Who were they?

[c.d.]

Hello P.I.,

Am I to understand that you came into this thread voluntarily? Wow. A shout out to you as that took major league cojones. But some friendly advice, you might simply want to say "oops, wrong room. Sorry about that" and then move as quickly as possible towards the nearest exit.

A word to the wise....

c.d.

[Iconoclast]

Our posts crossed, so I'll respond.
He asked for a blank diary. A blank diary to most people is a blank diary. No lettering, no dates---it's a cover with blank pages. Omlor, Phillips, and Orsam, among many others, have thrown up photo after photo showing blank diaries with no individual dates stamped on them.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, RJ. That will simply not do. I haven't even read any further in your post because I just have to stop you right there in your tracks. No-one on this planet would refer to a blank notebook as a blank diary. No-one. Not one. Don't even go there with the Special Pleading to End All Special Pleading!

A blank diary to most people - no, to all people (and don't pretend you disagree) is a book with dates in but not yet any entries written. What you are describing is a blank notebook and you know it.

You can throw up a thousand photographs of blank notebooks and call them diaries if you want. Lord, perhaps you can find them with the word 'Diary' on the front, but we all know that that is not what anyone on the planet would call one. They'd call it a blank notebook because that is what it would be.

And - as if that isn't sufficient - if you were meaning a notebook with no dates which you deep down meant a diary with no dates, WHY WOULD YOU SPECIFY A YEAR??????????????

WHAT WOULD THAT EVEN MEAN??????

[erobitha]

I have never commented on this subject before.

I was aware of the argument here about the authenticity of the diary, but have only now had a quick look through the nineteen pages of comments to see whether there has been any analysis of the diary's content.

It seems there has been hardly any, if any at all, which surprises me.

I have previously made the point that there is in Swanson's Marginalia no inside information to suggest that he was personally involved in or acquainted with any of the events he describes.

The answer I have repeatedly received is that Swanson should not be expected to provide inside information because he was not writing a report nor expecting anyone to read his comments, but wrote them for his own private satisfaction.

That is, I suggest, not credible because there is no point in gloating in writing over one's part ('we sent with difficulty...') in the alleged identification of the most infamous criminal in British legal history, in the expectation that no-one will ever read it.

I hope I am not going to receive replies that Maybrick could not be expected to divulge inside information and that he was writing the diary merely for private use, in the expectation that no-one else would ever read it.

The diary is one long gloat over the author's supposed participation in the Whitechapel murders.

Not only does he not provide any inside information, but he makes a mistake which the real murderer would not have made.

He relates, as have many others, that the murderer placed Mary Kelly's breasts on the table.

The murderer in actuality placed them under her body.

The writer uses language which was used in the 'Dear Boss' letter: 'haha' and 'red stuff'.

Unless you think that the real murderer wrote the diary and decided to impersonate the style of the writer of the 'Dear Boss' letter, then if you believe the diary to be authentic, you must also believe the Dear Boss letter to be authentic.

Is that believable?

The diary contains the kind of coincidence that has featured in other hoaxes: 'Whitechapel Liverpool, Whitechapel London'.

Gorman had the royal marriage taking place in a St Saviour's Chapel; McCormick had the victims all attending St Saviour's Infirmary; Knight has Walter Sickert playing a role in the murders and is surprised by the 'coincidence' that Osbert Sitwell mentioned Sickert and the Whitechapel Murderer.

Gorman claims Walter Sickert told him his paintings contained clues about the murders and Overton Fuller claims Sickert told Florence Pash the same.

Gorman claimed that Sickert knew Kelly - and so did Overton Fuller.

Those stories are actually re-hashes of older stories - and none of them is true.

The warning signs are all there that the diary, like Hitler's, is a fake.

I won’t unpack every point you make as there is a lot to wade through, but feel free to visit the biggest thread on this website to get a sense of how long this has been going on for.

I just particularly want to address the point of “for own use”.

Denis Rader kept a coded journal of his crimes for his own use.

Leonard Lake did the same with his diary that he called ‘The Miranda Project’.

In fact the man who killed Fanny Adams kept a short and succinct note of the murder in his diary.

