No. The Barnett hypothesis makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It twists logic to the point of absurdity. Killers who kill like the Ripper are not motivated by something so comparatively trivial.
@@lyndoncmp5751 The Kosminski hypothesis makes perfect sense. But it relies heavily on the arguments of the police at the time. The hypothesis essentially states that given no better suspects it’s likely that the one mentioned was the killer. If we knew more about him we might say for or against.
Mary Kelly was killed and dismembered in a way that a jilted lover would not do. The killer obviously had a morbid curiosity in women's body parts, which is why he spent so long at the scene.
She was butchered, and she was cut into pieces . Barnett had to identify her by her eyeballs she was unrecognisable. So, Was it even Mary Kelley.? How do you know for sure she didn't run off and maybe she killed the last victim? And made
I don't like Ripper hypotheses, that involve inventing a new kind of murderer, and the case against Joseph Barnett does exactly that. The idea that he would have murdered four random prostitutes, in the hopes of dissuading his girlfriend from such a lifestyle, doesn't align with the behavior of any documented serial killer since then. He was probably just in teh wrong place at the wrong time.
It is the weakest theory ever, to suggest he killed her brutally in order to deter Mary Kelly from prostitution again. I'd say if that was his plan, it worked.
Yeah at first glance you could quite easily draw suspicion on a victims partner/lover, but it just doesn't make sense when you see the brutality he inflicted upon his victims, apart from the fear it must of induced amongst the community, but there's no way that would of stopped a financially needy person from doing whatever it took to earn some money and so the motive seems weak against Barnett.
Thank you Mr. Jones. First a question: do we know the identity of the woman who lived with Kelly at the time of the murder? I personally doubt that any of the usual suspects was JTR. I find it more likely that he was an unassuming local individual with little or no prior arrests and no apparent violent behavior. Someone who lived a double life and was above suspicion. However…if I was forced to name a suspect in the Kelly murder I would lean to the stalker George Hutchinson who only three days after the murder came forward with a suspiciously detailed story that simply doesn’t sound true. If he was fixated with Kelly and rejected he may have acted out, possibly knowing that Barnett wouldn’t be back. The time the killer took mutilating Kelly’s corpse indicate he knew that he wouldn’t be disturbed. I wonder if Barnett knew about Hutchinson’s testimony and if he had met him before the murder. Had I been an investigator I would have asked Burnett those questions. If Hutchinson was the killer he may have studied Burnett too. The Kelly murder was much more personal and regardless who the killer was I think there’s a good chance he knew Kelly, at least to some extent. The other murders were most likely opportunistic, whereas the murder of Mary Kelly more likely involved planning. She may have been the killers primary target all along, and the other murders were merely test runs, or practice if you will.
I also share your concern about tarnishing the reputations of suspects. You can't libel the dead, but these were real people, and the vast majority of them were not the murderer. I remember someone on a forum talking about "the victims of Charles Lechmere", as if it were an established fact, and I remember thinking that Charles Lechmere might just be Jack the Ripper's second victim.
Few seem to have a problem with Kosminski being tarnished over and over again. That seems to be ok, despite absolutely zero evidence against him including never being placed at any of the crime scenes.
Well said 👏🏻 The Letchmere fanboys/girls are even worse than the Barnett ones. They think they are cleverer than anyone else because they have suddenly discovered the Ripper. They haven't. There's not a shred of evidence against either Charles Cross or Joseph Barnett.
Thank you for the video. I think that he of course must be a suspect at that time, but there is absolutely no evidence for him being the murderer let alone JTR.
Barnett's pipe being found at the murder scene is very easily and innocently explained. He visited Kelley before she was murdered and spent an hour talking to her, probably puffing on his pipe. He just carelessly left it behind when he went home.
This isn’t related but does anyone know what happened to the apron Jack left which was right next to the Goulston street graffiti? I know you probably couldn’t do dna if it survived but worth a shot and at the very least kinda cool in a morbid sort of way.
I read the mammoth book of jack the ripper years ago and it had a different suspect in each chapter. There was a chapter on this man and I have to admit the book made a convincing case. Haven't read it in years but it was good 15 to 20 years ago
Just a few questions. Who was the woman sharing lodging with Mary? Did she have similar coloring to Mary - Hair, eyes and skin tone? Might Barnett have misidentified the severely mutilated corpse? Might have Mary used this opportunity to leave London thus escaping her debts and anyone who may have been stalking her?
So, a door you can't open from the inside, if you happen to have lost the key, but can open it from the outside. Now that as just asking for trouble. Very bad design indeed.
