One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[caz]

Obviously, I don't agree with your all-too-convenient assessment.

From his own book, it is clear that Feldman had a crank theory that Barrett was a secret Maybrick and that diary had come down through the Barrett family lineage. He and other researchers harassed the Barretts with unwanted calls, and in exasperation Mike's sister called Anne in the hopes that she would call off the dogs. Why would she assume Anne had that ability?

Are you suggesting Mike's sister needed Anne's input to prove that she herself and her brother weren't secret Maybricks?

As always, you'll accuse me of 'reading too much into it,' but I recently noticed an old and interesting post by Paul Begg who also found it highly suggestive that Mike's sister would turn to Anne Graham at this juncture--with the obvious implication that Mike's sister knew that the hitherto lady in the shadows had more knowledge than she pretended.

When I get the time, I'll see if I can track it down.

Once again, the hard dates to establish the correct order of events are missing from RJ's sketchy analysis, which means he is also missing the crucial cause and effect factor that would clear up his misunderstanding. Far from 'reading too much into it', RJ hasn't read enough to inform his suspicions.

By as early as April 1994, Feldman was telling Mike over the phone that he believed he could prove the diary had come down through Anne's family. But he didn't know how to contact Anne at that point and was getting desperate to do so. I'm not sure Paul Begg would have been aware of this when adding his observations.

If Mike's sister's call to Anne, to get Feldman's dogs called off, came after April 1994, it would explain everything in a way that even simple minds would grasp.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I can see that numerous posts follow but I can't let this one pass without comment because it is a brilliant example of how RJ Palmer thinks he's oh-so clever by taking the facts in a direction which suits his argument (which is fine), but then commits the cardinal sin (time and time and time again) of then challenging his opponent to explain how they can possibly rationalise his conclusions.

Honestly, dear readers, please bear this in mind every time he makes an argument. He builds it with his premises, then makes his conclusions, then assumes that his conclusions have such credibility that all before him ought to explain them for him.

To be clear, Caz's position made no claims that involved Mike or Lynne Barrett (or indeed any other Barrett) being a 'secret' Maybrick. Her position was quite different to this (and yet perfectly plausible). Palmer then presented his position as if it were fact and thus asks Caz to explain it for him which, of course, she has little hope of doing as it's not her argument to provide evidence or explanation for. When Caz then fails to answer the question, she is left looking evasive when - in reality - she's just confused about why the hell she's being asked in the first place.

It's a trick I have mentioned before. You'd all be wise to note it if you want to understand why his posts frequently frustrate with their twists and turns and his chucking in examples which often seem quite unrelated or even relevant and failure to adhere to logic whilst appearing (on the very surface at least) to follow some of the principles of reasoning. I think philosophers (perhaps one could confirm) would call it inductive reasoning - where you take the specific and from it you conclude the general even though the general may not necessarily follow from the specific and - in Palmer's case - seem rarely to do.

Ike

Good summary, Ike.

RJ may have a fair bit of contempt for those of us who see through his master debating strategy and call him out on it. But my goodness, he saves his utmost contempt for the readers he fully expects to fall for the spin without question. He banks on them being even less well informed than he appears to be on the known facts, and not bothered enough to improve their understanding.

He has shown very clearly that he prefers reading between the lines and filling in the gaps - often self-made - with his own suspicions, and thinks this will be good enough for the majority of his readers, and can make up for the mine of information, dates and context he either lacks or ignores, or conveniently forgets, or can't explain, or needs to dismiss as 'tales told round the campfire'. He takes full advantage of these real or imagined gaps, stuffing them full of his own beliefs, leaving no room for any awkward facts to penetrate. It's quite an art, and really no wonder how he has created and maintained his certainty that he is correct.

I don't even see anything like it with Lechmere theory, where there is a genuine lack of information on the carman and his activities, allowing for the speculation and suspicion to thrive.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Caz - Does the writing on the watch diagram look like Albert Johnson's to you?

Actually, it does look like Albert's to me, but what do I know, and why does it matter?

If Albert claimed that he made the diagram himself, I would accept that. Apart from what I know about the man, I can't see any reason why he would have lied about it.

