Who were they?

[caz]

As to the various independent witnesses who supposedly said a book had been found during a wiring job, what did they say as far as dates? That March 9th date, or some other date? Was it a wiring job, or some other construction work? When did they say the Diary had changed hands in an Anfield pub and who took it to the pub?

Hi Scotty,

No 'supposedly' about it, as the recorded interviews and conversations with these witnesses can confirm. Colin Rhodes and his crew are central to the various accounts, which provide all the relevant dates and details of the electrical work done between 1989 and 1992 in Maybrick's former home. I wouldn't have expected any precise dates to trip off the tongues of the individuals concerned, unless they had access to the relevant paperwork, including entries in their own diaries for example. But from the various descriptions of their work and personal movements, in combination with the timesheets and other documentary evidence, it's possible by a process of elimination to narrow this "find" down to the period between 9th March and 17th July 1992, when Eddie told Brian Rawes in the drive of Battlecrease, that he had found something "important" while working in the house. Floorboards day was Monday 9th March, and that was when Eddie was first sent there. Mike's "diary" was seen in London on Monday 13th April 1992, so that gives us a window of five weeks for the diary to have changed hands, in accordance with the Portus & Rhodes 'grapevine'.

I'm sorry, Scotty, but it's increasingly hard for me to see, from carefully reading and rereading the evidence we have to date, that Tony Devereux played any part at all, except in the form of the ghost of Christmas past, who had popped his clogs in timely fashion to give Mike a reason to be cheerful about his Christmases yet to come.

Love,

Caz
X

[Scott Nelson]

In February 1993, Paul Feldman, Paul Begg and Martin Howells all remembered/remember Mike's unexpected reaction to being told by Paul Dodd that electrical work had been done on his house. Unless they were/are all lying, mistaken or hallucinating too, there was a reaction from Mike, which would not have made a whole lot of sense if he had known since March 1992 what you suggest he may have learned from Eddie before he made that first call to Doreen.

Caroline, it's possible Mike's reaction on that day may have been because he got the diary from Devereux a couple of years before and when told about the electrical work done in front of Feldman, Begg and Howells, remembered what Lyons told him earlier in the pub and he thought Eddie might then come forward.

It's confusing, but remember I'm suggesting there were two diaries, an old one which was found in Dodd's House years before and taken to the newspaper office, ending up in Devereux's hands and a newer rewrite in a photo-album, which ended up in Mike's hands.

[Scott Nelson]

So Monday 9th March was the first working day that Eddie would have been free to slip away early and return to Anfield, after being sent to help out on the Battlecrease wiring job, which had been officially allocated to someone else, who put in the full eight hours. The coincidence therefore extends to the wiring job being fitted in that week by Colin Rhodes because another job had to be put on hold until the Friday, and one of his electricians at a loose end as a result just happening to live close to the Saddle over in Anfield. And that's before we get to the various independent witnesses who have all spoken of their awareness in 1992 that a book/diary had been found during a wiring job in Dodd's house and had changed hands in an Anfield pub. Were/are they all lying, mistaken or hallucinating?

It almost sounds as if Eddie meeting Mike in the Saddle on March 9th was totally accidental and that neither man previously knew the other. I believe they did and Eddie knew Mike already possessed the handwritten scrapbook, but Mike didn't know what it was about. If this scenario was true, Eddie may have been the one to first put two and two together after being told by workmates an old book had been found at some time in the past.

As to the various independent witnesses who supposedly said a book had been found during a wiring job, what did they say as far as dates? That March 9th date, or some other date? Was it a wiring job, or some other construction work? When did they say the Diary had changed hands in an Anfield pub and who took it to the pub?

[caz]

Not sure what I've started here....

For Mike's surrogate diary to come into play, he has to have shown the 'Diary of Jack the Ripper' to Doreen, as per RJ's imagined scenario. That's the only way Dodd or the police would know about.

He can't very well produce the blank and claim that's what he bought from Eddie. He still needs to explain where the thing he showed to Doreen came from.

So, keeping the non fraud angle, any explanation has to be that the red diary was for pre trip to London use. And if he's not shown the written diary yet, how does Dodd know Mike has anything?

