One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[rjpalmer]

Not my lies, RJ - I don't lie and I'd be grateful if you would retract this. I was simply offering 'my view' which is what you do constantly.

Your 'view' (that I 'rid myself of the tapes' because Barrett is a liar) is blarney made up out of thin air, so my comment stands. It is also your 'view' that Martin Fido wasn't being honest when he said the diary was an obvious fake.

Don't defend these delusions by claiming they are simply your 'view.'

I'm hiding nothing, RJ. How many times do I have to say this? The material is not mine to share. I share it, I get no more material, and wouldn't expect to.

You've uploaded material from this source (Keith Skinner, I think it is safe to assume) on numerous occasions.

What is so damning about Mike & Anne's typescript and the full, unedited typescript of the Barrett tapes that makes them unfit for public consumption?

You might find it rude of me to ask, but surely others will wonder the same thing.

The only explanation we've ever heard is that they will 'only be used to damage the diary further,' which sounds a lot like an admission that they must contain potentially damaging material.

[Scott Nelson]

If was the Diary came out of Battlecrease via an electrician, why didn't Anne Graham simply admit this to Paul Feldman, Keith Skinner, or Carol Emmas?

I asked this same question (sort of). Could Anne have simply substituted Devereux for Lyons for some unknown reason?

[Iconoclast]

You might find it rude of me to ask, but surely others will wonder the same thing.

You can wonder as much as you like but what is not mine to share will not be shared by me.

[Iconoclast]

I asked this same question (sort of). Could Anne have simply substituted Devereux for Lyons for some unknown reason?

Yes, she could have done, Scotty, but it is far more likely that she did not hear of Eddie Lyons' name for a long long time after March 1992. It's also very likely that Mike failed to mention any of the events of March 9, 1992, until he was good and ready to.

[rjpalmer]

You can wonder as much as you like but what is not mine to share will not be shared by me.

Ah, so no selective excerpts from these tapes in Society's Pillar 2025, then. I'll bear that in mind.

[Iconoclast]

Ah, so no selective excerpts from these tapes in Society's Pillar 2025, then. I'll bear that in mind.

You can wonder as much as you like but what is not mine to share will not be shared by me unless I have the explicit agreement of those who gave me it.

[Iconoclast]

I didn't 'rid' myself of the Alan Gray tape (I've spent a lot of time digging through a storage unit to find it), but my loss of it had nothing to do with Barrett being a liar--something I already knew and have acknowledged hundreds of times.

https://forum.casebook.org/forum/ripper-discussions/suspects/maybrick-james/1391-one-incontrovertible-unequivocal-undeniable-fact-which-refutes-the-diary?p=737161#post737161

I thought the person you gave it to dropped off the edge of the Earth, RJ. Why were you looking in a storage unit. Did you keep copies on the QT or did you think he or she was living there?

[rjpalmer]

Hi Ike, just checking in via iPhone.

At one time I did indeed believe that I had sent off my Alan Gray tape to a Maybrick researcher, but in trying to trace this person's current whereabouts in hopes they still had it, I found my original email and realized that the tape I sent him was actually part of John Omlor's "tape tree" and the tape in question was the one where a repentant Mike Barrett tries (unconvincingly, in my opinion) to "walk back" his confession. So, at that point I went looking for the Alan Gray tape, but so far without success. I still have no idea if I still have it, but I've looked everywhere so I doubt it.

Understand that all of this was twenty years ago or thereabouts, so my memory of some of the details is quite cloudy.

I'm glad you take such a healthy interest in my storage shed.

The bottom line is that you were giving an extremely false impression when you claimed that I "rid myself" of this tape because Barrett tells some lies on it that allegedly undermine his confession.

Barrett's c*ck-and-bull anecdotes aside, nothing can be further from the truth. I welcome the release of all the tapes for public scrutiny. Personally, I think Lord Orsam would be the best person to analyze these as he's already shown a talent for recognizing things that others have previously missed: viz., Mike and Anne's bogus research notes, etc.

