The Diary — Old Hoax or New or Not a Hoax at All?​

[Scott Nelson]

Truly, there are so many reasons why no-one would have bothered to scrutinise a dirty wooden wall. Simon Wood had the idea that Kelly might have written her killer's name in blood but that that's the only reason he even bothered to look at it. Who else, in reality, would have done so?

I studied the walls on the photograph in the 1970s just to see if there was anything there resembling writing. Just as an exercise. I'm sure others did as well.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I studied the walls on the photograph in the 1970s just to see if there was anything there resembling writing. Just as an exercise. I'm sure others did as well.

Excellent Scott. Did you see the "FM" on the wall, then?

[Iconoclast]

Hi Ike.

I don't like opinion polls and never respond to them, but I'm killing time waiting for someone to get out of the hospital, so I put one together just to see how it is done.

Any poll has to go through the administrator, though, so it will only show up if it isn't considered a colossal waste of time. Ciao.

I won’t be responding to that one, RJ. Not quite the high standard I was anticipating.

[Lombro2]

As a true Ripperologist who actually wants to solve this “officially unsolved case”, I am naturally desperate for any possible clue, no matter if it’s foresight, hindsight, predicted, reverse engineered or forward. I’d even listen to a psychic or even a Ripper suspect author.

Give me a clue, please! Cast your “pearls”. You won’t see me stomping them.

[Iconoclast]

As a true Ripperologist who actually wants to solve this “officially unsolved case”, I am naturally desperate for any possible clue, no matter if it’s foresight, hindsight, predicted, reverse engineered or forward. I’d even listen to a psychic or even a Ripper suspect author.

Give me a clue, please! Cast your “pearls”. You won’t see me stomping them.

Everything gets stomped, Lombro2, when it's online. This is why I permanently wear waterproof shin pads, mate.

The only clues that I can think of (and each has been discounted over time) include:

The GSG
The Ripper letters
The coroners' reports
The possible anatomical knowledge of the killer
The eye witness accounts (especially Hutchinson's?)
The official photographs
The various sketches
The shawl
The Maybrick scrapbook
The Maybrick watch

It's really not a lot to be going on, is it?

I'm not sure whether we could call the newspaper reports as 'clues' so I left them off the list but maybe that was too harsh of me?

[caz]

The claim that 'the question of why someone does something is irrelevant' is a masterclass in dodging logic. If motivation and behavior patterns are irrelevant, then why bother linking Maybrick to the murders at all?

We're to believe that Jack suddenly decided, for no particular reason, to sign his art in Kelly's room because he wasn’t feeling rushed that night?

Was he just saving the big finale for Mary Kelly because she booked the VIP treatment?

Or maybe he was just bored and thought, 'Hey, I’ve already gutted a victim, why not work on my penmanship?

That we need proof of some 'immutable human trait' to disprove this theory, by that logic, we should accept anything as valid unless we can prove otherwise. A unicorn stomped through Kelly's room, can you prove this didn’t happen? No? Well, then it’s obviously a valid theory!

This isn't a courtroom where silence equals guilt, it’s a debate where baseless speculation equals nonsense.

The argument hinges on this idea: 'Serial killers don’t always follow the same behavior, so we can’t question why Maybrick supposedly left initials on Mary Kelly’s wall but not on others.' But this misses the point entirely. The problem isn’t that serial killers sometimes deviate, it’s that behavior patterns are key evidence when identifying a killer. By this logic, why stop at initials? If deviation is the only standard, then Jack could’ve planted flowers in one scene, played hopscotch in another, and still be Maybrick in your eyes, because hey, no immutable traits!

The truth is, serial killers do tend to display specific patterns of behavior, even if there are occasional deviations. Those patterns aren’t arbitrary, they’re shaped by their motives, rituals, and psychological needs. The idea that Maybrick just decided to start decorating Kelly’s wall with initials out of nowhere raises more questions than it answers. Why did he never do it before? Why start now? If your theory requires a massive deviation from all known behavior with no explanation, it’s not evidence, it’s special pleading.

Why would time suddenly inspire Maybrick to become a calligrapher? Time might explain why Kelly's mutilations were more extensive, but it doesn’t explain why he’d suddenly leave initials. That’s a specific act that would have to mean something to the killer. Without a motive for this, it’s not just a deviation, it’s a plot hole.

Dismissing the question entirely as 'irrelevant' is the rhetorical equivalent of throwing your hands in the air and shouting, 'Who knows? Let’s just believe it anyway!' If the only response to logical scrutiny is to wave it off as unimportant, then why should anyone take the theory seriously?

A good theory addresses the inconsistencies, it doesn’t just sweep them under the rug.

Unless you’ve got actual evidence that the initials in Kelly’s room exist and can be tied directly to Maybrick, this entire argument is less convincing than Maybrick’s diary itself, which reads more like bad fanfiction than a killer’s confession. Nice try!



