One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[David Orsam]

The point is that the addiction to arsenic was a most convenient fact - perhaps in that sense not a pure coincidence

Aha, there have it. Another one bites the dust.

[Iconoclast]

It doesn't really fit at all. I have no idea why such a statement would cause her to admit to an affair rather than run out of the house and tell a police officer what he had said.

On the other hand, Maybrick telling her that he already knew information about the affair and had been making inquiries is the oldest trick in the book to make someone confess to something. It's such an obvious fit that we simply don't need to invent something about Jack the Ripper which is not mentioned in the letter.

And we don't, but our hoaxer did. Our hoaxer unequivocally wrote that Bunny knew all, and that claim was conveniently backed-up by Florrie's comment.

You may be right or you may be wrong about the tale which Florrie told, but the convenient fact remains that it was there in the archive for our hoaxer to play his funny little games with.

By the way, I doubt Florrie would have run away and told a copper. She had rather a lot riding on it not being Maybrick so I rather doubt that is what she would have done. Imagined that he was making it up to scare her, I suspect would have been her natural reaction. She might even have written that in a letter to Brierley, who knows?

[Iconoclast]

Aha, there have it. Another one bites the dust.

Naughty naughty boy, Lord Orsam. Taking out my parentheses to try to win a cheap point. You're as scurrilous as I deep down.

[Iconoclast]

I think you will find that it was you making a categorical and unqualified statement that the handwriting is the same.

It's for you to support that statement. If you can't do it - and it seems like you can't - then there's no point in giving it any further consideration.

Well I'm not an expert certainly, I can't deny.

Does that actually mean that bars me from having an opinion?

[Iconoclast]

Hey - you've got about another 20 or so to get through and I have to finish my work, shower, and have my tea.

I know you may feel you didn't need to know that but clearly these three will induce radio silence at Iconoclast House for a while. I'd hate that to be misunderstood ...

[John G]

On our reliable coincidence scale, it would warrant a 0 out of 10. It's very like John G absurdly arguing that the probability of finding all six significant adults in Maybrick's life cryptically hidden in the GSG was exactly the same as the probability that you would find the constituent letters somewhere in it.

Not the same odds at all!

Not one of those "six significant adults" appeae in the GSG; its only your own quirky interpretation that leads to that conclusion. And as I've already explained to you, JtR didn't write the GSG as it was too dark.

However, as your interested in the power of coincidence you might want to consider this. Christer has argued that the JtR murders and Torso crimes are linked. Why? Because they both involved eviscerations, and there's not a single other example of two eviscerators operating in the same city and over the same time frame. Anywhere.

Moreover, two of the C5 victims and one of the Torso victims had their abdominal wall removed in sections . And this is highly unususl. In fact, the only other example I've been able to find of a killer using this technique is Karl Danke.

Now for complex reasons I don't personally believe the two sets of crimes are linked. But I must concede that these are pretty huge concidences.

And the diary doesn't say Maybrick killed any of the Torso victims, does it? In any event, he couldn't have killed the last two Torso victims on account of being dead.

So, based upon the power of coincidence, that would tend to rule Maybrick out of both sets of murders.

Oh dear..

[David Orsam]

And we don't, but our hoaxer did. Our hoaxer unequivocally wrote that Bunny knew all, and that claim was conveniently backed-up by Florrie's comment.

But it's not "conveniently" backed up by Florrie's comment at all.

As you say, the author of the diary writes "My dear Bunny knows all". But what Bunny says is: "The tale he told me was a pure fabrication, and only intended to frighten the truth out of me". But the diary doesn't indicate either that Maybrick was trying to frighten the truth out of Bunny (in any respect) by telling her that he was JTR or that Bunny didn't believe him. So there's a complete mismatch.

All that's happened is that a Diary Defender with an overactive imagination has tried to shoehorn a comment in a letter by Florence about her affair into a narrative that the diary was written by Maybrick. It really doesn't work.

[David Orsam]

Well I'm not an expert certainly, I can't deny.

Does that actually mean that bars me from having an opinion?

Of course not, but you didn't express it as an opinion. You said:

"The discovery of the little-known September 17 ‘Jack the Ripper’ letter in whose hand the journal was written"

It was stated as a fact.

But if it's only your opinion then, considering you are not known as a handwriting expert, it doesn't mean very much does it?

[David Orsam]

Hey - you've got about another 20 or so to get through and I have to finish my work, shower, and have my tea.

I know you may feel you didn't need to know that but clearly these three will induce radio silence at Iconoclast House for a while. I'd hate that to be misunderstood ...

