The Manchester Murders

[Mayerling]

Thank you, Jeff. I only found this 'suicide' by including Greater Manchester, and by searching for "mysterious death" which I did because I assumed it would be an unsolved murder, not a death by unknown causes.

I keep hearing about how the onus is on people who believe in the Diary to prove it is real. I personally don't believe that but I'm going along and looking at controversial aspects that are available to me to try to prove things happened the way it says.

I just don't like it when the goalposts are moved. "He said whore so it has to be a prostitute!", etc.

That said, I think I need the goalposts moved on this one. I need the parameters widened to include Liverpool. Can I have that?

I don't see anything that says it was in Manchester. It was close to Christmas and it looks like he was close to home.

Hi Maybea,

You might as well double-check Liverpool - basically I don't see any harm if you do.

I suspect that the reason "whore" is being used to mean only "prostitute" is that the assumed Whitechapel victims are all "prostitutes", and "whore" usually means that. However, to be fair, "whore" has been ever used as a nasty perjorative against women by amgry men since forever (I am including other language synonyms for "whore"). One may as well assume it can be a general term here.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

I don't see a problem as far as accusations. For some, Maybrick accused himself and, for old hoax theorists, someone in his circle accused him. The only negative thing I've heard from the family is Edwin Maybrick's descendant in Australia saying it's a fake.

Since I did not accept the diary as real there are some points I never considered about it. Are the only Maybrick descendants left just from Edwin? I know that James and Florence had a son and daughter, and the son died from poisoning (accidental or suicidal?) around 1910 or so.

Jeff

[MayBea]

I've been looking for Maybrick descendants for possible DNA testing and Mark Maybrick, who once did an interview, was said to be the only living Maybrick relative. Then I heard of Edwin's descendant in Australia, Amanda Pruden.

Then, of course, there were all of James' kids with Sarah Robertson, five or so who haven't been traced. So they are out there and, if they are willing to come forward, I'd be interested to see if they are a familial match to other persons I believe are James' descendants.

[caz]

Like everyone else, I have yet to find the one in December. Care to wager?

I'll take the wager, MayBea. He was back in London - Manchester being too cold and wet for our "Sir Jim". Five days before Christmas to be exact, with Rose Mylett. He couldn't cut this time, visions of Mary Kelly flooded back as he attacked. He left her 'for dead' - not obviously dead - and he got no thrill out of it on this occasion.

Quite subtle, our hoaxer, if this is what is being implied.

What do you think?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

The press would be all over any killing where "I have showered my fury on the bitch. I struck and struck. I do not know how I stopped." could be used as a description.

So... If I were a gambling man I'd bet you won't find that one either.

But as I've always said, anything is possible.

Hi John,

I always thought "Sir Jim" was meant to be conflating the victim with his wayward wife Florie here (in keeping with the whole theme of the diary). The first part of the entry describes him attacking the victim (arguably Rose Mylett), but finding himself unable to 'cut' (or rip) this one, due to his previous excesses in Miller's Court, he more or less gives up and returns home deflated. There, he takes out his fury and frustration on 'the bitch' (Florie) and whacks her. Or at least, he fantasises about hitting her over and over again.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I suspect that the reason "whore" is being used to mean only "prostitute" is that the assumed Whitechapel victims are all "prostitutes", and "whore" usually means that. However, to be fair, "whore" has been ever used as a nasty perjorative against women by amgry men since forever (I am including other language synonyms for "whore"). One may as well assume it can be a general term here.

Jeff

Doesn't "Sir Jim" refer to his wife as 'the whore' throughout the text? The victims are meant to be wife (or 'whore') substitutes - easily available women he can get away with killing, while fondly imagining himself to be killing his wife - over and over again.

Love,

Caz
X

[MayBea]

I always thought "Sir Jim" was meant to be conflating the victim with his wayward wife Florie here (in keeping with the whole theme of the diary). The first part of the entry describes him attacking the victim (arguably Rose Mylett), but finding himself unable to 'cut' (or rip) this one, due to his previous excesses in Miller's Court, he more or less gives up and returns home deflated. There, he takes out his fury and frustration on 'the bitch' (Florie) and whacks her...

I see what you mean, caz. London should be included. Felman was correct in changing his interpretation about the second so-called "Manchester Murder" to say there wasn't one specifically mentioned.

Since the only unsolved murder I can find that even possibly could be a match is one on the Isle of Man on December 20 (Elizabeth Crowe, struck 15 times with a rock and a stick with nails), I think you're right on the mark. The "struck and struck" refers to a beating laid on Florie, like the second of a double event where he wasn't satisfied with the first. Rose Mylett doesn't appear to have been struck at all and she is a better match to what the Diarist is referring.

