New Book: The Maybrick Murder and the Diary of Jack the Ripper

[rjpalmer]

I think we've come to the end of the yellow brick road.

However painful it might be for some of the diehards, the handwriting issue does leave open the possibility of some original document, since destroyed or hidden away who knows where, which was found at some point - with or without the watch - by someone who then had the idea to transfer, adapt or embellish its contents by hand into the scrapbook.

It is indeed painful to contemplate such absurdities.

By the same token, should we not leave open the possibility that the remains of an unknown hominid were indeed discovered at Piltdown, but someone then had the idea to substitute these remains with a modern human skull and the jawbone of an orangutan?

Or that in every case of literary forgery, there might not have been a genuine document--now lost or destroyed--that inspired it?

Why even bother examining the authenticity of documents? For even if they are proven fakes, they could be based on genuine records, now lost. The appalling hoax, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, could, for instance, be based on actual rabbinical documents now lost to us, and should thus not be dismissed out-of-hand.

For everyone knows, that when someone finds an old document or artifact, their first impulse is to immediately render it utterly worthless by bringing forward a clumsy imitation of it.

The world has gone mad. Once the arguments have traveled this far down the rabbit hole, it's time to call it a day.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Well yes, that was how Albert and his workmates [with no evidence of Robbie's input] were able to decipher what the scratches were about, when they were first spotted. How else would they have interpreted the 'I am Jack' and the various sets of initials?

But how much had appeared in the newspapers about the diary itself? What could an opportunist hoaxer have understood about the unpublished contents, for instance the number of victims, which ones featured and how the author referred to them, if at all? What if 'Sir Jim' excluded Liz Stride, or included Tabram, or referred to Nichols by name as Polly, not Mary?

That's just off the top of my head, but there is also a total lack of evidence that Robbie even knew his brother had bought a gold watch the year before [actually on 14th July 1992, around the time Mike Barrett had secured a publisher for the diary, and just three days before Eddie Lyons was telling Brian Rawes outside Battlecrease that he had found something in the house - no time frame suggested - that could be "important"].

Albert said Robbie didn't know he had the watch until Albert showed him the scratches in it, so Albert, predictably, has to be accused of being simple or another liar. There is also no evidence that Robbie had read a word about the diary, before supposedly coming up with this impetuous and 'deeply suspicious' plan to create a second Maybrick artefact on the back of a first, which had yet to be smell tested by the general public. He decided to deface his brother's timepiece [shame about the ornate JO but nobody's perfect] and then guessed how the real James Maybrick, who was a nobody before his death made him a minor celebrity victim, used to sign his name in the late 1880s and, more to the point, he had to guess how he didn't sign it, not knowing if examples might survive in some dusty records office. He could have just scratched the name MAYBRICK - he only had one go at it - or even simpler the initials JM - like that other silly faker, a besotted Sarah Robertson, writing her own bible inscription to impress all the posh friends she would have liked to have, if James had not kept her locked away from his own social whirl, a grubby guilty secret, like Mrs Palm and her five lovely daughters.

I digress.

Anyway, using his newly acquired set of aged brass implements, one for each "canical" victim, Robbie then set about his task, finally looking over all he had made and seeing it was good. He didn't know then just how good. If he later saw JM's signature, he'd have believed in guardian angels. But he'd have considered himself to be The Lord God Almighty when he realised he had unwittingly echoed Jim's personal motto, by literally making 'time' reveal all, when there was no earthly reason to think there was even a motto to echo. I mean, how many unimpressive businessmen gave themselves a motto? We can ignore - should ignore - the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg, whose recent letter of resignation was handwritten and dated 'St Crispin's Day'. FFS.

Moving on...

Robbie's last task in the early summer of 1993 would have been to engineer a situation whereby his brother would take his timepiece into work and with any luck the 'discovery' would be made, not by Albert himself, but by a workmate who would then help to decipher the scratch marks. Perhaps Robbie whispered in his sleeping brother's ear one night, when Val was visiting the lavatory, to implant the suggestion as if in a dream, and the charm was wound up in that way.

