After almost 30 years of debate, where do you stand on the Maybrick Diary?

[barnflatwyngarde]

I can’t say I am particularly surprised that hoax favours undecided, real or possibly real.

I am a little surprised so many people think the Barretts in one form or another hoaxed it. Even
now.

Still, be interesting to see if that remains the case in the next few years.

"I am a little surprised so many people think the Barretts in one form or another hoaxed it. Even
now."

Could it be because the available evidence tends to lean that way?

[Ms Diddles]

I've taken up my usual non-commital position, and am firmly established on the fence!

I'm one of the " undecided - needs more hard evidence" folk.

From the available evidence, I'm not convinced that the Barretts were responsible though.

Diary land is a world with which I am relatively unfamiliar though, so I tread lightly.

[paul g]

What sways me is there is nothing in the diary that I can see that’s has not or is not in the public domain , common knowledge or known.
Disregarding the authenticity and dating angles the content and the proposed facts inside offer nothing new.
one would think that if the diary was real then in the wording would be some revelation that no one had discovered previously or known about.
also I take into account the word which I can’t remember that was researched by someone in here was in the diary but was not in common use at the time, that holds a lot of sway with me .

[harry]

diarya.Thats my vote.

[JeffHamm]

I'm hardly surprised by the results. Those who brought forth the diary are, of course, always going to be the simplest explanation of it's origin. It requires evidence, of the real sort, to show that isn't the case. We can debate along the lines of "could x,y,z really have written this?" ... and pretend to build upon evidence, but really, the foundation of that line of reasoning is, in the end, a speculation. Who am I, or anyone else for that matter, to say that Mike and co couldn't have done it? It's an opinion. And the spin is, if you want to argue against them as the authors, to suggest they couldn't have. But why couldn't they? No, not opinion about their itellect, or built upon some notion of what literary skill would be required, why is it physically impossible for them to have written it?

Comparing it to written documents by other serial killers we know it's nothing like any written diary, or notes. Those who have documented, in writing, their crimes, tend to document the crimes - their deep weird twisted ideas, at the time, in detail, disturbing at times, and often in very factual, point form. They don't record the emotion, they have that and experience those - the emotions and "reasons" are recorded in their memories and are active all the time - what they record are the events, so they can relive them, to rekindle the emotions that they feel and the release they experienced. The diary skirts the events, and records the emotions that lead to the events - they explain to us, the reader, but a diary is for the writer who does not need those things explained. The actual offender doesn't need to write down their emotions or what it is that leads up to them, they feel them, they live that 24/7. What they want to preserve against loss are the details of the crimes, that brief moment when they exploded out of whatever it is they feel confined by and experienced their twisted notion of nirvana. And all of that is missing.

- Jeff

[erobitha]

I'm hardly surprised by the results. Those who brought forth the diary are, of course, always going to be the simplest explanation of it's origin. It requires evidence, of the real sort, to show that isn't the case. We can debate along the lines of "could x,y,z really have written this?" ... and pretend to build upon evidence, but really, the foundation of that line of reasoning is, in the end, a speculation. Who am I, or anyone else for that matter, to say that Mike and co couldn't have done it? It's an opinion. And the spin is, if you want to argue against them as the authors, to suggest they couldn't have. But why couldn't they? No, not opinion about their itellect, or built upon some notion of what literary skill would be required, why is it physically impossible for them to have written it?

Comparing it to written documents by other serial killers we know it's nothing like any written diary, or notes. Those who have documented, in writing, their crimes, tend to document the crimes - their deep weird twisted ideas, at the time, in detail, disturbing at times, and often in very factual, point form. They don't record the emotion, they have that and experience those - the emotions and "reasons" are recorded in their memories and are active all the time - what they record are the events, so they can relive them, to rekindle the emotions that they feel and the release they experienced. The diary skirts the events, and records the emotions that lead to the events - they explain to us, the reader, but a diary is for the writer who does not need those things explained. The actual offender doesn't need to write down their emotions or what it is that leads up to them, they feel them, they live that 24/7. What they want to preserve against loss are the details of the crimes, that brief moment when they exploded out of whatever it is they feel confined by and experienced their twisted notion of nirvana. And all of that is missing.

- Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for this.

Your assessment of comparing similar serial killer notes / confessions in modern history for lacking emotional content is a fair one.

Most serial killers are psychopaths, but some also kill during psychotic episodes with things like schizophrenia. Overwhelmingly most are psychopaths. I would be inclined to say all the evidence suggest JtR was a psychopath. These women would not go with anyone outwardly strange as they were women of some age and experience. Also, the fact the murders seemed to follow a general pattern of late night / early morning close to weekends shows the killer murdered when was convenient, not when an impulsiveness to do so overwhelmed him. Otherwise, we would have murders at 2pm in the afternoon on a Tuesday. The killer was organised in his thinking, hence psychopath.

Anyway, my point being is that whilst you paint a broad brush of emotional intellect lacking in psychopaths, it is proven that actually, whilst most are that way by default, it does not mean they know how to 'play the game'. Empathy, for example, is not alien to psychopaths. Recent studies have shown that worryingly they can 'switch empathy on' when they need to - it is just not their default setting. So we have to consider that in an era when society was all about public perceptions and moral posturing, would a narcissistic psychopath feel the need to emotionalise in the hope the reader offers sympathy? The book, after all, does give the impression at the end, it wants to be read by others.

We agree on one thing. Until we can conclusively prove that Anne or Mike did not hoax the document, then the consensus will be as this poll shows. The perceived evidence falls that way. But it is perceived evidence still, and none of it is conclusive from the 'Barrett Hoax' camp.

We should all be agnostic until we finally know who penned it. Mike said he did it with no proof that he did. Yet, the consensus accepts his contradictory affidavits. That seems good enough for most.

It isn't for me.

Regards,

Ero B

[Trevor Marriott]

I think the easiest interpretation of the Maybrick scrapbook is that it is a hoax - it looks dodgy, it isn't always perfectly aligned with what we believe we know is true about Jack, people not unreasonably don't want to be wrong, there is a lack of direct evidence which we would have otherwise expected to see (e.g., handwriting), and it superficially lacks a solid body of additional evidence which adds to the case. So seeing it as a hoax allows people to skip the greater effort of digging deeper to check that all of these surface issues are actually the deeper issues they infer them to be.

And then there's the problem of who did it and when. And that's where Mike Barrett bumbles like a buffoon into every wall the likes of Lord Orsam erects for him, so it is then easy for those who now assume the scrapbook is a hoax to rationalise Orsam's timeline as true. Orsam's position then becomes the dominant hoax theory so any poll which offers the Barretts as master hoaxers is inevitably going to see a large proportion of votes heading their way.

I trust that all of our dear readers are bearing in mind that arguments made ad populum are the very worst sort of bad science?

Ike

Just how much of Annes handwriting was used to compare it against the handwriting in the diary. and how was that comparison carried out and by whom?

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Iconoclast]

"I am a little surprised so many people think the Barretts in one form or another hoaxed it. Even
now."

Could it be because the available evidence tends to lean that way?

I don't think so Barney - the available evidence which points to the Barretts is that:

a) One of them brought the diary to light;
b) One of them ordered a doppelganger diary just after ringing Rupert Crew (which - it is said - could have been an attempt to create the diary in March 1992);
c) One of them - whilst freely admitting to researching the diary - mentioned the triangular flaps on Eddowes' cheeks could be conjoined to form an 'M';
d) One of them - whilst freely admitting to researching the diary - claimed to have found the Crashaw quotation (I say 'claimed' carefully, in case he was a hoaxer);
e) One of them claimed to have hoaxed the diary (I say 'claimed' carefully, in case he was not a hoaxer).

