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Leanne Perry
Chief Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 556
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 01, 2003 - 9:38 am: |       |
G'day Caz,
We can never know what the couple talked about when they met, but it wasn't long before they shacked-up and Joe started forbidding her to walk the streets!
He took pride in his saving her from that kind of life, while a lot of men chose to put up with it!
LEANNE |
Caroline Anne Morris
Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 243
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 01, 2003 - 10:06 am: | |
Yes, and that in itself is reasonably normal behaviour, for a man with self-respect who just happens to fall for a woman who is used to selling herself for her supper rather than singing for it. And that wouldn't make Joe barking mad.
It's a million miles away from demonstrating that Joe 'harboured a tremendous hatred of prostitutes', yet made it hard on himself by choosing one to live with and try to reform.
Love,
Caz |
Leanne Perry
Chief Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 557
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 01, 2003 - 5:14 pm: | |
G'day Caz,
Let's look at this from a different angle, 'Jack the Rippers' angle: The Ripper obviously approached his victims as a customer, yet he doesn't appear to have completed the task of a customer, (if you know what I mean). He mutilated them instead!
LEANNE |
Robert Charles Linford
Chief Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 505
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 01, 2003 - 7:19 pm: | |
Leanne, where is the evidence that Joe had a tremendous hatred of prostitutes?
Robert |
Caroline Anne Morris
Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 244
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 02, 2003 - 8:14 am: | |
Sorry, Leanne. What has any of that to do with the question of whether or not Joe Barnett harboured a tremendous hatred of prostitutes?
Obviously the ripper was into killing and mutilating women, but that in itself tells us very little, and even less about Joe.
Love,
Caz |
Leanne Perry
Chief Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 559
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 02, 2003 - 9:34 am: | |
G'day,
* 'Lloyd's Newspaper' 11 November told how Mary Kelly took in her prostitute friend Julia Venturney on October 27. Who slept on the floor?
* As soon as Julia found another room, Kelly took in another prostitute friend Maria Harvey. ('Lloyd's Newspaper' 11 Nov.)
* At 5 or 6:00pm on the 30th of October, Mary and Joe engaged in a heated row. A window was smashed and Joe promised to return when Harvey left. ('Times' 10 Nov.)
* Since Barnett left, Mary returned to regular prostitution. (Caroline Maxwell)
* Statement of Julia Venturney: 'I have frequently seen her the worse for drink, but when she was cross, Joe Barnett would go out and leave her to quarrel alone.' (Julia Venturney, 'Standard')
LEANNE
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Robert Charles Linford
Chief Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 512
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 02, 2003 - 4:41 pm: | |
But Leanne, where does it say that Joe had a tremendous hatred for prostitutes?
Robert |
Leanne Perry
Chief Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 560
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 02, 2003 - 6:55 pm: | |
G'day Robert,
USE YOUR BRAIN!
Sorry, but I'm having a rough time at the moment!
He obviously didn't have the same kind mind as Mary did for letting these poor women have a roof over their head, and a bed to bring their customers to. He may have sensed that he was losing her back to prostitution or Joseph Flemming or both! Just like he lost his mother when he was six!!!!!
LEANNE |
Robert Charles Linford
Chief Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 513
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 02, 2003 - 7:18 pm: | |
Hi Leanne
I hardly think that objecting to sleeping on the floor, if that's what he did, is indicative of a tremendous hatred for prostitutes.
Nor do I think that we can make the leap from the loss of his mother to a tremendous hatred of prostitutes.
As for his fears about Kelly returning to prostitution (assuming she ever left it) he seems to have preferred to avoid arguments, going out instead.
If you are trying to suggest that Barnett had a mother fixation, don't you think he'd have gone for an older woman, rather than Kelly?
Robert |
Leanne Perry
Chief Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 561
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, August 03, 2003 - 2:34 am: | |
G'day Robert,
WHY? Why would he have 'gone for' an older prostitute if he hated them?
LEANNE |
Leanne Perry
Chief Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 562
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, August 03, 2003 - 3:19 am: | |
G'day Robert,
"Marie never went on the streets when she lived with me. She would never have gone wrong again, and I should never have left, if it had not been for the prostitutes stopping in the house." - (Joseph Barnett, Inquest testimony).
If he went out when she came home drunk, (Her landlord said at her inquest: "I frequently saw the deceased the worse for drink"), imagine the torment in his mind, wandering the streets!