What I'm not sure about is if I've ever seen what Robbie's handwriting looked like, or even how literate he was. Do you know? Or has it just been assumed that he could produce legible joined up writing with pen on paper, and therefore with brass on gold? We know Mike Barrett had serious difficulties with the former, never mind the latter, and his own claim to have made the etchings in the watch was unadulterated moonshine. But it would have been the obvious first step to check that Robbie had no impediments in that department.

Has this been done?

[caz]

Robbie Johnson's arrest, conviction, and prison sentence had nothing to do with him smoking 'wacky-baccy,' despite the insinuations.

I see. So Robbie never smoked a crafty joint because his conviction was for something else?

And Mike Barrett never knew the joys of faking JtR's diary because his record was for mugging an old lady?

Can RJ now see what his style of argument so often looks like to those of us paying due attention? It proves nothing, but attempts to rule out anything that could get in the way of his own theories.

Caz is weaving a bedtime story for your ears---and, as always, you listen and then quickly nod off to sleep. I doubt whether she knows whether Robbie smoked weed or not, and at any rate, that particular habit is irrelevant to our inquiries. Less irrelevant is the identity of the person to whom Robbie owed a large chunk of cash, as well as the identities of his secret and 'menacing' investors.

But this isn't a real investigation and never has been. It's just make-believe.

It's make-believe that Robbie inscribed a legible Maybrick signature in the watch, until RJ can come up with something more than the rather obvious financial interest, which most people with such an artefact would have had, whether or not they had personally carved the offending letters into it.

It's fine to point to money as a strong potential motive for attempted forgery, fraud, theft or any number of related crimes, but RJ lacks evidence of the means and opportunity in his case against the brothers Johnson, so he's left with an artefact that was shown to Robert Smith, who was going to publish the Maybrick diary, as thousands take their bits and pieces along to the Antiques Roadshow, curious to know more about their history and potential value. Nobody to my knowledge has ever taken along a painting signed by a known artist, to be assessed and valued, having faked it themselves, or suspected a family member of doing so.

An object assumed to be genuine, with a value of 30 grand or more put on it, will in my experience get one of two reactions from the person who brought it along:

"Wow, I'm having a new car and my wife can book the world cruise she has always dreamed of",

or:

"Oh, the money never mattered to us, it's staying in the family anyway, and will be passed down to the grandkids",

and everyone watching at home goes:

"Yeah, right. So why did you bring it along? To boast about it and tip everyone off that you are ripe for burglary?"

Mere interest in the money, or lack of interest in the money, tells us nothing about how the object was acquired, or who created it.

[caz]

A rather embarrassing metaphor for you to bring up, Caz, considering how thoroughly you were exposed in Post #9288.

When it comes to psychological insight, you've shown yourself to have no aptitude whatsoever.

Back in the 2000s, when you were one of the last people on earth to still believe Anne Graham's tall tales, you wrote (and I quote):




Now that it has finally donned on you that Anne was indeed lying on the radio---and to the 'experts' as well as in print---your psychoanalytic musings have suddenly changed to:

Originally posted by Caroline Brown
Anne Graham felt safe enough to tell these tales, and the only way she could have been safe is if she and Mike had nothing to do with the diary's creation. Feldman had dismissed the electricians as liars and swindlers, but if she still suspected the diary was stolen property, so what? She wasn't the thief, and could not be held responsible for what Mike did or didn't know when he brought the old book into their home. If anyone was ever unwise enough to claim that they stole it and passed it on to her ex husband, that would be for the self-confessed thief and his suspected receiver to worry about. As I say, Anne was already free and clear of the latter.

It is clear that your psychoanalytic musings flip-flop 180 degrees depending on which nonsensical theory you currently believe.

Anne lies would have either left her 'petrified' or with 'nothing to worry about' depending--not on Anne--but on what you believe.

The good news is that you can save a lot of time by not posting any further psychological musings. I, for one, won't be reading them because they clearly deserve a very wide berth.


RP

Oh dear, RJ. Or should I now call you Major Misunderstanding?

What did you fail to grasp about the fact that the posts you quote from are based on my consistently held belief that Anne wouldn't have come out with her July 1994 provenance if the diary had been created by herself and Mike, and she knew he had all the means to prove it, if not merely by waving his auction ticket in the air?