No physical evidence categorically proves the Barretts had any involvement (option b in my list is not proof of this). None whatsoever. No receipts, no materials, no handwriting (despite what Orsam claims whilst clinging precariously to his drainpipe), no confirmation from Mike's sister Lynn that she took all of the redundant materials and subsequently destroyed them when Mike confessed (as he claimed in his 05/01/1995 affidavit). Indeed, there is only a 'coherent' Barrett Hoax Theory because Lord Orsam asks us to believe the most extraordinary series of events occurred in the Barrett household between March 9, 1992, and April 12, 1992 and I for one am not that easily led, thank you very much.

If any of you have children, ask yourselves, would I and my spouse have willing put our eleven-year old daughter's future and safety at risk by attempting to make money out of a hoax (a crime and a custodial one at that)?

If any of you have (or had) a mortgage, ask yourselves, would I have broken the law and risked gaol to pay for my home at a time when there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that I and my spouse had ever once struggled to meet what would have been very manageable monthly payments?

If any of you have (or had) a huge gravy train leaving the station chockful of gold (October 1993), providing the answer to your daughter's safety and future, the resolution of any and all of your debts, and the fulfilment of your idle dreams of being a published writer, would you have immediately (December 1993) started a campaign to show the world that what had left the station was actually a ghost train, invented by your own rich imagination?

And if you have ever loved and lost, and felt that an identifiable individual had not only been the cause of your devastation and pain but also was potentially profiting hugely from it, and if the destruction of what you perceived – however one-sidedly – as your domestic bliss of the previous fifteen-five years or so had driven you so far into the arms of the water of life that your entire existence was now seemingly irrevocably gripped by the violent undertow and you were helplessly drowning in it, would you have entertained the notion of revenge and the urge to grab out at whatever little control you might feel you still had in your wretched, terrified flailing by vindictively plotting to de-rail the gravy train before it was too far from the station to stop?

And when you were pulled out of the water and you had eventually recovered your senses and your sense of proportion – after many years of railing against the fate which had broken you – would you not have made your peace with the world and admitted that the goldmine which you opened back in 1992 was – to the very best of your knowledge – abundant enough to serve us all for the rest of all our days?

Well Michael Barrett did.

And his ex-wife Anne never had cause to.

It is the season of peace and goodwill to all men (possibly even Lord Orsam) so I would politely ask that when your decisive digit is hovering over the Barrett button, you give a small amount of thought to those for whom the fighting never stops – even on Christmas Day – and draw your attention to The Greatest Book of All (my brilliant Society’s Pillar) which will not only fit rather neatly into most standard Santa stockings but which will enlighten you somewhat as to the very real evidence which shows that James Maybrick was Jack the Spratt McVitie, the Whitechapel Chalker.



Ike

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for this.

Your assessment of comparing similar serial killer notes / confessions in modern history for lacking emotional content is a fair one.

Most serial killers are psychopaths, but some also kill during psychotic episodes with things like schizophrenia. Overwhelmingly most are psychopaths. I would be inclined to say all the evidence suggest JtR was a psychopath. These women would not go with anyone outwardly strange as they were women of some age and experience. Also, the fact the murders seemed to follow a general pattern of late night / early morning close to weekends shows the killer murdered when was convenient, not when an impulsiveness to do so overwhelmed him. Otherwise, we would have murders at 2pm in the afternoon on a Tuesday. The killer was organised in his thinking, hence psychopath.

Anyway, my point being is that whilst you paint a broad brush of emotional intellect lacking in psychopaths, it is proven that actually, whilst most are that way by default, it does not mean they know how to 'play the game'. Empathy, for example, is not alien to psychopaths. Recent studies have shown that worryingly they can 'switch empathy on' when they need to - it is just not their default setting. So we have to consider that in an era when society was all about public perceptions and moral posturing, would a narcissistic psychopath feel the need to emotionalise in the hope the reader offers sympathy? The book, after all, does give the impression at the end, it wants to be read by others.