If you can open the door from the outside by putting your hand through the broken window. Then, surely, you can do the same thing from the inside ie without having to insert your hand in through the window!?
@@davekeating.there was a latch on the inside they used to open the door from the broken window when the police came the key was used to lock it. He had the key
The poor chap wasn't a suspect at the time and shouldn't be now. He had been Mary's partner...and that's it. There is no case against him, there's just conjecture and a whole lot of nonsense. As a "suspect" he's about as likely as Lechmere...
He's less likely than Lechmere (Lechmere was seen by someone else lingering alone and acting suspiciously right next to the body of one of the victims at or near the time of death) but more likely than the outlandish nonsense of Druitt, Maybrick, Tumblety etc.
@davekeating Nothing 'subjective' about it at all. Lechmere was clearly alone by the body of Polly Nichols and was lingering there. He wasn't walking on when Robert Paul came close to him. He was "STANDING WHERE THE WOMAN WAS". This is an undoubted FACT. Also a FACT is that Lechmere up ahead of Paul was not behaving in any way other than suspicious. That's why Paul was wary of him. Shall I also add that Lechmere lied to PC Mizen, didnt give his real name at the inquest and was very obviously by the body of Nichols longer than he said he was? Subjective? Nope.
@@lyndoncmp5751 What was it again Richard said in his spot-on introduction ? "If you repeat a piece of speculation often enough it becomes accepted as a fact " I hope you didn't miss the "red flag" reference either ?
There is also the alternative theory that Barnet killed Mary Kelly, but that he wasn't the Ripper (that's what Pat Brown concluded in her research of the Ripper case). Basically, the theory being that Kelly wasn't a Ripper victim.
Was he her killer? Almost certainly not. Too easy to pin the blame on him without real evidence, of which there was none. The police gave him and Hutchinson very thorough questionings.
There's something distinctly fishy about Hutchinson. Maybe he did have photographic recall? His evidence was very specific and has given a lot of people cause to think it was TOO specific... but I think if he was guilty of anything it's more likely he was something of a stalker, and had a bit of an infatuation with Kelly. There's nothing to suggest he killed anyone. How anyone can hold a serious strong belief in Barnett as the killer is baffling.
Barnett's speculative motive is a curious one, but I do believe Abberline would have considered it and followed up during the 4 hour interview, before rightly dismissing him.
I still think Barnett is a strong candidate for the Kelly murder..having the motive and the opportunity..He's a stronger candidate than most others for this murder...and today would be considered a person of interest.....
There are also those who doubt that Mary was killed by The Ripper. There is something that seems personal about the way she was killed. Almost as if he was trying to destroy her.
But the same could be said about the mutilation and disembowlment of Eddowes and Chapman. And mind you that in neither case he had enough privacy or time (especially in Eddowes' case). And yet he took the effort to cut Eddowes eyelids, cheeks and ears or to place Chapman's intestines over her shoulder.
Mary Kelly most certainly knew her killer very well. Her clothes were folded neatly like she was in for the night, not with a client. The door was locked after & the attack was very very personal. Enough so to say that she was the main target all along.
If she was the main target then the others wouldn't make sense, it's also possible that because her window was broken and she went in through the window, that the ripper saw this and figured out he could get in whilst she was away by reaching in through the window. So the broken window created an opportunity for him. And extent of the mutilation can be put down to the fact he had more time and more seclusion with Kelly than he had with any others
I doubt that Barnett killed anyone, but I think it's more likely that he just killed Kelly than that he was the Ripper. The motive given for killing the other victims seems far-fetched to me.
None of the suspects can be deemed guilty beyond reasonable doubt, all people are arguing is that some people like Lechmere and Barnett probably should've been looked at more carefully by the police than they were, it's also quite possible and in fact likely that some of the murders were not committed by the same person, namely Stride and/or Kelly may have been committed by different people. Murders of impoverished women were not that uncommon in London. About Barnett i can however throw a bit more fuel to the fire, if the key had been missing for a while and they went in through the window, and at the same time Kelly was known to have other women lodge at her small room, then the police could've asked other local women if this was true, surely someone would be able to prove or deny Barnett's claim, yet it seems the Met never bothered to ask. Catching Barnett in a lie there would've provided much stronger evidence of him being the murderer of at least Kelly... oh well, one of many blunders So many blunders in fact that they sometimes feel deliberate... but that's another theory lol
Marys door was locked so the killer had a key. Barnett could a had a key but so could have the landlord Mccarthy. They both fit the descriptions of the ripper.
