Fake!

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

What's the quote for that in the 'diary'?

Looks like somebody had perused the McCormick book.

Several newspapers of the day reported the breasts were on the table.

McCormick would come into play more for the "Eight Little Whores" poem.

[lynn cates]

placement

Hello Sir Robert. I thought one breast was under her head?

Cheers.
LC

[Stan41]

I certainly don't know whether or not the Mabrick diary is genuine or not; I have no way of knowing.

I do think that the torn out pages in the diary neither prove or disprove the genuineness of it.

I have a diary that starts out with entries dated in the late 1700's. Then after several pages another woman started a diary but did not enter the year of the entries so I don't know when they were written. Then at the back of the book and upside down another person began a diary with entries dated 1802.

As to claims that the Mabrick diary could have been written by a 13 year old in one weekend, this might be possible, but I couldn't have done it then and couldn't do it now. I know lots of people that couldn't do it.

I believe that if the diary is a fraud, the author spent a lot of time and study on it. It is not shoddy work.

Stan

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

I believe that if the diary is a fraud, the author spent a lot of time and study on it. It is not shoddy work.

Stan

It's not shoddy, not at all.

I've revived an old thread at JTRForums on textual analysis of the Diary by Gareth Williams. I disagree with his conclusions, but it shows that calm reasoned debate is possible. And that is what really has been lacking with respect to the Watch and the Diary from the beginning.

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?p=174620&posted=1#post174620

As an aside - and yes they are "pro-Diary" - I would urge people to give David Canter and David Forshaw's analysis and comments in Shirley Harrison's
2010 paperback edition a read. Persuasive arguments IMHO.

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

What's the quote for that in the 'diary'?

What makes this all so fascinating to me is that every time we think we have a bead on a forger, there's a little ambiguity that saves the day.

From a 2004 post by Robert Smith:

It is indeed true that the diarist wrote of Mary Kelly’s breasts: “Left them on the table, with the other stuff”. To prove his point Mr Phillips quotes Dr Bond’s autopsy, which reports that the breasts were “under the head” and “by the right foot”.... The diarist also writes further on the subject of the breasts a few lines later: “I thought of leaving them by the whore’s feet”. So the author of the diary certainly does make a connection between Mary Kelly’s breasts and a placement by her feet.


By all means, belittle the significance of the additional line, if you must, but don’t pretend it isn’t there.

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Take a look at a reasonably clean version of MJK1, the Millers Court victim.

If those really are female breasts perched upon the corner of the bedside table, then I must admit to having been delightfully misled during my various encounters with the opposite sex.

Regards,

Simon

[caz]

Simon,

I don't think anyone here has been claiming that the breasts were left on the table.

On the other hand, I've known people to get so drunk that you could tell them anything about their behaviour the next day and they wouldn't know any different.

Love,

Caz
X

[RavenDarkendale]

@ Tom Mitchell

This is one of the best thought out cases for the diary being genuine I have ever seen. Well done. Point by point you give evidence as you see it, and seem to have a mindset that would not rule out forgery if you felt the evidence went in that direction. I commend you for your honest effort at seeking the truth.

I still have a nagging problem with "reasonable doubt". I allow for the possibility that this diary is exactly what it claims to be. It isn't what we know, however, but what we can prove I don't think we could prove the truth or fraud of the diary without a nagging doubt

Again a very carefully thought out case that you present here. And it could be that your conclusion is right on the button. But will we ever be certain? I wonder...

God Bless

Raven Darkendale

[Graham]

I just re-read Tom Mitchell's somewhat exhaustive post, and although I agree with some of his assertions, others I find less convincing.

What I would ask is: has any other known serial-killer over the years left behind an authenticated document anything like The Ripper 'Diary'? If so, who?

It just seems to me (and I re-read the 'Diary' very recently) that there is simply too much detail in it. The 'Diary' seems to me to be part confession, and part comment on certain everyday aspects of life in an upper middle-class Victorian family. Or is this what would be expected of such a 'confession'? I'm no psychologist, so can't answer. It just seems a bit odd to me, that's all. If Maybrick (assuming he was The Ripper) had been caught red-handed in, say, Mitre Square, would his subsequent statement to the police include such details as his daughter's poor health and the 1889 Grand National? You see what I'm getting at? I've said before that I do not believe that the 'Diary' is a modern hoax, fake, whatever you want to call it; I also can't quite bring myself to accept that James Maybrick was Jack The Ripper; however, I do feel in my water that whoever wrote the 'Diary' knew a lot about James Maybrick, his life, his work and his family, but went a little bit over the top. Too much Devil in the Detail, if you will.

