One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Abby Normal]

Abby,

Seriously, you need to take a look at the markings to realise that you have misunderstood the context of the markings - they were put there (presumably) to gloat about the crimes, not to mark the watch as his.

If he had wanted to do both, of course, he could have done (had his initials engraved on the weatch, then engraved his 'confession' privately afterwards).

id love to have a look at them. but according to caz you cant see any.

yeah hes going to scratch his name on his watch and his murder victims to gloat about it. Kind of like another notch on a knife for number of kills?

maybe he killed them with his watch?

[Abby Normal]

I think you give yourself away when you start with the premise "Isn't it obvious".

No, it isn't obvious. It is one of at least two options:

1) Maybrick wrote it because it was true and it was coincidence (again!) that it was recorded in a similar fashion in the official list of Eddowes' possessions (her 'meagre possessions' as I think Ripper cliche likes to call them), or
2) A hoaxer in 1987 or later created a rather clever hoaxed Ripper journal identifying James Maybrick as Jack but (very very very very very very very) stupidly copied this line from Fido (or some other).

No, it isn't obvious at all.

your right-it isn't obvious. Perhaps the police officer saw what he wrote in the diary and copied it verbatim into his report!

[Iconoclast]

id love to have a look at them. but according to caz you cant see any.

According to Caz, she couldn't make them out on the occasion she had the opportunity to.

Not the same as their not being there - something which Caz herself noted.

If you haven't seen the markings, I suggest you look at one of the books written on the journal. Look up 'Feldman', or 'Harrison'. They wrote books about the journal and had some pictures in.

They're my favourite kinda books, in'all.

[caz]

I think there is every possibility that the watch markings were part of the scam

You could have knocked me down with a feather, John.

So Mike was involved with this one too?

If so, your evidence is... what?

Love,

Caz
X

[John Wheat]

You could have knocked me down with a feather, John.

So Mike was involved with this one too?

If so, your evidence is... what?

Love,

Caz
X

I have no evidence of this but you have so far provided no evidence that Mike didn't write the diary Caz.

[caz]

Hi Caz

???

What's your problem, Abby?

I couldn't see the scratches in the watch in 2001, but they were definitely there, and had been examined by two professionals during the 1990s.

All I was pointing out was that they are almost impossible to see or make out with the naked eye.

That could have been a bit problematic for a hoaxer, hoping his/her hoax would come to light sooner rather than later. However, if the diary and watch were at one time in one place, waiting to be found together, the person who put them there would have expected them to be examined together one day, with 'time' revealing all. But with the diary and watch going their separate ways, the risk was that the faint watch markings could have gone unnoticed indefinitely.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I have no evidence of this but you have so far provided no evidence that Mike didn't write the diary Caz.

So that, for you, is evidence that he did?

You could have knocked me down with half a feather.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

isn't it obvious that a modern hoaxer saw the police report of listed items and screwed up-writing verbatim what was in the report?

Like a deliberate mistake, you mean? If Mike had claimed this in his January 1995 affidavit, citing his ripper source, he might have upped his credibility considerably.

He swore this affidavit because he wanted it believed that he had helped create the diary, yet failed to include all the important details like this one. Why do you think that was?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

id love to have a look at them. but according to caz you cant see any.

Once again, Abby, I couldn't see the markings. Others could. My point is that they didn't stand out like a sore thumb on opening the back of the watch, and would just have appeared as vague scratches, if at all, to anyone without a reason to look more closely, or in less than ideal lighting conditions.

yeah hes going to scratch his name on his watch and his murder victims to gloat about it. Kind of like another notch on a knife for number of kills?

Well someone had the imagination to do that small thing....

maybe he killed them with his watch?

Now you're just being silly, Abby.

He'd have used a clock.

Love,

Caz
X

[Abby Normal]

What's your problem, Abby?

I couldn't see the scratches in the watch in 2001, but they were definitely there, and had been examined by two professionals during the 1990s.

All I was pointing out was that they are almost impossible to see or make out with the naked eye.

