Inspiration for the Fake 'Diary'

[Soothsayer]

The content of the first affadivit is very detailed in how the diary was forged.

And in this one sentence you reveal all we need to know about your argument and about your knowledge. Coming from the man who so casually debunked the diary in his '21st Century Investigation' whilst simultaneously publishing the clearest version I have ever seen of the letters 'F' and 'M' on Mark Kelly's wall, I would have hoped for a little more circumspection when it came to the Maybrick journal, whose case has well outlived your own.

But no, in you go, feet first with your 'I've got a fact and that's all I need to make an argument which most others would accept requires more facts to be safely made".

Your Fact: It is true that Barrett gave a detailed account of how he forged the Maybrick journal. Big deal!

The Other Fact Which You Are Patently Unaware Of Because You Haven't Got A Clue About The Case: He got it all wrong.

Seriously, Ripperology really ought to introduce an entrance exam ...

[Soothsayer]

1) And so a drunken man in the state you describe goes into a solicitors and with great detail describes the events surrounding a forgery. Come on !

One simple question Paul

2) Did you help Barrett write the draft to take to the solicitor ?

[1) and 2) added by me for clarity in the above]

1) I assume he wasn't drunk 24 hours a day.
2) Your question to Paul is disgraceful and should be removed from the Casebook.

[Trevor Marriott]

[QUOTE=Monty;218476]

It wasn't the question which needed to be re-worded. However I'm sure Paul will take your back tracking with good faith.

Monty

I am sure he will i have the pigs bladder alreday lol

[Trevor Marriott]

And in this one sentence you reveal all we need to know about your argument and about your knowledge. Coming from the man who so casually debunked the diary in his '21st Century Investigation' whilst simultaneously publishing the clearest version I have ever seen of the letters 'F' and 'M' on Mark Kelly's wall, I would have hoped for a little more circumspection when it came to the Maybrick journal, whose case has well outlived your own.

But no, in you go, feet first with your 'I've got a fact and that's all I need to make an argument which most others would accept requires more facts to be safely made".

Your Fact: It is true that Barrett gave a detailed account of how he forged the Maybrick journal. Big deal!

And that is a big deal in my book the facts speak louder than what ABCD said after the events. and ABCD may have had ulterior motives for their subsequent actions.

The Other Fact Which You Are Patently Unaware Of Because You Haven't Got A Clue About The Case: He got it all wrong.

Seriously, Ripperology really ought to introduce an entrance exam ...

Yes thats true but I hope it wouldnt contain questions on who said what, and what someones opinions were otherwise might not be to many questions.

[The Good Michael]

The fact that James Maybrick's murderous musings may or may not pre-date the style or styles of others cannot possibly be held up as good reason to doubt its possible authenticity!

Hold on. It is a good reason for someone AFTER the era to borrow some tendencies. Therefore it's a good reason to doubt authenticity. I realize you're coming from a blind faith perspective, but there are alternative ways to look at things, Soothslayer.

Mike

[Soothsayer]

Hold on. It is a good reason for someone AFTER the era to borrow some tendencies. Therefore it's a good reason to doubt authenticity. I realize you're coming from a blind faith perspective, but there are alternative ways to look at things, Soothslayer.

Mike

Come on, The Good, you can't have it both ways, can you?

So Maybrick's style is later echoed in writing 100 years later (give or take) so you take this as symptomatic of the high likelihood that Maybrick's musings are therefore immitations driven by those echoes and are therefore forgeries?

Where in your argument is the possibility that Maybrick actually wrote these lines - that Maybrick actually was the murderer - and his style at that time was inadvertantly forward-thinking?

Why have you chosen to use the first argument and discard the second?

A reasonable view is surely that we just don't know either way and that therefore you may favour the first argument (because of your blind faith?) but that the second argument is not even vaguely diminished by your highly-selective viewpoint?

I expect higher standards of reasoning from you than this, young The Good.

[Jonathan H]

To Steve

I didn't take it that way. You were questioning the reliability of statements which are made under oath, and that's fair enough.

I am just trying to ascertain the legal status, or not, of the various people involved.

When Melvin Dummar, a small-time get-rich-quick dreamer, admitted -- and later confirmed again under oath -- that he was the mysterious stranger who dropped off the alleged Howard Hughes will at Mormon church HQ, after having absolutely denied it, that single act of deception did enormous, perhaps irreparable damage to people believing in that document's authenticity and in his credibility.