Mike buys diary of Jack from Eddie, knowing it came from Battlecrease. Mike, worried that the rightful owner might come knocking, buys a surrogate, but since no one does come knocking, he confidently takes his stolen book to sell in London. Why would Dodd come round, if he didn't know anything had been knicked? Would Mike genuinely be worried that Dodd would know that an old diary had been taken and that said diary was nothing short of extraordinary? How would Dodd know anything had been taken from under his floorboards in the week or so after 9th March? Unless he was a regular down The Saddle too?

No, it's not working for me thus far.

Question for you Ike; What would cause Mike to believe, in the days after 9th March, that Dodd knew something, and something worth chasing at that, had been wrongly taken from his home? I think that's probably going to be the crux of your surrogate diary conundrum.

Oh, I think you are on the right lines here, Al, but only regarding the non Barrett hoax angle, where the red 1891 diary could have had no further purpose to serve by the time Mike was ready to take Eddie's "old book" to London - and that's allowing it ever did have a proper, thought-out practical purpose, when Mike first requested an unused or partly used diary from the 1880s, with at least 20 blank pages. Only Mike would have known his initial reasons for contacting Bookfinders and ending up making this "unusual" request, as Martin Earl remembers it. Only Mike would have known when those reasons no longer applied and why, at which point he wouldn't have cared if nothing had come of his request, or if what was found was not what he was expecting, or not fit for his original purpose.

I wouldn't even put it past Mike to have phoned this firm called Bookfinders on impulse, to ask if they bought Victorian diaries, only to be told that they dealt in finding any such items on request from paying customers. Not quite knowing where to go with this, but having the scrapbook firmly on his mind and not wanting to put the phone down just yet, might Mike have come up with a request for something similar on the hoof, just to test these unfamiliar book finding waters and see what would happen? I mean, who knows if the phone call went as Mike was expecting it to go, or if it took off in an unexpected direction, leaving him wanting to know more but not quite sure what? Was he in the habit of making such enquiries, or was this virgin territory for him? Was he checking out the 'selling direct' option at the same time as the publishing route, and found the latter more instantly receptive and user-friendly, not to mention the possibilities for his own unfulfilled writing ambitions?

What isn't working for me, Al, is the idea that Mike would have been given the faintest clue on 9th March where the scrapbook had come from or when. He'd have been suspicious, naturally, but his concerns would be doing battle with his overwhelming desire to get his paws on it. He had to trust Eddie not to have got it from anyone who knew what they had and would miss it, and equally Eddie had to trust Mike with the book if he wanted it shown to potential buyers on his behalf.

I suspect if Eddie told Mike anything, it was that: "no effing bugger alive knows about it". And as far as Dodd was concerned at the time, it would have been true.

Otherwise, Eddie could have been in the same hot water as Mike, and that doesn't work for me either.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Caroline I still haven't read anything that invalidates my theory that Barrett got the scrapbook from Devereux like he originally said - even after going through your post #198 (thank you, btw). Lyons, knowing Barrett had a handwritten book by Maybrick, told him he had just come from Dodd's house where he heard that an old book was found by contractors months or years before, and gives Mike the idea of a source. This may not have been a coincidence if Eddie knew Tony D. and had also known Mike for some time prior to March 9, 1992.

The story of throwing a book into a skip was likely from one or these earlier dates of contract work that Eddie had heard from workmates - not Eddie himself throwing the book into a skip, even though he may have told this to Robert Smith.

Hi Scotty,

Well it's leaps and bounds ahead of the evidence-free auction business, which depends on the scrapbook not even being a twinkle in Mike's eye before 31st March 1992. By 3rd April, Doreen was already writing to Shirley about their arrangements to see Mike's newborn babe, because he had now resumed telephone contact after his alleged trip to York and was ready to rumble. A bit premature, if you ask me, if he had spent the first two or three days of April bathing his precious offspring in linseed oil and drying it tenderly before Anne had even dipped her nib in the Diamine. But hey, he could always stand behind her with the cattle prod to make sure the stupid woman got a wiggle on. That's the thing about women. If they are sinful, they are likely to be stupid as well. That's what we can take away from anyone promoting the asinine April Fool's Day creation theory.