LEANNE |
Robert Charles Linford
Chief Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 515
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, August 03, 2003 - 6:38 pm: | |
Hi Leanne
I think it very odd that he should have gone for (fallen for) any prostitute at all, if he is supposed to have had a tremendous hatred for them. But if you are suggesting some sort of mother fixation, then he might have been expected to fall for an older woman.
You ask me to imagine his torment. But that's just it : there is only imagination here, for there is no evidence.
As far as I can see, there is no evidence that he was ever violent to Kelly, or threatened her with violence. There is no evidence that he was ever violent or threatening to her friends. There is no evidence that he was violent or threatening to anyone. Ever.
There is no record of the police receiving a letter - even during his brief moment of fame - saying something like "I think you should know that I once heard Barnett express tremendous hatred of prostitutes." Or even "Have a look at Barnett, there's something strange about him."
No one seems to have pointed the finger at him.
How come he's being painted as the M-M-Monster of M-M-Miller's Court?
Robert |
Leanne Perry
Chief Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 565
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, August 03, 2003 - 11:18 pm: | |
G'day Robert,
A lot of women back then sold their bodies in the East End to survive! Barnett probably felt confident that he could change Kelly's way of life, before she aged. What exactly do you think I mean by 'mother fixation'? (no they were your words). I mean a deep-hurt/anger over his mother leaving her 5 young children.
On another board, someone suggested that the Ripper could have displayed complete sanity and a calm nature to those observing him, and then have a sudden attack of violence at times. I think this makes perfect sense, because no one suspected him or dobbed the right one in.
We'll never solve this case, if we keep waiting for hard-evidence to be found in someone's dungeon. The Ripper was never caught!
Do you think that Barnett harboured no tourment, with his lover selling herself, because he lost his job and was not good enough? Plus he had the continued visits of Kelly's former lover, Joseph Flemming, (whom Kelly was very fond of)!....Because no police official ever wrote a bad word about him.
Why do you think Mary Kelly threw something at him on the night he walked out, if he was voluntarily leaving?
LEANNE |
Caroline Anne Morris
Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 245
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 04, 2003 - 12:47 pm: | |
Hi Leanne,
'We'll never solve this case, if we keep waiting for hard-evidence to be found in someone's dungeon.'
But how are you planning to solve this case by claiming that Joe Barnett harboured a tremendous hatred of prostitutes, if you can't produce one shred of evidence that this was the case? Joe can't win. If he leaves Kelly to it when she's worse for drink, to avoid arguments, you imagine him walking the streets in an agony of pent up hatred, rage and sexual jealousy, when he could just as easily be doing what all partners of heavy drinkers do to avoid arguments - leave them to it, wait for them to sober up and wish they'd cut down a bit in future! Cutting them into ribbons is one way of making them stop, but it's rather extreme and thankfully extremely rare.
Love,
Caz
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Robert Charles Linford
Chief Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 518
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 04, 2003 - 5:27 pm: | |
Hi Leanne
Barnett was generally calm, but on the odd occasions he lost his temper, he disembowelled a woman? It's a bit wacky!
I find it impossible to imagine Barnett's state of mind at this remove in time, and without the relevant facts.
For instance, I do not know what Barnett's financial position was at this time. Did he have any savings left over from his recently well-paid days? It was remarked that he was quite well turned-out, sartorially, at the inquest. We do know that he was managing to support himself at this time. Maybe he did give Kelly money for food, and it disappeared straight into the till of the local pub?
Again, how much self-recrimination would Barnett have felt for failing to support Kelly? In those days and in that area, some men who were in work still needed their wives to do something to augment the family income - say, cleaning or hawking - not necessarily prostitution. Maybe you'll correct me here, but I can't recall reading any references to Kelly doing hawking, charring etc - unlike the other victims. I have a feeling that Mary Jane liked to live well, and wasn't overly reluctant to turn to the streets.
So need Barnett have felt this tremendous torment and guilt?
Robert |
Leanne Perry
Chief Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 567
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 05, 2003 - 9:04 am: | |
G'day Robert, Caz,
Bruce Paley wrote that a hard working fish porter brought home 3 pounds a week in those days, and that was a lot.