So what, if many years ago I allowed for the possibility that Anne's story was true, largely because the possibility of the Barretts creating it struck me as a whole lot less plausible? Since then I was given access to solid information - and no, this was not just about the electricians - which persuaded me that Anne's story could not be true, but I have never wavered regarding Mike's tall tales, and why Anne could have told her story safe in the knowledge that he could never contradict it with proof about the diary's creation.

All this shows is your own inability to change or even question your opinions one iota, as you are given new information, so naturally you see any flexibility in others as a fatal contradiction in their thinking, or weakness of intellect, and point this out at every opportunity, even while your pants are still at lower than half mast.

There was no contradiction, RJ, because my argument remains the same and did not hinge on the truthfulness or otherwise of Anne's story.

[caz]

I think she was running scared because Barrett had dropped her in it, and the 'in the family' provenance was her only way to defuse Barrett’s genuine confessions.

How was Anne's story meant to 'defuse' a genuine confession by Mike, if he'd had genuine evidence to go with it, including the auction ticket and dated receipts for all the other raw materials, and a coherent account of the process from start to finish? How could she have predicted his dismal failure in every regard unless she knew he had no lead in his pencil?

This applies far more obviously to a 1992 Barrett hoax, than a suspected theft from Battlecrease, which would hardly have come with a paper trail, tracking its journey from floorboard to Goldie Street, via Fountains Road.

Anne had nothing to fear from them--either blackmail or instant exposure—because she knew they couldn’t touch her. And why might that be? Blackmail and exposure only work if the party in question has dirt, and there was no dirt to be had--on their end.

Anne must have known that.

No dirt that they could prove, or would arguably ever want to prove. Again, how on earth could they blackmail Anne or expose her story as a lie, if they could only do so by proving there was a thief among them? "Oh, do your worst, chaps. I don't care if nobody believes my story. If they believe yours instead, who will ever employ you again?"

Anne would have known the difference, and which scenario would have posed the greater threat to her personally.

In fact, I find it almost incredible that RJ thinks that someone pinching the old book from Dodd's house on 9th March 1992 would threaten Anne more than proof that she had faked it with Mike the following month.

[rjpalmer]

There was no contradiction, RJ, because my argument remains the same and did not hinge on the truthfulness or otherwise of Anne's story.

I would humbly suggest that you give it a rest, Caz. None of what you suggest make the least bit of sense.

Your augment 'does not remain the same'--you've done a 180 flip flop.

And trying to claim that your shifting position is based on 'new information' is a deflection. Nothing has changed. We are still discussing the exact same events that you were attempting to analyze 20 years ago: Anne's strange decision to come forward in 1994/95 to claim the diary had been in her family for years, that Billy had seen it around 1950, etc. etc.

You told us that Anne would have been 'petrified and shaking like a leaf' had she been not telling the truth.

So why wasn't she shaking like a leaf if the diary came from Eddie? Why did she have the confidence to come forward and tell what you now acknowledge was a steady stream of b.s.?

There were three different teams independently investigating the diary (Harris's, Harrison's, and Feldman's) as well as Harold Brough and Maurice Chittenden. (Yes, Chittenden. He contacted Barrett again after Mike's 1994/1995 confessions and even made a taped interview).

Alan Gray, among others, was directly questioning Barrett---often when Mike was three-sheets-to-the-wind and likely to have made an impulsive admission. By everyone's account, Mike was a loose cannon.

If what you believe can be taken seriously, any one of the electricians could have resurfaced or had been chased down by one of the investigative teams. Eddie could have resurfaced and shouted "hold the phone! I want to come clean! I have a terrible confession to make!"

Or if not come forward, chased down.

Anne would indeed have lived in terror of exposure had all she known is that Mike had brought the diary home from the pub and had asked her to backdate his bogus research notes to 'pre-1991.' She would have clearly known something was seriously wrong and would have been an utter fool to put herself at the center of attention by telling a string of lies on radio and to those working with her. You said so yourself.

So tell me. Why--in plain English, preferably--did Anne weave these fantastic tales, including repeating them on the radio and in her own book?

What was her motive?

[rjpalmer]

In fact, I find it almost incredible that RJ thinks that someone pinching the old book from Dodd's house on 9th March 1992 would threaten Anne more than proof that she had faked it with Mike the following month.

