One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[David Orsam]

I don't expect anyone to accept what Keith or I have said at face value, but I would find it deliciously ironic if you were more open to the possibility of Mike's various 'confession' statements reflecting the truth, or partial truth, without having seen a jot of evidence for it, than you are to Keith Skinner holding a very different position that is backed up to the hilt. Demand evidence by all means before you take anything said about Keith's long and painstaking research seriously, but where are your demands to see evidence for any of Mike's claims? Your demands have been for evidence that he lied, which does suggest a predisposition to favour Mike's claims over Keith's. If I'm getting the wrong impression I'm sure you'll put me straight.

Caz - in #2039 you said:

"Keith made the remark in Liverpool, in response to something the late great Jeremy Beadle put to him there. It was off the cuff, not planned, and he has said very little about it publicly since…I really don't believe Keith's intention was to make 'a big deal' of it. If anything, the reactions of others built it up into one for him!"

So you are talking about an off the cuff comment made nearly 10 years ago. People's views change.

The notion that Keith Skinner still holds to that opinion today is far from "backed up to the hilt". In fact, it's clearly no more than an assumption on your part.

It is quite wrong of you to link the fact that I am unconvinced that Keith Skinner holds this opinion today (for which I do happen to have a good reason for saying so, but which I am not prepared to elaborate on in this forum) with anything you happen to think I believe about Mike Barrett's affidavit. It is even worse for you then to conclude that I might have "a predisposition to favour Mike's claims over Keith's". So, yes, you have got very much the wrong impression.

[Iconoclast]

I can't help but feel the argument around the authenticity of the journal is deeply spent. Nowadays, we appear to spend our time debating pedantic aspects of what has (or has not) been said by contributors to this Casebook - and, more specifically, to this thread. I guess this is what happens when a document is almost 25 years in the public eye without being proven a hoax.

It must be a work of genius, this unfathomable 'fraud' - to have us still debating anything at all is testimony to the brilliance of its creator. I suspect that this situation is now never to change - like a version of the universe where everything slowly atrophies without ever being able to be resolved. A kind of microcosm of an endless death.

Shame really. I say shame because we have the answer to the famous crimes right there in front of us. Of course, it has all been long since clouded by those who make a living out of arguing Jack was someone else, and by those who haven't read very much (if anything) of the journal. There are those, of course, who have read everything around Jack and around the journal and who similarly discount this as the final answer to this most vexed of questions. And of course they are welcome to their views and their views may well turn out to be right.

But what is lost here, here down down the long line since May 11, 1889 is that the balance of probability would undoubtedly have sat with the journal being authentic had it not come to light through the confused eyes of our old friend Mike Barrett. The birth of tragedy and the long slow death of the stars - both captured in graphic detail by this blessed, devilish book. I think I have probably just about over the years made my position clear - the journal is the authentic work of James Maybrick, who happened to be Jack the Ripper. But hope itself is slowly atrophying over time, every time I click on this addictive link.

Is there to be no end to grief and no reversing of this terrible death of hope?

Keith Skinner: It's time to come clean, mate ...

[David Orsam]

But what is lost here, here down down the long line since May 11, 1889 is that the balance of probability would undoubtedly have sat with the journal being authentic had it not come to light through the confused eyes of our old friend Mike Barrett.

I think you are wrong about that.

[Harry D]

It must be a work of genius, this unfathomable 'fraud' - to have us still debating anything at all is testimony to the brilliance of its creator.

What would be an acceptable refutation, in your mind? If it's a contemporary hoax, then the science won't be able to falsify it anyway. In terms of content, there are holes in the diary. The author gets basic facts about the murders incorrect, but you treat this glaring oversight with disdain and brush it off as a memory lapse on the killer's part. I also find that the diarist focuses too much on putting the devil into the detail, such as fixating on the tin box, to give it an air of authenticity. Why would the killer give a damn about a trinket like that but screw up what he did to Mary Kelly? Didn't one of the newspapers erroneously report that Mary Kelly's breasts were placed on the table? Either the killer had a memory like a sieve or a hoaxer was relying on false reports. Which sounds more plausible to you?

