh tobacco, at the time it was smashed, and this proved that Barnett intended to return....that would be quite natural, wouldn't it? Barnett would have intended to return some time on the Friday or Saturday, as he was looking in on Kelly most days. Meanwhile he'd have used one of his other pipes.
Robert |
Caroline Anne Morris
Detective Sergeant
Username: Caz
Post Number: 118
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 06, 2003 - 4:09 am: | |
Hi All,
As we can clearly see, some argue that the pipe could be incriminating, others that it needn't be. And there's the (ready) rub.
Even if the police had thought it suspicious, and questioned Barnett further on the matter, he would presumably have been clever enough not to say anything that could, by itself, lead to his arrest on a murder charge, far less being found guilty beyond reasonable doubt - even had the pipe survived and been produced as exhibit A.
So I'm not sure how much further this discussion can go, realistically.
Love,
Caz
|
Leanne Perry
Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 377
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 06, 2003 - 6:18 am: | |
G'day,
ROBERT: What's so 'cunning' about intentionally leaving your pipe? He couldn't have intentionally left a piece of clothing, because it could have easily gotten mixed up with the clothes that Harvey left there, and that didn't need the mind of a genius to work out!
If he didn't intentionally leave it there when he visited at 8:00, then he probably left it there when he returned to plead with her to reconsider. He would have had too much on his mind to remember to retrieve it afterwards.
CAZ: The exact condition of that pipe before it was smashed would have been important to the case! If it was clean, it wouldn't have been incriminating and wouldn't be the subject of discussion today!
By admitting that the pipe was his wasn't a clever tactic, because the police never at any stage thought it suspicious!
LEANNE |
Robert Charles Linford
Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 236
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 06, 2003 - 5:13 pm: | |
Hi Leanne
Well, I think it is cunning to deliberately leave your pipe, so as to come back later.
If he felt he had to leave his pipe so as to come back later, presumably he was already thinking of coming over in the middle of the night - he wouldn't have needed an excuse to come over during the daytime of 9th, as he was calling in regularly anyway.
But coming over in the middle of the night would have been a strange thing for Barnett to have planned - what sense would he have hoped to get out of Kelly, once she'd been to the pub?
You may say that perhaps Kelly told Barnett on Thursday evening to go, and never darken her door again - so Barnett left the pipe because he needed an excuse to return at all. But in that case he wasn't too upset then to think about his pipe, was he? He's in despair, but he calculatingly leaves his pipe. Plus, no one heard a row.
If Barnett forgot to take his pipe after murdering Kelly, he did manage to remember the heart and knife! And he'd been to the fireplace to burn the clothes - the pipe was right under his nose at that point. Yet still he forgets his pipe!
Robert
|
Bob Hinton
Detective Sergeant
Username: Bobhinton
Post Number: 87
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 06, 2003 - 9:36 pm: | |
Dear Everyone,
We're getting far too caught up in this pipe nonsense. Clay pipes in those days were cheaper than ten a penny - they were given away by tobacconists. To put it into some kind of context instead of thinking about it as a pipe think of it as a fag end. (cigarette butt for our American cousins)
Now how much fuss are you going to make about a fag end?
Bob |
Brad McGinnis
Police Constable
Username: Brad
Post Number: 7
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 06, 2003 - 9:54 pm: | |
Bob,
I wouldnt make any fuss about a fag end...but then again I'm heterosexual.
Brad |
Bob Hinton
Detective Sergeant
Username: Bobhinton
Post Number: 88
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2003 - 6:41 am: | |
Ooooh these colonials! I've just noticed this thread is titled 'Joseph Barnett No 1 Suspect?' Well to answer that question no he isn't.
If you just rely on the actual evidence and leave out any supposition the number one suspect has to be George Hutchinson. Why?
To be the killer you have to have three things: motive, means and opportunity.
Motive is too complicated any person could have a motive, it may not seem like a motive to a sane rational person but then the killer might not be described as such.
Means well there again just about anyone who could wield a knife could be said to have the means.
Opportunity. Now this is the crux of the matter. The killer to be a viable suspect must have opportunity. Its no good building the most fantastic case against someone if they had died the previous year! There is only one suspect - going by the evidence - who had the opportunity George Hutchinson. He is the only suspect who was present at the time and at the place of at least one of the killings - Mary Kelly.
Now before you all rush to your keyboards to say that so and so could have been there - I quite agree he could have been, but that is irellevant there is no evidence to support this.
No other suspect has been placed at the scene as Hutchinson was, which therefore makes him Number 1!
Bob
|
|
Use of these
message boards implies agreement and consent to our Terms of Use.
The views expressed here in no way reflect the views of the owners and
operators of Casebook: Jack the Ripper.
Our old message board content (45,000+ messages) is no longer available online, but a complete archive
is available on the Casebook At Home Edition, for 19.99 (US) plus shipping.
The "At Home" Edition works just like the real web site, but with absolutely no advertisements.
You can browse it anywhere - in the car, on the plane, on your front porch - without ever needing to hook up to
an internet connection. Click here to buy the Casebook At Home Edition.
|
|
|
|
