One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[erobitha]

With regards to the late Martin Fido, I believe it was he who also made two quite important discoveries which are not directly related to the diary, but actually circumstantially endorse the potential candidacy of James Maybrick.

1 - The luck of prescriptions
I believe it was he (happy to be corrected on this) discovered around 70 prescriptions for Maybrick in and around 1888, of which not one clashes with the dates of any of the canonical victims. That is some very fortunate luck. A man constantly dosing himself with pills and potions, yet not one prescription shows he could not have been in London on the dates of the canonical murders.

2. The cotton fields of America
I know the scrapbook very much supports the idea of the Dear Boss letter being penned by Maybrick, and this is where I have my own biggest challenge with the scrapbook. I don't believe he did write that letter or the saucy jack postcard or the Moab letter. I do believe he wrote the From Hell and Openshaw letters. In the Openshaw letter in particular, there is a brief poem of sorts:

O have you seen the devle with his mikerscope and scalpul a-lookin at a kidney with a slide cocked up

It was Martin Fido who discovered the incredible similarity to the following:

Did you ever see de devil wid his iron handled shovel, A-scrapin up de san’ in his ole tin pan

The extract was taken from a book originally published in 1926:
https://uncpress.org/book/9781469610...outhern-negro/

The author aimed to collect and collate folk songs, superstitions and voodoo beliefs of the Black communities living across the Deep South. Most of whom would have had family members in their immediate ancestry who worked the cotton fields. Another link to America. More importantly, American cotton.

That's my bit on Martin Fido.

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi Trev,

I don't know what was in Mike's mind when making that statement, but see the final part of my post to RJ for more info.

I suspect he felt the need to come up with all that extra detail because his first confession of the previous June had failed the credibility test and been retracted on his behalf by his solicitor.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz
I am sorry to labour this point but if the content of the first affadavit cannot be concusively proved to be false then surely it has to be accpeted as being the truth. After all this affadavii was sworn out on oath.

As I see it over the period of time this has been discussed the waters have been well and truly mudded, and many smokescreens have appeared all in attempt to deflcet away from the truth that Barrett was directly involved in the hoaxing of the diary and that he was not alone in this venture.

I also dont think the police did a very good job when they became involved, that involvement was only in relation to the payments obtained by potential fraud from the newspapers when Robert Smith became involved and not how the diary came to be in the possession of Barret.

Had he been interviewed and had made the same admissions he made in the affadavit there is no doubt he would have faced criminal charges and I fail to see that after the affadvit was made public he was never re interviewed

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[rjpalmer]

Based on my own experience, I find it incredibly unlikely the Barretts found the initials with no prior suggestion.

I'll answer this in two parts.

1. They didn't. Here you are straying back to your paradox within a paradox, because you are insisting that the Barretts independently made the same discovery as Simon, when, as Caz and others have pointed out, the hoaxer is not necessarily referring to initials on the back wall. Thus, there is no coincidence to explain. It is simply your own interpretation that is impressing you as too unlikely to be credible. As others see it, the diarist is referring to 'the whore's initial' in front, carving on flesh, and an initial 'here' and 'there,' which no matter how hard you try, is not a convincing description of two initials together on a back wall, behind Mary Kelly. There is no 'coincidence' to mull over, because the hoaxer and Simon were referring to two different things.

2. Maybe you are simply undervaluing Barrett's abilities and creativity?

Please carefully consider the following. There is a remarkable passage from none other than Ike's Society's Pillar, pages 71-72. It's a real barn-burner.

Ike points out that "A post-mortem drawing of Eddowes' face clearly shows an inverted-V on each of her cheeks. Placed together, they would form a plausible letter 'M' which could be taken to be James Maybrick's mark."

Ike calls this 'unreasonable serendipity' but fails to mention another salient fact: the person who first made this discovery was none other than Mike Barrett!

"Apart from that you have Fido's text which speaks of the Ripper "putting his personal mark on his victim's face". The victim, of course, was Eddowes and the only person to speak of these marks as forming an M was Mike Barrett. This does not mean that it was his personal discovery; it might have been Devereux's for all we know, but it was Mike, and Mike alone, who made the idea public. THIS IS ACKNOWLEDGED BY Mrs HARRISON IN HER HARDBACK (page 170). In writing of the alleged clues at the murder sites she says that an M "...was carved on the cheeks of the fourth woman to die, Catharine Eddowes- a fact that Mike Barrett was the first person ever to notice."