[Iconoclast]

What would be an acceptable refutation, in your mind? If it's a contemporary hoax, then the science won't be able to falsify it anyway. In terms of content, there are holes in the diary. The author gets basic facts about the murders incorrect, but you treat this glaring oversight with disdain and brush it off as a memory lapse on the killer's part. I also find that the diarist focuses too much on putting the devil into the detail, such as fixating on the tin box, to give it an air of authenticity. Why would the killer give a damn about a trinket like that but screw up what he did to Mary Kelly? Didn't one of the newspapers erroneously report that Mary Kelly's breasts were placed on the table? Either the killer had a memory like a sieve or a hoaxer was relying on false reports. Which sounds more plausible to you?

If it's a contemporary hoax, then the science won't be able to falsify it anyway.

Wow - only old hoaxes get disproven, eh? Your definition of 'old' must stretch to weeks as I think that was all it took for the Hitler diaries to fall apart at the seams.

An acceptable refutation for me would follow the refutations of previous fraudulent efforts. It would be shown that the journal was manufactured in 19XX, or the ink was categorically of a modern type. You know, the sort of thing that usually follows these things quite quickly, but strangely has evaded the journal over a quarter of a century now. I'll re-state that one: Twenty-five years and still it evades what you feel it deserves - revealed as a hoax. Astonishing, unfathomable fraud.

Incidentally, it can't be an old hoax for the same reason folk like you insist Maybrick could not have written it. It contains a much-vaunted anachronism in the form of the reference to the 'Poste House'. The hoax can't be revealed by the anachronism unless it was created after the mid-1960s (when the 'Poste House' was thus finally named) because if you allow an old hoaxer to have got it wrong, then you have to allow Maybrick to have done so also.

So, it must be a modern hoax, right? After all, it came to light after the late 1980s publication of previously unpublished information such as the absence of Kelly's heart and Eddowe's meagre list of possessions. And yet McNeill's test places it as written around 1921 (plus or minus around 30 years)! Oh, hold on, the watch markings are dated as many tens of years old. Damn it, the journal can neither be old nor new. It must have been created around the 1950s or 1960s (because of the 'Poste House' error). But then the author could not have known about Kelly's heart or the tin match box being empty. Oh, it's easy - it was written by someone in the know in the 1890s! But how did they make that mistake about the 'Poste House'? But - hold on - wasn't it known as something like the 'Post House Hotel' by 1895? But - if that were true - that's too close to 1888 to argue that Maybrick could not have known of it by such a name? It just goes 'round and around in your head - the hoax theory is as awkward to demonstrate as the non-hoax theory!

I also find that the diarist focuses too much on putting the devil into the detail, such as fixating on the tin box, to give it an air of authenticity. Why would the killer give a damn about a trinket like that but screw up what he did to Mary Kelly?

Harry, this is called Argument from Personal Incredulity, and such an argument can hold zero water in any serious debate. Your incredulity is meaningless to everyone else, and it advances your argument not one jot. The author mentions the tin match box and that is his or her right. End of. Proves nowt.

The author gets basic facts about the murders incorrect, but you treat this glaring oversight with disdain and brush it off as a memory lapse on the killer's part.

I don't brush it off. I recognise the factual error but also recognise that a man returning to the scene of the crime in his mind after the disgusting gore and slaughter he inflicted on Kelly's dead body, having presumably read the incorrect versions in the newspapers, may very well have failed to be certain of where every body part went. If two or three newspapers reported the same error (why was their error so consistent, one wonders?), then Maybrick inevitably would have questioned what he had otherwise believed (when he wrote "Thought of leaving them at the whore's feet"). You need to come up with something much much much much stronger than a lapse of recall against the barrage of bloody gore and newspaper consistency to demonstrate to me that this error proves the hoax. Others may disagree, but your point would still not then be categorically made.

Either the killer had a memory like a sieve or a hoaxer was relying on false reports. Which sounds more plausible to you?

Logic fails you, mate. The killer could have had so poor a memory and also relied on what he read. His having a memory so poor would not be the counter-argument to a hoaxer relying on false reports. It could have been - by chance and on this occasion - but you dress it up as inevitable, and the contrast of the two options is not inevitable.

What sounds plausible to me is that Jack the Ripper's record of events turned up in Liverpool in 1992 and a plausible explanation for the crime was presented to us. I have some issues with the handwriting, though I would be far more worried if someone turned up an example of Maybrick's private writing for his eyes only and it did not resemble the journal's. I can't explain the 'Poste House', but I recognise it isn't categorically clear what the author is meaning by it. I recognise that the journal makes reference to Florence Maybrick's initials in the context of the Kelly crime scene and lo and behold Trevor Marriott and Philip Sugden kindly publish brilliantly-clear examples of her initials on Kelly's wall despite both of them being vehement journal-doubters. I look at the GSG and I see Maybrick's close family etched throughout it and I understand clearly why it was written the way it was. I read of Florence's letter to Brierley and am overwhelmed with the implausiblity of the reference to 'the tale he told me'. I read of the Diego Laurenz response in the Liverpool Echo to the Dubliner claiming to be Jack and I am struck dumb that such a thing were possible.

