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

[Lombro2]

Says the people who think and talk like Caz is a Maybrickian….

I wonder if Rick Dyer and his cop buddy fought over the picture of the gorilla suit in the freezer before presenting it at the press conference.

[Iconoclast]

I suppose one could argue that she was coached to say this, but it seems a pointless thing to coach her to say, unless you can think of how it would benefit the Barretts. What would be the purpose of it?

RJ, can you honestly say that - if it suited your argument in this situation - you would not have claimed the opposite, that Caroline had obviously been coached by her parents to say this?

This is the glaring problem with theories which are profoundly predicated on a predetermined outcome - we just interpret events in that light to ensure that the theory is 'maintained' when in fact it has gone absolutely nowhere further. It just sounds more plausible when we chuck in the angles which suit us.

But if she was going to burn the diary, wouldn't the kitchen be the logical place to do so?

That might be so (would she have to pre-heat the oven for 20 minutes, I wonder?) but that tells us nothing about where the fight was. That would have occurred wherever Mike and Anne were standing with the scrapbook within grabbing reach, I'd maybe suggest. They had an electric fire judging from the photographs so outside in the garden in the metal rubbish bin might have been the ideal location for the encounter between the two Barretts but ultimately it makes little odds as the fight was over possession of the scrapbook not where it was to be incinerated.

The reasons I think Graham was a reluctant participant are many, but they are by no mean conclusive.

Of course they aren't, RJ, because they all come from your Bag of Selective Interpretation. If they were conclusive (any of them), you would not need to think Anne was a reluctant participant in a hoax you and Orsam have wedged into the tight corners of what little we know is true. You wouldn't need to think a hoax took place at all. The reason why you think it, is because there is no firm evidence during a sane person's jury service when they would even contemplate the possibility given the profound lack of compelling cause to do so. Barrett sought out a Victorian diary in March 1992 but the sane member of the jury hears both the defence and the prosecution explain it so it loses its impact and so-called predictive power. Barrett confessed he did it, but the prosecution shows how facile his explanations are and the jury sit there in astonishment that the defence are even daring to mention it.

They include her complaint to her friend Audrey; her reluctance to attend the book launch; her behavior during the visit by police; the refusal of her royalty checks after splitting with Barrett. There may be others. Against this, it was Anne Graham who kept the diary afloat after Barrett started spilling the beans, and she did sign the collaboration agreement (though not, I understand, the publishing contract). I fully appreciate that one could argue that she was a full and willing participant. I just don't believe she was. I think Barrett's success in London scared the living hell out of her, and she had previously operated on the principle that nothing would come of the diary anyway.

Too many 'I think's, RJ. Far too many. When we do the 'I think' thing, we labour all the things we think we can twist our way, and avoid all the things which don't fit the narrative, and then we pride ourselves on what grand job we have done making an argument out of literally the thinnest of air.

You'll note I'm not saying it's just you, RJ, but when anyone does it, we have to challenge it so that my dear readers don't run off down the street throwing rotten tomatoes at Mike Barrett's Black Maria because someone has said he was guilty of a hoax.

Ike

[caz]

I think you misunderstood me Caz, I was confronting Lombro with the possibility, which didn't seem to have occurred to him, that if it made sense to him it could equally have made sense to the forger.

I didn't think it made sense. See my later #214 in which I wrote: "I would like to make clear for the avoidance of doubt that I don't think your statement makes any sense at all."

This is what makes such things futile to discuss, Herlock, because what makes total sense to one person, will make absolutely no sense to the next - ad infinitum et nauseam. There never will be a consensus, even if we all had an equal knowledge of the subject matter and the individuals concerned, so it's just arguing for its own sake.

How would each of us judge what would make sense or no sense to an unidentified forger?

How do we judge what would have made sense or no sense to Anne or Mike Barrett in the 1990s? They were individuals with minds of their own and very different personalities.

How can we possibly know what would have made sense or no sense to the real James Maybrick - or to the real Jack the Ripper?

Do you see?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

When you refer to "the Barrett theory" what exactly are you referring to Caz?

Why could someone like Mike Barrett not have expected his wife's blind forgery to be authenticated as Maybrick's handiwork from 1888/9? I don't understand why not. You don't explain it.

Haven't Robert Smith, Paul Feldman, Shirley Harrison, Doreen Montgomery and others (including our very own Ike) all held the belief that it was Maybrick's handiwork?

I'm the wrong person to ask, Herlock, because it's not my theory! If I could only worm my way into the brains of those who espouse it I might understand it myself.

But if you can't work out why Mike would have been a bit of a chump to think the diary could ever have been 'authenticated' as Maybrick's own work from 1888/9 IF IF IF it had been composed by his wife as a fictionalised interweaving of two historical murder cases, and penned in her own, albeit heavily disguised hand, then I really can't help you.

What you need to do is to stop presuming the Barretts created it between them and then conclude that Mike must have expected to get away with it, and would soon be laughing all the way to the bank. It's a circular argument. If it wasn't written by either of them, and they didn't know its origins, Mike would have been hoping it might prove to be authentic, but beyond that I have no idea how high his expectations were.

I'm not sure I understand your last question. But I have known Robert Smith for many years and I can tell you that if he had been shown a diary created by one or both Barretts, I am in no doubt whatsoever that he'd have wasted all of two minutes on it before showing Mike the door. He'd probably have sent the agent a bill for his time - but it wouldn't have been Doreen unless she had temporarily lost all her marbles.

Love,

Caz
X

[rjpalmer]

Hi Ike - no offense, but my advice is to stick to sniffing for anagrams in the graffiti and seeking phantom images in grainy photographs based on your misreading of the text.

Not only am I not doing what you claim I’m doing, I find your entire approach to the diary singularly incompetent, so I would encourage you to abandon your habit of lecturing others on the very errors that you yourself are making, but then again, I see your recent outbursts as little more than an attempt to distract from the woeful results of the recent FM poll.

In reality, I don’t care one iota if Caroline Barrett was coached or not, and whatever the answer is, it plays no role in my conclusion that the diary is a very recent fake with only two rational suspects. One should objectively follow the evidence, and that’s where it leads.

I merely offered an honest question to which I have no answer, and neither do you, unless you would like to offer one now. What would be the point in coaching Caroline to say what she said? It’s a rational question to ask.

Regards.

[rjpalmer]

Hi Herlock—

Since there are mischief makers in our midst, let me set the record straight. Obviously, based on an objective analysis, I believe the evidence shows that the diary is a very recent (1992) hoax, and that the Barretts are the only rational suspects.

Whether the primary author was Anne or Mike or if it was both of them equally involved is unknowable, and to some degree irrelevant, and I merely offered my own conjecture, based on what is available. That’s all it is, and I’m not married to any particular dynamic.

Others pretend that the Barretts couldn’t possibly be the hoaxers, but their arguments are so nonsensical and desperate that it becomes obvious that they have no valid objection.

The worst, perhaps, is the weird suggestion that Mike Barrett, known for being an entirety reckless person, would not hoax a diary without knowing if Maybrick had an alibi!

Can you make any sense of this? When did ignorance of a suspect’s known movements on four particular nights 103 years ago slow down a Ripperologist? Did Patricia Cornwell not accuse Sickert? Did Bruce Robinson not spend 10 years writing his accusation against Mike Maybrick, who was almost certainly in Redhill on the night or morning of Kelly’s death? How could Christer Holmgen have written his book without being petrified that a document might some day turn up, showing Lechmere was in St. Thomas’s in Lambeth with a broken ankle on September 30th?

How many years would the hoaxers check for an alibi before concluding the coast was clear? And what if Maybrick WAS in a business meeting in Liverpool on one of the four crucial dates? Can you imagine a scenario where Robert Smith or Tom Mitchell wouldn’t argue Maybrick took the night train? Where was the risk? Even now Sir Jim has no alibi.

If this is the quality of the objections against the Barrett “theory,” I’m confident I’m on the right track.

They have nothing.

Regards.

[Patrick Differ]

I have little to add to this thread but after recently reading this diary twice I can only provide personal observations.
As an avid reader and writer I found this work extremely difficult to follow. That could be my problem. If the attempt to make the writer appear insane there may be some success there. However the work appears contrived. Meaning what?

One of the first things I did once I discovered the Casebook was to read as many press reports as possible. I had already read over 20 books on this subject and used the internet to research the East End in 1880 to 1890's. Not an expert by any means but definitely informed. What struck me about this work was the references to specific information found in the Press reports. For example, the witness George Hutchinson references seeing " the man he saw with Kelly the night of her murder", after the murder on Middlesex Street. So in the diary Maybrick gets a room on Middlesex Street.This is one but there are quite a few others. In my mind I thought, why would this man rent a room on Middlesex Street, and immediately thought , was this real, was it to make it seem real or was it so he could blend in with the Sunday Market? Trying to be objective with the subject matter. Then I realized this was a pattern in the writing, hence for me, contrived.

If Maybrick lived on Middlesex Street the question for me would be..What Police jurisdiction..London City or Metro. That would likely matter in this case but it does not state. The pattern with Press Reports seems to obvious to me but I have not studied it like most of you fine folks.

In terms of when it was discovered it is likely that there is much to discover still. Jacob Levy wasn't discovered until 1999 and for me he is the Prime Suspect.

in any case if we are voting I would call this an interesting work of fiction.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock -

I'm afraid I can offer no insight into why another poster is attributing beliefs to you that you do not hold; I can only confirm that my own beliefs are often mangled and rephrased into vague parodies of what I actually wrote or believe.

Unless we are being mightily deceived, none of the diary researchers knew Barrett or Graham before Barrett turned up in London, and some didn't meet either of them until some years later.

On page 138 of Feldman's book there is an account of Caroline Barrett telling Paul Begg that her mother tried to burn the diary. This is while she was alone with Begg and away from her parents. I suppose one could argue that she was coached to say this, but it seems a pointless thing to coach her to say, unless you can think of how it would benefit the Barretts. What would be the purpose of it?

I think it only raised questions in the minds of the researchers, for they later asked Mike and Anne about it. I do think I need to correct one point, as I think it was Anne, and not Caroline, who mentioned the struggle taking place on the kitchen floor. But if she was going to burn the diary, wouldn't the kitchen be the logical place to do so? Still, Anne's own daughter would be the only one approaching 'corroboration.'

The reasons I think Graham was a reluctant participant are many, but they are by no mean conclusive. They include her complaint to her friend Audrey; her reluctance to attend the book launch; her behavior during the visit by police; the refusal of her royalty checks after splitting with Barrett. There may be others. Against this, it was Anne Graham who kept the diary afloat after Barrett started spilling the beans, and she did sign the collaboration agreement (though not, I understand, the publishing contract). I fully appreciate that one could argue that she was a full and willing participant. I just don't believe she was. I think Barrett's success in London scared the living hell out of her, and she had previously operated on the principle that nothing would come of the diary anyway.

Thanks for the Feldman extract, Roger, much appreciated. Shame there's no direct quote there by Caroline but one thing really strikes me about that extract. I may be a newbie to all this, although I'm trying to get up to speed as fast as I can by reading old threads and online articles, but do my eyes deceive me where Caroline is supposed to have said, "She remembered her dad pestering Tony"? This is supposed to be after "the day her dad came home with the diary". Maybe I've got this all wrong but who is the Tony she's talking about? Is it Devereux? But didn't he die long before March 1992, or have I misremembered? If he did die long before March 1992, does this mean that Barrett brought the diary home before March 1992? I'm really confused.

If what Caroline was saying was true. I do see what you mean about Anne getting upset that her husband wanted to get the diary published which, perhaps, she had never thought he would do. But can I ask you this, Roger, because the others don't seem to want to help me. Did I read somewhere that Anne wanted to have the diary put in a bank vault in order to protect it from a house fire? Or did I imagine this?

[Herlock Sholmes]

This is what makes such things futile to discuss, Herlock, because what makes total sense to one person, will make absolutely no sense to the next - ad infinitum et nauseam. There never will be a consensus, even if we all had an equal knowledge of the subject matter and the individuals concerned, so it's just arguing for its own sake.

How would each of us judge what would make sense or no sense to an unidentified forger?

How do we judge what would have made sense or no sense to Anne or Mike Barrett in the 1990s? They were individuals with minds of their own and very different personalities.

How can we possibly know what would have made sense or no sense to the real James Maybrick - or to the real Jack the Ripper?

Do you see?

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

With the greatest of respect, you seem to be entirely missing the point.

Lombro (#183) put forward an argument that it made sense to him that Maybrick would have written his diary in a disguised hand. He gave his reasons.

In response (#184), I asked him whether it might not also have made sense to a forger, thus explaining why the diary is not in Maybrick's handwriting.

That was the only purpose of that post.

I later clarified (#214), for the avoidance of doubt, that his argument made no sense to me, and I gave my reasons. Perhaps you never went back and read those reasons?

The reason I added this clarification was because I felt someone might think I agreed that Lombro's argument made sense. Indeed that's exactly what you seemed to think when you posted a reply to my #184 (in your #254) without, apparently, having read my #214.

That's all that happened.

For you to now suggest that all discussion is futile because Lombro sometimes says things which make no sense. He gave his reasons and I gave mine. That is how a discussion works. I don't believe it's futile.

What is disappointing to me is that you have asked the question, "How would each of us judge what would make sense or no sense to an unidentified forger?", without considering the reasons Lombro gave and the reasons I gave.

But that wasn't even the question. The question was whether something MIGHT have made sense to an unidentified forger. Because if something makes sense to Lombro it could potentially make sense to anyone else, couldn't it?

