Maybrick--a Problem in Logic

[Iconoclast]

I was looking at Mike Barrett's January 5th 1995 confession and something struck me. Look at this section of the confession

"Page 228 of the book, page 22 Diary, centre top verse large ink blot which covers the letter 's' which Anne Barrett wrote down by mistake."

Sure enough, when I looked at this page in my copy of "The Diary Of Jack The Ripper" there was the blot. Now, I wonder if there is the technology out there to see through this blot to determine if there is indeed an S underneath that blot. If this is the case, then it's game over wouldn't you say?

It would be extremely interesting to find that there was a dry or indeed still wet 'S' underneath that ink blot. It would be even more interesting if - in micro-writing - there was also the explanation for:

1) Why Anne Barrett (as was) was starting a new word precisely there (the centre of the page) where no other line on that page did so, and (far more importantly)

2) Why she and/or Mike would care enough about the error to blot it out (when so many entries in the scrapbook are simply scored out by a line of ink).

I think Mike was trying too hard, Observer - a rather transparent trap that you might be advised to avoid falling into.

Ike

[Observer]

Just to add. The success of this business with the blot would greatly improve if the S,( should it be there) had a chance to dry before the blot was applied to hide it.

[Observer]

I was looking at Mike Barrett's January 5th 1995 confession and something struck me. Look at this section of the confession

"Page 228 of the book, page 22 Diary, centre top verse large ink blot which covers the letter 's' which Anne Barrett wrote down by mistake."

Sure enough, when I looked at this page in my copy of "The Diary Of Jack The Ripper" there was the blot. Now, I wonder if there is the technology out there to see through this blot to determine if there is indeed an S underneath that blot. If this is the case, then it's game over wouldn't you say?

[rjpalmer]

We've been through this before, R.J. But for Ike's benefit, I suppose the question I would ask is how little Caroline would have remembered that her dad had pestered an old boy called Tony, and that it was definitely not a younger bloke called Eddie. Was she not at school whenever her dad saw Tony in his own house? If she witnessed her dad pestering someone over the phone, did she actually hear him call the man Tony, or was she going by what she heard about it later? It's interesting that the clear memory she had, of the unforgettable row between her parents, would have been separated from the other two clear memories - of the diary arriving and the subsequent pestering - by almost a year if it was indeed Tony, but they would all have happened very much in the same time frame if it was Eddie. How much easier would it have been for Caroline, at her tender age, to recall those three interconnected events, the last of which was pretty traumatic for her, if they happened pretty much one after the other, just a year previously in 1992, than if the first two dated back to 1991, and had nothing whatsoever to do with the fight she witnessed a year later?

The question you might like to consider is how Caroline could possibly have recalled her dad bringing the scrapbook home and pestering Tony - or indeed anyone else - about where he got it from. You believe Mike knew precisely where his scrapbook came from - an O&L auction - and that he didn't bring it home until long after Tony had died.

I don't want to be accused of ducking this question, so let me quickly answer.

Your explanation is clever, Caz, and I can see why you consider it an attractive possibility. You only need to change Caroline's testimony slightly--turning 'Tony' into 'Eddy' and it conforms to the Battlecrease provenance.

But I would counter that we don't really have any evidence that Barrett knew Eddy, but we have an abundance amount of evidence that Barrett knew Tony. It's difficult to believe that Little Caroline wouldn't have heard of her father's friend during these months, especially since he died. Children remember death.

You probably consider Anne's question "did you nick it, Mike?" as evidence in support of your theory. Fair enough.

I consider Devereux lending his daughter Mike's copy of 'Tales of Liverpool' as evidence in support of my own.

But, like you, I am also guilty of slightly changing Caroline's testimony: substituting a phone discussion about a Jack the Ripper typescript in the Summer of 1991 for an alleged discussion of a black ledger in the Summer of 1991.

Others will say we're both wrong and Little Caroline was simply prompted.

[rjpalmer]

Let 'em split their sides over the sketch – sorry, scene - where Barrett gives Gray the address where Tony Devereux lived, telling him there is evidence of the forgery hidden there, and Gray heads off expectantly to Fountains Road, only to find the number given him by Barrett doesn't actually exist. They can then imagine Gray smiling and shaking his head, thinking: "The little tinker. He was having me on."