[Mayerling]

Hi John,

I always thought "Sir Jim" was meant to be conflating the victim with his wayward wife Florie here (in keeping with the whole theme of the diary). The first part of the entry describes him attacking the victim (arguably Rose Mylett), but finding himself unable to 'cut' (or rip) this one, due to his previous excesses in Miller's Court, he more or less gives up and returns home deflated. There, he takes out his fury and frustration on 'the bitch' (Florie) and whacks her. Or at least, he fantasises about hitting her over and over again.

Love,

Caz
X

And if he really did whack Florie we begin to understand how all that arsenic ended up inside Jim's internal organs later that year!

[caz]

Ah, but we know the real "Sir James" was taking arsenic in his various 'medicines' (and found a rich new source in early 1889) and also whacked his wife in front of a witness later that year. By the time he died, almost all the arsenic in his system had left it, most likely killing him in the process. A dose from Florie would need to have been a fairly hefty one to prove fatal, yet nothing of the kind showed up. The powers that be finally decided she had tried to kill him but the proof of her success was lacking.

In any case, if she had wanted to leave him for another man she knew she could have got a divorce on the grounds of being knocked about (cruelty) so she had no need to resort to murder.

Love,

Caz
X

[MayBea]

What do you think of Betsy Dyson as the first (and only?) Manchester Murder? (Post #1)

There had to be a reason the doctor on the scene suspected arsenic poisoning - perhaps some being placed there, on or beside the body, to cover up a strangulation.

[MayBea]

Quite subtle, our hoaxer, if this is what is being implied.

What do you think?

More nuance and subtext than Shakespeare...

A killer hampered with second thoughts, thoughts of love, expressions of dissatisfaction, changes of mind, changes of plans, and a conscience... Who would think of that?

Why imply Rose Mylett instead of another Manchester Murder when the first one supposedly didn't exist?

[caz]

What do you think of Betsy Dyson as the first (and only?) Manchester Murder? (Post #1)

There had to be a reason the doctor on the scene suspected arsenic poisoning - perhaps some being placed there, on or beside the body, to cover up a strangulation.

Hi MayBea,

I very much doubt the diary author would have used a case like this. Subtle is good, but this would be pointlessly subtle to my mind.

The diary is supposed to be personal to "Sir Jim", and not written for others to read - at least not until right near the end, so we should not expect an explanation for every plan he writes about and for those plans which don't materialise, or come off in a different way. He knows what happened, so he certainly wouldn't need to commit all the salient details to paper. In fact it would be odd if he did so and seen as more evidence of a hoax.

'Tomorrow I travel to Manchester' (presumably on business), and he wonders if he could down a whore while there - a kind of practice run before starting his campaign proper in London. He evidently wants to steer clear of Liverpool, and on his return from Manchester he recalls his first encounter before complaining that 'Manchester was cold and damp very much like this hell hole'.

He says: 'The whore is now with her maker...' 'There was no pleasure as I squeezed, I felt nothing.'

And that's all we get, which leaves open the possibility of him picking up a prostitute in a seedy part of Manchester and merely throttling her into unconsciousness. There is no mention of a knife, so he could have walked away disappointed and wrongly assumed she was dead. If a prostitute survived such an attack by a punter, she wouldn't necessarily report it, and even if she did it might never reach the papers or a police file. There would be very little chance of tracking down a violent customer who was not local, but from a different city.

Love,

Caz
X

[MayBea]

I don't think even Feldman would cop out and say the Manchester Murder went unreported.

There's really no reason for a hoax theorists to say that unless they're trying to be fair to diary supporters or fellow researchers on both sides.

My original point was that the 'missing' Manchester Murder argument was not a proven one. Research was required by the people who used that argument - research on what the Diary is really saying, for one.

1. "The whore is now with her maker, he welcome to her."
2. "I could not cut like my last, visions of her flooded back as I struck. I tried to quash all thoughts of love."

There's a lot suggested in these entries. God can have her means to me that he had her, or she was his. Who better than a woman who married in 1884 when she was 23 and lived in the land of cotton mills?

He tried to quash all thoughts of love. You say visions of Mary, his last, came into his head. Is he saying he was in love with her?

[MayBea]

Here's map of the murder of Rose Mylett overlayed onto the map of the Ripper murders.

[MayBea]

Back to the mysterious death of Betsy Dyson, Bolton, Greater Manchester, February, 1888. Here is the baptism of her son, William, from the Lancashire Parish Clerks Project online:

Baptism: 17 Apr 1886 St Matthew, Little Lever, Lancashire, England
William Dyson - Son of James Dyson & Betsy
Abode: Little Lever
Occupation: Collier
Baptised by: James Slade
Register: Baptisms 1884 - 1891, Page 32, Entry 255
Source: LDS Film 2355941