Charles Booth calculated that as casual dock labourer earned about 6s 3d per week, and Joe wouldn't have earned much more jobbing around the fruit markets.
With 20 shillings to the pound, Barnett's wage at Billingsgate would have been up to 60 shillings, then after he lost his job, he would have been lucky to bring home one tenth of that! If 'well-living' Mary let him save anything while he was a fish porter, I'd say that all went after.
Paley also quoted the Billingsgate Market bylaws: 'If any porter shall be guilty of dishonesty [theft], or drunkeness or shall use any obscene, filfy or abusive language or otherwise misconduct himself in the market or it's immediate neighbourhood, it shall be lawful for the Committee forthwith to revoke his license.' Barnett had his license revoked in July, after working there for over ten years.
If people can't accept that he was caught thieving, then our peaceful, well-turned-out Joe misconducted himself somehow!
LEANNE |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 189
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 05, 2003 - 11:46 am: | |
Hi Leanne
According to the bylaws he could have had his license revoked for cussing.
Seriously though, being a thief does not make a man capable of what JTR did to MJK. I understand that mutilating the face can be akin to trying to obliterate the victim and that the killer may know the victim whose identity he is seeking to wipe out. But, Kate Eddowes had her face badly mutilated and I can't picture a scenario wherein Barnett had reason to wipe out Eddowes identity because of any personal hatred he held for her.
Apologies if any of these points are redundant. But there are hundreds of posts on Barnett to wade through.
Best Regards
Gary |
Leanne Perry
Chief Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 568
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 05, 2003 - 5:42 pm: | |
G'day Gary,
No one will ever know the reason why Barnett was fired from Billingsgate.
He'd worked there since he left school, his brothers worked there and his father worked there. He didn't succeed in getting his licence returned until 1906. And I doubt it was the first time he tried.
Bruce Paley added after quoting the market bylaws: 'Lesser infractions of the rules were delt with by fines or suspension'.
Paley uses the fact that he lost his job, to point a finger at peoples need to see that the Ripper had to have committed minor offenses before the murders.
I think it points to the fact that he wasn't the 'angel' that everyone believes he was! Looking at photos of Billingsgate, and reading the working conditions, fish porters were pretty rough men.
LEANNE
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Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 193
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 05, 2003 - 5:53 pm: | |
Hi Leanne
I don't disagree with Paley concerning the killer having committed other lessor offenses prior to the murder spree. I would look more toward offenses such as approaching a woman with a knife and threatening her as happened in the case of Ada Wilson. From here the offenses would likely escalate to full blown murder and then a refinement of the murder signature.
I am confident that JTR was at least detained by the police and probably had a police record of some sort.
Hope your day improves.
All The Best
Gary
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Robert Charles Linford
Chief Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 520
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 05, 2003 - 5:56 pm: | |
Hi Leanne
I quite agree that Barnett possibly lost his job for stealing. I'm not saying that he was a saint.
In fact, it's possible that Barnett was stealing a bit more than the little treats he used to give Mary. John McCarthy's chandler's shop was also a grocer's shop, and I believe his brother was in the same line of business. I read here on Casebook (though I can't remember precisely where) that he either was, or later became, quite a local villain.
I believe it's possible that Barnett was stealing fish for McCarthy. After Barnett lost his job, McCarthy may have let him and Kelly stay on for a few weeks, to see if he could establish himself in a similarly mutually advantageous position in some other market somewhere.
I add at once that this is pure speculation, without a shred of evidence to support it, and I only advance it as a tentative suggestion. Its only merits are that it might explain both why Joe lost his job, and why McCarthy was so strangely tolerant over the rent, while perhaps showing that we aren't necessarily forced to postulate a romance/blood relationship between McCarthy and Kelly to explain the former's patience concerning the rent.
Robert |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 194
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 05, 2003 - 6:16 pm: | |
Leanne and Robert
I agree with Robert and you Leanne that he was stealing and it was probably an ongoing thing, the extent of which had to be clearly established before he was finally relieved of his license. If we are correct and he was stealing it was for Kelly's benefit. I fear we will never know for sure just what was going on in McCarthy's rents.
Best
Gary |
Leanne Perry
Chief Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 569
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 05, 2003 - 6:53 pm: | |
G'day,
GARY: But the police would have checked everyone with a police record of violent behaviour towards women, and they never found him!
