One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[Damaso Marte]

Another odd thing about the 'Diary' is that while it mentions Battlecrease House and (by name) members of the Maybrick family and their friends and their doings, the actual name 'Maybrick' is never mentioned. If, as he would have us believe, Mike Barratt cracked it in next to no time, why wouldn't the writer of the 'Diary' add his name to the production? To my mind, there is something almost quintessentially Victorian, Gilbertian almost, in this. That is: Here's a puzzle for you, here is 99% of what you need to know in order to come up with the answer, but the last remaining 1% is down to you, and it's a hard 1%.

Had the 'Diary' been modern, then I'd have expected its writer to have selected a 'suspect' already known to Ripperology. Druitt, for example. But no - the writer chose as his 'suspect' a real-life person of some notoriety in the LVP, but whose name had never, ever, been linked with the Whitechapel murders. Odd. Even odder is the fact that the historical James Maybrick was the supposed victim, not the perpetrator, of murder.

There's much more to this than meets the eye....

G

The easiest explanation is that the author was already an expert on James Maybrick, and wrote about what he knew best. This would also explain why the author possesses such detailed knowledge of Maybrick, far more comprehensive than his knowledge of the Whitechapel killings.

[Damaso Marte]

He would have had a very 1980s view of the murders as that view is still held to be the most accurate one (in terms of number of murders, etc.

This I have to disagree with. I think that the killer writing the GSG, the killer leaving clues at the scene, Stride being a Ripper victim, etc., are all less supported today than they were in the 1980's. But I'll let somebody who was alive in the 80's as a non-infant speak to that.

What position does the diary have on Israel Schwartz? Does it claim that Maybrick wrote any of the major letters?

[Gladiator]

This I have to disagree with. I think that the killer writing the GSG, the killer leaving clues at the scene, Stride being a Ripper victim, etc., are all less supported today than they were in the 1980's. But I'll let somebody who was alive in the 80's as a non-infant speak to that.

What position does the diary have on Israel Schwartz? Does it claim that Maybrick wrote any of the major letters?

Stride, for very obvious reasons, has always presented a case for debate amongst those who write about Jack, so nothing will probably ever change there, and the diary writer's acceptance of Stride as the 3rd murder victim (in Whitechapel) tells us little in terms of when pen hit paper.

The 'choice' of James Maybrick was simply a moment of unsurpassing genius. It was about as implausible a choice as it was ever possible to make and ought - if forgery it were - have been undressed and exposed in days, not decades (and still waiting, of course).

I don't honestly think the timing of the diary (i.e., after the Hitler Diaries) was particularly relevant. Ten years is a long time to postulate significance. If you want to do that, please also accept the far greater significance of twenty years in publication and not 'unmasked' as a fraud.

The diary is time after time a record of the man's feelings - so 'positions on Schwartz' are going to come up short. The author has focused on where his heart lay rather than where his head lay. He clearly feels no need to prove the diary is authentic by adding in details which can be checked. In this respect the 'forger' has saved himself or herself a lot of unnecessary work because - of course - if a fact is included in the diary which can be checked and confirmed in 1993 then self-evidently this could also have been true of a forger a few months or years earlier. Clever boy, I say.

That notwithstanding, the diary - despite frequent claims to the contrary - does provide us with thought-provoking insights:

• The 'v' cuts in Eddowes' cheeks were not common knowledge until after the diary was revealed to the world.
• The red leather cigarette case may very well be the killer's not Eddowes' and would certainly help to explain why she pawned her old man's boots rather than a leather cigarette case.
• Like it or hate it, the diary has given a brilliant explanation for the GSG.

There is so much more to this diary than is generally commented on here. It has a perfectly acceptable provenance back to Battlecrease House. The Barrett's origin stories are consistent (if 18 months apart, and arguably untrue, designed to cover up something more nefarious around the origin of the diary?). The book is authentic Victorian. The ink is authentic Victorian. There is not a flaw in its pages, despite many an attempt to claim so.

The case remains unproven. Not dead.

Gladiator

[Jonathan H]

Just so we are clear, you believe it is a coincidence?

[Gladiator]

Just so we are clear, you believe it is a coincidence?

No, I don't class ten years distance between two events as a coincidence. That would imply that I felt that everything which followed something was a coincidence.

One just came after the other, ten years apart. It's quite common. You'll find that buses often do it. They were neither causally nor coincidentally linked. They just didn't happen at the exact same moment.

