One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Iconoclast]

Just a quick one regarding the letter "K" scratched onto that pocket watch. How common was that particular formation of the letter "k" in Victorian times?

Personally, I have no idea how common that 'k' formation was in Victorian times, Rooker, and it is a good question to ask so it would be very interesting if anyone feels they can answer it. What I would say, however, is that it is apparently so idiosyncratic that I'd be stunned if it turned out to be common by any definition.

If there are multiple cases of the same formation of the letter, then that dilutes the case for the authentication of the watch. However if Maybrick's letter K stands out as unique and no other letter K comes close to his, then it surely proves that Maybrick scratched the watch ...

Yes indeed.

... and strengthens his case as an authentic Ripper fantasist of Bachert ilk?

No, no, no. Proving that James Maybrick could have placed his signature in that watch takes us no further towards the possibility that he was a fantasist because there are no grounds upon which to conclude that. The premise here is that that watch was James Maybrick's and that he was Jack the Ripper so it strengthens that case and that case only.

[Iconoclast]

[QUOTE=The Rookie Detective;n826851]Just to throw a curveball...
Any chance that Florence Maybrick made the diary and had the watch engraved to implicate her husband, whom she would later (allegedly) poison?[QUOTE]

This is old ground, Rookster, but let's go over it again. Florence could no more have written that scrapbook than anyone else in 1889 bar an extremely small group of people as only an extremely small group of people knew about the details contained within it (and none of them knew that Florence's initials could be found in Kelly's death scene photograph). Further, if it transpired that such a 'diary' came out in court, that would seriously strengthen the prosecution's case that Florence herself had committed murder (as it would provide her with a clear motive for doing so - to kill the man responsible for those terrible crimes whose eventual uncovering would ruin her children's futures). So, no, there is zero chance that Florence had any hand in the scrapbook (bar being the inspiration for it).

Was James framed?

No, though Bruce Robinson firmly disagrees.

Florence knew his signature after all.

We all know his signature and yet we'd seriously struggle to get it down into the back of a small watch.

Just wondered if anyone has ever considered that as an option?

Scotty Nelson is our go-to 'options' man and even he has not pursued this one, Rooksie. It's very low on a long list of outlandish ways of trying to avoid admitting to the blindingly obvious.

Michael Maybrick sounds even more dodgy than both James and Florence.

Bruce makes a very strong case for Michael being the killer. He's more passionate about Michael than I am about James. But he's wrong.

Ike

[Iconoclast]

Hi Ike, If the differences are somewhat insignificant, as they very well may be, why the reluctance to just put it out there? The 'mole bonnet' line if anything supports the idea of the typescript being exactly that. Mike read the diary, it makes no sense but he transcribed it faithfully. Can't see the problem with that myself. I agree with you on that point.

I think the transcript issue is a bit of a red herring, Abester. Why would it be needed to write the scrapbook text? If it was already on the PC, why the need to print it out for Anne or Tony or Mary Jane Kelly or Lord Lucan or God to transcribe it into the old guard book Mike had miraculously found at the only possible auction available to him? You'd just read it off the PC, would you not?

Anyways, until the typescript has been released it can't be used as evidence to exonerate the Barretts.

Nice try, Abe my boy, but it ain't mine to share so I ain't for sharing ...

Ike
Otherwise Generous to a Fault

[Iconoclast]

If James Maybrick's father William was an Engraver, did he work on pocket watch engraving by any chance?RD

Not on the inside cover listing murder victims and the proposed killer who was his son (scratched eight years or so after he himself had died), no.

Next question ...

[caz]

The effortlessness in which you switch the onus onto your audience is remarkable, even in a casual comment such as the one above, leaving me to wonder if you even realize you're doing it.

Do the rules not state that it's the argument that should be addressed, without accusations of a personal nature directed at the one making it?

Palmer is accusing me here of trying to 'switch the onus', or being too stupid to realise I'm doing so.

A theory - any theory - stands, unless or until the evidence against it causes it to fall.

The Barretts stand accused of obtaining the guard book from an auction and turning it into Maybrick's diary, for fame and fortune. The onus is therefore on their accusers to come up with the evidence that rules out any alternative theory, including the Battlecrease provenance.

I fully admit that the onus is also on anyone accusing Mike of receiving stolen property, but it's not an equal onus, because there is a growing body of fully documented evidence for this, including the multiple witness testimonies which are consistent with the circumstantial evidence. The onus is therefore heavier on the Barrett Hoax believers to produce evidence [not beliefs, assumptions, arguments, suspicions, ill-disguised put-downs] that is powerful enough to cancel all this out and make their own case stronger - and they have NONE. Not a solitary sausage that can rule out Mike as a receiver and make him a forger instead.