[rjpalmer]

my dear readers don't run off down the street throwing rotten tomatoes at Mike Barrett's Black Maria because someone has said he was guilty of a hoax.

This might be my favorite attempt at orchestrated handwringing.

The “someone” who said Barrett was guilty of a hoax was Barrett himself in his secret, non-circulating confessional affidavit.

That doesn’t make his affidavit automatically true, but it does mean that it would be incompetent not to intelligently investigate it, particularly since elements of it have been confirmed.

No one on this forum, with one possible exception, has treated Barrett in a more slanted and shabby manner than Ike, so acting as if he’s defending Barrett from a raving and irrational mob is quite rich.

Regards.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I'm the wrong person to ask, Herlock, because it's not my theory! If I could only worm my way into the brains of those who espouse it I might understand it myself.

But if you can't work out why Mike would have been a bit of a chump to think the diary could ever have been 'authenticated' as Maybrick's own work from 1888/9 IF IF IF it had been composed by his wife as a fictionalised interweaving of two historical murder cases, and penned in her own, albeit heavily disguised hand, then I really can't help you.

What you need to do is to stop presuming the Barretts created it between them and then conclude that Mike must have expected to get away with it, and would soon be laughing all the way to the bank. It's a circular argument. If it wasn't written by either of them, and they didn't know its origins, Mike would have been hoping it might prove to be authentic, but beyond that I have no idea how high his expectations were.

I'm not sure I understand your last question. But I have known Robert Smith for many years and I can tell you that if he had been shown a diary created by one or both Barretts, I am in no doubt whatsoever that he'd have wasted all of two minutes on it before showing Mike the door. He'd probably have sent the agent a bill for his time - but it wouldn't have been Doreen unless she had temporarily lost all her marbles.

Love,

Caz
X

I'm puzzled Caz. If you can't tell me what "the Barrett theory" is, why did you write a sentence in your post to me which commenced: "According to the Barrett theory...."?

More recently, you asked me if I have doubts about "the Barrett theory". But, as I don't know what it is, and you can't tell me, how am I supposed to respond?

In terms of your specific point about authentication, surely in the forger's mind, the diary could potentially have been authenticated if there were no known examples of Maybrick's handwriting in existence for comparison. Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Paul Begg once say that the diary had not been shown to be a forgery? That's a kind of an authentication. And what about the graphologist brought in as an expert who said that it was impossible for the diary to have been forged? That was a positive authentication, surely. And Hitler's diary was initially authenticated by experts, wasn't it? If Hitler's fake diary could be authenticated why not Jack the Ripper's fake diary? Might that not be how the forger was thinking?

But to be clear Caz, I'm not presuming that Barrett created the diary. Not at all. I've never once said this. I've said I've not been given any reason why he and his wife could not have created it. I still wait for that.

My thinking, if you're interested, is very simple. On the basis of the evidence, I know for a fact that the diary was created after the Second World War due to the use, by its author, of "one off instance". Actually, we can do better than that and say no earlier than the late 1950s when such expressions started to enter the English language. From the mention of the initials, which, as we've discussed previously, suggests knowledge of MJK1, we can probably say no earlier than 1972. Then I ask myself, how did a forged diary created after 1950 and probably after 1972 end up in the hands of the Barretts? I did ask you this question earlier in the thread but never received an answer. I can't see that an electrician could have found it in Battlecrease because why and how could it have been hidden there? It couldn't have been slipped under the floorboards by anyone because they were nailed down. There's also no direct evidence of anyone finding the diary at Battlecrease. So I look elsewhere. Even the most stupid police officer would have to conside the Barretts as obvious candidates for the forgery simply due to it being in their possession for no satisfactorily explained reason and their attempt to make money from it. There is undoubtedly the question of why Barrett secretly attempted to acquire a genuine diary from the period of the Ripper murders with blank pages. That cannot be ignored and I'd be a fool if I did ignore it. Ike tried to give me a couple of possible alternative reasons for him doing this but I'm afraid they were unconvincing and just made no sense to me for the reasons I stated to him (and there are more reasons I could have put forward). It's also odd that Anne lied about the reason why her husband was seeking such a diary. And it's very strange also that she lied about the Maybrick diary having been in her family. So for those reasons I don't see how the Barretts can be ruled out but I'm open to the identification of any other person as the forger. It's just that I've never seen the name of any other single plausible candidate mentioned.

I hope that explains it. For me, that's a perfectly reasonable, rational and evidence-based way to think about this subject. I can't even see that it should be controversial in any way.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock—

Since there are mischief makers in our midst, let me set the record straight. Obviously, based on an objective analysis, I believe the evidence shows that the diary is a very recent (1992) hoax, and that the Barretts are the only rational suspects.