--Melvin Harrs.

So here we have it: privately, Barrett is giving clues to how one should interpret the diary, and later these same observations are used by Ike and others as evidence of the Diary's authenticity.

Barrett literally has Ike eating out of his hand, though Ike was evidently unaware of this fact.

[rjpalmer]

Hi RJ
I haven't been following this thread, but can you briefly explain Simon's discussion at the Cloak and Dagger Club in 1989. Is this the incident mentioned by Martin (in an unidentified source posted by Baron a bit back) in which Simon mentioned initials to him, but the initials weren't "FM"?

Here's what Simon wrote back on October 25th:

"Hi Yabs,

It happened at a City Darts 'Jack the Ripper Seminar' in 1989. I was probably talking to just Martin Fido and Keith Skinner (Paul Begg, living in Leeds at the time, made only occasional visits to London) about turning a black and white photograph into colour. I had seen this demonstrated on TV and thought it might be an idea to experiment with the Kelly photograph. During this, or a subsequent conversation, I pointed out the initials on the wall, reasoning in true Grand Guignol style that Kelly had finger-painted the murderer's initials on the partition wall beside her bed.

"Depending on which printed copy (Rumbelow, Farson, Begg, Knight etc.) of the Kelly photograph is examined, the initials appear more or less indistinct, and I thought the best exposure was in the Sphere paperback edition of Dan Farson's book.

My discovery was pounced upon with enthusiasm, but try as we may none of us could decipher the initials, let alone fit them to a suspect. And there, as far as I am concerned, the matter was dropped.

Four years later, in Shirley Harrison's book, this became—

"In 1976 Stephen Knight's "Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution" reproduced the picture with enough clarity to show that there appeared to be some initials on the wall partition behind Mary Kelly's bed, although they were not pointed out until 1988. The crime researcher Simon Wood mentioned them to Paul Begg."

Now you know the story of the initials on the wall."

Martin's memory appears to have been slightly different from Simon's because years later he made a post on this site, and seems to have remembered two specific initials being mentioned (but apparently not "FM"), but Martin didn't reveal what the initials were in case that Simon wanted to eventually publish them.

Cheers.

[rjpalmer]

I also dont think the police did a very good job when they became involved, that involvement was only in relation to the payments obtained by potential fraud from the newspapers when Robert Smith became involved and not how the diary came to be in the possession of Barret.

Had he been interviewed and had made the same admissions he made in the affadavit there is no doubt he would have faced criminal charges and I fail to see that after the affadvit was made public he was never re interviewed

Hi Trevor,

I'll let you and Caz fight this one out, but why would the police have investigated Mike Barrett for fraud unless a complaint had been filed? Do the police investigate fraud cases without a complaint?

The only reason Robert Smith was investigated in 1993 is because the Sunday Times filed a complaint against him for fraud. The matter was subsequently dropped.

By contrast, who would have filed a complaint against Mike Barrett? Who could have shown damages? Barrett had sold the diary to Robert Smith for ₤1. One pound!!

Smith can hardly have had the police investigate Barrett for fraud when he made a tidy profit off publishing the diary could he?

And the affidavit was not made public for over two years. Apparently, no one knew about the sworn affidavit other than Anne Graham, who appears to have shared it with Shirley Harrison. The police can hardly be blamed for not investigating something they didn't know about, especially since no complaint was filed.

RP

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi Trevor,

I'll let you and Caz fight this one out, but why would the police have investigated Mike Barrett for fraud unless a complaint had been filed? Do the police investigate fraud cases without a complaint?

The only reason Robert Smith was investigated in 1993 is because the Sunday Times filed a complaint against him for fraud. The matter was subsequently dropped.

By contrast, who would have filed a complaint against Mike Barrett? Who could have shown damages? Barrett had sold the diary to Robert Smith for ₤1. One pound!!

Smith can hardly have had the police investigate Barrett for fraud when he made a tidy profit off publishing the diary could he?

And the affidavit was not made public for over two years. Apparently, no one knew about the sworn affidavit other than Anne Graham, who appears to have shared it with Shirley Harrison. The police can hardly be blamed for not investigating something they didn't know about, especially since no complaint was filed.