Anyway, back on planet earth, dear Scotty, I think you would need to start from a position of finding some evidence that Eddie and Mike had ever had occasion to meet, either in the Saddle or elsewhere, before Monday 9th March 1992. The evidence we do have shows that as far back as late November 1991, when Eddie was first taken on by Portus & Rhodes, he had been working all day, every day, Mondays to Saturdays, in a different part of town, right up to Saturday 7th March 1992. Mike was doing the school run Mondays to Fridays during term time, popping into the Saddle for his late lunchtime pint before collecting Caroline from school at 3.15. So Monday 9th March was the first working day that Eddie would have been free to slip away early and return to Anfield, after being sent to help out on the Battlecrease wiring job, which had been officially allocated to someone else, who put in the full eight hours. The coincidence therefore extends to the wiring job being fitted in that week by Colin Rhodes because another job had to be put on hold until the Friday, and one of his electricians at a loose end as a result just happening to live close to the Saddle over in Anfield. And that's before we get to the various independent witnesses who have all spoken of their awareness in 1992 that a book/diary had been found during a wiring job in Dodd's house and had changed hands in an Anfield pub. Were/are they all lying, mistaken or hallucinating?

In February 1993, Paul Feldman, Paul Begg and Martin Howells all remembered/remember Mike's unexpected reaction to being told by Paul Dodd that electrical work had been done on his house. Unless they were/are all lying, mistaken or hallucinating too, there was a reaction from Mike, which would not have made a whole lot of sense if he had known since March 1992 what you suggest he may have learned from Eddie before he made that first call to Doreen.

Hope that helps!

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

It is my conviction (not simply belief) that if a newspaper ran a competition for 'Best Hoaxed Memoirs of Jack the Ripper 1992' and a million people entered it, that not a single one of those million versions would look even remotely like the one we got.

It's a one-off by anyone's standards ...

But Mike Barrett, without Anne being willing or able to do 100% of the work, would have come last, no question.

And Anne would sooner have thrown herself on the fire than to enter in the first place.

Love,

Caz
X

[Scott Nelson]

Jay, all it did was give Mike the identity of the writer, Maybrick. Even though I think Mike had the scrapbook for some time before that date (via Devereux), he had no idea who or what was all about, save the name of Jack the Ripper. But he didn't need to say it came from Dodd's house once he knew, only that he got it from Devereux.

[erobitha]

Caroline I still haven't read anything that invalidates my theory that Barrett got the scrapbook from Devereux like he originally said - even after going through your post #198 (thank you, btw). Lyons, knowing Barrett had a handwritten book by Maybrick, told him he had just come from Dodd's house where he heard that an old book was found by contractors months or years before, and gives Mike the idea of a source. This may not have been a coincidence if Eddie knew Tony D. and had also known Mike for some time prior to March 9, 1992.

The story of throwing a book into a skip was likely from one or these earlier dates of contract work that Eddie had heard from workmates - not Eddie himself throwing the book into a skip, even though he may have told this to Robert Smith.

Sorry Scott, still struggle with this. Gives Mike an idea for a source? A source he never used? So why did he need it?

[Scott Nelson]

Caroline I still haven't read anything that invalidates my theory that Barrett got the scrapbook from Devereux like he originally said - even after going through your post #198 (thank you, btw). Lyons, knowing Barrett had a handwritten book by Maybrick, told him he had just come from Dodd's house where he heard that an old book was found by contractors months or years before, and gives Mike the idea of a source. This may not have been a coincidence if Eddie knew Tony D. and had also known Mike for some time prior to March 9, 1992.

The story of throwing a book into a skip was likely from one or these earlier dates of contract work that Eddie had heard from workmates - not Eddie himself throwing the book into a skip, even though he may have told this to Robert Smith.

[Iconoclast]

That made me chuckle, Ike, because it remains my firm belief that if Mike Barrett had tried to create such a 'diary' [his description on 9th March 1992], it could have had nothing remotely in common with the one we are still discussing - and that's with or without his wife's reluctant co-operation.

Love,

Caz
X

It is my conviction (not simply belief) that if a newspaper ran a competition for 'Best Hoaxed Memoirs of Jack the Ripper 1992' and a million people entered it, that not a single one of those million versions would look even remotely like the one we got.

It's a one-off by anyone's standards ...

[caz]

So Caroline, is the suggestion here that Mike may have ordered the maroon diary as a substitute to give to Dodd in case he came crying foul for theft?

I really don't know the answer to that, Scotty, but the timing of events during the week beginning 9th March 1992, concerning Dodd's floorboards and Mike's 'diary' phone calls to Doreen and Bookfinders, are highly suggestive of a connection between all three, which led directly to Mike being prepared, by 3rd April at the latest, to resume contact with Doreen - using his real name this time - and to let her go ahead with the arrangements for him to bring the "old book" to London, which he did on 13th.