Clearly, you haven't thought any of this through, Caz, and you're back to Mad Hatter logic in hopes you'll confuse your readers.

I'm making no such suggestion.

I'm suggesting that the idea of 'someone pinching the Diary of Jack the Ripper from Dodd' didn't threaten Anne whatsoever because it didn't happen, and she knew it didn't happen.

By contrast, Barrett confessing to the hoax would implicate her by association--particularly if she really had been involved in its creation. Her hand was forced, and she had to dream up some wild story to undermine his very public confession.

And it was all-too easy to convince those who already believed in the diary's antiquity that her nonsensical story was true.

The Barretts hoaxing the diary supplies a motive for her behavior.

Eddie stealing the diary and selling it to Barrett does not.


QED

[Iconoclast]

I'm suggesting that the idea of 'someone pinching the Diary of Jack the Ripper from Dodd' didn't threaten Anne whatsoever because it didn't happen, and she knew it didn't happen.

Our dear readers at this point will probably think all of the 'premises' discussed above are categorically true, but - let me break a few images here - the one thing which seems to underpin the argument (and therefore the conclusions) is that Anne would or would not be threatened in some way if she provided a provenance whilst suspecting that the scrapbook was a knock-off. For clarity, neither can be proven. It is simply another premise, and it is a highly suspect one. Whether Anne was under any threat whatsoever in providing a provenance is not up for debate because it cannot be answered. For example, it might be argued that exposure would leave her 'threatened' by being humiliated (given her claims both in writing and on the radio), and perhaps for most of us this may be true, but we can't know for certain on behalf of Anne Graham because we weren't her and never have been her. Perhaps she was willing to be exposed in this way and saw it as a threat worthwhile enough to risk if it stopped her errant husband from making a particularly large arse of himself. I can imagine her vanity might have outweighed any fear of exposure. We just don't know and we never will know (even if Anne Graham commented in 2023, it would not guarantee that we properly know her emotional state and her motivations way back when in 1994).

Take the premise out of the debate. Whether she was threatened or not threatened by her own actions have no bearing on her motivations for making her provenance claim - not because they don't but simply because we have no way of knowing the truth of it this long down the line.

Ike

[rjpalmer]

Whether Anne was under any threat whatsoever in providing a provenance is not up for debate because it cannot be answered. For example, it might be argued that exposure would leave her 'threatened' by being humiliated (given her claims both in writing and on the radio), and perhaps for most of us this may be true, but we can't know for certain on behalf of Anne Graham because we weren't her and never have been her. Perhaps she was willing to be exposed in this way and saw it as a threat worthwhile enough to risk if it stopped her errant husband from making a particularly large arse of himself.

She wanted to stop the man she was divorcing and who had apparently roughed her up from "making an arse of himself"--as if that could possibly happen!--by calling him a bald-faced liar and an abusive incompetent who could barely spell his own name and whom she had utterly fooled by secretly giving the diary to his pal Tony.

Uh, that makes zero sense and doesn't even begin to register on the plausibility scale. Any port in a storm, I reckon.

It was before your time, Thomas, but Caz once revealed that Keith Skinner had tried to quiz Anne about the diary, but she ran away and locked herself in a bathroom.

That doesn't sound to me like someone who is not scared of being humiliated or exposed.

[rjpalmer]

Returning to my original question—the same one Paul Begg pondered years ago—why would Lynn Barrett (I’ll use her maiden name) have complained to Anne, of all people, when Feldman and his private detective were harassing and probing into the private affairs of her family?

Caz made the following suggestion:

He [Feldman] would have bent the ears of those he phoned, leaving them in no doubt that he believed Anne had the answers he sought, so it was pretty much guaranteed that her sister-in-law would have come off the phone from him, believing Anne must have known something.

Source please?

None of what you claim is described by Feldman—and he was the one on the telephone!

In reality, none of this would be worth talking about if it didn't give us a pretty strong indication where the diary came from. It might not be worth talking about, anyway.

Feldman tells us that when he finally got up the nerve to call Lynne for the first time, he didn’t know what to ask. And when he did call, he could barely get a word in edgewise...

"She did the talking" Feldman tells us. (p. 155)



How is any of the above ‘bending Lynn' ear’?