The Baron

Morning Baron,

Now apply every argument you make here to the theory that the Barretts were jointly responsible for the diary and its contents, and cannot merely be connected to it by dubious claims, outright lies and rotten luck.

If the diary reads like bad fiction, it might fit with the theory that Anne Graham composed most of the text, intending it as a piece of fiction, but then so much else needs to be explained in that context before the theory can be taken seriously. Her husband clearly hoped the experts would take the diary seriously, but how could he have possibly hoped to fool anyone with a fictional story crafted by his wife, in her own handwriting, which was nothing like Maybrick's because there was no need?

What did Mike really know about Maybrick when he took the diary to London? Did he ask his wife how much effort she had put in to see if the real Jim may have had an easily provable alibi, for instance? If you are going to write a novel, in which a real historical figure waxes not so lyrical about committing a string of real unsolved murders, might it not be more prudent to make sure he's off the hook first before you make him wriggle on it? If any surviving relatives kick off, you can show you were only playing around harmlessly with historical events and characters by whipping out the proof that your 'murderer' was in America, Manchester, Liverpool or Antarctica, or anywhere but where the crimes were actually committed.

No comeback, no harm done, and still a cracking good idea for a yarn, even if the result poses no threat to sales of The Day of the Jackal and The Odessa File.

Bottom line, for anyone who believes the Barretts - with no known previous experience - marketed their own fictional diary: what expectations did they have concerning the alibi issue when it landed with an impudent thud on Doreen's desk? Or did they not 'particularly care' one way or another, letting the experts sort it out?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

If I might make a small observation. It's not just Mary Kelly.

The diarist also claims to have left 'his mark' while cutting up Kate Eddowes' face.



Since there are many ways to describe cutting into someone's cheek, it is interesting to note that same word 'mark' was used in the same context by Martin Fido in his 1987 book (page 75).



"his personal mark on the victim" compared to the diary's "left my mark."

Fido was the first to make this observation.

The second, interestingly enough, was the Ripperologist Michael John Barrett, the diary's original owner and promoter, who before the public had even seen the diary, pointed out to Shirley Harrison behind the scenes that an 'M' could be found on Eddowes' cheeks.



The 'mark' M was carved on the cheeks of Eddowes....a fact that Mike Barrett was the first person to notice.

Rhetorical question: did Barrett know what the diarist meant because he was the one who wrote the text, and was so lazy that he even used the same word that Fido had used?

Either way, Barrett clearly scanned the photographs looking for clues. Whether he did this while he and his companion(s) were writing the text or only while explaining the text to Harrison, I'll leave you to decide.

It's a bit chicken and egg, isn't it?

Even if Anne had composed that part of the diary text, for which there is zero evidence, but slightly less implausible than Mike doing it [something that Palmer himself has freely acknowledged by attributing up to 90% of the text to Anne] Mike would still have been intrigued to know what the 'mark' was all about and checked the victim photos in one of the available books to see how it worked within the narrative.

Martin Fido had evidently got there first, seen the photos and concluded this was the killer's 'personal mark' on the victim. So why would Mike not have done the same in 1992, but with the diary text to lead him there?

[caz]

Nothing that I suspect I could ever illuminate for you.

I absolutely do not need to labour through all of the Maybrick threads to find those examples of posters who accept there are shapes which could be interpreted as the initials 'F' and 'M' simply because you are on a passing visit. If you don't believe me, that's fine with me.

If you feel I haven't illuminated the plausibility challenges of the assumption that the 'hoaxer' was the first and only noter of the 'shapes' then I have failed in my mission.

I realise you were addressing Herlock here, Ike, but one could ask similar 'chicken or egg?' questions regarding the marks on Eddowes's cheeks or the Punch cartoon caption: which would have come first in the Barretts' humble abode in Goldie Street? The idea to portray James Maybrick, an outwardly respectable Scouser, as London's very own Jack the Ripper, followed by intensive poring over the modern ripper literature and comparing it with their scanty Maybrick sources, to see if the story could even get off the ground?

Or could the idea for choosing Maybrick have come from finding certain funny little details in the ripper case, such as MAY; the knife marks etched into Eddowes's face [which have always been open to personal interpretation anyway]; and that perfect-looking 'F' carved into Kelly's arm, with a bloody 'M' shape on the wall behind her in the photograph, and then hitting on the MAYbrick case, where Jim is supposedly murdered by Florie just a few months after 11/9 - or 9/11 if you were Mike Barrett, attempting his own novel years later, in which he linked Kelly's destruction with that of the Twin Towers. Genius. Not Mike's novel, mind, but the tying-up of loose ends to provide a 63-page explanation for what became of 'the fiend and his fiend-like queen'.

It's all a game of consequences when truth be told.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

I realise you were addressing Herlock here, Ike, but one could ask similar 'chicken or egg?' questions regarding the marks on Eddowes's cheeks or the Punch cartoon caption: which would have come first in the Barretts' humble abode in Goldie Street? The idea to portray James Maybrick, an outwardly respectable Scouser, as London's very own Jack the Ripper, followed by intensive poring over the modern ripper literature and comparing it with their scanty Maybrick sources, to see if the story could even get off the ground?