And all this went without a hitch from a late April newspaper story to planning stage to execution to discovery to Robert Smith's office in London in early June.

Sadly, Robbie looked the wrong way one day when crossing that busy road in Spain and got called to meet his Maker to explain how luck can change in an instant.

Love,

Caz
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Hi Caz,

So are you saying the watch is genuine?

[rjpalmer]

As RJ is well aware, his earliest posts, including the offending one in question, will have been lost in the mists of time.

Oh dear, this truly takes the cake.

Caz alludes to a non-existent post from twenty years ago that she is clearly misremembering or misrepresenting, and now acknowledges that--if it ever existed--it is "lost in the mists of time," so I must take simply take her word for it.

While in almost the same breath she demands that she be directly quoted.

What I think she is probably misremembering is a statement made by Trevor Marriott in fairly recent memory that Barrett's sworn affidavit would be considered evidence in a court of law, and that is all he (Trevor) had to say on the matter.

And one can readily find nearly all of the old archives if one knows how to do it, and more are available on CD ROM.

Perhaps I'll make the time to delve into them and post a few direct quotes from someone calling herself Caroline Morris, though I imagine I will be immediately scolded for bringing up ancient history--another one of Caz's frequent complaints. She is nothing if not inconsistent.

And one wonders why the world at large gives the diary crowd a wide berth.

I find the current mood interesting.

7 or 8 ridiculous books about the Maybrick Hoax have appeared in print, and now someone whom the diary friendly have previously expressed respect for has published 1 book daring to take the opposing view.

And they are in a bitter panic.

And by the way, Caz is incorrect.

The earliest posts on this site are still available. It was a swath of post made some years later that were wiped-out during a crash. I think it was around 2003 or so, but I go by memory.

[caz]

Hold on, ero b, he said he did have those things. What were you expecting? He said he hoaxed the scrapbook and everyone seems perfectly happy to believe his confession is the true version without a single scrap of evidence, so why would he actually need any concrete evidence at all for any of his remarkable claims? Surely he gets a free go where the scrapbook is concerned? We have on record countless examples of where he quotes from the scrapbook or offers some utterly illogical claim and then says, "There's your proof!". With standards of scientific analysis like Barrett's, we could all own the Mona Lisa and who could possibly argue with us:

"It's in a protective frame in the Louvre in Paris, France.. There's your proof, now give me it back!".

Ike

It's funny that reputable researchers don't generally like to take anyone's word for events that have supposedly happened in their family, or what they or their friends or family members have said or done, without independent supporting evidence. This is true even without any reason, on the surface, to doubt the integrity or the memory of the person telling the story. Such stories may be passed on and published, but must be treated with caution and the advice to the reader should be to do the same.

Feldman fell foul of this advice, and we know all too well Mike Barrett's relationship with recall and the truth, and yet these two mighty cautionary tales in human form fall on deaf ears or are worked around when it comes to Mike's attempts to provide the "pRoFF" about the scrapbook's humble origins, waiting patiently in an auction sale to be snapped up and massaged into submission with linseed oil and sugar enhanced Diamine ink.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

Where is the appropriate lightning bolt that flies down from the heavens to punish the hypocrite?

Only yesterday, on this very thread, Caz writes:




Sigh. I wish Caz would get over her unfortunate habit of not using direct quotes and her equally unfortunate habit of scolding people for behavior that she frequently indulges in herself.

Where is this mythical statement of mine? Can she repost it in its entirety, or am I to rely on her excellent memory and her well-known habit of never twisting someone else's words into some strange meaning of her own before attacking them?

When you can find the time to repost what I actually said, Caz, where I said or implied that "Mike said, I believe it, that settles it!" I'll be happy to explain the above statement. Thanks.

As RJ is well aware, his earliest posts, including the offending one in question, will have been lost in the mists of time, so he can now claim that my excellent memory has indeed let me down and I can't prove otherwise. I am happy not to repeat what irked me at the time about the post in question, and if RJ will try to stick to direct quotes in future, then I will if he will so will I. If his paraphrasing had come from a genuine attempt to represent my words fairly, this would not have been an issue.

