One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[erobitha]

Yes and completely unthinkable that any owner of that property in the following hundred years never tended to or replaced these loose floorboards

We know it did, but that doesn't mean all the floorboards were up at the same time, exposing the full glory of what there was to natural daylight. Paul Dodds himself admitted he did upgrades bit by bit for budget reasons.

So when he did fix the floorboards, one could assume he did not see it in the darkness.

I guess your scenario works better for you.

[Iconoclast]

Oh God, here we go again with the wishing-away-anything-we-don't-like-and-which-doesn't-work-for-our-argument ...

Astronomically impossible? As Jeff Hamm once noted, statistics can be "shockingly counter-intuitive."

That may be true - there may well be occasions where statistics predict one thing but another thing becomes more likely in practice (probably due to factors which were not adequately - or at all - considered when the statistic was first predicted). But that doesn't make all statistics counter-intuitive! I would predict that statistical predictions form a normal distribution curve where the vast majority of them (one standard deviation of them) fall in a bracket of utter predictability without any hint of counter-intuitiveness. If you want counter-intuitiveness, I suspect you would have to venture as far as two or even three standard deviations from the mean. And that makes them once-in-a-lifetime statistical corkers, not common events at all.

Once you boil away the rumors and the idle speculation about what allegedly happened at Dodd's house, how much meat is left on the bone?

OMG - the noise from the sirens as the Irony Police race towards RJ's house to arrest him for this flagrant abuse! The above quotation was actually typed - one wonders if truly without any sense of irony whatsoever - by a man who has laid all of his eggs in a basket case (and well-established inveterate liar) called Michael Barrett! He and Orsam wish-away the Battlecrease evidence as if it were confetti blowing in the wind at a wedding, amounting to nothing much at all - and then preach to us all that their Eleven-Day Evangelism is the one true religion! Unbelievable! RJ (on the prayer mat with Orsam) may well have convinced himself that the Battlecrease provenance "has no meat on the bone" but their Eleven-Day Evangelism doesn't even have any bone! Unbelievable ...

I cordially invite you to put your thinking cap on, Markus.

Better still, Lombro II, loan it to RJ.

What is the MOST information you really know for certain?

Well, we know that work was carried out in James Maybrick's old home in Riversdale Road on the morning of March 9, 1992. We know that Eddie Lyons has admitted to having been there that morning (as a casual worker, not on the timesheets - though he wouldn't have known that). We know that Maybrick's old floorboards were raised.

What else do we know for certain? Well, we know that it had been 103 years since Maybrick had died but - that notwithstanding - a man telephoned Rupert Crew Ltd. that very afternoon offering them sight of Jack the Ripper's 'diary'. And then we now know that the purported author was James Maybrick. That's not bad going as 'coincidences' go, would you not agree?

What is the bare bones of this "coincidence"--sticking strictly to knowable and provable facts---and how do you calculate the odds of it?

Well, we know that at its very simplest statistical level, the odds of those two things happening by chance alone were 1-in-37,000+ which is ridiculously unlikely (but still possible). But that's only if it was a coincidence! If that bloke made that call to Rupert Crew from Singapore, you'd be thinking, "Wow - what a coincidence!". Your next question would undoubtedly be, "I wonder if he knows any electricians working for the firm of Portus & Rhodes in Liverpool?". Surely that would be your next question? You'd be wanting to eradicate the possibility of 'coincidence' by asking questions like that, surely? You wouldn't just go, "Oh, that's another one of those crazy unlikely coincidences - statistics being counter-intuitive again!". So you'd make some enquiries. You'd ask where he was calling from. The answer to that was not Singapore but 12 Goldie Street, Liverpool. So you're already thinking, "Maybe not such a big coincidence that he made that call, then". Your next question is did he know any of the electricians working for Portus & Rhodes and you are informed that Eddie Lyons lived with his girlfriend near The Saddle Inn and drank there as did the guy who made the 'phone call!

Now, let's apply a little bit of critical thinking with Lombro II's cap on, RJ: are we now thinking, "That's not likely to have been a coincidence at all. There are far too many reasons for suspecting a causal link between that double event"? If we are, we're doing well from a logical perspective. If we are still thinking 'coincidence', we are rather stretching credulity to breaking point. You decide, big brother.

Don't just claim it is "astronomically impossible"--take out your pocket calculator and do the donkey work.

Check, mate.

[Yabs]

Yes. It’s absolutely impossible that a Victorian house would have any loose floorboards that could be easily removed by hand. No evidence of loose floorboards in any old house ever. He must have got his tools out.

Completely unfathomable.

Yes and completely unthinkable that any owner of that property in the following hundred years never tended to or replaced these loose floorboards

[erobitha]

Do you have any reason to disbelieve the house owner, Paul Dodd, when he said he did the "prework himself" and that the job was not big enough to require a skip and that he did not rent one?"

No I don’t disbelieve Paul Dodd. Because there was no skip.

We agree on that at least.

[erobitha]

Well if he wanted it to be found after predicting his own death, no need to give it to servants or anyone else, he could’ve just shoved it under the bed or behind an item of furniture, but no this gravely unwell man got his tools out cleared any furniture that may have been on top of the floorboards and started prising floorboards up and the whole household was oblivious to that.

Not very likely is it.

Yes. It’s absolutely impossible that a Victorian house would have any loose floorboards that could be easily removed by hand. No evidence of loose floorboards in any old house ever. He must have got his tools out.

Completely unfathomable.