By 'people' I mean a jury in a probate trial who found it to have been forged (Dummar and his wife were believed to have hoaxed it, but were never charged). Had the case succeeded, and the will judged authentic, Dummar would have received about 150 million dollars (it was hardly for just giving Hughes 'a lift' into Vegas in his pick-up truck. The yokel had --allegedly -- saved the billionaire's life, as the ageing eccentric was about to expire in the desert)

For what it is worth, I happen to accept the counter-arguments which affirm the authenticty of the 'Mormon Will', but the onus is on me, the minority position, to explain why -- since legally and officially it is judged to be an hoax, and the provenance is decidedly in question.

Yet I certainly do not see people who disbelieve in this document as blasphemers or life-deniers or beneath contempt. They may well be right? I just think the weight of the counter-argument is stronger, at least if or when another source turns up to clarify it one way or the other.

Dummar conceded that he had lied about certain things, but not that he had forged the will.

It was, nevertheless, judged a forgery and is not therefore an historical artefact produced by Howard Hughes, but about him for the purposes of fraud.

Here we have Mike Barrett claiming, I believe, in some sort of official document that he forged the 'Diary', but that the details he supplied about the mechanics of the hoax are hopelessly wrong. Very murky and intriguing, I must say?

[The Good Michael]

Where in your argument is the possibility that Maybrick actually wrote these lines - that Maybrick actually was the murderer - and his style at that time was inadvertantly forward-thinking?

Why have you chosen to use the first argument and discard the second?

A reasonable view is surely that we just don't know either way and that therefore you may favour the first argument (because of your blind faith?) but that the second argument is not even vaguely diminished by your highly-selective viewpoint?

The possibility that Maybrick penned those pages exists at the same level that aliens built the pyramids. I don't rule it out, but I'd have to really drink a lot to believe either. I don't drink and base everything I believe on logic. Therefore, I have no need of blind faith. That is the stuff of Maybrickians. Obviously I have a selective viewpoint, but it is based on what I've read. No emotional attachment is connected as far as I am conscious of.

Mike

[Soothsayer]

The possibility that Maybrick penned those pages exists at the same level that aliens built the pyramids. I don't rule it out, but I'd have to really drink a lot to believe either. I don't drink and base everything I believe on logic. Therefore, I have no need of blind faith. That is the stuff of Maybrickians. Obviously I have a selective viewpoint, but it is based on what I've read. No emotional attachment is connected as far as I am conscious of.

Mike

And for those of us who have also read what you have read and drawn a different conclusion whilst remaining open to either possibility until one is finally confirmed as either true or false?

Perhaps the blind faith which you here deny lies more firmly in your self-belief than in your belief about the facts?

The possibility that Maybrick was Jack the Ripper is somewhat more likely than the parallel you draw with the pyramids, incidentally, and well you know it ...

[Jonathan H]

As far as a harmless, somewhat profitable hoax goes which we can all agree is an hoax this is a terrific source, and in a peculiar way unexpectedly touching as the enterprizing cowboy-hustler who came up with the suit and the video and so on, was dying:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Making-Bigfoot-Inside-Story/dp/1591021391

[The Good Michael]

Jonathan,

An excellent parallel. Both hoaxes are harmless. Both seem to me to be transparent, and yet many believed in them. It's because of desire to believe and evidence as a secondary concept.

Mike

[Soothsayer]

Jonathan,

An excellent parallel. Both hoaxes are harmless. Both seem to me to be transparent, and yet many believed in them. It's because of desire to believe and evidence as a secondary concept.

Mike

Simply drawing a parallel is some great distance from also drawing a conclusion, of course.

Perhaps there is more in your desire to disbelieve than you are acknowledging ...

And your evidence? (Or is the requirement for that one-sided also?)

[The Good Michael]

And your evidence? (Or is the requirement for that one-sided also?)

Evidence? It's all there.

Mike

[PaulB]

And so a drunken man in the state you describe goes into a solicitors and with great detail describes the events surrounding a forgery. Come on !

This is the second controverial Ripper issue you have been "personally" involved in where the question of "who was responsible for the writing of " has been brought into question

How coincidental is that and they say lightning doesnt strike twice in the same place.

Just to make it clear I am not inferring or suggesting anyhting untoward I am simply stating fact.

One simple question Paul

Did you help Barrett write the draft to take to the solicitor ?

Okay, Trevor, I could be rude but you really aren't important enough to merit it, so go away and play detective.

[PaulB]

You and me both but I am sure Paul will enlighten us

No, Trevor, I won't. I won't even bother giving you the time of day in future. You can wallow in your ignorance.