Just one more comment, Caz, and have a good weekend.

The above is amusing, of course, but the difference between your example and mine is that while it is a simple matter for someone to fake ignorance (and, in my opinion, Barrett faked ignorance on many occasions with many people) it is not quite so easy to fake genuine knowledge—this is why Mike’s sudden revelation of the source of the Richard Crashaw quote has been so vexing to you and Ike and others. You are forced to admit that your prize ignoramus outdid half a dozen professional researchers by coming up with the correct attribution.

Similarly, Barrett’s citation of Bernard Ryan is highly relevant, because it demonstrates genuine knowledge: it is correct, fairly obscure, and surprisingly astute. A dozen anecdotes about Gray dashing around on wild goose chases, while endlessly humorous, doesn’t really change that fact. It’s easy to dumb down, but how did Mike occasionally manage to smarten up?

No, it won’t convince the Maybrick partisans, nothing ever will—but, similarly, showing grotesque clips of Barrett in a blackout state of intoxication won’t make me forget the rare moments when Mike did seem to show inside knowledge, nor can I forget that this sad drunkard is the same man who published interviews in the 1980s, belonged to a writer’s circle, and correctly attributed ‘O Costly’ when no one else could.

You've got your Barrett, I've got mine.

[rjpalmer]

22.8.1995

Anne’s recollections re Victorian Diary –

Thinks it was pre [KS underlining made at time] Doreen... thinks Mike got it by phoning up Yellow Pages – wanted to see what a Victorian Diary looked like – All Ann can clearly remember is having to pay £20 for it – is going to search for cheque stubs ! [KS exclamation mark made at time]

Added in pencil and squashed up in the top right hand corner is an additional note:

3.30pm Anne phoned back – has been looking at statements and old cheque books – between 17 May 1992 and 21 May 1992 there is a stub which says £25 – book. Anne is going to see whether bank can identify who cheque is payable to...

Hope this helps.

Send along my thanks to Keith for supplying this detailed information, Caz.

As I already admitted, Anne's willingness to cooperate is very impressive indeed. Standing alone, it is a big mark in her favor. I would almost feel ashamed for doubting her if it wasn't for the fact that you and Keith are also willing to doubt her veracity, though evidently not on this particular point.

Unfortunately--and be prepared to cry foul-- Anne’s cooperation does not diminish the stark implications of Martin Earl’s advertisement. It’s unfair, perhaps, but it just doesn’t. The prosecution is hardly going to dismiss potentially damning evidence just because someone willingly handed it over. Cooperation is more of a question for the psychologists than the police, perhaps, but I think your friend Lord Orsam suggested, rather persuasively, that Anne and Mike would not have been aware of Earl's methods, and thus wouldn't have known that the damning advertisement could be traced.

Cheers.

[caz]

Hi Caz. Here's the second bit, and my apologies for the long delay.

You’ve asked me a couple of times to provide evidence that Mike Barrett had once referred to Bernard Ryan’s “The Poisoned Life of Mrs. Maybrick” as a source in the creation of the diary.

Unfortunately, I do not have access to the Barrett tapes at the moment, but I did find the following excerpt from Melvin Harrison’s long article “The Maybrick Hoax: A Guide Through the Labyrinth.” (It’s towards the end, about 80% in) showing that Harris, too, had noticed this.

In a discussion of the mythical “Manchester murder,” Melvin recalls Barrett having discussed its genesis with Alan Gray.

“Barrett did in fact offer an answer that was taped by private investigator Alan Gray. Shorn of its repetitions and over-ripe oaths, a transcript reads: "That other book, The 'poisoned Life' one, says he was in thick with Thomas.. He only lived 20 miles away in Manchester.. See the connection?... It's all about plotting... It's just a big circle.. .The first was in Manchester so the last has to be in Manchester. It's put down like that in the diary. F... .it, he was only 20 miles away.. .You don't need a f...... excuse to hop over and see your brother... Everyone visits everyone else at Christmas time...”