[Yabs]

“I place this now in a place where it shall be found…”

Unless you believe they mean the Diary was placed where it would be found right away by servants who squirrelled it away again or pawned it at the local Formby laundry or relatives who didn’t destroy it, then it was stashed away.

Fact: the Diary and the Watch appeared around the same time after the electrical work.

Fact: no one has provided any real proof that these items saw the light of day in the previous 103 years before March 9, 1992.

Undeniable, irrefutable facts that even I as a staunch Family Provenance guy had to accept.

Well if he wanted it to be found after predicting his own death, no need to give it to servants or anyone else, he could’ve just shoved it under the bed or behind an item of furniture, but no this gravely unwell man got his tools out, possibly cleared any furniture that may have been on top of the floorboards and started prising floorboards up and the whole household that by this time was keeping a concerned eye on him were oblivious to that.

Not very likely is it.

[Lombro2]

“I place this now in a place where it shall be found…”

Unless you believe they mean the Diary was placed where it would be found right away by servants who squirrelled it away again or pawned it at the local Formby laundry or relatives who didn’t destroy it, then it was stashed away.

Fact: the Diary and the Watch appeared around the same time after the electrical work.

Fact: no one has provided any real proof that these items saw the light of day in the previous 103 years before March 9, 1992.

Undeniable, irrefutable facts that even I as a staunch Family Provenance guy had to accept.

[rjpalmer]

You have Anne and Michael coming up with a forged diary and they textually put it in a serial killer stash in Battlecrease.

I glossed over this earlier.

Where in the diary's narrative does the hoaxer "textually put it [the diary] in a serial killer stash in Battlecrease"?

Thanks.

[rjpalmer]

I have no reason to disbelieve Robert Smith, but mentions of skips do appear more than once.

Do you have any reason to disbelieve the house owner, Paul Dodd, when he said he did the "prework himself" and that the job was not big enough to require a skip and that he did not rent one?"

[erobitha]

Ultimately, the Battlecrease provenance hangs on Eddie Lyons claiming he never found anything on March 9th 1992.

Now in his meeting with Robert Smith (as a guest of Mike Barrett in the Saddle Inn) he told Robert that he did find something and threw it in a skip, and what Mike had in his possession was not that item.

I have no reason to disbelieve Robert Smith, but mentions of skips do appear more than once.

[rjpalmer]

Without that you got a ridiculously and astronomically impossible coincidence or you have a Battlecrease Provenance.

Hi Markus.

Astronomically impossible?

As Jeff Hamm once noted, statistics can be "shockingly counter-intuitive."

Once you boil away the rumors and the idle speculation about what allegedly happened at Dodd's house, how much meat is left on the bone?

I cordially invite you to put your thinking cap on, Markus. What is the MOST information you really know for certain? What is the bare bones of this "coincidence"--sticking strictly to knowable and provable facts---and how do you calculate the odds of it?

Don't just claim it is "astronomically impossible"--take out your pocket calculator and do the donkey work.

I'll check back tomorrow night.

[Lombro2]

Scott asks some pertinent questions to reconcile the problems with Barrett Hoax Theory. You have Anne and Michael coming up with a forged diary and they textually put it in a serial killer stash in Battlecrease. Coincidentally, work is done at the house at the exact same time the Diary appears. How does that happen?

Scott suggests prior work and prior knowledge. Without that you got a ridiculously and astronomically impossible coincidence or you have a Battlecrease Provenance.

[rjpalmer]

Thanks RJ. But could there have been a skip at an earlier job involving other electricians, one of whom later worked at Dodd's house with Eddie Lyons?

Hi Scott.

I'm wondering the same thing, though I don't necessarily assume a connection between these blokes and Eddie, though it's theoretically possible.

The question that would worry me, if I was trying to recreate what happened (or didn't happen), is whether Feldman might have inadvertently poisoned the well through his line of questioning.

It was Harrison who questioned Dring. Did Feldman also interview him? Was this before or after the electricians who worked on the March/April 1992 job were interviewed?

We are told Vinnie Dring mentioned a skip and two oversized books with stiff spines, yet he wasn't there in March/April 1992 and he's dropped like the proverbial red-hot poker. The other blokes mention a skip -- or at least one of them does-- yet there is good information that no such skip existed. Where did this memory come from?

Did Feldman ask the others about a skip because Dring had mentioned one? When was Owens at the house and what did he report?

Obviously, like you, I'm just asking rhetorical questions.

[Scott Nelson]

There was no skip according to Dodd. The job didn’t require demolition work or remodeling.

Owens is mentioned once and once only in Inside Story. In the early Spring of 1994, Feldman sent him a somewhat threatening letter, saying he would refer his name to Scotland Yard. We are told that Owens was also an electrician, but we aren’t told who he worked for or when.

There were clearly other theories before Eddie Lyons was placed in the hot seat. Dring, Owens, the Knowsley Buildings, etc.

Thanks RJ. But could there have been a skip at an earlier job involving other electricians, one of whom later worked at Dodd's house with Eddie Lyons?

Just asking about the feasibility, nothing more.

[rjpalmer]

If you really want to know, direct it to the authors of the book you reference.

As always, Jay, thank you most kindly for your freely given advice, but I already have a pending question to Caz (still unanswered) so I don’t want to burden her with others until she’s had a chance to respond.

I asked Ike because I thought he might genuinely know; he’s told us he’s been in contact with Seth and Keith at times, and that he’s been rewriting Society’s Pillar, which one would assume will touch on these matters.

The authors of Inside Story spelled Mr. Owens’ name with a J. Is there any reason you’ve changed it to G?