[Jonathan H]

Just to be clear, you are arguing that it is not a coincidence that the Hitler 'Diaries' of 1983, the biggest scoop of the century until, five minutes later, they were exposed as crude fakes because the forger had not bothered (because it began as a minor hoax) to make sure that the physical materials involved were of the right period.

Everybody could read learn had gone wrong for the forgery in the media.

And then, less than a decade later, the Ripper's 'Diary' turns up and though the people involved are dodgy, the provenance is totally lacking and there are internal bits which come from a previous, modern hoaxer, the forensics showed that the materials were the correct era.

Actually ... we agree. I do not think that is a coincidence either.

[Gladiator]

Actually ... we agree. I do not think that is a coincidence either.

We definitely don't agree. There is no evidence of a causal or coincidental association between the two. One just happened a long time after the other.

To cite the 1959 verses as evidence of a hoax is puerile and foolish (that word again!). It's truly the weakest argument possible and absolutely holds no credibility even amongst serious diary debunkers.

This doesn't surprise me because you, of course, have read nothing of the case bar 'a few articles'.

[Jonathan H]

You haven't got a clue have you, you poor devil?

No, it's not a coincidence, that's for sure, that a 'diary' by an infamous monster crashed and burned as a fake, and then, less than a decade later, another 'diary' of an infamous monster also crashed and burned, though far less spectacularly because it was so much more puerile, foolish and pathetic-- but they did learn a couple of things from the first debacle.

I'll leave you to your faith. I appreciate how important it is. I've just 'read a few articles', so I am easily elbowed aside.

[Kaz]

Why is Anne's explanation to the source of the diary debunked so easily?

If you do how many people are you calling 'Liars'?


If I or my children were related (however tenuously) to JTR I'd not make it public knowledge, would you?

[Jonathan H]

That 'explanation', as President Lyndon B. Johnson used to say, is like Granma's nightshirt--it covers everything.

And if we are going to revert to Stage Two of Fakes-R-Us (see earlier post) do you want me to Youtube for you the people who say that their deceased fathers told them that they handled alien debris--or how about aliens--while on duty for the Army-Airforce at Roswell in the 1940's?

They too become very indignant and very shrill about being accused of deceit?

[Kaz]

That 'explanation', as President Lyndon B. Johnson used to say, is like Granma's nightshirt--it covers everything.

And if we are going to revert to Stage Two of Fakes-R-Us (see earlier post) do you want me to Youtube for you the people who say that their deceased fathers told them that they handled alien debris--or how about aliens--while on duty for the Army-Airforce at Roswell in the 1940's?

They too become very indignant and very shrill about being accused of deceit?

Just out of interest, did you ever call feldman a liar or a fraud to his face?

[Jonathan H]

What on earth makes you think I have ever met him?

Oh I forgot this the Roswell litmus test, isn't it?

How dare you call these fine, upstanding people liars. I'll bet you would not have the courage to do it to heir face, you gutless swine!

I never said 'Feldman'. Never gave him a thought.

But you did.

Are you familiar with the psychological phenomenon known as Projection?

[Kaz]

Its a fair comment to make, you're here claiming the provenance to be all bullshit, so you are calling MANY people liars and frauds.

If the source of the diary is your biggest issue at least have the balls to defend your standpoint.

[Jonathan H]

So you just do again what I said you were doing, eg. Stage 2:

The man-up-you-coward defense-offense.

Are you familiar with irony?

All I know is that the person from whom the fake originated at one point signed a stat. dec. that he forged it and his partner's counter-explanation to quash that debacle reminds me of the LBJ quote.

Like all people taken in you are incredibly passive-aggressive to not face such a notion, and use rhetoric, like above, to shut down debates.

[Gladiator]

Its a fair comment to make, you're here claiming the provenance to be all bullshit, so you are calling MANY people liars and frauds.

If the source of the diary is your biggest issue at least have the balls to defend your standpoint.

Oh Lord, don't encourage him Kaz. We'll get a diatribe full of portentous references to stuff most of us know little about - seeing conspiracy and fraud in everything around him.

He had boiled eggs for breakfast, Sikert-style. His trousers were creased, that was Dickensian. The weather was a Picasso. And his car was derivative of Mr Bean.

All entirely irrelevant, but dressed up in 'argument' even though no-one has the foggiest what he's on about. As long as he slips in a 'clever reference', he's in his element.

In his world, there are no uncertainties, but many hoaxes and fraudsters waiting around every street corner.

He's actually the poster I like least on this Casebook because he can't make a simple argument, simply.

The socialist in me hates the pretensions.

Gladiator