The word 'delusional' is a particularly ugly one to use when we are all theorising around here, and far worse when it's falsely attributed to a fellow poster who doesn't like the word and avoids using it in their own posts.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

Well, Cazermo, I have a confession to make, I have never watched any Harry Hill. Not une jot, so I'm sadly ill-informed to take up your generous pugilistic offer to engage.

Reading between the lines, I'm guessing I have to decide who wins the scrap between Thingy Kane's 'K' on Devereux's will dated March 22, 1979 and Maybrick's mooted 'K' in the scrapbook versus the 'K' in the watch with the 'K' in Maybrick's marriage licence?

No contest! Kane's 'K' contains a highly-idiosyncratic 'z' as the lower part of its forward leg whilst the scrapbook's 'K' has no such strange contortion. The Maybrick marriage licence on the other hand (and this hand every time he signed in to his Freemason bashes) are a clear match for the 'K' he scratched into his watch (I assume it was his watch - bit cheeky of him if it wasn't).



What is truly weird about this contest is the second testator to Devereux's will who appears to have signed him- or herself 'A. Graham'. Honestly, you just couldn't make this stuff up, could you?



I don't know what Harry Hill meant, and I'm afraid I don't know what yer old ma-in-law meant. The best Google can come up with is:



Just saying ...

Ike

That's it, Ike. Keep your bowels open.

It's sound advice.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

I think it is time to move on. But no one said anything about the Johnsons having "liaised" with Barrett. The diary had been in the newspapers.

Well yes, that was how Albert and his workmates [with no evidence of Robbie's input] were able to decipher what the scratches were about, when they were first spotted. How else would they have interpreted the 'I am Jack' and the various sets of initials?

But how much had appeared in the newspapers about the diary itself? What could an opportunist hoaxer have understood about the unpublished contents, for instance the number of victims, which ones featured and how the author referred to them, if at all? What if 'Sir Jim' excluded Liz Stride, or included Tabram, or referred to Nichols by name as Polly, not Mary?

That's just off the top of my head, but there is also a total lack of evidence that Robbie even knew his brother had bought a gold watch the year before [actually on 14th July 1992, around the time Mike Barrett had secured a publisher for the diary, and just three days before Eddie Lyons was telling Brian Rawes outside Battlecrease that he had found something in the house - no time frame suggested - that could be "important"].

Albert said Robbie didn't know he had the watch until Albert showed him the scratches in it, so Albert, predictably, has to be accused of being simple or another liar. There is also no evidence that Robbie had read a word about the diary, before supposedly coming up with this impetuous and 'deeply suspicious' plan to create a second Maybrick artefact on the back of a first, which had yet to be smell tested by the general public. He decided to deface his brother's timepiece [shame about the ornate JO but nobody's perfect] and then guessed how the real James Maybrick, who was a nobody before his death made him a minor celebrity victim, used to sign his name in the late 1880s and, more to the point, he had to guess how he didn't sign it, not knowing if examples might survive in some dusty records office. He could have just scratched the name MAYBRICK - he only had one go at it - or even simpler the initials JM - like that other silly faker, a besotted Sarah Robertson, writing her own bible inscription to impress all the posh friends she would have liked to have, if James had not kept her locked away from his own social whirl, a grubby guilty secret, like Mrs Palm and her five lovely daughters.

I digress.

Anyway, using his newly acquired set of aged brass implements, one for each "canical" victim, Robbie then set about his task, finally looking over all he had made and seeing it was good. He didn't know then just how good. If he later saw JM's signature, he'd have believed in guardian angels. But he'd have considered himself to be The Lord God Almighty when he realised he had unwittingly echoed Jim's personal motto, by literally making 'time' reveal all, when there was no earthly reason to think there was even a motto to echo. I mean, how many unimpressive businessmen gave themselves a motto? We can ignore - should ignore - the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg, whose recent letter of resignation was handwritten and dated 'St Crispin's Day'. FFS.

Moving on...

Robbie's last task in the early summer of 1993 would have been to engineer a situation whereby his brother would take his timepiece into work and with any luck the 'discovery' would be made, not by Albert himself, but by a workmate who would then help to decipher the scratch marks. Perhaps Robbie whispered in his sleeping brother's ear one night, when Val was visiting the lavatory, to implant the suggestion as if in a dream, and the charm was wound up in that way.

