New Ideas and New Research on the Diary

[Herlock Sholmes]

Why would anyone expect an author or an academic to be able to Rubiks Cube something anyway? We have forums for a reason. And for reason.

If that's directed at me, Lombro, I wasn't expecting Smith to Rubiks Cube anything away. I merely expected his book to contain accurate facts about to a critical subject relating to the diary's authenticity. Sadly, it did not. Perhaps my hopes were too high?

[caz]

Caroline-- I don't read your nonsensical screed anymore, but I was alerted by email to the above statement.

Will you stop telling lies about me?

I challenge you--right here, right now--to produce a single instance where I have ever suggested or implied that the Murphys---honest shopkeepers--were dishonest.

Quit projecting your own unfounded suspicions onto me.

The casual readers of this thread should be made aware that it is YOU (along with Markus and Jay Hartley) who have accused the Murphys of lying about the watch.

I believe the exact opposite.

Apologies. I must have missed the post where Palmer acknowledged that the Murphys remembered treating the scratches in the watch with jeweller's rouge because it was true. He had previously insisted there were no scratches to treat in 1992 and therefore this never happened, and one of the Johnson brothers must have put them there the following year.

The implication was pretty obvious, to me at least: that the Murphys were protecting their customer by claiming to have used jeweller's rouge on scratches that had not existed when the watch was in their possession.

[caz]

I haven't asked him that question, Caz, but I know he posted other extracts from the same letter on his old website which can still be viewed on the Wayback archive. It's the one in which Anne accuses Mike, mysteriously, of blackmailing her.

I don't actually need to see any of those extracts, Herlock. I merely wondered if you had asked if the whole letter was available.

It's pretty obvious that none of us would still be here if Anne had written anything to the effect that she had written the diary with or without Mike's input.

It's far from obvious to me, however, in the absence of all Anne's correspondence with Mike being made available, that she didn't write anything to the effect that his 'confessions' were all total bollocks and he knew it as well as she did. Perhaps I'm just too suspicious.

It would change nothing in any case because I doubt that Anne would have put anything incriminating in writing to Mike, knowing her letters were unlikely to be safe in his hands. In that respect, the blackmail accusation is pretty self-explanatory. He delivered his affidavit through her door, hoping it would 'terrify' her into agreeing to make contact. She was not going to be blackmailed, however, by a faux legal document that was a pack of lies. He could publish and be damned as far as she was concerned. If people chose to believe his drunken fantasies, that was their problem, not hers. She had other problems on her plate, all very much connected to life on earth.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I wasn't aware that there was any secrecy in what Mike told Scotland Yard in 1993, especially as you mentioned it in your post, and find it rather strange that the evidence to support your claim isn't publicly available. It's just that you phrased it in an unusual way referring to Mike's "creative writing ambitions and achievements", and it's not quite clear to me what that involved. But are you saying that Mike told the truth to Scotland Yard on this occasion? If so, does that demonstrate he was capable of telling the truth at times?

I'll let you work it out, Herlock.

But, as RJ Palmer would agree, nobody tells lies all the time.

Mike is on record for having mixed provable lies with provable truths, half-truths and sheer unadulterated fantasy, sometimes during the course of a single interview or conversation.

The claim here for a long time was that Mike had deliberately concealed this aspect of his life in the 1980s, and this was considered suspicious to the point of damning. But he didn't conceal - or try to conceal - this from the boys in blue, and this was way back in October 1993, many months before he went to Brough with his first forgery claims. There's no need to shift any goalposts. It is what it is.

If you wish to question Keith Skinner's research, or what I have posted with his knowledge, there's nothing I can do. I was trying to help, as you seemed unaware of this fact, but I appreciate why you might prefer help from alternative sources.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Caz,

I suppose that if Mike had been told or had heard or read that putting sugar into ink would assist when forging an old document he might have speculated in his mind as to why this might be. There is some literature online which suggests that adding sugar to ink will change the appearance of that ink. So, really, it doesn't matter what he believed, only whether he did or did not put sugar in the ink, as he insisted he did in 1999, assuming he was one of the forgers, of course. The fact that his reasoning might have been wonky can hardly be used as evidence that he didn't do it, or that he wasn't the forger.

