Barnaby Jones

Barnaby is a private detective. He is a senior citizen, sports a head of white hair and has a special laboratory at his office where he evaluates the clues from his crime scenes. Although Barnaby is aging, he still has what it takes to close a case and bring down the bad guys. He always solves his cases because he's a "long looker and a slow thinker."

Barnaby's easy-going, folksy charm duped many a criminal into thinking he was not up to the job, but they soon discovered otherwise. Once a female commented, "A man of your age, Mr. Jones? You're a new kind of private eye." Barnaby replied: "It's a nice way of saying I'm an old kind of private eye. Besides to me old age has always seemed to be 15 years older than I am."

Barnaby had retired as a private investigator to raise horses on his ranch in Sun Valley. He gave his private eye agency to his son, Hal Jones. Sadly, four years later, Hal was murdered while on a case in 1973.

Determined to find his son's killer, Barnaby came out of retirement to solve the murder with the help of fellow detective, Frank Cannon. After Barnaby succeeded, he reopened the firm and kept on his widowed daughter-in-law, Betty Jones to help run the office as his assistant and secretary.

Besides his skill as a private eye, Barnaby is also an expert in forensic chemistry as well as clinical psychology, forensic medicine, toxicology and criminology. Many of Barnaby's cases are routine claims for an insurance company (California Meridian).

To solve a case, Barnaby doesn't let a stone go unturned. He methodically collects clues from a crime site and places them in small plastic bags to be analyzed at a later time.

In his spare time, Barnaby enjoys fishing. His favorite drink in milk. As Barnaby once said "I can eat anything as long as I can wash it down with a glass of cold milk."

In 1976 Jedediah Romano (J.R.) Jones, the charming and witty son of Barnaby's cousin Monroe from Chicago teamed up with Barnaby to solve the murder of his father and then joined Barnaby Jones Investigations. J.R. handled special assignments in between studying for the bar to become a lawyer.

Barnaby's police contacts were Lt. Joe Taylor and later Lt. John Biddle of the Los Angeles Police Department.