Inspiration for the Fake 'Diary'

[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 ...

[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

[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?

[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.

[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

[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.

[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

[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.

[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 ...

[Monty]

[QUOTE=Trevor Marriott;218469]

In order to avoid confusion I have re worded the question

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

[Trevor Marriott]

What was the result of the fraud investigation, and who initiated that?

I realise that of course people can lie under oath, but I am trying to find out the legal status of the claims.

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

[Soothsayer]

What makes the diary a good hoax is that there seems to be enough obfuscation of its provenance to allow debate to continue. The scrapbook is, on its own, a silly thing. The writing is melodramatic, overdone, and not really contemporary and seems to be a product of the 1940s-1960s to me, and something manufactured by someone who read pulp fiction. The real inspiration to me for the diary would be HP Lovecraft and his style of using journals and diaries, in melodramatic fashion, to tell a story. Another inspiration might be the copycat tales by Ramsey Campbell. It seems to me that the believers in the text are those who like a good ghost story and not critical analysts.

Mike

Or it's none of those things or some of those things, and yet was still written by James Maybrick as an inadvertant admission of his crimes!

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!

[Steven Russell]

I realise that of course people can lie under oath, but I am trying to find out the legal status of the claims.

Of course you do. I apologise for the flippant and patronising nature of my earlier post.

Best wishes,
Steve.

[Jonathan H]

What was the result of the fraud investigation, and who initiated that?

I realise that of course people can lie under oath, but I am trying to find out the legal status of the claims.

[Trevor Marriott]

[QUOTE=Trevor Marriott;218467]

Whoa Trevor,

That's a big accusation there Trevor.

Not one to make without supporting evidence.

I'm sure Paul will respond as he sees fit, however I'd be interested in what you got to 'prove' the accusation Paul is involved in not one but two forgeries.

...And we were getting on so well.

Monty
[/QUOTE

No accusation, thats been made clear in my post I am not that daft.

In order to avoid confusion I have re worded the question