That could have been a bit problematic for a hoaxer, hoping his/her hoax would come to light sooner rather than later. However, if the diary and watch were at one time in one place, waiting to be found together, the person who put them there would have expected them to be examined together one day, with 'time' revealing all. But with the diary and watch going their separate ways, the risk was that the faint watch markings could have gone unnoticed indefinitely.

Love,

Caz
X

ok gotcha.

I think anyone who was being objective, and having looked at the watch themselves, not being able to see anything, would probably come to the conclusion then that it was all a bunch of crap. not still believe it and then actually use it as a reason to defend that the markings were there?!?

but hey in the Topsy turvey wacky diary world I guess its par for the course.

[caz]

your right-it isn't obvious. Perhaps the police officer saw what he wrote in the diary and copied it verbatim into his report!

Everyone seems to ignore the fact that the original reports existed and were known to x number of people, who could have passed the information on to y number of friends and relatives interested in the case, who passed it on to z number of other people over subsequent years and decades. Don't tell me you believe every police officer, every office clerk, every investigator was always scrupulously honest and never shared any unpublished inside information that came their way in the course of their work. Lots of ripper material has been pilfered from the files over the years, some of it returned anonymously, some probably lost forever, so whispering bits and pieces of information abroad would have been minor by comparison.

In any case, the item as it appears in Martin Fido's book is not how it looks in the diary. If it was first seen on a list, it was adapted to take the form of one of the try-out lines of doggerel, with the noun before its description: 'tin match box empty', 'first whore no good'.

Do you think the hoaxer included it deliberately, aware that it had not appeared on previously published lists of Eddowes's effects? Was it an attempt to show inside knowledge that backfired?

Love,

Caz
X

[Abby Normal]

Like a deliberate mistake, you mean? If Mike had claimed this in his January 1995 affidavit, citing his ripper source, he might have upped his credibility considerably.

He swore this affidavit because he wanted it believed that he had helped create the diary, yet failed to include all the important details like this one. Why do you think that was?

Love,

Caz
X

because knowing he hoaxed the diary and admitting to it in an affidavit, supplying as much detail that he already did was enough in his mind. I mean, how much detail do you have to include and perhaps at the time he still didn't even know he made that mistake?

[Abby Normal]

Once again, Abby, I couldn't see the markings. Others could. My point is that they didn't stand out like a sore thumb on opening the back of the watch, and would just have appeared as vague scratches, if at all, to anyone without a reason to look more closely, or in less than ideal lighting conditions.



Well someone had the imagination to do that small thing....



Now you're just being silly, Abby.

He'd have used a clock.

Love,

Caz
X

lol. good one

[Abby Normal]

Everyone seems to ignore the fact that the original reports existed and were known to x number of people, who could have passed the information on to y number of friends and relatives interested in the case, who passed it on to z number of other people over subsequent years and decades. Don't tell me you believe every police officer, every office clerk, every investigator was always scrupulously honest and never shared any unpublished inside information that came their way in the course of their work. Lots of ripper material has been pilfered from the files over the years, some of it returned anonymously, some probably lost forever, so whispering bits and pieces of information abroad would have been minor by comparison.

In any case, the item as it appears in Martin Fido's book is not how it looks in the diary. If it was first seen on a list, it was adapted to take the form of one of the try-out lines of doggerel, with the noun before its description: 'tin match box empty', 'first whore no good'.

Do you think the hoaxer included it deliberately, aware that it had not appeared on previously published lists of Eddowes's effects? Was it an attempt to show inside knowledge that backfired?

Love,

Caz
X

no just a stupid mistake

[caz]

According to Caz, she couldn't make them out on the occasion she had the opportunity to.

Not the same as their not being there - something which Caz herself noted.

If you haven't seen the markings, I suggest you look at one of the books written on the journal. Look up 'Feldman', or 'Harrison'. They wrote books about the journal and had some pictures in.

They're my favourite kinda books, in'all.

Ripper Diary has a nice clear image of the markings, which even I can see, between pages 152 and 153. Below is an image of Maybrick's signature on his marriage licence, so you can compare it directly with the signature inside the watch. The k's at the end of Maybrick are distinctive and remarkably similar.

Love,

Caz
X