One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[The Baron]

Hi Baron.

Alas, their belief in an old hoax won't go away that quickly. A very grainy version of the photo was published in the late 1890s

Further, they are happy with this elusive old hoaxer having secret access to the MEPO and City Police files, as evidenced by the diary's reference to a police inventory list under lock & key until the 1980s.

Imagine what that means. The hoaxer had access to the secret files of the City Police, but didn't know that McWilliam investigated the Eddowes murder, and not Abberline.

It doesn't ever quite add up, does it?

That just shows how silly this old hoax theory is!



The Baron

[The Baron]

Kelly's Photo appeared in:

1. Vacher l'Eventreur et les Crimes Sadiques, Lacassagne, Lyons/Paris 1899, current location not known.
2. Police Journal, 1969 - CLP/MJK1.
3. Jack the Ripper, Farson, 1972 - CLP/MJK1.
4. The Complete Jack the Ripper, Rumbelow, 1975 - CLP/MJK1.
5. Jack the Ripper, The Final Solution, Knight, 1976 [close-up] - CLP/MJK1.
6. The Complete Jack the Ripper, Rumbelow, 1987 - CLP/MJK1.
7. Jack the Ripper: 100 Years of Mystery, Underwood, 1987 [close-up] - CLP/MJK1.
8. Jack the Ripper the Uncensored Facts, Begg, 1988 [close-up] - CLP/MJK1.
9. New Murderers' Who's Who, Gaute/Odell, 1989 [close-up] - CLP/MJK1.
10. Jack the Ripper the Mystery Solved, Harrison, 1991 [close-up] - CLP/MJK1.
11. The Ripper and the Royals, Fairclough, 1991 - CLP/MJK1.
12. The Jack the Ripper A - Z, Begg/Fido/Skinner, 1991 [close-up] - CLP/MJK1.

That means the old hoax theory is based on the hypothesis that the hoaxer had access to the Vacher l'Eventreur et les Crimes Sadiques, Lacassagne, Lyons/Paris 1899, which location is unknown!





Well well, actually we don't mind the presence of those wounds on the photo at all, she claimed we want them to disappear, no we don't, their existence makes the life of her theory terribly difficult.



The Baron

[The Baron]

It has been claimed that those wounds on Kelly's arm were not defensive wounds because they didn't bleed

Let's have a look at the photograph:







With zoom in







We see clearly the wounds lines, and beneath them the blood downward with the direction of gravity.


With Blue scale:









Oh what do you know, RJ Palmer was right after all!


Again! Again!



The Baron

[The Baron]

And if you look closely you may be able to notice 4 of the ripper fingerprints left of the wounds.



The Baron

[The Baron]

Amazing! Look what I've found!

The identity of Jack the ripper!

His initials!








It's William Bury!

We know for sure he is a murderer and a sexually driven mutilator who was around whitechapel at the time and who left there after the Kelly murder!

Outstanding!

Case closed!




The Baron

[c.d.]

So Maybrick is outraged that Florence has had an affair even though he has been dipping his wick on the side for some time. But rather than kill her for her infidelity he kills a prostitute and carves an "F" on her arm which Florence will never see or even be aware of. And he thinks this gives him the last laugh?

c.d.

[rjpalmer]

Finally - one for RJ and his ilk this one - in his 1991-1992 research notes, in the Kelly section, Mike is puzzled by what the reference to initials means and does not even relate them to the crime scene photograph....

Ike, Ike, Ike.

Yes, Barrett is terribly puzzled by what the initials could possibly refer to. And you believe him? Do you also believe these notes date to 1991---before Dodd's house had the electrical work done?

So what do you make of Barrett telling Shirley Harrison privately that initials can be found in the Eddowes' photograph?

The Baron already reposted Melvin Harris's remarks on this:

"Apart from that you have Fido's text which speaks of the Ripper "putting his personal mark on his victim's face". The victim, of course, was Eddowes and the only person to speak of these marks as forming an M was Mike Barrett. This does not mean that it was his personal discovery; it might have been Devereux's for all we know, but it was Mike, and Mike alone, who made the idea public. THIS IS ACKNOWLEDGED BY Mrs HARRISON IN HER HARDBACK (page 170). In writing of the alleged clues at the murder sites she says that an M "...was carved on the cheeks of the fourth woman to die, Catharine Eddowes- a fact that Mike Barrett was the first person ever to notice."