I have always thought that the bloody water going down the drain to be seen by the policeman was ridiculous. It would have to be a pretty slow moving drain. Could have been but that is not the impression I have gotten from reading the account.🇺🇸
ALWAYS MY NUMBER 1 SUSPECT for at least the Mary Kelly murder in my opinion Unemployed at time only an alibi up until 12.30 ish when he claims he went to bed after playing cards. Did not like her being a Prostitute There was so MUCH rage and hate involved WAS IT something she said to him that was the trigger???
C’mon. Joe Barnett, Mary Kelly’s lover? He met her on Whitechapel Road, and they went for a drink. The following day they meet up again, and decide to become husband and wife. In my humble opinion, Joe Barnett was a paying client for that first encounter. And when they met the following day, Barnett became Mary Kelly’s pimp or protector. Barnett would never admit that to the police or say it at the Inquest. Hence, “I didn’t like her going back on the streets, so I left her.” Barnett did not kill Mary Kelly but whoever did, knew Barnett no longer lived there, and that Mary was unprotected!
How did the murderer know it was a woman in the room or that she was alone? She could have been a dude or had been in the company of a dude .. she often took other ladies in to help them keep warm also and let them sleep there she rarely slept alone in the room it was said. So how did the murderer know firstly that it was a woman in the room? and secondly that she was alone?
It is most probable that she actually TOOK the murderer into her room just as all the other victims took the murderer with them to the places where he killed them.
So his motive is to commit very high risk homicide, the death penalty on the line, with no guarantee it will influence his girlfriend to stop sex work? Seemingly her only source of income. Then obliterates her after only 3 or 4 tries? He's a solid nope for me.
I think he murdered Mary Kelly in a crime of passion, then mutilated her body so the police would think it was JTR and not him. I don't think he had anything to do with the other victims. That's why the MK killing differed from the others in several respects (the victim was younger, the mutilations were worse, and the killing took place indoors). He may have staged the crime scene to match sensationalized press accounts, but it ended up being worse.
Highly unlikely. If that had been the case, he woudl not have done more to the body than he needed to do, to make it look like the Ripper. He woudl not have spent more than an hour destroying the body in detail. He would have slashed it up very hastily, to make it look like the killer, and then he would have got out as quickly as he could. Frankly I don't think that there was anybody in the area, other than Jack the Ripper, constitutionally capable of doing that to a dead body. I find the black and white photographs deeply disturbing even today.
Just one problem with your theory. The abdomen was opened the same as the other victims. Including the Thames torso victims. They started in 1873. He wasn’t the killer.
You're not appreciating the psychological side of things. You don't decide to mutilate a body like this for practical purposes. It takes a really twisted mind to do this, and there is no evidence to support the idea that he was this kind of personality. Some people who do commit crimes of passion do mutilate the body post mortem, but it is usually to dismember and dispose of the body to minimise the chances of getting caught. It is macabrely efficient, not psychotic. The reason the Mary Kelly killing is so different is simple. Jack almost got caught the night of the double event. He got the urges out of his system with the second victim, but then he cooled down and realised he needed to change his MO. Mary presented an ideal victim that he knew he could get alone with a greatly decreased chance of getting caught.
@@bendavies8881I have to admit that I do as well (find those pics disturbing.) When I was doing some research I came across some pics of her eyes that were colourized blue and they freaked me out because you see how badly misaligned they were. Whoever did that to Mary was pure evil.
There was a rumour Kelly was pregnant and was in love with another man you only have Barnetts say so he left on good terms when he visited he would have needed an alibi before going back to Dorset street he knew when kelly would be asleep as she was as her clothes was neatly folded on a chair and would not have been with someone else
@JacktheRipperTours Hello Richard, quick question. I thoroughly enjoy your channel but have you given any thought to releasing the episodes also in podcast format? I would love to listen to the episodes while driving or at work as a podcast.
Superb analysis, though I found the means by which he had to identify Mary, and the look at her grave too overwhelming. I could not accept for one second that any man who knew Mary enough to be an intimate part of her life, and clearly admired her with great affection, could inflict such horrors upon her.
Barnett doesnt sound like John Duffy or a David Mulcahy , or even a hillside strangler . But if there ever was a way he could be Jack the Ripper that would be sonewhere near . To be fair I stopped looking after this guy ....