Anyway, I can't be the only one to have noticed that 20 years ago the 'repentant' Mike Barrett tape was released, but in the 20 years since then the tapes where Barrett was confessing to Gray have not been made available for independent analysis.

RP

[Iconoclast]

Anyway, I can't be the only one to have noticed that 20 years ago the 'repentant' Mike Barrett tape was released, but in the 20 years since then the tapes where Barrett was confessing to Gray have not been made available for independent analysis.
RP

I consider the Gray tapes to be a hard listen - it's a truly dark period of Barrett's life and Gray walks headlong into it via a misunderstanding regarding what he thinks is evidence that Barrett was responsible for the scrapbook (he sees one letter - a 'Y' - in a letter Barrett is sending to Doreen Montgomery, and he thinks he's seen it in the scrapbook, and that's all it takes to suck him into Barrett's terrible undertow for more years than his private detective business could possibly have afforded). After that, he's just the proverbial rabbit in the headlights of Barrett's endless, shifting lies and he just never gets out of the way of them, so desperate is he (Gray) for whatever prize he imagines will come his way.

One of my favourite Barrett lies comes straight after Gray's 'realisation' that Barrett is, indeed, everything he claims to have been - a master forgery:

AG: You said Anne did it. You're still saying it’s all her handwriting?
MB: It’s fifty-fifty.

So, it transpired that on this particular day (November 4, 1994), Barrett was self-identifying as someone who had shared the writing of the scrapbook equally with his errant wife, Anne. Now, why did this suddenly become Barrett's 'truth' which none of us are to question? Well, self-evidently because Alan Gray had caught him out in the middle of one of his many lies so he simply pivoted out of his error. How many other times did Barrett 'pivot' as he told lie after lie after lie? And - honestly - how many did Gray allow him to hand him before he would eventually realise he was being used?

It's not clear when Gray finally realised he was being right royally used by Barrett but it was certainly before January 22, 1998, when Gray signed an affidavit having met Barrett by chance late one evening in Liverpool (verbatim from Gray):

AG: Michael, another lie, you received over £11,000 on one occasion and your Solicitor kept the lot you said, but again you had your share and you paid nothing off your debts. I have to tell you don’t call me as a witness, I’ll help you down. You are a liar and a cheat and if I had my way, you would be charged with Conspiracy. I have no intention of doing anything for you, giving evidence or being of any assistance.
MJB: Ha ha ha, I give my name to History, what love can do to a gentleman born.
AG: Don’t ring me anymore or contact me. I am going now before I kick the **** out of you.

Now, remember, dear readers, Alan Gray spent months and months in Barrett's company and yet still he allowed himself to keep believing in him because he was so desperate for what he thought the rewards would be. And this is the man (Barrett) that Lord Orsam and RJ Palmer have pledged their troths to, having never met him once - a man who lied consistently, 'pivoting' whenever the moment suited him; a man who was singularly incapable of ever once proving anything about his case. Honestly, if you read the Gray transcripts, you'd be stunned at the lengths some people will go to to believe a lie they really want to be true. Let Bruce (Springsteen, bot Robinson) have the final word (from the brilliant The Promise):

Every day it just gets harder to live
The dream you're believing in

Alan Gray finally realised his dreams were built on someone else's lies. When will Orsam's and RJ's end the same way?

[rjpalmer]

Wait a minute, Thomas.

Do you mean to say that Barrett was a pathological liar?

A case so extreme that he’d make a fit example for a textbook on abnormal psychology? A bizarre jumble of pathological lying, Korsakov’s Syndrome, evasion, standard Scouser blarney, flimflam, and a man who is playing both sides for himself with no rational explanation for ninth tenths of his b.s.?

My Gawd, who would have believed it? In thirty years, I think you’re the first person to notice this about Barrett.

This is a major breakthrough. It changes everything.

[Iconoclast]

Wait a minute, Thomas.
Do you mean to say that Barrett was a pathological liar?
A case so extreme that he’d make a fit example for a textbook on abnormal psychology? A bizarre jumble of pathological lying, Korsakov’s Syndrome, evasion, standard Scouser blarney, flimflam, and a man who is playing both sides for himself with no rational explanation for ninth tenths of his b.s.?
My Gawd, who would have believed it? In thirty years, I think you’re the first person to notice this about Barrett.
This is a major breakthrough. It changes everything.