Fair enough, Herlock, except that Mike had no access in 1992 to anything online. And nobody needs evidence that Mike didn't do what he claimed, or that he wasn't a forger. The onus is on those who are trying to make the case against him - using his own words to do it.

If he'd claimed in June 1994, that he had bought a bottle of Diamine ink and added sugar to it, explaining his reasons, things would have been rather different. But he did none of that. Mike just claimed at the time that he bought the diary ink from Bluecoat Chambers. He was not willing - or able - to name it, but it was established that Diamine was the only ink on sale there which could mimic a Victorian ink [despite its formula being thoroughly modern]. Naturally, this was the gift that kept on giving: Mike now had "Diamine" tripping off his tongue, so he could later claim it had been dripping off his wife's pen. Nobody believed he could have been the penman, so he needed a Plan B if he was going to settle any scores.

Mike later claimed he had only named Bluecoat Chambers because they happened to pass it as Harold Brough drove him round the one-way system to see if he could identify where he had obtained the raw materials for his forgery. Had they popped into Outhwaite & Litherland, might Brough have found the necessary confirmation from another source? If only.

As usual, a miss is as good as a mile, where Mike's forgery claims are concerned. Was he deliberately stopping short of providing definitive proof at each and every turn, because he wanted to avoid any serious consequences to himself? Or did he have no proof because every single claim was yet another tall tale told by this serial liar? Is there another realistic option?

Love,

Caz
X

[Lombro2]

Why would anyone expect an author or an academic to be able to Rubiks Cube something anyway? We have forums for a reason. And for reason.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Indeed. That's why I mentioned caveat emptor.

Herlock appeared to be suggesting that when he bought Robert Smith's diary book, he actually expected it to contain the definitive solution to the Whitechapel Murders, and felt like he'd been conned. I never thought of him as a 'vulnerable' victim of a scam in the usual sense, where a person may be tricked into handing over their life savings.

I once bought a bible, but didn't find God. Should I have asked for my money back?

Hi Caz,

That's not what I was saying. My point was that I expected a book entitled "The True Facts" to contain true facts. But when it came to the section about "one off" at least, the facts were not true That's what was so disappointing to me.

[caz]

Hi Scott --

[Should I call you Scotty, by the way?]

The following exchange from the archives might interest you.

01-10-2018, 06:05 AM

Originally posted by James_J

As a matter of fact, I did interview Vincent Dring, twice - on the 7th & 14th December 2015 respectively. Vincent's account was much the same as it's recounted in Shirley's book - and he remembered finding two books beneath some wall panelling at Battlecrease in 1982. As inticing as this sounded - when I sent Vincent a series of high-resolution photographs of the Maybrick journal, he said that the books he remembered finding were not of a similar appearance, and 'were too thin'. The books were then discarded into the skip - supplied by a company named Lockwoods. Unfortunately, Lockwoods did not keep records of what was disposed off in the skips. Vincent had no association with Portus & Rhodes and was then employed by a firm named J&T Joinery. Colin Rhodes was able to confirm that Dring had no association with his firm. Further to that - I could find no tangible connection between Vincent, Mike Barrett, Tony Devereux or The Saddle.

David Orsam's response:

Finally, some confirmation that workers, other than Portus & Rhodes electricians, carried out work in Battlecrease in the 1980s.

But J&T Joinery doesn't sound like a firm of electricians to me. Yet in Inside Story we are told that Dring was "one of the electricians who had worked in Battlecrease House during the renovation work". Was he an electrician or not?

What other work is known to have been carried out in Battlecrease prior to 9 March 1992 before (and even after) the involvement of Portus and Rhodes?

Interesting to know that discoveries could be made in Battlecrease in places other than under the floorboards. As I said in my article, Robert Smith and the Maybrick Diary: The False Facts Exposed!, "there is no necessary reason why the Diary, if it came from Battlecrease, had to have been hidden under the floorboards. It could have been hidden away in any nook or crevice in the house".

Furthermore, it's interesting to know that discoveries other than the Diary were being made in Battlecrease. We've previously been told about the discovery of a newspaper, now we find two books being discovered in the house. So a possible discovery recalled by electricians in 1992 did not need to be the Diary by any means yet it seems to be assumed that if a book was found by an electrician it must have been the diary.

Regards

P.S. Only to add that Paul Dodd confirmed there was no skip during the heater installation in March 1992.