Whether the primary author was Anne or Mike or if it was both of them equally involved is unknowable, and to some degree irrelevant, and I merely offered my own conjecture, based on what is available. That’s all it is, and I’m not married to any particular dynamic.

Others pretend that the Barretts couldn’t possibly be the hoaxers, but their arguments are so nonsensical and desperate that it becomes obvious that they have no valid objection.

The worst, perhaps, is the weird suggestion that Mike Barrett, known for being an entirety reckless person, would not hoax a diary without knowing if Maybrick had an alibi!

Can you make any sense of this? When did ignorance of a suspect’s known movements on four particular nights 103 years ago slow down a Ripperologist? Did Patricia Cornwell not accuse Sickert? Did Bruce Robinson not spend 10 years writing his accusation against Mike Maybrick, who was almost certainly in Redhill on the night or morning of Kelly’s death? How could Christer Holmgen have written his book without being petrified that a document might some day turn up, showing Lechmere was in St. Thomas’s in Lambeth with a broken ankle on September 30th?

How many years would the hoaxers check for an alibi before concluding the coast was clear? And what if Maybrick WAS in a business meeting in Liverpool on one of the four crucial dates? Can you imagine a scenario where Robert Smith or Tom Mitchell wouldn’t argue Maybrick took the night train? Where was the risk? Even now Sir Jim has no alibi.

If this is the quality of the objections against the Barrett “theory,” I’m confident I’m on the right track.

They have nothing.

Regards.

I think that's a very interesting way of looking at the diary, Roger - as the equivalent of a suspect book about Jack the Ripper.

Michael Barrett, Anne Barrett or anyone else in 1992 could have written and published a book claiming James Maybrick was Jack the Ripper. Their material would have been a bit thin. He was known to visit London, he beat his wife and he threatened other women with violence. Perhaps they could have conjured up some additional clues: the "M" on the envelope, some Maybrick related initials at the Kelly crime scene and perhaps even a coded message in the GSG. To be honest, though, I've read books accusing people on even less grounds than this! But let's say they managed to build up a decent case against him. One could argue that they would never have published that book because, after publication, someone might have produced evidence that Maybrick had an alibi for one of the murders. But it would be a strange argument. It's exactly the same thing with the diary.

And after all what would have happened? With the book it would have been discredited, but so what? Perhaps they would have made some money before this happened. With the diary option, the diary too would have been discredited but, again, so what? Barrett would just have said he was given a dud by his dead friend. He would have moved on with his life and everyone would have forgotten about it. It's what I was saying about risk versus reward. The risks were very low. The potential reward was very great. So why not go for it?

[Iconoclast]

Maybe I've got this all wrong but who is the Tony she's talking about? Is it Devereux? But didn't he die long before March 1992, or have I misremembered? If he did die long before March 1992, does this mean that Barrett brought the diary home before March 1992? I'm really confused.

Yes, she was referring to Tony Devereux (or at least we have all assumed) and, yes, if this happened and it was Tony Devereux Mike was ringing (we don't know that Mike was ringing Tony, Caroline could have assumed this) then it must have been before early August 1991 when Tony had a fatal heart attack.

Did I read somewhere that Anne wanted to have the diary put in a bank vault in order to protect it from a house fire? Or did I imagine this?

Yes, she did indeed. This can be interpreted any which way one chooses - one of which is that she believed it was a genuine historical document (because it had been in her family for years) or suspected it was a stolen genuine historical document (because she had seen it suddenly appear in Mike's hands on March 9, 1992, or very soon thereafter).

[Iconoclast]

I may be a newbie to all this, although I'm trying to get up to speed as fast as I can by reading old threads and online articles ...

Would it be possible to be a little bit more circumspect in your assumptions, then, until you have properly evaluated the case? Perhaps it might be worth reading some of the books on the scrapbook too, for example?

I suspect that would be a lost cause as you are now heavily invested into RJ's way of thinking which is a genuine shame because there is a very good chance (and I speak euphemistically here) that he's been drinking far too much Orsam Aid to really assess the case without bias.

[Iconoclast]

But that wasn't even the question. The question was whether something MIGHT have made sense to an unidentified forger. Because if something makes sense to Lombro it could potentially make sense to anyone else, couldn't it?

It depends how awkward it might be for those arguing a point they won't yield from. In that case, you will find that certain posters - let's call one 'Bob' so that my final sentence is clear in its intent - use derogatory words like 'stupid' and 'ridiculous' because they are instructing the reader to not give any credence to something which might otherwise make sense to them but which clashes directly with 'Bob''s specific and desired interpretation.