Sadly for you, RJ, your sarcasm simply plays to my argument and against your own!

I am not arguing for our dear readers to believe a pathological liar's tale, whereas you and Orsam (and everyone else who thinks Barrett's lies can be selected from to eke out a truth you all prefer) are very much arguing that they should.

You should think more carefully before you sarc, RJ.

[caz]

Caz acts like these are baffling enigmas and contradictions when, in reality, a child of 10 can work out Mike's train of thought.

First, that child of ten has to know - beyond all doubt - what Mike was planning from 9th March 1992, before his train of thought can be worked out. Even a child of ten knows it's easy when you know, but not so easy when you don't.

It all depends on knowing when Mike first saw the scrapbook. And a child of ten could work out that Palmer does not have the key to that knowledge.

It's called "lowering one's standards," and one would think the Diary Detectives, in particular, would be familiar with the concept.

Yep, we all have to lower our standards when debating with Palmer.

His argument boils down to Mike's standards ebbing away completely by 1st April 1992, to be replaced by a hunch that it pretty much wouldn't matter if the book itself was not manufactured until twenty years after Maybrick's death; if the handwriting was his wife's, who was blissfully unaware at the time of writing that it might actually matter if she didn't disguise it; if the mock-Victorian ink, pen and nibs had come from popular Liverpool shops, where Mike might later be remembered for making the purchases, assuming he didn't go in drag or sporting a false beard; or if the stink of linseed oil on the cover was bound to linger in the nostrils of all those present on 13th April 1992 as the brown paper came off. Mike could just keep his fingers crossed that the wheels wouldn't come off with it, and that the London book people in 1992 would be even more gullible than The Sunday Times and Stern Magazine, who had got their fingers so badly burned a decade earlier, when handling Hitler's Diaries.

Barrett sought suitable Victorian paper from Martin Earl in early March, almost immediately after speaking to his fish-on-the-line, Doreen M.

Mike initially fobbed-off Doreen with the 'I'm going to York' excuses while Earl rummaged around, but Earl ultimately failed to find a suitable medium, instead sending Barrett a useless, too small 1891 memo book.

This wouldn't do.

Yeah, I think we all grasped that much - with a few tweaks regarding Palmer's choice of words - but there are two schools of thought here: Mike either called Doreen before he had even sourced a book for his cunning plan to create Maybrick's diary for 1888/9 [wishful thinking], or he called her, having just seen "the old book", but before he could spend any time reading and trying to make sense of it [evidence-based].

Now fearing the London fish would soon swim, and knowing the York excuse was running thin, by the end of the month Barrett settles for the Edwardian photo album at O & L, having earlier failed, with Earl's assistance, to find something more suitable.

And here comes a problem that Palmer will not be addressing...

If Martin Earl had found something 'suitable', there'd have been the same perfect paper trail back to Michael Barrett in Goldie Street as there was for Palmer's 'useless, too small 1891 memo book'.

Had this been turned into the diary Mike took to London, his affidavit of 5th January 1995 would actually have had real teeth, instead of being like Ike's budgie, whose only success was to suck seed or have false teeth fitted.

I wonder if Palmer has worked out just how many times, and in how many ways, the Barretts have somehow managed to slip through his net, and why that might be, if they both had inside knowledge of who created the diary, when and how. And I don't mean as a result of incompetence, greed, dishonesty or gullibility, on the part of others - on either side of the fence or sitting on it - who have been investigating this couple since March 1992. I mean as a result of the Barretts' own words and actions, which have always stopped short of connecting them in a real and meaningful sense with the acquisition of the scrapbook and the physical creation of the diary from it.

It could be argued by Barrett hoax theorists that Mike's confession was not entirely false, but his knowledge was in fact negligible, so he had to invent certain details to make up for his inability to provide physical or documentary evidence. Alternatively, it could be argued that he did have the means to prove his claims, but when push came to shove he always stopped short of doing so for fear of being arrested.