Unless of course good old Sir Jim was having a bit of a laugh.....you never know!

Graham

Whoops - sorry. I meant to add regarding the provenance of the 'Diary', that if it didn't come to Mike Barrett via Tony Devereux from Anne Barrett,
then either Anne gave it direct to Mike; or Mike found it somewhere in the family home or somewhere else; or someone else, unknown, gave it to Mike; or it is an out-and-out fake concocted by Mike and/or Anne and/or whoever else was in on the scam on a kitchen table - which I do NOT believe. I've read all the available books over the years, and it has always struck me that Mike really was telling the truth about how he obtained the 'Diary'. Melvin Harris said that he could (a) name the three books anyone could use to produce the 'Diary'; and (b) the three people responsible for its production in the early 1990's. He did neither. I wonder why?

Graham

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

It just seems to me (and I re-read the 'Diary' very recently) that there is simply too much detail in it. The 'Diary' seems to me to be part confession, and part comment on certain everyday aspects of life in an upper middle-class Victorian family.

Obviously people will have different opinions on this, but I believe many have criticized the Diary for not having enough detail. I would suggest that the Diarist wrote as if he really didn't care all that much about what his audience wanted to read and wanted to believe. He - or she - isn't out to make certain we know we're reading Jack the Ripper's Diary. I mean the nerve of not even giving us properly dated entries!!

I believe a proper forger would have started by explicitly stating the facts of the JtR and Maybrick cases so that we know we're looking at the real deal, and then woven in his personal emotional roller coaster. Instead the Diarist's universe revolves strictly around himself.

[Steven Russell]

If the diary is a forgery, I think it's a pretty good piece of work but might we not expect Maybrick's standard of literacy to have been higher than that of the diarist? Not that I know much about these things but the language just doesn't have a Victorian "feel" to me either.

Best wishes,
Steve.

[RavenDarkendale]

Obviously people will have different opinions on this, but I believe many have criticized the Diary for not having enough detail. I would suggest that the Diarist wrote as if he really didn't care all that much about what his audience wanted to read and wanted to believe. He - or she - isn't out to make certain we know we're reading Jack the Ripper's Diary. I mean the nerve of not even giving us properly dated entries!!

I believe a proper forger would have started by explicitly stating the facts of the JtR and Maybrick cases so that we know we're looking at the real deal, and then woven in his personal emotional roller coaster. Instead the Diarist's universe revolves strictly around himself.

Just a thought. Except for the final entry where the author asks people to remember that he was once a gentle man, the overall tone of the diary is a man recording thoughts and deeds, without any concern that anyone will ever read it. If Maybrick wrote the diary, he wasn't writing for an audience, but for his own perverse ego. If the diary is forged then the forger knew how to read a person's drug and manic fueled thought processes. Either could be the truth about the diary.

God Bless

Raven Darkendale

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

Except for the final entry where the author asks people to remember that he was once a gentle man, the overall tone of the diary is a man recording thoughts and deeds, without any concern that anyone will ever read it. If Maybrick wrote the diary, he wasn't writing for an audience, but for his own perverse ego.

A very perceptive comment.

Personally, I don't think forgers write without concern for their audience. They have to "sell" their story in some fashion. The Diarist could care less. He doesn't even bother to name his victims except for Kelly and that's during an expression of remorse.

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

If the diary is a forgery, I think it's a pretty good piece of work but might we not expect Maybrick's standard of literacy to have been higher than that of the diarist? Not that I know much about these things but the language just doesn't have a Victorian "feel" to me either.

Best wishes,
Steve.

His brother Michael received a higher education. The rest of the brothers were trained to be clerks. Neither James nor Flo had much interest in literary matters. When the contents of Battlecrease were hurriedly auctioned off, there were a total of 28 books in the mansion, many of them standard reference works.

If you compare the tone of the Blucher letter to the text of the Diary you'll observe a similar level of literacy.

[Brenda]

.

It's times like this that we desperately need John Omlor to make a Casebook appearance. What happened to that guy anyway? Just give him a few paragraphs and he would break it all down to the nitty-gritty.