One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Roy Corduroy]

That's a tall order indeed
To sketch the gals you claim to seed
Cause I wasn't there
When all was laid bare
But I do know a squirrel water skied.

Check it out (click) This may be as close as I get to LA anytime soon.

Roy

Yes Graham, he's well wrote. Cheers.

[Sam Flynn]

Never mind the bollocks, who agrees with me that Soothsayer writes in the most readable, flowing, sweetly composed and, frankly, best prose on this entire website?

Amongst the best, indeed.

[babybird67]

On the other hand, you could also write prose lavishly praising my growing band of admirers, as well as the many Ripperettes I have wooed (most, in truth, probably excluding the QoM). I suggest you start with babybird (all of them, or just 67),

Huh?

Sorry, but if i was being wooed, i must have missed it...well, who can blame me with my so obviously defective eyesight!

[Christine]

Now I can see them Sam! Although that JW looks like alpha-o to me--in Coptic! Coptic is based on Greek but adds some letters and forms some others a little differently. I'm pretty sure you can fit almost any suspect-with-a-message scenario if you stare at that thing long enough.

[neathy]

Initials

JtR did leave his initials...in MJK's body. He just had a really,REALLY long name.

[babybird67]

i dont think the Ripper

left any clues....no letters on walls, no letters to police or press..nothing...he wasn't interested in it. He just killed. That's it!

[Soothsayer]

Now I can see them Sam! Although that JW looks like alpha-o to me--in Coptic! Coptic is based on Greek but adds some letters and forms some others a little differently. I'm pretty sure you can fit almost any suspect-with-a-message scenario if you stare at that thing long enough.

I forgot about Christine. She's another one.

[Christine]

JtR did leave his initials...in MJK's body. He just had a really,REALLY long name.

I know that's a joke, but actually I've often wondered if he did do something like that, or at least have some sort of pattern in the cutting. A lot of serial killers want to degrade and dehumanize the victim, and marking the body is a way of doing that. Of course what he did do is clearly degrading and dehumanizing enough. If he did do something like that though, the police couldn't find it, so we'll never know.

[Soothsayer]

That's a tall order indeed
To sketch the gals you claim to seed
Cause I wasn't there
When all was laid bare
But I do know a squirrel water skied.

Check it out (click) This may be as close as I get to LA anytime soon.

Roy

Yes Graham, he's well wrote. Cheers.

There once was a chap named Laurenz
Or Diego to most of his friends
He was typically mannish
But not the least Spanish
A scouser, a Maybrick - it ends!

Okay, the squirrel was better ...

[John Hacker]

Apparently it never ends...

There will never be an "Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary" because of the time elapsed. That leaves leeway for almost anything to be a possibility. Especially in Ripperology where pretty much everything gets suggested at one point or another. (Jack the Ripper: Lighthearted Friend!)

The one thing that the author got right is in judging the vagueness necessary for the thing to sell itself. It's about 90% fluff to 10% content and there's just enough there so that people can find connections that almost certainly not intended or even concieved of by the author.

History rarely gives us a smoking gun in cases like these. We don't always get them today. There are dozens of famous cases where controversy still runs rampent. (West Memphis Three)

Even if we obtained a confession by the forger and photos of its construction at intermediate stages there would probably still be those who would not accept it.

There is a reason that we have juries. Each person weigh evidence differently and what one sees as proof another sees as speculation, evasion or deceit. People see what they want to see. (Like "FM" for example)

So lacking the nail in the diaries coffin all we can do is to weigh the evidnce on both sides of the question. There might be one or two stubborn people who would hang the jury, but I think you'd have to look long and hard to find people to fill out a jury that would find that the diary was geniune on the evidence to date.

[Soothsayer]

Apparently it never ends...
There might be one or two stubborn people who would hang the jury, but I think you'd have to look long and hard to find people to fill out a jury that would find that the diary was geniune on the evidence to date.

Goodness, Mr. Hacker, we are not used to such well-reasoned and reasonable thoughts here in No Man's Land between intransigent parties hell-bent on the other's destruction. You are to be commended, but given where you have chosen to stand, I'd still keep my head down a bit if I were you.

For the record, a signed confession from the forger would definitely not be enough for me, but photographs of a gradual construction would comfortably swing it for me!

In such an event, the war would be over. The dust and dirt could be washed away from our tired limbs, along with our many sins acquired as the war slowly passed, so gradually that we barely even sense their creeping, cloying presence on us even as we wage it.

I'd be the first to say "Enough of War!", whatever the outcome - even in the worst of outcomes, which you seem to favour. The adversaries who today seem like the Devil himself would suddenly seem as unexpected comrades under the influence of that strange irony which comes about so swiftly in all wars thus ended. We'd all embrace and beg forgiveness for the terrible addiction of bullets and blood. Even Mr. Omlor might find a friend as the smoke gives way to a bright sky, a friendly smile, a shared cigarette and worn photographs of children now no longer young and barely memorable to us.

Until then, Mr. Hacker, don't be too surprised if the bangs and clatters around you are more than mere compliments at your most unanticipated reason. It has no place here, not until one side has claimed the land and therefore won the war.

[John Hacker]

The diary "war" such as it is has been over for quite some time.

The vast majority of those who have taken a serious look at it dismissed it and gave it up years ago. The diary loses supporters every year and doesn't replace them. There's always a new trendy theory that ensnares those new to the case, but the diary is old (and descredited) news that few people even care about any longer.

People don't give up their pet theories easily despite a lack of evidence or even hard evidence against. What we have here is the die hard few that won't let it rest. Those dedicated to promoting their own breed of "truth" despite the lack of intrested to anyone not already entrenched in the debate. Some of us just like to argue I expect.

The best that can be hoped for is to maintain a respectful discussion no matter how absurd the other persons point appears to you personally. If you're expecting to convince anyone else that your position is the right one I think you'll be disappointed.

[Chris]

Soothsayer

As John Hacker says, the war has been over for some time, and many of those who have posted on the diary in the past don't bother to do so nowadays.

In particular, John Omlor hasn't posted on Casebook for nearly a year. It seems pretty unlikely that he'll read any comment you may post about him here. Whatever you're trying to achieve, it may be more productive if you email him.

[Edit: Sorry, make that 6 months. Why do Americans insist on putting DD and MM the wrong way round?]

[Soothsayer]

Soothsayer

As John Hacker says, the war has been over for some time, and many of those who have posted on the diary in the past don't bother to do so nowadays.

In particular, John Omlor hasn't posted on Casebook for nearly a year. It seems pretty unlikely that he'll read any comment you may post about him here. Whatever you're trying to achieve, it may be more productive if you email him.

[Edit: Sorry, make that 6 months. Why do Americans insist on putting DD and MM the wrong way round?]

It's an interesting thing about all wars that there is that time towards the end of the beginning when it all feels as though the tide has turned irrevocably and those in the greater numbers sit back and say, "It's Christmas, and it's all over, just like they told us it would be".

And maybe for the majority it feels like peace, but wars never end, they go on and on, broken up only by the 'winner's' peace and the 'loser's' peace, waiting to break out again when the time demands it.

And time will certainly demand it in the journal war. What you are experiencing is the Phoney Peace which comes about when most of the combatants tell one another that the war is won.

Some of us will take to the hills, should we object to sharing the village with you, and we will wait for time to reveal all. It will do so, inexorably.

Churchill understood this well. This is not the end. This is not even the beginning of the end. But it may well be the end of the beginning.

And when the beginning has ended, the war will pick up again, in small pockets before small nations before full-blown global conflict, and the soldiers of the beginning will return for what they imagine must be the end. Even then, it never is.

For every one of us - addicted to bullets and blood - it remains in our psyche even when it no longer seems in context. The bun makers and the postmen will still carry arms.

We're like machines, and John Omlor - symbolic leader of the 'winner's' peace - is a convenient metaphor for that particular army.

Believe me, he'll be back ...

[Nothing to see]

Lack of provenance. If it was the real deal, it would smack you in the face. Too dodgy.