ROBERT: You see, we'll never get anywhere unless we use a bit of speculation!
LEANNE |
Robert Charles Linford
Chief Inspector
Username: Robert
Post Number: 521
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 05, 2003 - 7:09 pm: | |
Hi Leanne
I'm not against speculation...as long as it doesn't slowly and imperceptibly change into fact!
Robert |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 196
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 05, 2003 - 7:37 pm: | |
Hi Leanne
You state; "But the police would have checked everyone with a police record of violent behaviour towards women, and they never found him." Domestic violence has been rampant throughout the course of history and I know that it often goes unreported as an attack and therefore the police are not even aware of the act.
I know you are talking about more than domestic attacks. Acts of street violence often go unreported. It would be impossible to follow up all acts of violence against women in an area like Whitechapel.
Recall also that Emma Smith was viciously attacked and violated with a foreign object and she had to be dragged to the hospital and this set of circumstances finally brought her attack to the attention of the police.
Other attackers, like the one who attacked Ada Wilson, are simply never caught. The same is true of Annie Millwood's attacker who stabbed her about the lower body. Sugden, who leans toward the belief that Tabram should be seriously considered as a ripper victim believes the Millwood attack and the attack on Tabram could have been perpetrated by the same man.
Best
Gary |
Glenn L Andersson
Sergeant
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 17
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 05, 2003 - 8:02 pm: | |
Hi Leanne,
I've read this and a few other posts on Barnett, and I must admit that I still can't see the reason for him being the murderer in Miller's Court. Don't get me wrong -- I don't mean to disrespect you in any way -- but you obviously have decided that he is guilty, no matter what other arguments are being presented. Now, I may have my preferred Ripper suspects, for example, but I wouldn't for the world claim that I was convinced of anything!
I could understand it if Barnett had decided to committ an "ordinary" murder. I find it hard to believe, though, that someone with absolutely no homicidal record, could be able to perform such mutilation of a woman he holds dear. I feel it all to be a theoretical construction, with no basis in reality or in human psychology.
There has been a theory suggesting that Barnett murdered Kelly and thereafter tried to disguise it by mutilating her, to blame it on the Ripper. Am I the only one who finds Barnett's involvement in the Kelly murder (i.e. being the Ripper, as some claims...) a bit far-fetched -- not to mention psycologically speaking?
The murder in Miller's Court is too extreme in it's conduct and -- I've said it earlier on the message board -- is most likely not committed by a first-time killer. It's most surely committed by someone with experience of similar crimes and even more likely by someone who had performed mutilations in connection with earlier crimes -- carving fish is something completely different.
I can't prove any of it, naturally, but I think it sound more reasonable than estimating he's the murderer, based on speculations on how he felt about Kelly walking the street, OR that he was a thief (which I'm sure was not entirely an uncommon sideline among people in Whitechapel...), OR that he hated prostitutes (which we don't know for sure!!).
The reasons for linking Barnett to the murder (or JTR, as also has been speculated) are, as I understand, the following points:
1. He matches the few accounts we have of the assumed descriptions of the Ripper.
2. He matches parts of the FBI profile (although not at all points) -- but so does unfortunately a thousand others in the East End.
3. He knew Mary Kelly intimately and could have motive for the murder, an emotional one.
4. He probably hated prostitutes (like nearly all the valid suspects), but even that we can't state as a reliable fact.
5. The locked door in Miller's Court and the "lost key".
6. He lived in East End.
Now, what makes him stand out from most of the others, are nr. 1, 3 och 5, that's all.
And even if he "only" murdered Kelly -- presumely for the reasons stated above -- where are the evidence of him being a butchering murderer, as Gary, Robert ans Caz here have asked earlier?
It is all speculations, based on romanticism surrounding a love story. But as others here have clearly indicated, there are no signs or record of him being violent, in fact everone could comfirm that he was fond of Kelly. If we should accuse him for such an extreme slaughtering, we at least must produce more vital and relevant evidence of that he had a sinister character. But there is nothing!!!! (I don't count the quarrel with the broken window; such incidents probably happened every day in the homes at Whitechapel.)
Speculation and imagination is necessary when dealing with such old cases as this, but at least some facts must support such serious accusations.
Hope I didn't offend you personally, Leanne. It wasn't my intention.
All the best
Glenn L Andersson
Crime historian, Sweden |
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