And all this went without a hitch from a late April newspaper story to planning stage to execution to discovery to Robert Smith's office in London in early June.

Sadly, Robbie looked the wrong way one day when crossing that busy road in Spain and got called to meet his Maker to explain how luck can change in an instant.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

I wish RJ would correct this unfortunate habit of his and learn to use direct quotes.

Where is the appropriate lightning bolt that flies down from the heavens to punish the hypocrite?

Only yesterday, on this very thread, Caz writes:

I recall one of RJ's very early posts implying that this 'confession' was a reliable enough indication that Barrett dunnit. He said so himself, didn't he?

Sigh. I wish Caz would get over her unfortunate habit of not using direct quotes and her equally unfortunate habit of scolding people for behavior that she frequently indulges in herself.

Where is this mythical statement of mine? Can she repost it in its entirety, or am I to rely on her excellent memory and her well-known habit of never twisting someone else's words into some strange meaning of her own before attacking them?

When you can find the time to repost what I actually said, Caz, where I said or implied that "Mike said, I believe it, that settles it!" I'll be happy to explain the above statement. Thanks.

As for Thomas being offended, I don't particularly care. It is entirely delusional to think the diary was written by James Maybrick. If he is offended by someone pointing out reality, that's his business.

Let me remind Thomas that he has recently slurred the name of Martin Fido, who is not alive to defend himself, by implying that he quickly and cowardly dismissed the diary in order to protect his own budding academic career. And Thomas did this without actually quoting Fido directly.

Ciao.

[Iconoclast]

I wish RJ would correct this unfortunate habit of his and learn to use direct quotes. But that would of course deprive him of the opportunity to invent words and phrases I have not used myself. The above sentence is so RJ-centric that if anyone else had written it they could be accused of plagiarism.

I'm rather offended by this. As far as I can tell, I'm the only poster who believes the scrapbook to be genuine so where are his other 1 or 2? I'd like to know (I still have some festive cards left over from last year).

The rest (if they actually exist) haven't got the gonads to come on here and say it (I exclude my old mate FDC, obviously - he's got huge ******* gonads, I've seen them when he was doing the hokey-cokey in a kilt last Christmas).

PS ero b is ambivalent on the scrapbook - he's more of a watch man - so I have to exclude him from the ranks of The True Diary Faithful.

Ike

[Iconoclast]

Channelling one of Harry Hill's famous fights, in a mash up with "will you the pork or the lamb?", here's one just for those who have seen and thoroughly digested both the below examples. I trust Chris Jones will have done so too...

...

Love and KYBO [as my lovely late ma-in-law used to sign off cards and letters],

Well, Cazermo, I have a confession to make, I have never watched any Harry Hill. Not une jot, so I'm sadly ill-informed to take up your generous pugilistic offer to engage.

Reading between the lines, I'm guessing I have to decide who wins the scrap between Thingy Kane's 'K' on Devereux's will dated March 22, 1979 and Maybrick's mooted 'K' in the scrapbook versus the 'K' in the watch with the 'K' in Maybrick's marriage licence?

No contest! Kane's 'K' contains a highly-idiosyncratic 'z' as the lower part of its forward leg whilst the scrapbook's 'K' has no such strange contortion. The Maybrick marriage licence on the other hand (and this hand every time he signed in to his Freemason bashes) are a clear match for the 'K' he scratched into his watch (I assume it was his watch - bit cheeky of him if it wasn't).



What is truly weird about this contest is the second testator to Devereux's will who appears to have signed him- or herself 'A. Graham'. Honestly, you just couldn't make this stuff up, could you?



I don't know what Harry Hill meant, and I'm afraid I don't know what yer old ma-in-law meant. The best Google can come up with is:



Just saying ...

Ike

[caz]

Even Caz Brown recently acknowledge that there are only "2 or 3 people" still delusional enough to believe the diary is genuine.

Sigh.

