Maybrick--a Problem in Logic

[erobitha]

But if it all came from the floor of Battlecrease, then Anne Graham was lying about it being "in the family for years", which bolsters the case for the Barretts hoax, and so it goes on.

Or, if Anne was being truthful, she knew nothing of the watch, so the timing becomes very relevant.

If the Johnstone's gave a story along the lines of ' we thought the watch was odd, but only when the story of the Maybrick Diary hit the headlines did we connect the dots' then maybe the timing issue could be swept away, but like everyone else in the whole affair, they appear to have played games with people, thus opening the door for suspicion.

Regardless of any particular stance on the Diary, it couldn't have been in the Graham family for years and under the floorboards at Battlecrease. Unless it's Schrödinger's diary.

What has happened is ordinary working class people came into possession of artefacts that are bigger than they could comprehend due to such heightened interest in all things JTR (why we are here debating after all) and as such people are falible and do have failings. They see an opprtunity to try and make a quick buck. The workmen. Mike Barrett. Anne Graham. Robbie Johnson. All of which ultimately failed to get the financial rewards they may have believed were possible. Albert Johnson was not in that cohort and it is his upstanding character that adds weight to the watch, not to mention the compelling science!

I do not buy Anne Graham's story of the diary being her father's and handed down. I think Feldman was offering her a way to get something out of this whole debacle and between themselves concoted these theories with no basis in fact from any of the "evidence" I have seen.

Eddie Lyons refuses to co-operate even after all this time, but perhaps even if he did tell the truth of what was found in Battlecrease and what happened to ALL the artefacts upon discovery, there will always be those finding another reason to not accept his story.

Sadly, I fear the truth of James Maybrick will be buried under the mess that was created in handling these artefacts right from the start and consigned to "forgery" because fallible people made fatal errors of judgment. Doesn't mean the artefacts are not true.

[erobitha]

This is why Tumblety - for whatever other paradoxes in logic his candidacy takes - remains strong but so, too, does a medical/surgical and/or ritual killer (Occult/Muti)

There is no evidence the murderer had expert anatomical knowledge outside of a basic rudementary understanding of where the organs resided. There was plenty of human antomany museums around at the time, plus a heightened inetrest generally for the advancement of understanding human biology with many books and periodicals - not mention live surgeries. It is not beyond the realms of possibility the killer just had a basic understanding of anatomy. The knife he used certainly was not the most optimal for extracting the organs or the 'samples' he took. I will agree that the killings bear hallmarks of ritualistic elements and it's symbolism to masonry is quite compelling.

[Fantomas]

The diary notwithstanding, there are other reasons to dismiss Maybrick’s candidacy as JTR. In a previous post (found under “General Suspect Discussion")

And how did Maybrick get JTR’s apparent strong working knowledge of human anatomy? How could he have such high comfort level performing mutilations/organ removals on the unfamiliar streets of the East End? The level of comfort and familiarity displayed by JTR, both in the Whitechapel setting, and in the area of anatomy, does not match our knowledge of Maybrick and his life.

This is why Tumblety - for whatever other paradoxes in logic his candidacy takes - remains strong but so, too, does a medical/surgical and/or ritual killer (Occult/Muti)

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Though many would argue that the reason it couldn't have been in two places at once is because it didn't exist until around 1992...

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

But if it all came from the floor of Battlecrease, then Anne Graham was lying about it being "in the family for years", which bolsters the case for the Barretts hoax, and so it goes on.

Or, if Anne was being truthful, she knew nothing of the watch, so the timing becomes very relevant.

If the Johnstone's gave a story along the lines of ' we thought the watch was odd, but only when the story of the Maybrick Diary hit the headlines did we connect the dots' then maybe the timing issue could be swept away, but like everyone else in the whole affair, they appear to have played games with people, thus opening the door for suspicion.

Regardless of any particular stance on the Diary, it couldn't have been in the Graham family for years and under the floorboards at Battlecrease. Unless it's Schrödinger's diary.

