The Diary

[Livia]

The whole "FM on the wall" debate has always turned me off. It's almost certainly an artifact of the photograph itself and more importantly, the Diarist makes no claim whatsoever of leaving "FM" "F" or "M" anywhere in the room or on Kelly. It's just not in the text.

True, there is no reference to "FM" or "F" or "M". But the diarist
does say he's left his mark.

But how coincidental is it that of all the letter
combinations possible in a 26 character alphabet, 1,352
to be exact (if my math is correct), that those two
particular letters were chosen? And if they are some
sort of photographic artifact, why does nothing of
the sort appear in the photo of the table with the
viscera piled on it? Presumably both pictures were
taken with the same camera at the same time, by
the same photographer.

And then there's this:

New York Times November 10, 1888
LONDON'S SMALL POLICE FORCE.


Anothor murder by the Whitechapel assassin is reported, and unless he
becomes alarmed and abandons his project, as announced in writing near
the body of one of his victims, of making the number of his atrocious
crimes an even score, and then giving himself up to the police, many
more will apparently follow, as the London police seem absolutely
powerless to put an end to these mysterious crimes....


Brooklyn Eagle Tuesday December 28, 1897

Circumstantial Evidence
An interesting story of the "Jack the Ripper" Murder


A chat about circumstantial testimony in murder cases,
apropos of the Luetgert case, brings to mind a remarkable
instance of the fallibility of human testimony as regards
the identification of the human body, of more recent date
than any instance quoted yesterday. It is part of the history
of that remarkable series of atrocious muders committed in the
Whitechapel district of London, in the autumn of 1888, by a man
who is known indefinitely in criminal annals as "Jack the Ripper".
His fourth victim was a widow named Mary Ann Chapman. Her mutiliated
body was found at daylight in the yard of a house in Hanbury
Street. On the shutter of the adjoining dwelling there was found
scribbled with challk the following message from the mysterious
assassin: "I have murdered four, and will murder sixteen more before
I surrender myself to the police." Sir Charles Warren, who was in
charge of the Scotland Yard detective force, caused this prophecy
to be erased and was subsequently severely criticised for having done
so without securing a photographic reproduction of the murderer's
handwriting..."



Shirley Harrison The American connection p. 168

Quoted from the New York World November 10, 1888

"...Profiting from the previous blunders the police called
a photographer to take pictures of the room before the body
was removed. This gives rise to a report that there was
more handwriting on the wall, though three or four people
who were allowed to enter the room say they did not observe
it. But possibly they were too excited to notice such details..."


So apparently there were contemporaneous reports that
someone was writing on walls at the crime scenes during
the autumn of 1888.

FWIW

Liv

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

True, there is no reference to "FM" or "F" or "M". But the diarist
does say he's left his mark.

Thanks as always for another insightful post, Livia. And as I haven't thanked you on Casebook, let me again say that without your help I'd have had a far inferior presentation to make at York. I'm going to be putting up our notes at the Forums and then the Casebook Wiki at some point.

I am packing to go up to a grad school reunion (30th.....sigh.....) and don't have time to fact check but wasn't the coroner's jury brought to Miller's Court to see the room for themselves? That might bolster the argument that there was something worth seeing there.

But I do think it important to make clear what the Diarist does and doesn't claim. There's enough force field distortion around this thing as it is.

[Roy Corduroy]

Bob, or anyone. Is the diary handwriting James Maybrick's? Knowledgeable posters here have said no. But I neglected to ask them the source of that decsion.

Has it been subjected to handwriting analysis and if so by whom, when was that, and what was the result?

Because I don't know that. There' been so much about it, and its so long ago I read it, I honestly can't say.

Roy

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

Bob, or anyone. Is the diary handwriting James Maybrick's? Knowledgeable posters here have said no. But I neglected to ask them the source of that decsion.

At York I put up a slide showing several handwriting samples from within the Diary itself. I'm not implying there was more than one Diarist, just showing the Diarist's handwriting varies wildly within the text itself. (Facsimiles don't do it justice - which is why I am glad we were able to bring the Diary to York.)

I'm not an expert but I would say that the Diary handwriting does not match the samples we have of James Maybrick's hand. Which is why active research is looking at residents of Battlecrease and the adjoining house over the years for potential matches.

When I first started pulling together material for my talk I kept asking myself who would want to bother with doing a hatchet job on Sir Jim posthumously? Now I think in terms of "who wouldn't have"? As Caz put it on the moderated JTRForums threads, "Everything Maybrick touched turned to dust." It's one of the reasons I believe that to come to grips with the Diary and the Watch one needs to immerse oneself in the actual Maybrick case.

[Scott Nelson]

Well, you do have George Grossmith. MMO.

[Iain Wilson]

Which is why active research is looking at residents of Battlecrease and the adjoining house over the years for potential matches.

Bravo.

[Iain Wilson]

that remark actually made me wee a little !

My question was obviously rhetorical ;-)

[DVV]

I used to believe in Maybrick until I read the Abberline diary.

[Simon Wood]

Hi DVV,

I have always been a fan of Mrs. Dale's Diary*.

She was forever having trouble with Jim.

Regards,

Simon

*A reference that only True Brits of a certain age will fully comprehend.

[Cogidubnus]

She was forever having trouble with Jim.

A phrase the BBC are frantically trying to forget right now...

Dave

[Simon Wood]

Hi Dave,

Jim who?

Regards,

Simon

[Admin]

Posters are asked to read Major Rule #8 and abide by it on the Diary (and all) threads. Thank you.

[Archaic]

re: The Chemise

Just answer one simple question, Phil: how do you think the chemise got where it is? You will agree that it did not materialise from nowhere, yes? Or that it grew little legs and walked there of its own accord? So how did it get there?

Hi Tempus.

Not to speak for Phil, but you asked questions about the chemise earlier on this thread. I attempted to answer them in post #210 on pg 21.

Just curious whether you read it, and if you have any response?

Thank you,
Archaic

[Steven Russell]

just asking a question here:

1. what side of the bed do you think the killer was stood when he made these F and M marks ? because the way i see it, they kind of lend themselves to being seen in their glory from the other side of the bed more than for the person who surveys the scene or photographs it. Just an observation !

2. and should that be the case, there doesnt appear to be much room on that side of the bed. Now he may have possibly been sat on top of her as he did this of course, but looking at the mess of the body, this could have been a bit tricky. The F would be difficult to carve in the flesh from the more roomy side of the bed, because if you look at it, it is technically back to front if this was the case.

Hello, Jason.
I think the killer could have made the F on the arm as described in post 268. If I'm right, he was standing at the side of the bed nearer the camera, facing to the right of the picture. He took hold of the wrist with his left hand and slashed at the arm with the knife in his right. Either that or he was kneeling on the bed between Mary's legs as he must have done at some stage.

Again, let me say I don't believe this was an intentionally formed F, just slashing/sawing that happened to produce that pattern.

Best wishes,
Steve.

[miakaal4]

Hi Iain, No as far as I am aware there is no photo, however I read the description in one of my books and it said the colon looked as if it had been "placed" there, sort of deliberately, so I looked at the drawing in the photo archive here and wondered why the piece of gut was put there like that, then I remembered it was about 2 feet long, so if it was placed like the drawing showed but was a little longer, you could imagine that with the left arm and body line it could look like an M. The right leg from the knee to the foot looks like a J hence JM. Its is very lame but then Maybrick was a gamester.