It appears that Mike suddenly had a lot more to say about initials when speaking privately, no?

"are we to accept that...he and Anne...cunningly contrived pages of notes which look like genuine research, but which were actually a smokescreen to lure attention as far away from them as possible?

You said it, not me.

[caz]

And - if it is indeed a modern hoax and it does contain reference to Florence's initials on Mary's wall - we have the problem of provenance if it is still to be ascribed to Mike and Anne Barrett. How would Lord Orsam and his loyal (if slightly evil) band of acolytes explain Mike and Anne lucking-in in this extraordinary way if neither had been in the City Darts that fateful evening when Keith Skinner won the acclaimed Whitechapel Arrows Trophy after stiff competition from Martin Fido, Simon Wood, Caroline Brown (flexing the diamond-encrusted switchblade in her Louis Vuitton handbag ready to claim the prize for herself as darkness fell), and - for all we know - Iconoclast himself (as I was darn that Larndarn Tarn at that time)?

If they weren't in the City Darts, listening-in to all conversations for potential snippets to slip into their nascent hoax, and the initials were not to be found anywhere in print between 1989 and early 1992, then we have a huge problem in providing any kind of believable Barrett provenance.

As if that's new!

Ike

Ooh, Ike, you rascal you. Why did you have to go and bring my name into this?

Sadly, my one and only "One hundred and EIGHT-y!" took place behind closed doors down in cider country a few years back, and was witnessed by just one other, a certain Mister Brown, as we threw darts at the board on the landing of his mother's house, making more holes in the bedroom door for her to tut about later.

My first evening at the City Darts was also my first of several encounters with Michael Barrett, in April 1999, when he made such a memorable hash of trying to improve on his 1995 affidavit, and convince his audience that he and his ex wife, who had once "ruled the roost", really did create the diary in April 1992, while daughter Caroline looked on in awe and wonder, with Creme Egg all down her chin.

I may have got the man all wrong, of course, but I don't think Mike's speciality was ever keeping his gob shut [ha bloody ha] and hiding discreetly in a corner, listening out for hints and tips from "real" ripperololologists nattering over the Kelly crime scene photo, so he could add a dash and a splash of bloody pazzazz to the funny little rhymes he was working on.

RJ will be more than happy to agree with my analysis, because in order to keep up his confidence levels in the Barretts' hoaxing abilities, he can't be doing with what Simon says, and will instead opt for the total ignorance joker, which allows Mike and Anne to have writ wot they wrot without seeing no letters writ large on no walls.

I can't say I blame RJ, given Simon's ongoing track record for "now I see it, now I don't". Perhaps Simon thought for one terrifying moment that he was at the City Darts to play Catchphrase, and felt compelled to "Say what you see", until Martin Fido kindly pointed out that it was Bullseye, so he was able to deny seeing anything and go for the speed boat - which turned into a sports car when he failed to see the dartboard.

Love,

Caz
X

[The Baron]

This is Kelly's photograph that was published in: Vacher l'Eventreur et les Crimes Sadiques, Lacassagne, Lyons/Paris 1899


Page 271:






Now how the hell was our old hoaxer able to recognise an 'F' on Kelly's arm in this photo?!





The Baron

[caz]

Simon tells us they could NOT decipher the initials. It was only later, after Fido was studying the Maybrick Diary, that he suggested they could be interpreted as FM, based on the diary's passage.

I'm just trying to figure this out logically, RJ, as much for Simon's sake as anyone's.

Simon looked at the photo over a jar in the pub and saw what he thought looked like initials. He mentioned this to Martin Fido and Keith, but Keith was paying more attention to Busty Bertha the barmaid's pickled eggs.

When Simon looked again a little later on, the initials he initially saw [or "seen" for any Scousers reading along] were no more, and he concluded that he must have been, er, "seeing things", I think is the usual expression in such cases.