Mike's failure to prove his auction claims is typically blamed on investigators for not covering all the bases while the sales records still existed, or for giving him cold feet over producing his auction ticket. But Mike could never have proved what was a lie in the first place, and this option is far too easily dismissed.

Caz doesn't seem to appreciate that by now three weeks had passed since Mike's initial call. When running a swindle, one must strike while the iron is hot.

It depends on knowing the true nature of the 'swindle'. Mike couldn't 'strike' at all without a diary to strike with, and we don't know what his train of thought was between 9th March and 13th April, and therefore why he resumed contact with Doreen when he did. It would be a swindle, whether he was planning to fake JtR's diary, or whether it wasn't rightfully his to offer for publication.

Palmer argues that it was all about sourcing the raw materials for a diary yet to be faked; others believe it was initially about Mike getting his hands on the diary and trying to identify JtR from its contents, and later about when he would be free to travel to London with it.

Yes, the idea that Jack the Ripper would write his confessions in an Edwardian photo album in handwriting that was not his own is an utterly inane concept and it is indeed amazing that Barrett would have thought such an idea would work....

...and yet here we are!

No, here Palmer is. He has decided that the whole thing must have been Mike's idea; he has decided what that idea must have involved; and he has then concluded that it must have worked.

There is no contradiction at all: just an objection lesson that a conman like Barrett has more insight into human gullibility than the London literati.

In Palmer's own mind.

For me, it's an object lesson in believing it the first time when someone shows you what they are. Mike showed himself to be a liar, and not a very successful one at that, and therefore his unsupported claims about the diary should all be treated with the same level of caution.

[Iconoclast]

For me, it's an object lesson in believing it the first time when someone shows you what they are. Mike showed himself to be a liar, and not a very successful one at that, and therefore his unsupported claims about the diary should all be treated with the same level of caution.

Come on - the 'Blade is back!

[rjpalmer]

Yes, she could have done, Scotty, but it is far more likely that she did not hear of Eddie Lyons' name for a long long time after March 1992. It's also very likely that Mike failed to mention any of the events of March 9, 1992, until he was good and ready to.

Hi Scott. I'd be interested in knowing if you can reconcile Ike's above statement of Anne's alleged ignorance of the 'Eddie Lyons' provenance with the account supplied by Shirley Harrison's in her book The Diary of Jack the Ripper. Note specifically the parts in bold.

"When Tony fractured his hip around Christmas 1990, Mike became his Good Samaritan, shopping for him and occasionally doing other chores. One day, a few months later, when he arrived at Tony's house there was a parcel wrapped in brown paper on the table.
'Take it. I want you to have it. Do something with it,' was all Tony said.
Mike took the parcel home, and opened it with Anne.
... And then, on the last page, they read the words:
... Yours truly, Jack the Ripper Dated this third day of May 1889.
'I'll never forget Mike's face,' Anne recalled."


Here and elsewhere Harrison recounts visiting Mike and Anne in Goldie Street and interviewing them jointly. Anne is quoted directly. "I'll never forget Mike's face."

How on earth could Anne have believed Barrett had received the Diary from Tony Devereux if it didn't show up wrapped brown paper until after 9 March or even April 1992, at least 9 months after Tony death?

And why is Anne apparently going along with the claim that Mike received the diary "a few months" after December 1990?

Obviously, Ike has a lot of Maybricksplaining to do.

For some reason, the Diary Faithful, though wanting to believe in the Lyons provenance, are exceedingly hesitant to call out Anne Graham as a liar, when it is obviously an inherent and intricate part of their theory.

Surely, Ike must acknowledge that by the time Shirley interviewed Mike and Anne (date unknown, at least by me, but it must have been early on--in the Spring or Summer of 1992) that she was already going along with what they admit must have been pork pies.