Evidence versus belief. That's where we are at.

"The only reason Mike and Anne survive as the prime and obvious suspects in the hoax is the complete absence of anything that proves their innocence. In 30 years, the diary's supporters have not come up with one coherent reason why Mike and Anne couldn't have faked the diary."

Let's see if this 'flies' unchallenged.

I'm guessing it won't.

So the diary 'supporters' lack one coherent reason why Mike and Anne couldn't have faked the diary?

I'm not sure that anyone will see this as evidence that they did so, because over the same 30 years, the Barrett Hoax believers have failed to come up with is a single hard fact proving it.

I can tell the readers now that they will be waiting for the proof that knocks out the Battlecrease provenance until the 12th of never - and that's a long, long time.

[caz]

Nor did I suggest that RWE's booklet was the ONLY book about Maybrick that Mike consulted. Barrett--oddly insightful--referred to Mr. Ryan's full-length study at the 1999 Cloak & Dagger hootenanny.

Palmer knows perfectly well that there is no hard evidence for Mike having 'consulted' Ryan's book before the diary was first seen in London.

Palmer also knows perfectly well that by 1999, Mike was not being remotely insightful - let alone 'oddly' - by referring to this book, since he had admitted five years previously that he had read it, albeit while claiming that it was Shirley Harrison who first alerted him to its existence.

[Iconoclast]

So the diary 'supporters' lack one coherent reason why Mike and Anne couldn't have faked the diary?

In fairness to RJ, Caz, if you're looking for unequivocals, his claim (above) is absolutely 100% spot-on. Well done, la!

Oh, hold on, but it also applies to everyone else who was alive in March 1992 and old enough and sufficiently capable of thinking creatively. That was probably around 5 billion people?

So did you write the text of the Maybrick scrapbook, Caz, in red and yellow and pink and green, purple and orange and blue?

J'accuse!

If it wasn't you, it must have been Donny Osmond - your last post (but one now) more or less gives it away!

[caz]

Just a quick one regarding the letter "K" scratched onto that pocket watch.

How common was that particular formation of the letter "k" in Victorian times?

The letter on the watch looks remarkably similar to the "K" of Maybrick's signature, but was that a unique written formation or a common one?

If we could gather 100 written letter "K"s from authentic Victorian signatures from documents signed at the time, and then compared them.... how similar would Maybrick's letter K from his signature compare to 99 other signatures?

If there are multiple cases of the same formation of the letter, then that dilutes the case for the authentication of the watch. However if Maybrick's letter K stands out as unique and no other letter K comes close to his, then it surely proves that Maybrick scratched the watch and strengthens his case as an authentic Ripper fantasist of Bachert ilk?

RD

Hello Rookie,

The hoax theory has always been that one of the Johnson brothers - Albert or Robbie - carved the k in the Maybrick signature [plus all the other questioned engravings] at some point between late April and the end of May 1993. This was several months before the diary facsimile was first available in all good book shops, so the hoaxer would have needed to guess which victims Maybrick was claiming and then take another punt on the form his signature always took, down to any middle initial or lack thereof, for example. It would not have been hard to hunt down the most common Victorian letter formations, but it would have been tricky enough to carve one's own signature in metal and make it legible and recognisable, so the difficulty must go up if you are trying the same with someone else's signature from scratch [ooh, I'm on fire today], who was educated in a different age, and if you've never done anything like this before and don't have gold watches coming out of your ears for target practice.

Love,

Caz
X

[The Rookie Detective]

Hello Rookie,

The hoax theory has always been that one of the Johnson brothers - Albert or Robbie - carved the k in the Maybrick signature [plus all the other questioned engravings] at some point between late April and the end of May 1993. This was several months before the diary facsimile was first available in all good book shops, so the hoaxer would have needed to guess which victims Maybrick was claiming and then take another punt on the form his signature always took, down to any middle initial or lack thereof, for example. It would not have been hard to hunt down the most common Victorian letter formations, but it would have been tricky enough to carve one's own signature in metal and make it legible and recognisable, so the difficulty must go up if you are trying the same with someone else's signature from scratch [ooh, I'm on fire today], who was educated in a different age, and if you've never done anything like this before and don't have gold watches coming out of your ears for target practice.

Love,

Caz
X

Thank you for your post.

That does indicate the complexities involved with someone trying to make a hoax.

The evidence from the watch does steer toward Maybrick having been the person who engraved his own signature onto the watch.

And so here's another curve ball of sorts...


What if he DID engrave the watch AND wrote the diary... and BELIEVED he was the Ripper, even down to writing many of the written correspondences that were sent to Lusk and the Police.

A false reality as it were.