We agree on one thing. Until we can conclusively prove that Anne or Mike did not hoax the document, then the consensus will be as this poll shows. The perceived evidence falls that way. But it is perceived evidence still, and none of it is conclusive from the 'Barrett Hoax' camp.

We should all be agnostic until we finally know who penned it. Mike said he did it with no proof that he did. Yet, the consensus accepts his contradictory affidavits. That seems good enough for most.

It isn't for me.

Regards,

Ero B

Hi erobitha,

While not to derail the thread, I would like to point out that psychotic killers (who get away with it long enough to become multiple murderers) are not immediately obviously strange. Their psychosis can be such that they can even hold down a job, particularly one as might be expected in the east end of London of 1888 (meaning, one where muscle was the important factor - they could be odd, but if they could do the job, that's all that mattered. And someone who's odd is more apt to just focus on doing things and less prone to trying to socialise, etc).

Now, that being said, I tend to agree with you and think it more likely that JtR was psychopathic rather than psychotic, but given the two are not mutually exclusive (one can be both), I'm not sure we should rule out the psychotic. (I'm not inclined towards the eating out of the gutter level of psychosis, but psychosis waxes and wanes, so JtR, if he were psychotic, could have become a "dribbling idiot", during which we would not expect to see any crimes, etc).

The diary, to get back on track, doesn't read like something produced from someone suffering from a psychotic break though, so from the diary point of view JtR has to be a psychopath. But there's too much empathy, too much introspection, too much non-psychopathic "thinking" in the overall presentation. It just doesn't really "fit", in my view (an opinion, which should be viewed as such, of course).

Pyschopaths don't experience empathy, they emulate it, sure, if it serves their purpose, but there's no purpose to serve when writing a private diary. Hence, private writings by psychopathic killers are harrowing reads. Cold, unemotional, and factual. Recordings of events are for them to re-experience. The emotions they experience, they don't need them recorded, the facts, that's what they want to re-live, just as they were. Yes, they'll fantasize over it, play with it, but they want to go back and relive it (to make it real again, they fantasize so much they need to remind themselves of what was real). That's what we do not see in the diary. It doesn't "relive for one who was there", rather it "tells a story to one who wasn't", and that shows it's a forgery. Give Mike is the first known verified "owner" of the diary, that's where it's origin appears to ... originate.

Years ago I read the point that "The diary is written in the language of the "Dear Boss" letters, and if those are forgeries, the diary is a forgery because it has copied the same language - but if those are real ... the diary is a forgery because the handwriting doesn't match".

And while I know people argue one can change, hide, etc, one's handwriting, there's no reason to hide your handwriting in a diary for private consumption, and no reason to hide it in an anonymous letter. I can't think of any serial killer who did that (Zodiac's codes appear quite artificial in their construction, but his written letters show no signs of attempting to alter his handwriting, and that's the closest I can think of). But that presentation, is powerful in its logic. And to get around it requires a lot of speculations. And those hold little weight for me.

Anyway, to get back to what originally prompted my reply, while I lean towards a psychopathic JtR, I wouldn't rule out a psychotic one either.

- Jeff

[peg&pie]

I sometimes think I'm satisfied it's a modern hoax. But then someone throws a spanner in the works and I remember why I still can't properly make my mind up after 30 years. Then I remember the watch. The fact it's gone on this long proves it's not cut and dried either way despite any poll.

[caz]

I can’t say I am particularly surprised that hoax favours undecided, real or possibly real.

I am a little surprised so many people think the Barretts in one form or another hoaxed it. Even
now.

Still, be interesting to see if that remains the case in the next few years.

I'm not particularly surprised, ero.

We've been lumbered with Brexit and Boris due to the majority vote.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

"I am a little surprised so many people think the Barretts in one form or another hoaxed it. Even
now."

Could it be because the available evidence tends to lean that way?