In short, I see the endless possibilities of this journal being both Maybrick's and Jack's and I am not alarmed by it the way others seem alarmed by it. It makes perfect sense (well, almost perfect sense), and I reflect on its twenty-five years in the public domain and that still we have not one incontrovertible, unequivocal, undeniable fact which refutes the diary and I consider that Keith Skinner's words in the Maybrick video remain as true today as when he uttered them around 1993 or 1994: "We just can't shake it".

I thank you, and goodnight.

Ike

[StevenOwl]

the balance of probability would undoubtedly have sat with the journal being authentic had it not come to light through the confused eyes of our old friend Mike Barrett.

Not so sure about that. If the Diary had come to us all not through the hands of Barrett, and/or had come with a 100% genuine Battlecrease provenance, today's Diary detractors would still not accept JM as JTR. They'd simply all be crying 'old hoax'.

[Harry D]

because if you allow an old hoaxer to have got it wrong, then you have to allow Maybrick to have done so also.

And vice-versa.

Incidentally, it can't be an old hoax for the same reason folk like you insist Maybrick could not have written it.

Folk like me?

Harry, this is called Argument from Personal Incredulity, and such an argument can hold zero water in any serious debate.

It's certainly not an argument from incredulity, it's common sense. Try it sometime.

though I would be far more worried if someone turned up an example of Maybrick's private writing for his eyes only and it did not resemble the journal's

Why would you be worried? Wouldn't that bring us one step closer to the truth?

What sounds plausible to me is that Jack the Ripper's record of events turned up in Liverpool in 1992 and a plausible explanation for the crime was presented to us.

And you don't think a hoaxer would be aware of the same thing when constructing this narrative? We don't require a 'plausible explanation' for the murders. For many serial killers, the urge to kill is as vague and nebulous to them as it is the criminal psychologists who attempt to understand them. However, for a fantasist with a big imagination, the Maybrick scandal provides the perfect inspiration for a hoax.

I recognise that the journal makes reference to Florence Maybrick's initials in the context of the Kelly crime scene

Does it?

I look at the GSG and I see Maybrick's close family etched throughout it and I understand clearly why it was written the way it was.

Do ya?

In short, I see the endless possibilities of this journal being both Maybrick's and Jack's and I am not alarmed by it the way others seem alarmed by it. It makes perfect sense (well, almost perfect sense), and I reflect on its twenty-five years in the public domain and that still we have not one incontrovertible, unequivocal, undeniable fact which refutes the diary and I consider that Keith Skinner's words in the Maybrick video remain as true today as when he uttered them around 1993 or 1994: "We just can't shake it".

Here's a logical fallacy for ya: what you just posted is an argumentum ad ignorantiam. Asserting the claim that the diary is authentic because there is a lack of definitive evidence to disprove it. When in fact, the burden of proof lies with the pro-diarists to prove that this is a genuine diary from its alleged author. The forensic analysis remains inconclusive, there are glaring errors in the diary, anachronisms, and conflicting handwriting. On the balance of evidence, there is more reason to doubt the authenticity of the diary than there is to swallow it hook, line and sinker.

Keep the faith, Ike!

[Iconoclast]

I didn't imagine for a moment that you (or anyone else) would be swayed by any argument. The sides (imbalanced as they are) are too firmly entrenched for even the slightest degree of movement. I just plain enjoyed making the argument. It doesn't feel like a crime to do so. Lord knows, perhaps we should even encourage it occasionally! Embrace it, even!

I imagine that your 'glaring errors' reference includes the placing of Kelly's breasts so we'll accept for now that that one is unresolved. Could you quickly run me off the other 'glaring errors', if you have a spare five seconds, please? I'm talking glaring errors here, mind, not the urban myth variety, so please exclude:

• He didn't take Kelly's key away with him (we don't know that for sure)
• Aberline wasn't prominant at the time (he was)
• Obviously you won't be saying his brother didn't write lyrics!!!
• There were no coins at Chapman's feet (he doesn't claim it)
• Et cetera

I'm interested in the glaring errors, mate, if ya don't mind. You know, the ones which kill the journal stone dead in its tracks before we even get as far as 1994. Oh, hold on (quick look at calendar), we seem to be quite a bit beyond it already! How could the hoaxer's glaring errors not have been noticed for so long?