One argument frequently used by Diary believers is that Barrett only had a very superficial understanding of the ‘Jack the Ripper’ case and the Maybrick poisoning case and thus wouldn’t have had the expertise to create or help create the text. (See Paul Begg’s opinion in Feldman, p. 130. Begg describes Barrett’s knowledge was ‘negligible,’ evidently based on the fact that Mike was unfamiliar with his book). Yet here we see Barrett confidently citing Bernard Ryan chapter and verse, and he obviously knows (correctly) that Ryan had mentioned Maybrick’s obscure older brother Thomas living in Manchester. Barrett even seems to be recalling a specific passage in Ryan’s book (see below).

So how negligible was Mike’s knowledge, really?

And note: this is Barrett referring to Ryan in 1995, back when people were still suggesting that Moreland, Christie, etc. were the probable sources of the Maybrick diary. It was only afterwards that textual studies convinced many that Bernard Ryan’s book was almost certainly used... and yet, here is Barrett already alluding to it in another context….


(Here is the passage in Ryan to which Barrett is alluding. Am I to believe that someone with a 'negligible' knowledge of the Maybrick case would recall this obscure passage in a secondary source? Or are you suggesting that Barrett memorized these bits to "fool" us into believing he knew his stuff? Even that shows some ability, doesn't it?) Have fun with it.

At this point, R.J, I think I'll spend the rest of the day and the weekend watching the grass grow, and next week I'm hoping to watch paint dry. I wasn't really expecting any acknowledgement of my efforts to correct some of the erroneous assumptions you were making in order to fuel your speculation about Anne's relationship with the red 1891 diary. It would just be nice to think you absorbed all the fine details of who knew what and when, before changing course and bringing up something else entirely. It would be a total waste of your own time, and everyone else's, if you were come back here a year from now, repeating suspicions which should now have been put to bed.

Tell you what – why not give everyone still here a lockdown treat when you are finally reunited with the tapes you don't have access to 'at the moment'? You know, the tapes which feature the enduring and endearing comedy double act that was Barrett and Gray? Let everyone hear all their hilarious conversations in context, including the one you quote from, where Barrett loses the plot and forgets he wrote the diary himself, telling Gray: "That other book, 'The Poisoned Life' one... It's all about plotting... It's put down like that in the diary", when the line should have been: "I got it all from Ryan's book, that's why I wrote it like that".

Let 'em split their sides over the sketch – sorry, scene - where Barrett gives Gray the address where Tony Devereux lived, telling him there is evidence of the forgery hidden there, and Gray heads off expectantly to Fountains Road, only to find the number given him by Barrett doesn't actually exist. They can then imagine Gray smiling and shaking his head, thinking: "The little tinker. He was having me on."

I do wonder, though, why any of this matters to you, R.J, whether it's the Barrett & Gray Show, or The Red Diary of Anne Barrett. If you have satisfied yourself that Mike's request for a Victorian diary with blank pages, made over the phone between 6^th and 12^th March 1992, is proof of his intentions to create the Maybrick diary, and that he told the truth about acquiring the scrapbook from O&L after rejecting the red diary, despite no sign that he ever had that auction ticket, what more do you need? Or are you trying to convince those of us who are far from satisfied that Mike ever told the truth about anything related to the diary, including the real reason he tried to obtain that Victorian diary, at a time when he was telling Doreen about the one already in his possession? If so, you have your work cut out, if you seriously imagine 'Barrett & Gray In Conversation' will make us believe a single word the funny man was feeding his stooge.

This is from a transcript I just dug up of 'Williams and Montgomery In Conversation', circa 9^th / 10^th March 1992:

DM : It all sounds horribly fascinating, Mr. Williams. Did you say this is an actual diary you've found? Are the entries dated, for instance?

MW : Well, to be perfectly honest and what have you, when I say 'diary', it's more like a very old book with writing in it that's hard to read, and the only date I seen is 3^rd of May 1889, in the same writing, on the last page where it's signed Jack the Ripper. Then there's about 20 blank pages not filled in.

DM : I see, so that date sounds about right, but what about the book itself? Is there any way to tell if it's genuinely Victorian, if you say it's not a diary in the strict sense of the word?

MW : Well now you say that, you've got me thinking 'cos I never seen a real Victorian diary before, so what the hell have I got here?

DM : It will certainly be interesting to find out, Mr. Williams.


At least the record shows that Doreen did have a chinwag with Mike about his diary, even if there is no record, or surviving memories, of what was said.