All very interesting, no doubt, to anyone who hasn't heard it all before, but it doesn't detract from the testimony we have from various witnesses, independently giving the names Lyons and Bowling in connection with Jack the Ripper's diary being found and taken away from the house formerly known as Battlecrease. We know when the two men were taken on by Portus & Rhodes, and when they left the firm, and also the work that was done in the house during their employment. So while it's useful to know that other items had allegedly been found in the house previously, by other workmen, the stronger evidence takes priority and the double event of 9th March 1992 cannot simply be wished away. It will take even stronger evidence to do that, and there is none - none whatsoever - to support the diary's emergence at any time from an auction sale clutched in Mike Barrrett's hands, wrapped in the famous brown paper or shoved into a carrier bag.

[caz]

I'm guessing that Herlock knows what a literary agent is. And no, a literary agent doesn't have to agree with a writer's thesis or hypothesis.

On the other hand, an agent doesn't have to take onboard a writer who is peddling highly dubious information. He could say 'this is garbage, Russ, find someone else.'

I image that for many it just boils down to how many units they think they can move--along with the useful 'buyer beware' ethos.

Indeed. That's why I mentioned caveat emptor.

Herlock appeared to be suggesting that when he bought Robert Smith's diary book, he actually expected it to contain the definitive solution to the Whitechapel Murders, and felt like he'd been conned. I never thought of him as a 'vulnerable' victim of a scam in the usual sense, where a person may be tricked into handing over their life savings.

I once bought a bible, but didn't find God. Should I have asked for my money back?

[Lombro2]

I'll leave Palmer to his own problems in these strange times.

I'm all for protecting the vulnerable from scammers everywhere. But there's a line to be drawn when people who should know better - and claim to know better - fork out their cash for books, never for one moment being beguiled by the promises on the cover [True Face/Final Chapter/Case Closed/you name it], and then try to complain that they've been swindled. Who's scamming who?

At least, he's finally criticizing the actions of a businessman or two. Or three.

Robert Smith didn't want to represent me with my Liverpool MJK because he had a "conflict of interest" with the Cardiff MJK. Anyway, I wouldn't call his book a Ripper book any more than Caz's book is one. So if Caz wants to write a Lechmere book, there's no conflict of interest and she'll have a big disclaimer on the cover, I'm sure.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Glue?

Be careful what you wish for. If it is glue, it could have been upwards of 90 years old in 1995. Alec Voller observed a dot of diary ink beneath one particular glue stain.

Palmer should have Anne Graham 'tested' if he has the courage of his own convictions.

What are the odds? That Mike lied in June 1994? And again in January 1995 just after she got her divorce from him?

Or did he suddenly have a pressing need to tell the truth and ease his conscience, while attempting to throw Anne under that bus for having left him?

I may have missed it, but has anyone actually come up with a remotely convincing motive - or indeed any motive - for Mike to have changed the habit of a lifetime in January 1995, to become an honest and truthful witness?

Is a serial liar even capable of changing?

Now that we've established that the Barretts appear to have divorced in the spring of 1995, I don't think one can really talk about the odds being that Mike "lied" about Anne "just after she got her divorce from him" or that he was "attempting to throw Anne under the bus for having left him".

It's not only the decree absolute point It's that none of the dates work. Anne left Mike in January 1994, I believe, yet Mike didn't mention Anne in his confession of June 1994. Ike has pointed out to me in the "Hoax" thread that the reason behind the January 1995 affidavit was that Melvin Harris had suggested to Alan Gray in December 1994 that Mike put his story down in a written statement. I'm pretty sure that suggestion by Harris could have had nothing to do with the Barretts' divorce proceedings. As I've previously discussed with Ike, Mike had already told Gray multiple times in November 1994, long before the decree nisi, that Anne had written the manuscript. This was merely repeated in the January 1995 affidavit. Furthermore, Mike repeated this claim in 1999, five years after his divorce.

So, like I say, the dates just don't work. And I hope this post explains why I thought it was important earlier to mention that the November 1994 and April 1999 instances of Mike stating that his wife assisted him in the forgery weren't included in your brief chronology.

[rjpalmer]

The above shows the juvenile mentality of the Maybrick Diary crowd.