So maybe I'm missing something too, but was it strictly necessary for Simon to point out that invisible initials don't tend to lend themselves to being easily deciphered?

I feel like I'm having a dream in which my cat Monty is telling me that we can't decipher what it was he just ate in front of me, whiskers, tail and all, because he didn't actually bring the small mouse home to begin with.

And no, I haven't been at the cheese.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

At the risk of creating multiple themes when I have just argued we should be sticking to one for now, it is nevertheless important to address this point before it drifts. Simon is not referring to a 'Mr Big'. He is referring to the person he believes was responsible for creating the diary but he seems loathe to name names, but it's evidently not Mike Barrett otherwise one assumes he would just say so (he'd be on very safe ground on the Casebook, that's for sure).

RJ, you have stated that Mike Barrett wrote the diary (so it might be this is why you have dismissed the names of three different Ripperologists, Paul Feldman and Simon himself) without doing a proper investigation or at least one commensurate with the attention you have paid to Mike Barrett's surreal and vacillating account of how he did or did not create a hoax? So could you expand on the background to the reasons why these people fell under suspicion? Who raised the suspicion and when?

Was it Melvin Harris who raised the suspicion back in December 1993 when he is quoted in the Evening Standard predicting that the identities of the forgers would soon be revealed? Did Melvin Harris have in mind the three Ripperologists, Paul Feldman and Simon Wood? (IIRC, Harris may have had in mind Barrett, Devereux, and Kane, but I'd be interested in whether he actually meant someone somewhat better known in Ripperology circles.)

It does seem to be altogether unsatisfactory that so much mud has been slung at named or unnamed hoaxers without any proper evidence to support these claims.

I wonder when Melvin Harris first accused the Evening Standard of misquoting him? Was it before or after he learned who Mike Barrett had, or had not, identified as the fraudsters in his affidavit of January 5 1995, as tidied and typed up by his new best friend, Alan Gray?

Poor RJ. I almost feel for him as he battles with other 'anti-diarists' to keep the Barretts at top spot in the hit parade come Christmas week.

Turkey and a good old stuffing anyone?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Do you mean unsatisfactory like the mud that is continually slung at Eddie Lyons and other members of the working crew who is accused of theft and complicity to theft and of continual lying and maintaining falsehoods - without proper evidence to support those allegations?

Were the electricians who initially spoke to Paul Feldman, and to one another, and to their boss Colin Rhodes, and to Paul Dodd, and to Scotland Yard, and later to various other researchers, all giving a truthful account concerning the old book? What do you reckon, Kattrup?

Remember, you can only go by what the people directly concerned have actually stated on the record, and that applies to us all.

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

Ike, Ike, Ike.

RJ, RJ, RJ.

Yes, Barrett is terribly puzzled by what the initials could possibly refer to. And you believe him? Do you also believe these notes date to 1991---before Dodd's house had the electrical work done?

I wish there was a definitive way of working this out. If Mike's notes were genuinely dated to August 1991, then that blows the Miraculous Day provenance out of the window, but doesn't then tell us whether his notes were genuine (and that he was genuinely researching the potential truth of the document he had in his possession) or if they were genuine (by way of research for a hoax), or else were hoaxed before Summer 1992 when he first gave them to Shirley (to support the provenance he first gave). The date on his notes ('August 1991' onwards) could be true or could be false, there is no way of knowing that I can think of. I am struck (whenever I think of this date) that this was the month that Tony D died so does that mean anything or - in Bongoworld - does it mean nothing whatsoever? If we knew that he and/or Anne took out library books on the Ripper during the period he claimed (1991), that would obviously be very strong proof that the Battlecrease provenance was almost certainly wrong but not much more than that, sadly. Like everything else in this tortured case, nothing is easily comprehended.

So what do you make of Barrett telling Shirley Harrison privately that initials can be found in the Eddowes' photograph?

Not sure that he did, did he? Did he actually say he noticed the Vs in a photograph or was it after the hospital sketch was uncovered that he pointed this out to Shirley? I don’t know either way, and I had not clocked that he even had despite reading Harrison 1 many times. It’s not as suss as his finding the Crashaw quotation if one has a suspicious mind.