In the case of O&L, there is nothing to indicate there ever was a record of the old scrapbook being put up for auction there, or of Mike attending and snapping it up, or of the ticket he claimed he was given but failed to produce.

We can argue forever about whether Mike had it in him to create the diary, using Ryan or any other author as a source, but you'll need cold hard facts to demonstrate that he actually did it.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Caz,

Yes, I have a few odds and ends to finish up.

I sometimes get the feeling that Ike is a wee bit bashful. He recently wrote that he’s even a little afraid of you, so let me ask a question on his behalf, and he’ll have to forgive me if I’m overstepping my authority.

From Paul Feldman, p. 129:

“We had promised to take the Barretts to lunch. A cab was ordered…[and]…Caroline asked if she could travel with us….There was no attempt to discourage her. Paul Begg and Martin were relentless. The poor kid had barely sat down in the car when they started a cross examination. ‘Do you remember when your dad came home with the diary? Do you remember whether your dad phoned Tony and asked him where he got the diary from?’…

“….I wish I had trusted my instinct. Caroline remembered clearly the day that would change the Barretts’ life forever. She remembered the day her dad came home with the diary. She remembered her dad pestering Tony, and she could not forget the row between her mother and father….”

Here’s Ike’s question.

He’s wondering how Little Caroline could have had a clear memory of Barrett pestering Tony Devereux about the diary, if the black ledger was underneath Dodd’s floorboards until March 1992? Didn’t Devereux die in August 1991? (Let me answer that second question. 'Yes.' 8 August 1991).

We've been through this before, R.J. But for Ike's benefit, I suppose the question I would ask is how little Caroline would have remembered that her dad had pestered an old boy called Tony, and that it was definitely not a younger bloke called Eddie. Was she not at school whenever her dad saw Tony in his own house? If she witnessed her dad pestering someone over the phone, did she actually hear him call the man Tony, or was she going by what she heard about it later? It's interesting that the clear memory she had, of the unforgettable row between her parents, would have been separated from the other two clear memories - of the diary arriving and the subsequent pestering - by almost a year if it was indeed Tony, but they would all have happened very much in the same time frame if it was Eddie. How much easier would it have been for Caroline, at her tender age, to recall those three interconnected events, the last of which was pretty traumatic for her, if they happened pretty much one after the other, just a year previously in 1992, than if the first two dated back to 1991, and had nothing whatsoever to do with the fight she witnessed a year later?

The question you might like to consider is how Caroline could possibly have recalled her dad bringing the scrapbook home and pestering Tony - or indeed anyone else - about where he got it from. You believe Mike knew precisely where his scrapbook came from - an O&L auction - and that he didn't bring it home until long after Tony had died.

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

to forge a half arsed hoax? of course-hes exactly the type to do it. (not sarcasm)

Ah - I've got it, Abby. You haven't watched the clip, and you haven't read the scrapbook's contents.

If you had, you could not possibly call it a 'half arsed hoax'.

[Abby Normal]

Not very good sarcasm, Abby. Watch the clip then come back to us and repeat your assertion.

Honestly, is this a man whose horse you'd bet on?

Cheers,

Ike

to forge a half arsed hoax? of course-hes exactly the type to do it. (not sarcasm)

[Iconoclast]

so someone is more reluctant to show evidence of a crime if they know a copper is in the audience? wow-totally outrageous. (thats sarcasm btw)

Not very good sarcasm, Abby. Watch the clip then come back to us and repeat your assertion.

Honestly, is this a man whose horse you'd bet on?

Cheers,

Ike

[rjpalmer]

Hi Caz. Here's the second bit, and my apologies for the long delay.

You’ve asked me a couple of times to provide evidence that Mike Barrett had once referred to Bernard Ryan’s “The Poisoned Life of Mrs. Maybrick” as a source in the creation of the diary.

Unfortunately, I do not have access to the Barrett tapes at the moment, but I did find the following excerpt from Melvin Harrison’s long article “The Maybrick Hoax: A Guide Through the Labyrinth.” (It’s towards the end, about 80% in) showing that Harris, too, had noticed this.

In a discussion of the mythical “Manchester murder,” Melvin recalls Barrett having discussed its genesis with Alan Gray.