The Murphys inherited the watch from Suzanne's father, Mr. Stewart. He had never gotten around to repairing the watch before his retirement, but it stayed in the family's possession for years. There is no reason to doubt this, and Shirley Harrison and Paul Feldman reported it without a whisper of skepticism, and even Albert Johnson's relatives went around to question Murphy and found him nothing other an honest, candid shopkeeper.

Even so, the Diary Crowd has now decided that the Murphys are liars who received stolen goods from Battlecrease in April 1992 and kept the true origins of the watch secret from a string of subsequent researchers, lying repeatedly.

There is not a jot of evidence that this happened, but instead of having the integrity or the spines to admit that they are the ones falsely accusing the Murphys, they hypocritically and falsely turn the tables and suggest that others are questioning their honesty--which I have never done.

And Caroline Brown does this knowingly. Is it any wonder that a long string of people has simply stopped communicating with the Maybrick crowd?

One grows weary of these gaslighting ghouls.

[rjpalmer]

Palmer is forgetting that his new best friends, Ron and Suzanne, were already down as dishonest in his book for claiming to have noticed the scratches and treated them with jeweller's rouge back in 1992, to improve the appearance of the timepiece and get it up to scratch before putting it in the shop window.

Caroline-- I don't read your nonsensical screed anymore, but I was alerted by email to the above statement.

Will you stop telling lies about me?

I challenge you--right here, right now--to produce a single instance where I have ever suggested or implied that the Murphys---honest shopkeepers--were dishonest.

Quit projecting your own unfounded suspicions onto me.

The casual readers of this thread should be made aware that it is YOU (along with Markus and Jay Hartley) who have accused the Murphys of lying about the watch.

I believe the exact opposite.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Out of interest, Herlock, did you think to ask Orsam if the whole letter to Mike from Anne was in his possession, or did he only have the 'extract' he posted, and which you have transcribed above?

I presume Anne must not have written anything along the lines of:

'Oh, and about that affidavit you posted through my door last month, Michael. Please don't do anything stupid with it or we will both be prosecuted. Writing that diary for you was the biggest mistake I ever made.'

Nor indeed along the lines of:

'What the hell were you playing at, Michael, telling all those stupid lies? One lie after another, from Devereux to this. I protected you from yourself at the beginning, knowing you only seen the diary the day you called Doreen.'

Love,

Caz
X

I haven't asked him that question, Caz, but I know he posted other extracts from the same letter on his old website which can still be viewed on the Wayback archive. It's the one in which Anne accuses Mike, mysteriously, of blackmailing her.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Anne dated their divorce to 7th December 1994 in a recorded interview in April 1995, so presumably she was referring to the decree nisi.

As for everything else, you seem to have made up your own mind, and are again answering your own questions with guesses or statements, so we'll just have to agree to disagree about the significance of what Mike said or neglected to say, and to whom, about his previous attempts to make it as a writer not a fighter.

Obviously I am not at liberty to post every detail about everything in Keith Skinner's possession as a result of his own research, and can only post what has already been posted at least once before - if not done to death - which would all have been with Keith's blessing. But that leaves you free to believe whatever you like about what else Mike told Scotland Yard on record. I was just making you aware, if you were not already, that the police were well aware of it back in October 1993.

The old book the diary is written in was easily 90 years old - give or take - in 1995, so the age and nature of the glue/kidney/linseed oil/whatever-you-want-the-staining-to-be-from, have yet to be determined. I understand now why you would not be interested in tests that could resolve this, because you already 'know' there cannot possibly be any relevant 'one off' examples in existence anywhere, waiting to join all Gary Barnett's old 'bumbling' references, which have literally only become available online over the last few days. That was quite a coincidence for me, because I had been away from the forums for a few weeks and only just popped back in the other day, with no clue that something old, but brand new and definitely real, was in the process of emerging to greet me on my return. You couldn't make it up, but luckily we don't need to. This story continues to write itself.

Love,

Caz
X

I wasn't aware that there was any secrecy in what Mike told Scotland Yard in 1993, especially as you mentioned it in your post, and find it rather strange that the evidence to support your claim isn't publicly available. It's just that you phrased it in an unusual way referring to Mike's "creative writing ambitions and achievements", and it's not quite clear to me what that involved. But are you saying that Mike told the truth to Scotland Yard on this occasion? If so, does that demonstrate he was capable of telling the truth at times?