Serial killers love to revisit their crimes using reminders and momentos. It’s like a cocaine addict trying to get the last dregs of powder stuck in their sinus cavity to give them that extra buzz. An extra bang for the buck so it were.

It is completely feasible the journal was written for the writer’s own posterity.

The Dear Boas letter does present a challenge for my own beliefs on the letters that Jack wrote, but I am open minded to being wrong.

You also skip over the watch. I’d advise you think carefully how about how the two could be and are linked. The science of the watch is compelling.

You might regret stepping foot into this world.

[FISHY1118]

There is no medical evidence that Jack the Ripper had surgical knowledge. Organ knowledge and understanding of their placement can be obtained from numerous sources with the right level of motivation. Clearly, the killer was not a surgeon because the cuts to remove any of the organs were not precise.

The only precise cutting was the method of throat-cutting, again a skill that is taught or shown with the right level of motivation to obtain the knowledge or observe it, hence why the police were interested in Jewish butchers. Although, the technique the Jews used to cut throats was reserved for cattle. So it was either a Jewish Cattle butcher or someone who had been taught or learned this technique.

Show me evidence that contradicts with any of the above.

Your first point is silly, re read Dr Frederick Brown expert medical opinion under oath and his post mortem report .

Your speculating again that Maybrick somehow educated himself in the art of organ removal and where to find and remove organs from the human body .

Can you show me some evidence of the above

Can you also show evidence that a physician or surgeon who removed Eddowes kidney in 7/ 8 minutes did so under very little light available , knowing the possibility of been seen, would in fact take his time and remove an organ the same way as he would in our under controlled conditions ?

[FISHY1118]

No. Your arguments are based on your interpretation of statements. That is not evidence. You accuse others of being easily fooled when you can't distinguish facts from opinions.

I have case evidence that I base my opinions on . Your average Maybrician plucks things up out of thin air !!!!

Which is probably why you gave up on facts ,evidence and opinions as they don't fit the Maybrician narrative.

[Abby Normal]

Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here

[Iconoclast]

What damns him is Martin Earl's advertisement. It shows what Mike wanted. It is impossible to misread it except willfully. He wanted a blank diary from the 1880s.

Conveniently missing out the blindingly obvious bit where he showed how little he cared about the chronological relevance of what he would get! How very honest of you, RJ! You must be so gutted that he was very clear in specifying 1890 - because it shows that (as you argue yourself) he wanted a genuine Victorian document but it is clear that this was to have a convincing artefact on prima facile evidence which is why he allowed an impossible year to slip in. He didn’t care. He wasn’t seeking to write a Jack the Ripper diary - he was simply seeing a Victorian book and an actual date on it would serve his purpose should the rightful owner or the polis come knocking.

I had to laugh. I just asked Mrs I to describe a blank diary and she said a book with no lines and no writing, just dates, to which I asked, “It would need dates?” to which she replied (and I kid ye not), “Well yes, otherwise it would be a notebook”!!!!!

By the way, evidence (if you really needed it) of how desperate RJ is to defend his impossible position - a diary doesn’t have dates in, that’s what’s known as a memo book!!!!

You literally couldn’t make such a facile argument up if you tried.

[Iconoclast]

I'll leave you with this, Ike: My favorite line from Mike Barrett.

"I need to go to York."

"No, really, I need to go to York, Doreen. I know I promised to deliver the diary this week, but something's come up, and I can't find...er...I'm having trouble...I... er...I really need to go to York."

Classic Barrett.

My favourite:

”The diary is genuine”.

I could have sworn he said he hoaxed it? Surely he wasn’t lying?

[rjpalmer]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, RJ. That will simply not do. I haven't even read any further in your post because I just have to stop you right there in your tracks. No-one on this planet would refer to a blank notebook as a blank diary. No-one. Not one.

You are literally defending THE DIARY OF JACK THE RIPPER -- a blank book without dates -- and yet saying that such things are not referred to as diaries.

Use more water in your scotch, Ike, or more ice.

What is happening here is you are avoiding the fact that your 'doppelganger' theory has imploded on its first trial run. It has burst spectacularly and almost instantaneously into flames like one of Elon Musk's overpriced experimental rockets.

If the rumor got out that Eddie found an 'old book' at Battlecrease, neither the cops, nor Dodd, would have had an inkling of its contents, having not seen it.

