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

[Fantomas]

Hoax. More holes in it than the Royal Conspiracy.

[rjpalmer]

There once was a writer named Barrett...

‘It aint ‘im, I’d bloody well swear it!'

He bought this snoozer

Down the ol’ boozer

While tipsy on whiskey and claret.

[rjpalmer]

Regarding the missing key---

I've been reminded that the American journalist Arthur Warren (1860-1924), who was stationed in London as a special correspondent for the Boston Herald, wrote a long piece on the Whitechapel Murders and, among other things, he spoke to Joseph Barnett.

"Barnett tells me what the police do not seem to know, that while he lived with the Kelly woman the door key had been lost, and so, as the door closed with a spring lock, it was their habit to go to the window, reach through the broken glass and push back the spring bolt on the door." (Boston Herald, 20 January 1889)

Warren is obviously wrong about the police not knowing this because Abberline relayed the same information to the coroner.

Seeing that there was a spigot directly underneath Kelly's window, and she was in the habit of bringing women back to her room (as reported by Barnett), quite a number of people must have known about the broken window and their habit of reaching inside to get at the spring lock, so they would have been able to corroborate Barnett's account.

While Herlock is correct in stating that the account of the key being later found is uncorroborated, I'm not sure where we would expect to find corroboration since the police were extremely tight-lipped following the Kelly murder and the MEPO files on the Kelly case are very sparse. The same account, dating to the night of the inquest, is correct in stating that an important witness has come forward with a 'minute description of the murder'---obviously George Hutchinson. Thus, I personally don't see any particular good reason for discounting the recovery of the key.

If the key was recovered, the murderer couldn't have taken it away.

If it was lost and never recovered, the murderer couldn't have taken it away.

[Lombro2]

You know serial killers love poetry. Keep it coming.

Like attracts like.
Psych attracts psych.
Fric and frac,
Two balls in a nutsack.

They’re poets.
Deep down,
You know it.
But you don’t want to show it.

You’re all Socratic
But you should remain Stoic.

[Lombro2]

“If the key was recovered, the murderer couldn't have taken it away.“

Away out the door?

“If it was lost and never recovered [and who’s to say], the murderer couldn't have taken it away.”

[Herlock Sholmes]

Diary “ With the key I did flee. I had the key. And with it I did flee.”

Abberline “Barnett informs me that it has been missing some time, and since it has been lost they have put their hand through the broken window, and moved back the catch.”

It looks like our careless forger just read the preceding line though “An impression has gone abroad that the murderer took away the key of the room.”


Therefore we have another Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary.