Stephenson AS a Suspect

[caz]

Hi Ally,

I just wanted to add that I am not clever enough to work out why Omlor was 'put off by' this particular accusation.

Was it because it was demonstrably false?

Was it because the author concerned cannot defend himself?

Was it because he believes D'Onston was a bona fide suspect with no reason for the author ever to think he may have had a verifiable alibi?

All I know is that Omlor is not similarly 'put off by' other false accusations made against people who cannot defend themselves, but neither is he over here putting any sort of case for Harris's entitlement to promote D'Onston as a bona fide ripper suspect after learning that this would depend entirely on the man's ability to leave a hospital bed.

What would you call it, to claim that a man was faking his illness and popping in and out of his hospital bed to commit murder when nothing of the kind had been established, if not 'fitting him up' as the ripper?

Don't all authors with ripper theories to flog have to 'fit up' their suspects one way or another? Are you seriously suggesting that anyone who uses the phrase is talking about 'deliberate fraud'? I'd say it was more like 'desperate measures' when the facts turn out not to live up to one's strong beliefs. I've no doubt Harris had convinced himself that D'Onston did commit the murders, despite the implausibility. That didn't make him a fraudster - it made him a man with a belief but no proof, just like a whole lot of others around here. Having two axes to grind at the same time, and a patient he needed to kick out of bed in the early hours, just made his life more difficult than it would otherwise have been, and easier for others to look on bemused.

Love,

Caz
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[Tom_Wescott]

I would say there's more evidence that D'Onston was a bonafide suspect than there is that Harris was fraudulent and insincere in his claims.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Ally]

That still doesn't explain any correlation between a person being put off by a claim of deliberate fraud against Harris and an automatic belief in his suspect of choice.

One has nothing to do with the other, so there is no real anticipation necessary as to whether Omlor will show up to "defend" Stephenson's candidacy.

[caz]

Thanks Ally. But I really don't consider this as a matter of being clever or not. When someone repeatedly makes false accusations that Feldman deliberately framed Maybrick, with a hoax he planned himself, anyone can recognise the difference between someone 'being rather amused' by this behaviour and 'being put off by' someone else who makes one tongue-in-cheek comment on a different website about another late ripper author with a theory he wanted to flog.

Harris apparently knew, by the time he used The True Face of Jack the Ripper to trash the diary while claiming to have closed the case, that D'Onston was in hospital when the murders were committed.

It's a pity that instead of spending so much time debunking a ripper confession that was clearly not in a hand recognisable as Maybrick's, and having to rework his theory because he now needed D'Onston to have fooled the hospital by faking his illness and managing to creep in and out to commit each murder, Harris didn't put all his energies into ascertaining whether such faking and creeping would even have been possible, never mind plausible or likely.

If he had, he would not have left himself open, as Feldman also did with his own strange and obsessive priorities, to accusations like this that others are left to debunk on his behalf, or to be 'put off' or amused by, or to be stoical about - according to individual taste.

Love,

Caz
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[Ally]

There is a difference between claiming that Donston was a legitimate suspect and being put off by some one making false accusations that Harris deliberately framed him to draw attention away from the Diary.

You are a clever woman, Caz. I am sure you recognize the difference.

[caz]

Hmm, that's odd, Howie. Considering the recent whingeing on a certain hoax-related thread, I was expecting to see a small contribution from Omlor here at the very least, if only a sigh of disapproval because nobody is rushing to defend the case for Stephenson being turfed out of his hospital bed to take on the role of a bona fide suspect.

I won't hold my breath then.

Love,

Caz
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[Howard Brown]

Anyone wishing to pose Stephenson as a bona fide contemporary ( 1888 ) and/or modern ( Post-Aleister Crowley to present ) suspect, please use this thread.