[erobitha]

I believe you're spot on here. Of course Albert Johnston was complicit in the forging of the watch, but as you say his bottle went when that very large sum of money was offered for the watch. I believe, like you, that Robbie Johnston was the driving force behind the scam.

The owner of the watch was Albert, not Robbie - regardless of Robbie's 'share' or whatever story he concoted was or what type of "earner" he thought he could make. A known criminal Robbie was, Albert was not. It was Albert's watch. He bought it. It was his.

To then go on and and claim "of course Albert Johnson was complicit in the forging of the watch" is nothing short of slander. If Albert "bottled it" why did he just not let Robbie have the watch and let him handle it and be done with the whole thing? Robbie by all accounts would not "have lost his bottle" if large sums were being offered.

The watch for me remains the best physical evidence that points the finger firmly at Maybrick, and the fact people are letting "timing" influence their objective reaosning I find fascinating. There is a possible scenario where the document, the watch and a bag incscribed "J.M JACK" were all found together in Battlecrease House and all sold sperately locally to "get rid" by workmen worried about getting caught "stealing". Perhaps that could account for the "convenient timing" of the watch. Easier to call it forgery and hope you are right than be open to the prospect of this being the truth.

[Observer]

I think if you check the archives, I have always consistently said that Robbie Johnson was the one pushing the sale of the watch for financial gain, so please don't twist my words. I am willing to accept that Albert Johnson was generally honest.

I believe you're spot on here. Of course Albert Johnston was complicit in the forging of the watch, but as you say his bottle went when that very large sum of money was offered for the watch. I believe, like you, that Robbie Johnston was the driving force behind the scam.

[Observer]

Mike Barrett's "confessions" are strewn with such inconsistencies. The one that tickled me the most was his spelling of always as all ways, whilst in the same breath there are several fairly difficult words spelt correctly.

I might have jumped the gun here, after having a brief look at the Diary I noticed the following words. Never the less. Un do. In tact.

When Mike Barrett wrote All ways in one of his confessions, perhaps he'd slipped subconsciously into Ripper Diary mode.

[Graham]

Mr Palmer,

I am not trying to twist your words. You quite plainly inferred that Albert, by making £2000 in selling the rights to Feldman, had made money from the Watch, so therefore per se was interested in making money from the Watch. H

I never inferred that Albert, by turning down the $40000, was satisfied that the Watch was genuine. You are suggesting that. He either believed it was, or it wasn't. I don't really care.

Enough.

Graham

[rjpalmer]

Originally posted by Graham:

"whom RJP would have us believe was interested in making money from the Watch"
...

Hello Graham.

I think if you check the archives, I have always consistently said that Robbie Johnson was the one pushing the sale of the watch for financial gain, so please don't twist my words. I am willing to accept that Albert Johnson was generally honest.

Riddle me this. What exactly is Albert Johnson's refusal to sell the watch supposed to prove??? Are you suggesting that by NOT selling the watch for $40,000 this proves Albert believed the watch to be real? Sounds like backwards logic to me!

If anything, it tells me that Albert got cold feet. When push came to shove, and Mr. Davis’s offer was on the table, Honest Albert started to think things over and began to worry that his brother Robbie had been pulling a fast one—that there was something seriously wrong with the whole business--so he refused to sell it, not wanting to get involved in a possible fraud. In other words, Albert thought better of the whole thing, and pulled the plug! That's how I read it.

Not wanting to sell the watch at an enormous profit because he believes it is real doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense, now does it? But that is what is being argued!

Anyway, I'm out of here, but since you asked me a couple of weeks ago for a citation, here it is. Here is Paul Feldman describing how Robbie had lied to him.

Jack the Ripper: The Final Chapter, p. 32. (Emphasis added).