It's not going to change who's crouching where and in which trench, but we may as well continue to fire off the occasional exchange.

Back at ya.

Ike

[John G]

I'm afraid I have to agree with Harry D. The premise of this thread is reductio ad absurdum. I mean, you could just pick a suspect at random, like Lechmere, for example, and say, "now prove he didn't do it?"

Moreover, what "incontrovertible, unequivocal, undeniable fact" proves that Maybrick was the Ripper, or even likely to have been?

[Iconoclast]

I'm afraid I have to agree with Harry D. The premise of this thread is reductio ad absurdum. I mean, you could just pick a suspect at random, like Lechmere, for example, and say, "now prove he didn't do it?"

Moreover, what "incontrovertible, unequivocal, undeniable fact" proves that Maybrick was the Ripper, or even likely to have been?

Well at least we have been pursuing what it says on the tin, John G., unlike other threads. Anyone is welcome to start a thread focused on one I, U, U which proves the diary, but at the last reading, I'm confident this one is about one fact which refutes it.

By the way, it's not reductio ad absurdum in the slightest (why would you say that?). The Duke of Clarence has cast-iron alibis for almost every murder in the series. I think we could take any one of those alibis and use them to refute his candidature!

It is perfectly reasonable to ask if there is anything in the journal which categorically kills it stone dead. It's not the same as saying the absence of such a thing therefore proves the journal's authenticity, of course, but the presence of such a thing would certainly put an end to the debate!

Your very argument was reductio ad absurdum, mate.

[John G]

Well at least we have been pursuing what it says on the tin, John G., unlike other threads. Anyone is welcome to start a thread focused on one I, U, U which proves the diary, but at the last reading, I'm confident this one is about one fact which refutes it.

By the way, it's not reductio ad absurdum in the slightest (why would you say that?). The Duke of Clarence has cast-iron alibis for almost every murder in the series. I think we could take any one of those alibis and use them to refute his candidature!

It is perfectly reasonable to ask if there is anything in the journal which categorically kills it stone dead. It's not the same as saying the absence of such a thing therefore proves the journal's authenticity, of course, but the presence of such a thing would certainly put an end to the debate!

Your very argument was reductio ad absurdum, mate.

No mate. Conspiracy theorists would argue that even cast iron alibis prove nothing. And it's not as if we can jump inside a time machine and interview all the witnesses! That's why I say that this thread is completely pointless. Still, maybe you think it's a great way to while away the hours on a cool December day!

[Iconoclast]

No mate. Conspiracy theorists would argue that even cast iron alibis prove nothing. And it's not as if we can jump inside a time machine and interview all the witnesses! That's why I say that this thread is completely pointless. Still, maybe you think it's a great way to while away the hours on a cool December day!

But not you, of course.

[John G]

But not you, of course.

Touche'!

[caz]

I don't think you quite mean to put it like that because Barrett's affidavit of 5 January 1995 is, by definition, evidence of him and his wife having created the diary. I assume you mean that you have not come across any evidence which has persuaded you that they did so.

Hi David,

What I meant was that I have not come across any evidence that supports what Mike claimed in any of his 'confession' statements, regardless of how and where they were made, or who witnessed them. What I have managed to discover (from various sources, including the people I saw at Outhwaite & Litherland for example) has at best failed to back up his claims and at worst roundly contradicted them. So then it boils down to a matter of personal judgement as to how sound or unsound each conflicting source - including Mike himself - is likely to be, based on all the information at one's disposal. I will - I promise - address the 'demonstrably untrue' issue once I have caught up with every post to this thread, so I know what else has been asked and if I can help with outstanding queries. However, I am pretty sure Ripper Diary (published back in 2003) covers the main problems the authors found with Mike's specific 'forgery' claims, in which case I may only end up repeating here what has been in the public domain for the last thirteen years. And repeating something doesn't make it more believable to anyone who was sceptical the first time.

Love,

Caz
X

[David Orsam]

Hi Caz,

Thank you. That's exactly what I'm after - a solid contradiction of Mike Barrett's claims.

I have read the 2003 book though.

And when reviewing the thread can I draw your attention again to my posts #1574 and #1922.