The others are too inconsequential to even bother about. I mean, muslin. Indeed!

[Iconoclast]

But it's not "conveniently" backed up by Florrie's comment at all.

As you say, the author of the diary writes "My dear Bunny knows all". But what Bunny says is: "The tale he told me was a pure fabrication, and only intended to frighten the truth out of me". But the diary doesn't indicate either that Maybrick was trying to frighten the truth out of Bunny (in any respect) by telling her that he was JTR or that Bunny didn't believe him. So there's a complete mismatch.

All that's happened is that a Diary Defender with an overactive imagination has tried to shoehorn a comment in a letter by Florence about her affair into a narrative that the diary was written by Maybrick. It really doesn't work.

It does work, and there's no shoe-horning.

The fact that Florrioe sees it as an attempt to frighten the truth out of her doesn't mean that Maybrick necessarily saw it that way.

It doesn't matter either way, as we are not discussing whether the journal is authentic or not but rather what astonishing coincidences the hoaxer inherited, if hoax it was.

You believe that the journal was a hoax and that all of these 22 points are just my fertile imagination.

Fortunately - to follow your logic - you aren't an expert on my fertile imagination so your thoughts in this regard are deeply irrelevant.

[Iconoclast]

Not one of those "six significant adults" appeae in the GSG; its only your own quirky interpretation that leads to that conclusion. And as I've already explained to you, JtR didn't write the GSG as it was too dark.

Ah - how on earth did I miss it the first time around?

So, based upon the power of coincidence, that would tend to rule Maybrick out of both sets of murders.
Oh dear..

Honestly hard to tell exactly what you were arguing there, but just to reassure you that the power of coincidence has significance when it is in great number. One or maybe two coincidences are low low power, Dude.

[Iconoclast]

The others are too inconsequential to even bother about. I mean, muslin. Indeed!

Ah ha - I was waiting for the brush off!

Skipping 'Diego Laurenz' but homing-in on the muslin. Indeed!

[John G]

Ah - how on earth did I miss it the first time around?



Honestly hard to tell exactly what you were arguing there, but just to reassure you that the power of coincidence has significance when it is in great number. One or maybe two coincidences are low low power, Dude.

It's about quality, not number. The coincidences I referred to are substantive, whereas the coincidences you refer to are in the abstract.

[David Orsam]

Ah ha - I was waiting for the brush off!

Skipping 'Diego Laurenz' but homing-in on the muslin. Indeed!

I didn't bother with Diego Laurenz because it's ludicrous and has already been discussed to death. Furthermore, as I said to you earlier, you are confusing two issues: whether the diary was written by Maybrick and whether Maybrick was Jack the Ripper. It does not follow that if Maybrick was Jack the Ripper that the diary was genuine. I really have no interest in discussing whether Maybrick was Jack the Ripper.

As for whether the author of the Diego Laurenz letter was also the author of the diary I see no connection whatsoever. The author of the diary does not refer to himself as Diego or Laurenz. The author of the Diego Laurenz letter said "I am the Whitechapel purger". The author of the diary does not use that expression. The Diego Laurenz letter states: "On the 13th [October 1988], at 3pm, will be on stage, as going to New York. But will have some business before I go". The author of the diary makes no mention of going to New York. The author of the diary also makes no mention of writing this letter and it is unfathomable (bearing in mind his supposed motives) as to why he would have done so. While Diego is the Spanish equivalent of James (and Jacob), Laurenz does not mean Maybrick. We are told that Laurenz is supposed to rhyme with Florence but it doesn't. And it doesn't make any sense for Maybrick to have called himself "James Florence" in any case. So I see nothing in that letter connecting the author of the diary with it. All we have is a Jack the Ripper letter written in Liverpool signed in what is probably a false Spanish name to mean "James" or "Jacob". That's it. It's nothing.

In any case, Diego could simply have been someone's way of saying "Jack":

From Wikipedia

Jack /ˈdʒæk/ is a male given name, although in some cases it can be used as a female given name (a shortened versioned of "Jacqueline" or "Jackie", for example),[1] and sometimes as a surname. In English Jack is traditionally used as the diminutive form of John; it can be used also as diminutive for Jacob and sometimes for James due to its French form Jacques.

[Sam Flynn]

Diego means "Jack" and Laurenz sounds like "Le rents". "Le" is French for "the", "rents" is what you get when you rip something, and one who rents is a "ripper". Putting it together, we find that "Diego Laurenz" is simply a straightforward cipher for "Jack the Ripper".

I thank my friend, the ghost of Philippe de Chérisey, for giving me the key to this important clue.