I wish RJ would correct this unfortunate habit of his and learn to use direct quotes. But that would of course deprive him of the opportunity to invent words and phrases I have not used myself. The above sentence is so RJ-centric that if anyone else had written it they could be accused of plagiarism.

It does RJ no favours and only shows he is not cut out to be a spin doctor. And that's a compliment. 'Divide and rule' only works if it's subtle, and that was as subtle as the brick in Maybrick, so no harm done.

Only two or three regular posters, of whom I am aware, have expressed the opinion that the diary was, or could have been, handwritten by Maybrick himself.

There's one for RJ to quote, but I doubt he will do so, because it won't spin as well on his old turntable.

I suggest he change the record.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

No, actually I don't see your point. I just see that you've changed the subject and haven't answered.

On threads about Jones and Dolgin's book, and you've claimed that Jones's logic about the watch is flawed.

You still haven't demonstrated why.

How, if the diary is a modern fake, can we reasonably believe that the scratches on the watch are still genuine?

Ooh, the IF word again. Such a little word with such a lot one can InFer from it - as Mike might have written it, when referring to Florie in a mink stole.

Chris Jones argues that all a hoaxer in 1993 needed was a genuinely old, heavily contaminated and considerably corroded tool [any volunteers?] to make the engravings, so any particle left behind in the base of a letter, and showing up under the powerful microscopes of Drs Turgoose and Wild, would give both men a false impression of the age of the lettering itself. Did Chris's hoaxer also anticipate Wild's etching process, continued for some 45 minutes, which supported that impression by suggesting the particle had been embedded in the surface for some considerable time?

If Chris could think up this simple ruse, to use tools that were already suitably old [several of them according to Turgoose, who found that each victim's initials had been engraved using a different implement - now that's attention to detail], one wonders what Turgoose and Wild were paid for, if they didn't consider this possibility, and instead focussed on whether a hoaxer would have had sufficient expertise to 'implant' such particles into the base of the engravings.

Chris: It's simple my friends, Stephen and Robert. The hoaxer had no need to implant the particle from an aged brass tool. He only had to make the engravings with it and the particle did the rest.

Dr Stephen Turgoose [sarcastically]: What a silly Turgoose I am. Why didn't I think of that?

Dr Robert Wild: Well I'm flaming Wild. Come back, Mr Jones, when you have tried using your own aged brass tool, and I'll be happy to examine your etchings to see if they pass muster.

Chris: Oh don't be like that, la.

Michael Gove [standing up from his seat at the back]: Go Chris! Go Chris! I'm sure you will agree that the world has had enough of experts.

Drs Turgoose and Wild: We give up. You sort out this mess, Michael. We're off for a pint - while it's still only ten quid.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

It's a shame you haven't really digested any of the points above other than those which reinforce a prejudice - in this case, against James Maybrick.

The trick is to step back and just ponder: of all of the numerous issues which you are willing to believe call out the scrapbook for the hoax you assume it is (and really want it to be), how many individually actually are concrete and meaningful and fully-supported by the facts? And how many are tunnel-visioned assumptions, unsupported in the literature, and based fundamentally on a determined eye which will not consider the possible?

It's all - I hope without exception - going to be covered in my brilliant Society's Pillar 2025, but even in the last few posts you have been shown how killers really do record their terrible crimes in terse language if it suits them (and yet Maybrick's lack of detail over Nicholls' murder - we were told - proved the scrapbook to be a hoax!).

There are so many more of these old (and new) canards which sound compelling and yet have absolutely no basis in fact. One of the truly most compelling reasons to look seriously at James Maybrick is the watch which bears his known signature. That's pretty good going for a bunch of Liverpool scallies in the pre-internet age, isn't it? But you just let it go 'Whoosh!' - right over your head - because it doesn't fit your narrative. Think about it: a James Maybrick confession appears long before his signature is out there on Google and it matches his known signature. This is not compelling, it is damning! Erobitha showed us the letter 'K' because it is so idiosyncratic and yet so consistent, but the whole signature in the watch is a true facsimile of Maybrick's. Of course, one can rationalise this critical piece of evidence against Maybrick away, but the human brain is very good at finding ways out of cul-de-sacs when it feels trapped.