So, your barmy idea that Mike needed to specifically request a BLANK diary falls at the first hurdle. He could have substituted any old book, filled or unfilled. He could have substituted Zane Gray's Riders of the Purple Sage.

Special pleading indeed.

Do better. Be better.

Anyway, I've said my two-bits. Enjoy your weekend. I've had enough of this circus for the month.

[rjpalmer]

Ike, Old Man. One question that I forgot to pose. Do you think that someone involved in a nefarious activity might wish to disguise their request?

I mean, you don't really expect Bongo Barrett to have asked Marty Earl to find him an 1888 diary, with the insistence that the pages between August 31st and November 9th inclusive needing to be blank? You really don't expect a conman to telegraph his punch that much, even in far-off Oxford, do you?

We don't really know what Barrett discussed with Earl. We can only judge what he wanted from the advertisement Earl placed as a result of their unknown conversation.

The jury is going to see that advertisement and know that Barrett wanted a minimum of twenty piece of blank paper that would pass the forensics for the 1880s. The jury isn't going to be as starry-eyed as you, Old Man.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Hence why the police were interested in Jewish butchers... So it was either a Jewish Cattle butcher or someone who had been taught or learned this technique.

Show me evidence that contradicts with any of the above.

The police considered the possibility that the murderer was a Jewish slaughter man, but dismissed it on the basis of evidence.

That's the evidence you asked for.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I won’t unpack every point you make

Of that I am supremely confident.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I just particularly want to address the point of “for own use”.

Denis Rader kept a coded journal of his crimes for his own use.

Leonard Lake did the same with his diary that he called ‘The Miranda Project’....



It is completely feasible the journal was written for the writer’s own posterity.

In your long reply, you managed somehow not to address my central point, namely that the Maybrick diary contains no inside information which would have been known only to the murderer and instead contains incorrect information which the murderer would have known to be incorrect.


The Maybrick diary took more than a century after its alleged author's death to see the light of day.

That takes some explaining.

How long did it take for the two diaries to which you compared it to turn up?

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Conveniently missing out the blindingly obvious bit where he showed how little he cared about the chronological relevance of what he would get! How very honest of you, RJ! You must be so gutted that he was very clear in specifying 1890 - because it shows that (as you argue yourself) he wanted a genuine Victorian document but it is clear that this was to have a convincing artefact on prima facile evidence which is why he allowed an impossible year to slip in. He didn’t care. He wasn’t seeking to write a Jack the Ripper diary - he was simply seeing a Victorian book and an actual date on it would serve his purpose should the rightful owner or the polis come knocking.

I had to laugh. I just asked Mrs I to describe a blank diary and she said a book with no lines and no writing, just dates, to which I asked, “It would need dates?” to which she replied (and I kid ye not), “Well yes, otherwise it would be a notebook”!!!!!

By the way, evidence (if you really needed it) of how desperate RJ is to defend his impossible position - a diary doesn’t have dates in, that’s what’s known as a memo book!!!!

You literally couldn’t make such a facile argument up if you tried.

Hi Ike,

A quick thought on the 1890 issue.

Would a diary for the year 1890, with printed dates, have been available to James Maybrick in 1889? I'm not an expert in the history of Victorian era stationary, but diary's for the following year are available early on, particularly useful to businesses that need to plan well in advance and allow for the fact that the fiscal year runs into the following calender year. Was this the case in early 1889?

If, a theoretical question for you, the existing Maybrick diary was in a diary with 1890 on its cover would it rule out it's contents automatically, or would you be inclined to argue that an 1890 diary was available to Maybrick?

[erobitha]

Your first point is silly, re read Dr Frederick Brown expert medical opinion under oath and his post mortem report .

Your speculating again that Maybrick somehow educated himself in the art of organ removal and where to find and remove organs from the human body .

Can you show me some evidence of the above

Can you also show evidence that a physician or surgeon who removed Eddowes kidney in 7/ 8 minutes did so under very little light available , knowing the possibility of been seen, would in fact take his time and remove an organ the same way as he would in our under controlled conditions ?

Your point is invalid. Can you provide me with a suspect who fulfils all your own criteria?

I'm simply saying you cannot say it is impossible to be Maybrick. It isn't.