[Iconoclast]

Hi Scott. I'd be interested in knowing if you can reconcile Ike's above statement of Anne's alleged ignorance of the 'Eddie Lyons' provenance with the account supplied by Shirley Harrison's in her book The Diary of Jack the Ripper. Note specifically the parts in bold.

"When Tony fractured his hip around Christmas 1990, Mike became his Good Samaritan, shopping for him and occasionally doing other chores. One day, a few months later, when he arrived at Tony's house there was a parcel wrapped in brown paper on the table.
'Take it. I want you to have it. Do something with it,' was all Tony said.
Mike took the parcel home, and opened it with Anne.
... And then, on the last page, they read the words:
... Yours truly, Jack the Ripper Dated this third day of May 1889.
'I'll never forget Mike's face,' Anne recalled."

Here and elsewhere Harrison recounts visiting Mike and Anne in Goldie Street and interviewing them jointly. Anne is quoted directly. "I'll never forget Mike's face."

How on earth could Anne have believed Barrett had received the Diary from Tony Devereux if it didn't show up wrapped brown paper until after 9 March or even April 1992, at least 9 months after Tony death?

And why is Anne apparently going along with the claim that Mike received the diary "a few months" after December 1990?

Obviously, Ike has a lot of Maybricksplaining to do.

For some reason, the Diary Faithful, though wanting to believe in the Lyons provenance, are exceedingly hesitant to call out Anne Graham as a liar, when it is obviously an inherent and intricate part of their theory.

Surely, Ike must acknowledge that by the time Shirley interviewed Mike and Anne (date unknown, at least by me, but it must have been early on--in the Spring or Summer of 1992, and she was already going along with what they admit are porked pies).

Thank you for correcting me, RJ. My argument doesn't hold given what Shirley wrote (and I have no reason to think that it wasn't absolutely true). Nevertheless, I suddenly feel more emboldened for the correction!

So I accept that Anne said that the two of them saw the 'Jack the Ripper' bit for the first time in the house, let's say (for sake of arguments) on March 9, 1992.

But was this really the first time Mike had seen the 'Jack the Ripper' bit? It certainly sounds like it if Anne's tale is not a terrible exaggeration of more or less all of truth? If Mike had seen the 'Jack the Ripper' bit in The Saddle with Eddie, why would his face have portrayed so memorable a form when Anne then saw the same signature for the first time? It wouldn't, would it? So it sounds like Anne is just embellishing the truth of the matter for impact or else Mike had put on a show for her.

What actually happened, then?

Well, Mike must have put the scrapbook back into its brown paper wrapping (after opening it initially in front of Caroline on their return home from Caroline's school as I'm sure he had claimed at some point, though he was an inveterate liar, of course) and awaited Anne's return home from work at which point (perhaps after Caroline had gone to bed so that she wouldn't blab that her dad had already opened the package?) he told Anne that he had been given something or had bought something in the pub (who knows what he told her?) and then produced the package and did a splendid act of jaw-dropping when he turned to the final written page.

Anne - not unreasonably - wanted to know who he'd got it off but all Mike said was "I got it off a mate". Much later, she realises that the story has become "I got it off Tony Devereux", at which point her worst fears are confirmed - she knows Mike has handled stolen goods. At the thought of him (or even both of them) getting into trouble with the polis, she tries to destroy the scrapbook and they have an almighty scrap which (as an ex-scrap dealer) Mike naturally wins.

So Anne just has to run with Mike's ****-and-bull story and does so until the moment Mike has a meltdown and threatens the sales of the book and the proposed film. Anne knows that the scrapbook is almost certainly the real deal so she wants to protect the book (and the film as a favour to Feldman) so she comes up with her ****-and-bull+plus version of Mike's ****-and-bull story, and - once she's done that - she's locked-in to the lie and has to carry it off to the best of her considerable ability.

But she hasn't wanted to discuss it for over twenty years now. I assume that that is because she's tired of the innocent lie she told to protect what deep down she believes to be the actual record of Jack the Ripper's thoughts.

No, honestly, I do this for free, dear readers, but please give me a thumbs-up and click subscribe so that I can kid myself it's actually worth the effort.

Ike