We would then have a scenario where BOTH sides of this argument are in a way correct.

Could the truth be somewhere in between?



We know the likes of Albert Bachert had an unhealthy obsession with the case, and so could Maybrick have been a man who fantasized that he was the Ripper?



Of course, believing something doesn't necessarily make it true.



The question would then be... WHY?

Why would Maybrick write a diary, engrave a watch, and believe he was the Ripper when he wasn't?


But what is more likely?

The Maybrick fantasist angle, or an intricate, complex, and complicated modern-day hoax from BOTH the diary AND the watch?
And surely, IF the watch is authentic, then the diary must be too?



RD

[The Rookie Detective]

Not on the inside cover listing murder victims and the proposed killer who was his son (scratched eight years or so after he himself had died), no.

Next question ...

Could his father's previous work as an Engraver have given James the practical skills to have written his signature on the watch?

RD

[caz]

Hi Ike,

It's only ever the 'mole bonnet' line that's mentioned. That an editor changed 'soul' to 'save' isn't much of a issue. If it looks like 'soul' in the diary and it says 'soul' in the typescript then no problems, it's a match either way. Neither interpretation makes sense but 'soul' doesn't demonstrate one way or another, typescript first or diary first?

But how many other differences are there, and to what extent are they? You might not be able to publish the full article but you can release snippets, so give us a few more.

If the differences are somewhat insignificant, as they very well may be, why the reluctance to just put it out there? The 'mole bonnet' line if anything supports the idea of the typescript being exactly that. Mike read the diary, it makes no sense but he transcribed it faithfully. Can't see the problem with that myself. I agree with you on that point.

Anyways, until the typescript has been released it can't be used as evidence to exonerate the Barretts.

Equally, it can't be used as evidence against them, Al.

But the Barretts would have had to be very stupid indeed to let Doreen have a typed draft to check against the diary, if there were signs that it came first and was copied into the guard book, and not the other way round. What that would say about Doreen, Shirley, Keith and others who accept it as a transcript made from the guard book, I leave you to judge.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

Time for what Caroline Brown likes to call "housekeeping."

Tom tells us--no, not tells us---he literally shouts it in upper-case letters--that the Barretts had no money motive because they were NOT struggling financially.

Well, never one to be left behind, I'll start:

1) The obvious one - they had no motive. Despite Barrett's claims, they were NOT struggling to pay the mortgage or indeed the gas bill, newspaper boy, or milkman (kids, ask your grandparents for the latter two).

I'd be interested in knowing, then, why the authors of Ripper Diary: The Inside Story seem to be saying something quite different:

"After Maggie's death [1 Jan 1988 for y'all at home] Anne wanted to move near her father, who would now be alone. Consequently, they moved across the city and bought 12 Goldie Street, exchanging a low housing association rent for a large mortgage (and a deposit of £600)."


"Not only was there now a 'crippling' financial pressure but Barrett was not happy in the new neighbourhood."

I won't color-code that, Ike, nor put it in size 18 font, but I will repeat it:

'crippling financial pressure'

So, let's have it, Tom. Were the authors--apparently working with Anne Graham---wrong in stating Barrett was under 'crippling' financial pressure during this era?

What was this windfall of cash and where did it come from that the Barretts were now on Easy Street in 1991/1992? Barrett was still unemployed, wasn't he?

[caz]

I think the transcript issue is a bit of a red herring, Abester. Why would it be needed to write the scrapbook text? If it was already on the PC, why the need to print it out for Anne or Tony or Mary Jane Kelly or Lord Lucan or God to transcribe it into the old guard book Mike had miraculously found at the only possible auction available to him? You'd just read it off the PC, would you not?

God, I really AM stupid, Ike! That never crossed my mind before but it's a cracking observation.

Why the hell would the Barretts have printed out the evidence of their hoax, in the same form that was used to create it, and then handed it straight over with the guard book?

At least they ought to be given some credit for appreciating that what they printed off for Doreen had to be in the form of a transcript made from the handwritten version, in which case they'd have had even less time after 31st March to create the physical diary followed by the transcript of it, leaving the original draft on the word processor to be deleted - if they had any sense at all.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

And Tom -- contact your good friend, Lord Orsam, if you would. He's resurfaced from the Stygian depths to send a request for accurate information, but, as you know, cannot respond directly.

What is your source for the Barretts buying the house in 1989?

The relevant passage in Ripper Diary seems to imply that it was in 1988--but it's a little vague.

Do you have a 'hard date' for the actual purchase date?

Thanks.

[Iconoclast]

Could his father's previous work as an Engraver have given James the practical skills to have written his signature on the watch?

RD

If he attempted to, Rookie, it's very clear why James ended-up as a cotton merchant instead.