And where is there any indication that Lynn was even aware of Feldman’s genealogical theories involving Anne?

Returning to reality, what Lynn did do was to immediately ask Feldman to stop harassing her.

Nor does Feldman say anything about asking for Anne's phone number. That’s another invention.

What Feldman said to Lynn was this:

“IF IT IS A FAKE I WANT TO KNOW WHO FAKED IT” (direct quote)

Remember that well.

"IT MEANS I'VE BEEN CONNED."

Feldman also stated, “if it is genuine, then it is not by accident that it is in the hands of your brother.”

(Another direct quote—nothing whatsoever about the diary being connected to Anne).

Lynne then bursts out crying and hangs up the phone!

From what follows--Anne calling Feldy back after a day or two and giving him an ear full---it doesn't take a rocket-scientist to realize that very soon after hanging up Lynn called Anne, no doubt worried and angry, complaining of Feldman's investigation.

This prying Londoner wanted to know whether the diary was a fake or not and how Mike came to have it.

That’s it. That’s all we really know, and it comes from Feldman himself.

Nothing at all about Anne being a Maybrick or Feldman calling to get Anne’s number.

[rjpalmer]

Continuing…

It might be asked…why did Lynn say to Feldman ‘when will this stop?’ when Feldman admits this was his first phone call to her.

We are informed by Melvin Harris that Feldman had gone so far as to hire a private detective to pry into the Barrett family’s private affairs, all based on his crazy theory that Mike wasn’t Mike and Anne wasn’t Anne. Evidently his team found a marriage certificate for a Mike Barrett that made Mike look like a bigamist, though this was a canard.

Considering Lynn’s immediate and hostile reaction to Feldman’s initial call, it is obvious enough that this private detective had previously contacted her. We aren’t told what this entailed, but there is no reason to believe he had told her that Anne was a Maybrick, nor that Lynn would have been stupid enough to believe such a thing.

Clearly, Lynne had had enough of Feldman already, and she called Anne to put an end to the charade.

To repeat, all we really know is that Lynn was aware that her family was being investigated by Feldman.

I don’t think it would be amiss at this juncture to recall that Mike Barrett would later claim that his sister Lynn knew the diary was a fake, because she had allegedly helped him destroy the evidence:

“The Discs, the one Photograph, the compass, all pens and the remainder of the ink was taken by my sister Lynn Richardson to her home address, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. When I asked her at a later date for the property she informed me that after an article had appeared in the Daily Post, by Harold Brough, she had destroyed everything, in order to protect me.”

Let me be clear. I am not insisting this is true, and coming from Barrett it requires great caution, but that’s Mikes account.

What we can be confident of knowing, however, is that Lynn called Anne to complain.

Now let’s look at Anne’s account.

Much later, Anne was asked on Radio Merseyside what led her to come forward (despite being 'free and clear' as you have recently argued) to tell her ‘in the family’ provenance tale.

Her answer was interesting.

Interviewer: So why ultimately did you come out and say, "Look, yes I did, I had it all the time?"

Anne Graham [animatedly]: Well, mainly because of the continual research by Paul Feldman which was interrupting people's lives which was extremely annoying plus I felt very guilty that these people became annoyed because of something I'd done.

Interviewer: Despite the fact that already a book had been written and everything was going on--

Anne Graham: It was the only way I could think of stopping it.

Interviewer: --because some people may say you thought it was a way of stopping it--

Anne Graham: Yes! Fair enough! Some people will say that.

That, from Anne Graham’s own animated mouth, is why she contacted Feldman: Anne felt “guilty because of something I’d done.”

It was the only way she could “think of” to stop Feldman’s nosey investigations---his desire to know whether or not the diary was a hoax and what Mike’s connection to it may have been.

That’s directly from Feldman’s own account. Feldman had not ‘bent Lynn’s ear’—that’s your invention---he had scared the **** out of her until she burst out crying and hung up the phone.

Why would Anne have felt guilty?

Again, I’m merely posing the question.

If Anne wanted to “stop it” (the harassment), as Anne claims she did, why wouldn’t telling the truth have stopped it?

“Mike got it from an electrician down the boozer, so go and harass them, Feldman---not my in-laws. Mike bought it down the boozer.”

But she didn’t do this, did she?