RP

RJ

You are correct no complaint was filed against Barrett, and you are correct that the main complaint was lodged by the Sunday Times against Robert Smith, but in the course of that investigation Smith would have to have told the police how he acquired the diary, and how he had been led to belive that it was the real deal to row himself out of a fraud charge in respect of the Sunday Times. I would have expected the police investigation to have been expanded to incorporate an interview with Barrett for continuity purposes. At which point Barrett would have still been stciking with his original account as to how he came by the diary.

There is no time limit in criminal proceedings and when the affadavit was made public there was nothing to stop the police revisiting Barrett and challenging what he had said in his original interview, which then could have amounted to attempting to pervert the course of justice by making a false statement.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Iconoclast]

Please carefully consider the following. There is a remarkable passage from none other than Ike's Society's Pillar, pages 71-72. It's a real barn-burner.

Ike points out that "A post-mortem drawing of Eddowes' face clearly shows an inverted-V on each of her cheeks. Placed together, they would form a plausible letter 'M' which could be taken to be James Maybrick's mark."

Ike calls this 'unreasonable serendipity' but fails to mention another salient fact: the person who first made this discovery was none other than Mike Barrett!

Barrett literally has Ike eating out of his hand, though Ike was evidently unaware of this fact.

Dear me, RJ, where have your powers of argument gone?

So it was Mike Barrett who pointed-out to Shirley that the two inverted Vs might be conjoined to form an 'M', Maybrick's 'mark'.

Is that it? Is that all it takes for you to assume that Mike categorically had to have created the diary around such points? Is Mike not permitted to note anything salient about the diary without it necessarily being some elaborate charade designed to highlight his little hoaxing touches? He was, after all, one of the few people in the world with access to the diary when he made his observation.

Or is Mike allowed to be researching the diary with Shirley, see the Eddowes' post-mortem drawing, and see in the Vs a potential explanation for "left my mark"?

I take the more liberal view that that is a possibility (though you are right, I hadn't recalled this being of Mike's detection despite having read Harrison I many times now). I'm intrigued by the realisation but far from crestfallen.

As I don't believe for one moment that Mike Barrett hoaxed the diary, I reserve the right to not be suspicious that it was he who first identified the Vs potentially forming an 'M' and I reserve the right to not mention it in my brilliant Society's Pillar for reasons of its utter irrelevance to the point I was making. In doing so, I don't believe that I am acting with either malice nor through ignorance.

Can you honestly say the same for your own position?

PS Many thanks for the plug for my brilliant Society's Pillar but - honestly - it's brilliant with or without it.

Ike

[Iconoclast]

Barrett had sold the diary to Robert Smith for ₤1. One pound!!

And you believe that this was a master hoaxer, RJ???

[Iconoclast]

RJ

You are correct no complaint was filed against Barrett, and you are correct that the main complaint was lodged by the Sunday Times against Robert Smith, but in the course of that investigation Smith would have to have told the police how he acquired the diary, and how he had been led to belive that it was the real deal to row himself out of a fraud charge in respect of the Sunday Times. I would have expected the police investigation to have been expanded to incorporate an interview with Barrett for continuity purposes. At which point Barrett would have still been stciking with his original account as to how he came by the diary.

There is no time limit in criminal proceedings and when the affadavit was made public there was nothing to stop the police revisiting Barrett and challenging what he had said in his original interview, which then could have amounted to attempting to pervert the course of justice by making a false statement.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

So, Trevor, as an ex-copper, why do you think Mike Barrett wasn't pursued more vigorously by the powers that be?

Cheers,

ike

[rjpalmer]

So it was Mike Barrett who pointed-out to Shirley that the two inverted Vs might be conjoined to form an 'M', Maybrick's 'mark'.

Is that it?

Hi Ike. You seem to have a remarkable facility for not staying on course, so let me try again.

I'm referring only to the alleged inability of the Barretts to make independent observations and/or creations. This is a separate question from what we see or think we see at the crime scenes.

We were told by Ero (and also by you, in an earlier post) how extremely unlikely it would have been for the Barretts to independently notice clues in the crime scene/mortuary photographs. That it was virtually impossible for them to have done so without being prompted by Simon Wood or Martin Fido.