Or could the idea for choosing Maybrick have come from finding certain funny little details in the ripper case, such as MAY; the knife marks etched into Eddowes's face [which have always been open to personal interpretation anyway]; and that perfect-looking 'F' carved into Kelly's arm, with a bloody 'M' shape on the wall behind her in the photograph, and then hitting on the MAYbrick case, where Jim is supposedly murdered by Florie just a few months after 11/9 - or 9/11 if you were Mike Barrett, attempting his own novel years later, in which he linked Kelly's destruction with that of the Twin Towers. Genius. Not Mike's novel, mind, but the tying-up of loose ends to provide a 63-page explanation for what became of 'the fiend and his fiend-like queen'.

It's all a game of consequences when truth be told.

Love,

Caz
X

The Punch carton is an good example, Caz, because, of course, we know that this was definitely an opportunistic use of a document, whereby the word "may" never had any connection whatsoever with James Maybrick (unlike the initials which were supposed to have been placed by him at the scene). It was pure coincidence that the cartoonist included it in the caption, but the forger saw it and cunningly linked it with James Maybrick. This tells us that the forger was observant for opportunities like this and I suspect it was the same thing with seeing an "M" on the wall and an "F" carved on the arm in the Kelly photograph which the forger exploited for the diary. All rather simple and straightforward and in no way evidence of the diary's authenticity.

[rjpalmer]

Mike would still have been intrigued to know what the 'mark' was all about and checked the victim photos in one of the available books to see how it worked within the narrative.

Martin Fido had evidently got there first, seen the photos and concluded this was the killer's 'personal mark' on the victim. So why would Mike not have done the same in 1992, but with the diary text to lead him there?

So, are you suggesting that Mike got it right? Am I reading that correctly?



Certainly, it would have been obvious to any reader that the diarist is referring to injuries to Eddowes' head.

The nose is cut off. The eyelids are nicked. The neck is cut down to the vertebrae. 'Left my mark' is somewhat more obscure though, isn't it?

Can 'left my mark' plausibly refer to something other than the significant injuries that aren't mentioned--ie., the cuts to Eddowes' cheeks, that can in turn be interpreted as an 'M'?

Or are you suggesting that the cuts to Eddowes' cheeks are such a natural interpretation of 'left my mark,' that even Barrett could figure it out? (Whereas Shirley evidently couldn't, and had to rely on Mike's explanation?)

Regards.

[Iconoclast]

The Punch carton is an good example, Caz, because, of course, we know that this was definitely an opportunistic use of a document, whereby the word "may" never had any connection whatsoever with James Maybrick (unlike the initials which were supposed to have been placed by him at the scene). It was pure coincidence that the cartoonist included it in the caption, but the forger saw it and cunningly linked it with James Maybrick. This tells us that the forger was observant for opportunities like this and I suspect it was the same thing with seeing an "M" on the wall and an "F" carved on the arm in the Kelly photograph which the forger exploited for the diary. All rather simple and straightforward and in no way evidence of the diary's authenticity.

I honestly never saw you as so close-minded Herlock. You're just a battering-ram of unremitting assumptions, aren't you?

[Herlock Sholmes]

I honestly never saw you as so close-minded Herlock. You're just a battering-ram of unremitting assumptions, aren't you?

I genuinely don't know what you mean, Ike. How am I "close minded"? What assumptions did I make in that post?

If it's that the diary was written by a forger, that's not an assumption it's a fact, due to it having been impossible to have been written in 1888.

But is that all you meant? We both know that this is my strongly held conclusion about the diary which is a factually based conclusion, not something I'm assuming.

Was there anything else that you were referring to when you spoke of my "battering-ram of unremitting assumptions" because I don't think it's true at all.

In any case, would you mind just engaging with my arguments in your responses rather than making such comments?

[Lombro2]

Hey Ike, I just thought of something after listening to sports radio and they were still talking about baseball. Besides thinking that spring is on it’s way, I realized that our American friend has not learned the life lessons of his favorite sport.

1. He doesn’t want to cover all the bases.
2. He doesn’t want to knock it past the “fences”!

[Scott Nelson]

Excellent Scott. Did you see the "FM" on the wall, then?

No, I didn't know about any alleged "FM" then. I should have clarified that I looked for writing on the walls in murder scene photos because of the Tate-LaBianca murders a couple of years previously.

[Herlock Sholmes]

No, I didn't know about any alleged "FM" then. I should have clarified that I looked for writing on the walls in murder scene photos because of the Tate-LaBianca murders a couple of years previously.

Sure, but Ike has told us that the initials are "so clear", "clearly visible" and "clear and unequivocal" on the wall in the photograph. On that basis, you shouldn't have needed to have been told they were there in order to spot them.

So how do you account for the fact that you didn't see them?