If you get excited every time someone posts 'the thing that nails the scrapbook as a hoax' but don't then get deflated when it is immediately shown to be a facile argument, you are a victim of your deep conviction.

I've got another one to discuss but I have somewhere to be today so it may have to wait.

Ike

Hi Ike,

Channelling one of Harry Hill's famous fights, in a mash up with "will you the pork or the lamb?", here's one just for those who have seen and thoroughly digested both the below examples. I trust Chris Jones will have done so too...

Will you the K in Citizen Kane's signature, compared with the K in the diary's Kelly?

Or will you the k in Maybrick's signature on his marriage licence, compared with the k in the 'Maybrick' signature in the watch?

FIGHT!!

By the way, I will need to read RJ's long post again after dismissing it too hurriedly as the 'same old same old'.

Ringing endorsements from The Baron and FISHY - who know where they are with special K - should not be taken too lightly.

Love and KYBO [as my lovely late ma-in-law used to sign off cards and letters],

Caz
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[caz]

Do you think it is possible that Barrett or the Barretts came up with the idea of Maybrick-as-Jack, hoaxed the diary in 1992, and then by a sheer bit of good luck they stumbled onto the fact that Maybrick really was the Ripper? And that Maybrick really had made a confession--only on a watch?

Does RJ believe Mike Barrett when he said he created the diary because he knew Maybrick was Jack?

No, of course not.

And yet RJ believes Mike Barrett when he made other similarly unsupported and unsupportable claims related to his part in the diary's creation.

No; I agree with Jones. If the diary is a modern hoax, it strikes me...

Oh my goodness. I never thought I'd see RJ using the IF word. Is his resolve slipping, or is he getting sloppy? Did he mean to write:

'I agree with Jones that the diary IS a modern hoax, and therefore it strikes me...' ?

An old hoax would be a different matter, but that's a different argument. I think he means a modern hoax.

Yes, I think RJ is right here, because Chris would not otherwise have leant so heavily on Bernard Ryan having provided pretty much all anyone needed to know about the Maybricks in order to fashion a fictional retelling... sorry, that's RJ's theory about Anne Graham. I have no idea what Chris would make of it. He appears to believe the diary text is a 'clever', but deliberate hoax, composed to deceive the reader, rather than an innocently conceived work of fiction, usurped by whoever turned it into a cynical hoax by tucking it snugly between the covers of the old scrapbook.

Chris has met Anne, so I presume he didn't tell her to her face that her 'in the family' story is nonsense on stilts [I don't blame him, I wouldn't either, although I have different reasons for thinking the same!], but even that would be mild compared with telling her that she had relied on Ryan's book to write the diary. Ouch, now that would smart.

What a very unsmart woman that would make her, not to have thought of doing all that in-depth Maybrick research - which she really got a taste for in the mid-1990s - before agreeing to weave her husband's tangled web for him, and practising to deceive with a Maybrick lite tale, based on a single source.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

Hi Ikeypoo,

I take your point, sort of, but the fly paper in Florie's face wash is that we are all amateurs around here, so you would really need at least two reputable handwriting experts to examine your examples and conclude:

'These are self-evidently not written by the same hand - as any fool can see.' [But then you'd need some way to prove them wrong! Catch 22?]

My handwriting at school was only legible to myself when I was scribbling in my rough book, but neat as a pin in my exercise book, when I wanted the teacher to be able to read it and give me an A. I had to explain the difference to my French teacher, when she walked round the classroom, leaned over my desk and, seeing an indecipherable page of my rough book, announced to the whole class that "Caroline is going to be a doctor, as her handwriting is impossible to read".

The same problem applies, because an experienced document examiner should be able to detect the same hand at work in any different situation - and, of course, detect different hands at work when comparing the diary with anyone who didn't write it.

Anne Graham, your time is up. You are free to go.

Not because I'm a handwriting expert, but because for all Anne knew on 13th April 1992, England's finest could shortly be queuing round the block to try and detect hers in the scrapbook.

I wonder what Chris Jones thought of the possibility, when he met Anne recently?

Love,

Cazzykins
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