“Barrett did in fact offer an answer that was taped by private investigator Alan Gray. Shorn of its repetitions and over-ripe oaths, a transcript reads: "That other book, The 'poisoned Life' one, says he was in thick with Thomas.. He only lived 20 miles away in Manchester.. See the connection?... It's all about plotting... It's just a big circle.. .The first was in Manchester so the last has to be in Manchester. It's put down like that in the diary. F... .it, he was only 20 miles away.. .You don't need a f...... excuse to hop over and see your brother... Everyone visits everyone else at Christmas time...”

One argument frequently used by Diary believers is that Barrett only had a very superficial understanding of the ‘Jack the Ripper’ case and the Maybrick poisoning case and thus wouldn’t have had the expertise to create or help create the text. (See Paul Begg’s opinion in Feldman, p. 130. Begg describes Barrett’s knowledge was ‘negligible,’ evidently based on the fact that Mike was unfamiliar with his book). Yet here we see Barrett confidently citing Bernard Ryan chapter and verse, and he obviously knows (correctly) that Ryan had mentioned Maybrick’s obscure older brother Thomas living in Manchester. Barrett even seems to be recalling a specific passage in Ryan’s book (see below).

So how negligible was Mike’s knowledge, really?

And note: this is Barrett referring to Ryan in 1995, back when people were still suggesting that Moreland, Christie, etc. were the probable sources of the Maybrick diary. It was only afterwards that textual studies convinced many that Bernard Ryan’s book was almost certainly used... and yet, here is Barrett already alluding to it in another context….


(Here is the passage in Ryan to which Barrett is alluding. Am I to believe that someone with a 'negligible' knowledge of the Maybrick case would recall this obscure passage in a secondary source? Or are you suggesting that Barrett memorized these bits to "fool" us into believing he knew his stuff? Even that shows some ability, doesn't it?) Have fun with it.

[rjpalmer]

Hi R.J,

Back so soon?

Hi Caz,

Yes, I have a few odds and ends to finish up.

I sometimes get the feeling that Ike is a wee bit bashful. He recently wrote that he’s even a little afraid of you, so let me ask a question on his behalf, and he’ll have to forgive me if I’m overstepping my authority.

From Paul Feldman, p. 129:

“We had promised to take the Barretts to lunch. A cab was ordered…[and]…Caroline asked if she could travel with us….There was no attempt to discourage her. Paul Begg and Martin were relentless. The poor kid had barely sat down in the car when they started a cross examination. ‘Do you remember when your dad came home with the diary? Do you remember whether your dad phoned Tony and asked him where he got the diary from?’…

“….I wish I had trusted my instinct. Caroline remembered clearly the day that would change the Barretts’ life forever. She remembered the day her dad came home with the diary. She remembered her dad pestering Tony, and she could not forget the row between her mother and father….”

Here’s Ike’s question.

He’s wondering how Little Caroline could have had a clear memory of Barrett pestering Tony Devereux about the diary, if the black ledger was underneath Dodd’s floorboards until March 1992? Didn’t Devereux die in August 1991? (Let me answer that second question. 'Yes.' 8 August 1991).

[Abby Normal]

so someone is more reluctant to show evidence of a crime if they know a copper is in the audience? wow-totally outrageous. (thats sarcasm btw)

[Iconoclast]

See my post #331 for the link to the articles in the June 1999 issue of Ripperologist if you'd like to read more about the events leading up to the C&D interview.
Love,
Caz
X

I hope we've all viewed this clip (from Caz #331):

http://www.rippercast.com/mp3/Barret...er_podcast.mp4

I've posted it again so no-one has an excuse not to. Although detractors will say that Barrett was three sheets to the wind and that we shouldn't use this clip as an indicator of Barrett's general state of mind, the reality is that it clearly shows the world how very very bad a drunk he was, and that's exactly what he was when he started making his ridiculous 'confessions' (of having created the Maybrick scrapbook).

Sober - nice, sincere guy. Drunk - loud-mouthed, incoherent boor.

No World's Greatest Ever Actor. No World's Greatest Ever Forger. Just a bombastic fool without the brainpower to string a cogent argument together one word to the next.

If you're serious about uncovering who created the Maybrick scrapbook, you need to have extraordinarily-strong reasons to target Mike Barrett. Now always remember that, ladies and gentlemen.

Ike