The way I see it, there is precisely one reason why Anne would have felt ‘guilty,’ and it had utterly nothing to do with the diary coming out of Battlecrease.

Isn't it time to put this puppy to bed?

[Iconoclast]

She wanted to stop the man she was divorcing and who had apparently roughed her up from "making an arse of himself"--as if that could possibly happen!--by calling him a bald-faced liar and an abusive incompetent who could barely spell his own name and whom she had utterly fooled by secretly giving the diary to his pal Tony.

You're doing it again. You're adding-in bits which may or may not have been strictly subsequently true in order to make your argument appear more structured and logical than it truly is. Yes, by implication, she was calling him a liar, but she did not actually say it (certainly not at the moment she gave her account) nor did she accuse him of being an abusive incompetent (certainly not at the moment she gave her account). These claims she may have made long afterwards, but that doesn't matter to you because it is better for your argument if you bring them forward by many months or even years, because what she actually said when she made her provenance claim doesn't suit your purpose. For the record, all she said at that time was, "Sometime later, I can't remember how long, Mike started drinking, he was desperately trying to write but didn't seem to be getting anywhere, it was all very frustrating and was making things difficult between us". That was it. Now, the next thing you'll do is try to find other events to link to your claims. So, for example, you'll soon point out that Anne had left Mike in January of that same year (1994) because he had battered her and left her unconscious. All true (so we are to understand), but she didn't to my knowledge cite that as a reason for making her provenance claim later that year (in July). By stopping Mike from humiliating himself, she could attempt to stop him humiliating her and their daughter Caroline. I doubt she was that deeply fussed about how much of a fool he looked, but more how much he made her and their daughter look.

Uh, that makes zero sense and doesn't even begin to register on the plausibility scale. Any port in a storm, I reckon.

Of course it makes zero sense because you re-framed it in a way which made zero sense.

Caz once revealed that Keith Skinner had tried to quiz Anne about the diary, but she ran away and locked herself in a bathroom. That doesn't sound to me like someone who is not scared of being humiliated or exposed.

It doesn't matter what it sounds like to you or to anyone else. If there are alternative interpretations, these carry equal weight. I can think of at least one (she was emotionally ****ed and just didn't want to discuss it any further on that occasion). The fact that you couldn't (or wouldn't) consider the same alternative is all the evidence our dear readers need to understand what your perpetual strategy is: refer to what works regardless of whenever it happened so that the story you weave sounds more substantial and evidence-based when - in reality - it is a concoction of various events not necessarily chronologically justified in linking.

To offer an example of what your strategy causes posters to do, I had to add "on that occasion" just before I closed my parentheses, immediately above, because I could already anticipate your scornful, "It didn't stop her going on national television in 2002, though, did it?" in yet another deliberate attempt to misunderstand and misstate and inappropriately conclude one thing from an irrelevant other solely so that you can denigrate someone's reasonable argument.

QED.

[Iconoclast]

Nothing at all about Anne being a Maybrick or Feldman calling to get Anne’s number.

And yet Lynne presumably must have telephoned Anne for Anne to know that Lynne was being harassed by Feldman (unless someone else told Anne, and Anne reacted to Feldman's harassment without any prompting from Lynne, though Anne did say that Lynne rang her about it). I'm not sure if the reason Lynne 'phoned Anne is particularly obvious in the evidence, but the fact that she did appear to 'phone Anne does rather strongly point to the fact that Lynne made the link between her call with Feldman and her sister-in-law Anne Barrett extremely quickly. Do we need to read anything more into this than that Lynne believed somehow that Anne was in a position to influence how much harassment the Barrett family experienced? Or maybe that she simply rang Anne for a general whinge about Feldman's call?

[Iconoclast]

“Mike got it from an electrician down the boozer, so go and harass them, Feldman---not my in-laws. Mike bought it down the boozer.”

But she didn’t do this, did she?

The way I see it, there is precisely one reason why Anne would have felt ‘guilty,’ and it had utterly nothing to do with the diary coming out of Battlecrease.

Isn't it time to put this puppy to bed?

Yes, it very much is time to put this puppy to bed. If Anne only suspected Mike had stolen property on his hands, then such a claim would have been impossible to back up. At least with her provenance story, she needed no other evidence.