You said this, not me--and this is the claim I was referring to.

Yet here is indisputable proof the Barretts, or at least Barrett, did have the ability: he was the first to notice an 'M' on Kate Eddowes' cheek. So, if he did it once, he could have done it again with the Kelly photograph, seeing all sorts of initials in the photo, among the wounds, etc. He demonstrated his creative ability (or observational skills if you prefer) to Shirley Harrison privately.

Thus, any claim that the Barretts must have been privy to a conversation between Wood and Fido in order to create the diary's text is poppycock. This is the claim I was addressing.

Whether they actually DID create the diary's text is another matter and a separate question.

And whether the 'FM' on the wall really exists, and whether the 'M' on Kate Eddowes really exists, is also separate issue.

Do give me some credit, Old Boy.

I merely wished to point out the flaw in your thinking in order to defuse any undue suspicion that is being leveled against Messrs. Wood, Fido, and Skinner. It's a red-herring, a dead end, a blind alley.

Barrett amply demonstrated his ability to see and/or to create on his own. We can argue whether it was observation or creation, but that is neither here nor there at the moment.

Do I now make myself clear?

Enjoy your weekend.

[rjpalmer]

And you believe that this was a master hoaxer, RJ???

No; I believe it was the master handler of a hoax created by A. N. Other.

Yes, this was indeed a master stroke by Barrett, though I suspect that he may have needed the hint from Smith on how to proceed, but perhaps it was an arrangement they developed together. I don't know; I wasn't there.

Look at it this way. If I sell you a fake Jack the Ripper diary for $100,000, you can later sue me for fraud when you finally realize it's fake. It will take you some years to realize this, but I'm confident you would eventually get there.

But if I give you a fake Jack the Ripper diary (for a merely symbolic price of $1) but I retained royalties on any book you wrote about this fake diary, how could you complain? How could you turn me into the police if you were only out $1, but made $50 or $75K on the matter? What would your damages be?

This is the brilliance of the con game, Ike, and it is as old as the hills. You make the alleged 'victim' complicit in your con game, thus you don't risk prosecution.

And I'll let you in on another secret, Ike. Scap metal dealers are known for being pretty cagey when it comes to financial arrangements.

[Trevor Marriott]

So, Trevor, as an ex-copper, why do you think Mike Barrett wasn't pursued more vigorously by the powers that be?

Cheers,

ike

Thats a very good question perhaps the passage of time was kind to Barrett. or maybe the police decided to not pursue him, a lot would have depended or not as to whether Barrett had made a witness statement in the first instance when he was first interviewed, which if he did would have had a declaration which he would have had to have signed that the statement he made was true and that he would have faced prosecution if he had made a false statement. If he was just spoken to by the police then they would have great difficulty in taking further action following the publication of the affadavit.

Perhaps someone will know the extent of the police investigation into Barrett?

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[rjpalmer]

Ike -- sometime read up on the 'Spanish Prisoner' scam. It's one example of the con man getting the 'mark' to be complicit in his scheme. He is scamming the mark, of course, but at the same time the 'mark' thinks he is scamming the con man. That's the beauty of it. Who is scamming who becomes muddled, and the mark isn't about to 'sick' the police on the con man since he's been up to no good, too. Barrett later complained that his lack of sophistication in the publishing industry led to him being 'hoodwinked.' This is a clear indication that Barrett thought he was pulling some sort of variation of the 'Spanish Prisoner' scam, but was outwitted by the publishers/agents/author who ended up with the profits instead of him. Feldman, in particular, ended up with the film rights from Smith, and Barrett got jack diddly from the purchase.

I will avoid accusing the publishers/agents/author of any wrong doing, and Smith was cleared by Scotland Yard's fraud unit, but it is important to realize that this is what Barrett thought. That's how he saw it, and he complained bitterly about it. RP

[Iconoclast]

Do I now make myself clear?

Enjoy your weekend.

Okay, RJ, I take the point.

And my weekend has already been ruined by an early kick-off ...

[Iconoclast]

And I'll let you in on another secret, Ike. Scap metal dealers are known for being pretty cagey when it comes to financial arrangements.

Well I didn't know that either, RJ. All interesting stuff.