Why was her clothes still neatly folded it seems she had gone to bed and was asleep Barnett would know this was the rag still stuffed in the broken window in the morning why if Barnett was there in the morning did he not tell them how to get into the room had she Met someone else and told him earlier , why is the American fbi profile correct in describing his earlier life down to a t could he have killed two others with links to MK and got the idea how to keep MK off the streets stride was probably killed by someone else Nichols and MT also by others that gave him the idea the media created a monster this is an ordinary man infatuated with a woman that turned her back on him.NOT some mad serial killer and also why it stopped after MK
Maybe its just me but does anyone else see a skull with hair and a white shirt underneath in the right miller's court window at 16.56. in the right top pane?
He lost his job because of poor time keeping a psycho never takes accountability Mary went back into walking the streets and broke up with him after all the work of creating fear. He lost everything and he blamed her.
I have long held that Barnett murdered Mary Kelly, and Mary Kelly only. If so, and if (as seems likely) Charles Lechmere killed Mary Ann Nichols and the "double event" was pulled off by two unrelated killers, then "Jack" has at most two victims to his name.
I have read the book The Simple Truth by Bruce Paley who proposes Joseph Barnett as Jack. Whilst I do not absolutely agree that he is Jack this book is a very good read and describes life at the time and Joseph's own background very well. Because of his close proximity to the last victim he should at least be in the suspect list even if at the very bottom.
This guy is an unlikely suspect. The most likely suspects are those individuals who had some knowledge of dissecting a human body, who lived near enough to the scenes of the crime to have easily walked there or taken a (horse-drawn) cab there, andthose who had been arrested and charged with crimes of violence against women (beatings, domestic violence, maybe sexual assault) either either before or after the "canonical" murders of 1888. Because two of the bodies showed evidence that they had been dissected by someone who had either some degreee of surgical training. or perhaps had once worked ina morgue where autopsies were performed. I do know of one indiviual who checks all of these boxes. And he was one of the hundreds of people who were questioned by police as possible suspects in the ripper case. Many years later, he was hanged for the murder of several women, although the modus operandi of these murders was somewhat different from those employed in the Ripper cases. Finally, he did claim he was Jack the Ripper before he was hanged, although the police tended to discount this claim, and believed he had only made it in the hopes that it would delay his execution for a time while it was investigated. I won't reveal this name of my "favorite: suspect, But readers of this comment can track it down easily enough
You mean Lechmere. Well he's the only one who was seen by someone else lingering alone and acting suspiciously right next to the body of one of the victims at or near the time of death. That doesn't apply to anyone else.
Nice theory (like 50 others). Almost certain? There is absolutely no evidence except speculation. Better suspect than Van Gogh or Queen Victoria, that's it.
@@seankinnane12Indeed. Too big a risk people at his work or people along the way would see blood on his clothing or hands etc. There is also the risk people saw them together on Whitechapel Road going to Buck's row. A lot of that theory is based on conjecture yet he is a strong suspect. I've done a lot of genealogical research and giving up 2 names is not that rare. Lechmere was his birth name but Cross was his adopted family name. People used one of those names depending on the situation. For marriage etc you needed to give up your birth name, while the neighbourhood you grew up in might've known you by your adopted family name for example. You might've used whichever one of them on a census. Lechmere could've simply walked away and disappear into the night when he heard Paul approaching, but he didn't.
To me I have always thought most probable. My only doubt is did the police at the time look at his alabi? The creepy person hanging out while his former partner was engaged with a John and the description he gave of the ripper was ridiculous...an outright dandy or toft. However It's anyone's guest.
If you want to talk facts here they are. 1. The witness who identified Kosminski as the man who attacked Stride shortly before she was found dead. 2. The witness who saw Eddowes with what most likely was her killer shortly before she was found dead. And described him as a foreigner. 3. Kosminskis DNA on the shawl connected to the Eddowes murder. Those are the facts. Nobody else, not one single suspect can be tied to two of the murders except for Kosminski.
A 23 year old that doesn’t wash, or work. That eats food from the gutter. This guy is supposedly luring scared unfortunates to their doom at the height of the ripper scare? Nope. Paranoid schizophrenics don’t make good serial killers.
Aaron Kosminski was someone who drank from the sewers. He would never be capable of holding himself together long enough to make these killings and escape. He was also someone who walked around yelling and screaming at women. He was very unstable and had been in and out of psych wards. He wasn't in control of himself. There's no way he would be able to concentrate, do the job quietly and get away like the real JTR.
@@l.plantagenetAnd yet he was identified by Schwartz as the man who attacked Stride. His DNA on the shawl connected to the Eddowes murder. No other suspect, not one can be tied to two of the murders. Except for Kosminski.