The Baron already reposted Melvin Harris's remarks on this:
"Apart from that you have Fido's text which speaks of the Ripper "putting his personal mark on his victim's face". The victim, of course, was Eddowes and the only person to speak of these marks as forming an M was Mike Barrett. This does not mean that it was his personal discovery; it might have been Devereux's for all we know, but it was Mike, and Mike alone, who made the idea public. THIS IS ACKNOWLEDGED BY Mrs HARRISON IN HER HARDBACK (page 170). In writing of the alleged clues at the murder sites she says that an M "...was carved on the cheeks of the fourth woman to die, Catharine Eddowes- a fact that Mike Barrett was the first person ever to notice."

As I say, I’d be intrigued to know when he told her and what his source was (a photograph or the well-known sketch). I would definitely like to know your source for Martin Fido’s quotation (was it The Crimes, Detection, and Death … 1987?).

It appears that Mike suddenly had a lot more to say about initials when speaking privately, no?

Well you’ve mentioned one example, RJ, so I don’t share your instinct for hyperbole, no. And none of it ties back to how the initials on Kelly’s wall got spotted by someone who then backward-engineered a hoax Maybrick diary from that most unlikely point unless Martin Fido was the author of the hoax (and his antipathy towards his own creation was therefore brilliant double-bluff), mentioned them to someone else, or someone else more or less independently also spotted them.

Ike

[caz]

Here is a good example of why I have lost interest, and why any further discussion would be a waste of space:

And yet you just can't stay away, RJ.

"Mind you, some people have convinced themselves that a diary for the year 1891 was considered near enough as to make no difference for a man who died in 1889..."

Such comments are not made in good faith.

Barrett didn't think a diary for the year 1891 was near enough. He didn't use it! He rejected it, later complaining that it was 'useless' and 'too small.' The little red 1891 memo book is just as blank now as it was in 1992 when Mike was out seeking the raw materials. He didn't use it to create a hoax, he didn't use it to compare it to the diary, and did not use it to barter with "Fat Eddy." It was "useless" for ALL of those purposes.

Such comments are not made in good faith.

Barrett ordered the silly wee thing, knowing in advance that it was for the year 1891. My guess is that he hadn't got as far as working out that the diary's author was two years in his grave by then.

Ever wondered why he didn't mention the useless year for the red diary in his affidavit, but just that he - Mike - 'decided' when it arrived that what Anne had purchased was of no use because it was 'very small'? Not much to 'decide', was there? Maybe he was smart enough to know that Anne would have been smart enough to know that the diary they needed had to date further back than 1890, so he thought it best to omit its most distinguishing, as well as its most useless feature? Goodness, it wasn't hard for Mike to see you coming, was it? And then to top it all, he claimed that he had very recently given back this item of physical evidence on the request of the estranged wife he was now accusing. Was she still "ruling the roost" at this point? Or was he just possibly stringing along anyone who would believe him?

As your friend Lord Orsam has pointed out, it isn't the red diary that ultimately damns the Barretts, it's the advertisement that Martin Earl placed on their behalf. You know--the one where they were willing to buy a completely blank diary in the weeks running up to London?

You got the 'they' bug too now, RJ? 'They' were willing to buy a pocket diary for the year 1891 in the weeks running up to London? If you recall, there is no evidence whatsoever that Anne knew what Mike had ordered until he went down as a 'late payer' and she ended up buying it after London. If she knew by then that she had just bought a pocket diary for the year 1891, there is nothing to suggest she knew about its arrival. Had she known all about it, and that Mike had ordered it for their Maybrick hoax, do you honestly think she'd have left it around the house and eventually paid £25 for it, when she could have sent it back by return of post, with a note to say it wasn't what her daft husband had requested?

[rjpalmer]

Barrett ordered the silly wee thing, knowing in advance that it was for the year 1891.

Here's Barrett's order, as transcribed by Martin Earl.



The prosecution rests, your honor.

The defense is still not acting in good faith.