Right, Barny, so the available evidence leans towards Brexit having been a great idea for us all here in the UK, and Boris being an honest and responsible leader and role model?

Love,

Caz
X

[barnflatwyngarde]

Right, Barny, so the available evidence leans towards Brexit having been a great idea for us all here in the UK, and Boris being an honest and responsible leader and role model?

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz, as we say in Glasgow, " He might be daft, but he's not stupid!"

I'm working my way through the magnum opus that is " Ripper Diary: The Inside Story", written by three very knowledgeable people whose names escape me for the moment.

It's a riveting read, and no mistake, so kudos for that!

In my humble opinion, there's much that counts against the diary being written by Maybrick.
Having said that, I know that supporters of the diary have ammunition to challenge many of those aspects raised by the diary nay sayers.

An area of of the diary case that I have a real problem with is the actual content of the diary itself.
It reads like a pastiche, and a very bad pastiche at that.

It just reads like a parody of what someone might write if he/she is trying to convey a mind unravelling.

If I was trying to concoct a diary that pointed the blame at James Maybrick, it wouldn't be too far away from the diary we have at the moment, although I think that I could have made a more subtle job of it.

None of Ed Kemper's interviews, or Ted Bundy's interviews bear any resemblance to the thought processes presented in the diary, and those were two minds that were totally unravelled.

I have followed pretty closely many, if not most of the debates re the diary on these boards, and any time I find myself moving closer to the possibility of the genuineness of the diary, I go back and reread the actual diary, and I find myself almost laughing out loud.

Anyway, those are my honest thoughts on the matter, I might be right or I might be wrong.
No change there then!

My preferred candidate for the killer is "Blotchy".
Nothing dramatic, just a bad wee sod who lived locally, and lived and died quietly and anonymously.

Have a good Xmas.

[Iconoclast]

I have followed pretty closely many, if not most of the debates re the diary on these boards, and any time I find myself moving closer to the possibility of the genuineness of the diary, I go back and reread the actual diary, and I find myself almost laughing out loud.

Hi Barney,

And here's the rub!

Whenever I have my doubts about the scrapbook, "I go back and read the actual diary, and I find myself" struck deeply by the self-centred malevolence of the character and I can literally feel myself watching James Maybrick write what became his long-awaited confession.

In my case, of course, I have the backing of an eminent psychologist and an eminent psychiatrist so I know I've got an extra gear or two to get into. Which criminal analysts have the naysayers got in their locker?

Not sure which side you favour (if either), but if it's the green side, your defeat of our green side was pure dead brilliant yesterday so slàinte for that ...

Ike
Geordie Jambo

[barnflatwyngarde]

Hi Barney,

And here's the rub!

Whenever I have my doubts about the scrapbook, "I go back and read the actual diary, and I find myself" struck deeply by the self-centred malevolence of the character and I can literally feel myself watching James Maybrick write what became his long-awaited confession.

In my case, of course, I have the backing of an eminent psychologist and an eminent psychiatrist so I know I've got an extra gear or two to get into. Which criminal analysts have the naysayers got in their locker?

Not sure which side you favour (if either), but if it's the green side, your defeat of our green side was pure dead brilliant yesterday so slàinte for that ...

Ike
Geordie Jambo

Hi Ike,
You are absolutely correct to point out that far more knowledgable people than me have said that the diary does, in their opinion, show a mind unravelling, and give the diary a tentative thumbs up re it's probable genuiness.

However, nothing alters the fact that when I read the diary, I see a clumsy, poorly written parody.

I hope that you would agree with me that experts are often wrong, albeit that their honestly expressed opinions come from a certain degree of authority that mere mortals like you, Caz and myself cannot claim to have.

I can follow the arguments and debates on these boards, and I enjoy bouncing the various ideas and hypotheses around, although I wish that some of the discourse was less confrontational, but that's just the old hippie in me talking.

In my case Ike, it always comes back to the actual text in the diary, and it just looks wrong.