“Robbie Johnson telephoned me to say that Dr. Turgoose was convinced the watch was old, but he could not get the back off it. ‘We don’t know what’s scratched at 8 o’clock,’ said Robbie. I listened and told him to get me a copy of the report as soon as I could. I put down the phone and reflected on what I had been told. Robbie had lied. Turgoose might not know what was scratched at the position of 8 o’clock in the back of the watch, but Robbie and Albert did.”

“On the very first day I had met the Johnsons they had brought with them a diagram, which I’ve reproduced opposite. They had already seen what was scratched in that position and from their diagram Keith Skinner, Robert Smith and I, at the very least, also knew. They did not need Turgoose to tell them.”

It sounds as if Feldman caught Robbie “playing dumb,” having momentarily forgot the fact that he had already supplied a diagram of the watch’s scratches.

There is an old saying in my neck of the woods: if a person is going to lie, they better have a good memory.

Cheers, RJP.

PS to Ike. "Incontrovertible" thread, Post #5100. You said it was "inconceivable" that Kevin Whay didn't check the date 31 March 1992 in the O & L records. Yes it IS inconceivable that he wasn't asked to check that date ---but he wasn't, and by all appearances he didn't.

I'll be back if there's ever anything new, but I certainly don't wish to be tedious, so carry on without me.

[Graham]

I've just checked, and Albert Johnson, whom RJP would have us believe was interested in making money from the Watch, turned down an offer of 'between $30 - 40000' for the Watch, made by a Texan called Robert E Davis. He was, it seems, a keen collector of historical artefacts associated with crime. Of course, as is pointed out in 'Ripper Diary', Albert and Robbie could have been trying to up the ante by turning down Davis' hopefully starter-offer. But I do genuinely feel that Albert wasn't doing that.

Anyway.

Graham

[erobitha]

I don't really wish to get involved in a debate which has become tedious in the extreme, but didn't Albert Johnson turn down a much larger sum than £2000 offered to him by that collector in Texas? $50000 or something like that, was it?

Graham

rjpalmer Thanks for this "In one recent post, ‘Erobitha’ denies that money could have been a motive for hoaxing the Maybrick watch, because “no money came.” O really? Robbie Johnson fetched a cool £15,000 and Albert took in at least £2,000 by selling the visual rights to Feldman. Adjusted for inflation, that’s a total of around £29,000 in today’s currency. This doesn’t prove that either of the Johnsons faked the watch, but it certainly blows apart the claim that money couldn’t have been a motivator. Yet Erobitha’s misinformation went entirely unchallenged."

Albert retained the watch despite some considerable offers. Taken from The Independent 24th Nov 2004:
"The Manchester findings delighted the watch's owner, Albert Johnson, a college caretaker, who spotted the piece, dated 1846, in a Liverpool jeweller's window and paid £225 for it in 1992. He now considers the watch's importance to the case to be inconclusive. "We could go on for for ever getting the watch tested but it wouldn't make any difference to some people," he said. "In my own mind, I have no doubt who the Ripper was."

Indeed, neither do I.

[Iconoclast]

Next up we have Iconoclast, now claiming that Kevin Whay of O & L checked the dates around 31 March 1992 for Barrett’s purchase of a black ledger. Dear Gawd. This has been discussed so many times that Ike is either being utterly careless in his claims or is simply making things up. What evidence can he show to back this up? As documented by Harrison, Whay was asked to check the date(s) given in Barrett’s sworn affidavit, which were January/February 1990. This would have been a full 25 MONTHS before March 1992—the logical date of Barrett having visited O & L! Yet Ike claims, ridiculously, that Whay would have checked this date also. Again--no one bothered to correct or challenge Ike’s statement. Why is that?

In this thread, Roger? Fair enough if it was, but could you be clearer about what I said as I plain don't recall it?

[Graham]

I don't really wish to get involved in a debate which has become tedious in the extreme,

What makes you say that?

c.d.

I read it every night to get off to sleep, and it invariably w...o......o.....r....k....................s. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........

Graham

[c.d.]

I don't really wish to get involved in a debate which has become tedious in the extreme,

What makes you say that?

c.d.