I doubt he was told where it had come from or when, which would have been enough to make him wary when he first got his hands on it. As time passed he would have felt more confident that nobody was about to beat a path to his door, so by the time the 1891 diary arrived, on 27th or 28th March, it could have become an irrelevance, and the reason for requesting it no longer applicable.

The tiny maroon diary would already be a white elephant when Mike called Doreen again on his alleged return from York. He must surely have had something to show her by then, or there would have been nothing to tell her.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

The sentiments expressed by PI1, above, are a classic case of “X cannot be authentic because if I created X I’d have done it very differently”.

That made me chuckle, Ike, because it remains my firm belief that if Mike Barrett had tried to create such a 'diary' [his description on 9th March 1992], it could have had nothing remotely in common with the one we are still discussing - and that's with or without his wife's reluctant co-operation.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Stay on point, please. You made the comment that "It is the only diary I have heard of that does not contain a single date.". In retrospect, I now realise that you did so in order to ingratiate yourself with Fishy, but in doing so you made an utter fool of yourself because you fell for the old "Hold on, it's called the diary of Jack the Ripper but it's got no dates in it so how can it be a diary - must be a hoax!" syndrome when - off course - those of us who have been around these parts for more than two minutes recognised that old canard from three decades ago. It was called a 'diary' by the original publisher, Robert Smith, who wanted to flog as many copies of the book as he could. It's called marketing, if you're interested.

The Victorian scrapbook makes no claims to be a diary. It's just a record of James Maybrick's thoughts and experiences. You can call it what you want but please don't mock that it is commonly referred to as a 'diary'. We all know it ain't.

We can go one better than that, Ike. It was called a 'diary' on 9th March 1992, by the same bloke who stands accused of faking it. Why did he call it a diary, if he already knew that the contents would not include a single date until the very end?

I think it's called having your diary cake and eating it. If it's not even a diary, why would the same person who was hoaxing it define it as a diary on the dog and bone to Doreen, and then ask Bookfinders over the dog and bone to find him a diary? He must surely have known what he was supposed to be creating - mustn't he?

Surely Mike hadn't just assumed the "old book" was a diary, from seeing that single date on the last page, before he'd had time to read it through from the beginning?

Surely the hoaxer would have known that the 'action' begins in early 1888, when Mike asked for 'a diary' from 1880-90?

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

I was desperately trying to steer clear of this debate but I cannot allow someone to misrepresent the facts in a desperate attempt to make a point they are not entitled to make (and - let's face it - we get so many of those from scrapbook dilettantes, don't we?).

The only time that I can recall that he gives some indication of the passage of time is when he claims that he killed Eddowes a quarter of an hour after Stride, which is clearly impossible as it would have resulted in Eddowes' body being discovered earlier than it was.

Can you please clarify for our dear readers where in the scrapbook James Maybrick claims that he killed Eddowes a quarter of an hour after Stride, please? You made such a big drama about your Big Reveal but you missed the bit where you actually provided the evidence for your amazing claim which no-one had ever spotted in the 30+ years this debate has raged.

I'm going to help you here as you don't know what's in the scrapbook: Maybrick claims, "Within the quarter of the hour I found another dirty bitch willing to sell her wares."

These are signs of a hoaxer at work.

Nope, these are signs of a dilettante at work.

The only joke is the diary/scrapbook, but it seems to be lost on you.

It is lost on me, that's for sure, if this is the substance of the wit you expect us to applaud you for ...

[caz]

The writer relates that he travelled down from Liverpool to London, rented a room in Middlesex Street, and then gives accounts of various happenings, including the murders.

Whether you want to call it a diary or not, there are no dates in it for any of the events related.

The only time that I can recall that he gives some indication of the passage of time is when he claims that he killed Eddowes a quarter of an hour after Stride, which is clearly impossible as it would have resulted in Eddowes' body being discovered earlier than it was.

These are signs of a hoaxer at work.

The only joke is the diary/scrapbook, but it seems to be lost on you.

Whether Mike Barrett wanted to call it a diary or not - and that's precisely what he did call it - PI is correct. There are no dates in it for any of the events related.

So the suspected hoaxer called it a diary, without knowing there were no dates in it apart from on the last page of writing?

Interesting.

Anyone might suppose that Mike hadn't had the opportunity to check that out first, before calling London on 9th March 1992 to say he had JtR's diary.