On The Trail Of The Forgers

[caz]

And yes, at one time I was indeed lambasting Melvin for his pronouncements about knowing something concerning the origins of the diary but not being able to reveal the super secret information about which he spoke in public forums.

Omlor,

You were also in the habit of lambasting everyone else who went further than the evidence allowed, and telling others to exercise due caution when speculating. These days you let some of the wildest unsupported claims ever made waft right over you, concerning the roles various individuals are meant to have played.

You also revealed on the old boards that your reasons for still coming here were personal. Since you appear to have moved on from exercising one personal grudge against someone who doesn't post here, to exercising another personal grudge against someone who doesn't post here, all in all you are the very last person who has any business accusing others of treating people inconsistently.

I have always maintained that if anyone makes a claim that is not supportable, on their head be it. As I explained to Ally recently, Melvin and co could hardly whine about the field being polluted by a nest of forgers when they were claiming to have the means of exposing them but refused to do so, even in private to Keith. Similarly Keith cannot expect people simply to take his word for what he claimed.

Hi Maria,

Setting aside the fact that you were not at the trial and are not reporting what Keith said, but your own version of what he said, the other little problem here is that Omlor has not asked Keith anything at all. Keith is not here to be asked. Omlor keeps asking me instead. This is what he said here recently:

Why would I write to Keith's publisher and all that when I have (we are constantly reminded) one of his good friends and collaborators and admirers right here regularly and actively participating in this very discussion? Why not take advantage of this wonderfully instant form of communication and simply ask that self-professed close friend and colleague to pass on a simple and direct question...

Why indeed would Omlor bother to write to Keith’s publisher ‘and all that’ (whatever ‘all that’ is supposed to mean)?

More to the point, why would he bother to keep asking me, for over a year now, in a place I often only visit once or twice a month (so less ‘wonderfully instant’ than snail mail), if he could have taken advantage of the wonderfully instant form of communication called email and asked Keith direct?

If he genuinely wants to know anything about what Keith actually said, or meant, or why he couldn’t say more, the way to obtain the answers is to approach the source direct.

So why did Omlor ask me anything at all, if he could have asked Keith direct?

Of course, asking you that question, Maria, when Omlor is always ready at a moment’s notice to address anything and everything I post, would be even sillier than him still asking me the same old questions for over a year that he could have asked Keith direct last May, last Christmas or last week.

So Omlor:

Why did you ask me anything at all, if you could have asked Keith direct, via email?

Love,

Caz
X

PS I won’t be back here for a while because I’m off on my holidays tomorrow. But you could contact Keith in my absence and leave a message saying why you asked me instead of him. I’ll pick it up on my return.

[Limehouse]

Limehouse:

Keith said in public that he possesed the evidence and if it was brought forward to a court of law, it would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the diary came from Battlecrease.

John Omlor asked him a resonable question which is to produce his evidence. It has been a full year since John asked that question and no evidence nor an explanation has been produced, so I for one, think the reason must be that the " evidence " never existed in the first place. It was just an idle boast Keith made in public for effect. If anyone claims to have such a weighty evidence, then it shouldn´t be a problem to produce it, unless of course, it doesn´t exist.

Of course, people would believe anything if a so called " expert " says it. A challenge like this for a real expert shouldn´t be a problem.

-Maria

Maria,

Keith may well have said that he had this evidence and he may well have said it publically, but what makes you think he will reveal that evidence on this Forum when he does not post on this Forum? More to the point, how do you KNOW he has not produced this evidence elsewhere and you (and John) are just unaware of the fact? And in any case, just because he states publically that he has the evidence, why SHOULD he reveal it?

[Omlor]

Caroline writes,

"Keith cannot expect people simply to take his word for what he claimed."

Then why did he claim it in public without being willing to support his claim with evidence and without even being willing to explain why he won't support his claim?

And why shouldn't he then be guilty of exactly what you and so many others (including me) criticized Mr. Harris for and therefore subject to the same treatment Mr. Harris received?

You're the one who came here not long after the goofy trial and reminded people in post after post about the "Battlecrease evidence" and who wrote elsewhere that it would let all potential modern forgers "off the hook." And you're the one who has for years invoked the sacred name of your friend St. Skinner repeatedly in discussions about the diary. So you can hardly be surprised when people ask you about the man and his as of yet unsupported public claims (and your use of them).

Dance away from it all you like Caroline. This is just another in along series of hinting and hiding games in the history of the hoaxed diary. Keith joins a long line of characters here, and most of them are not people who have garnered your approval.

That's just the way it is,

--John

[Maria]

Limehouse and Caroline:

If Keith had published it elsewhere like in a newspaper or on T.V., someone somewhere would have eventually reported it here, even by Caroline herself.

The same way the Liverpool Trial was reported in Casebook by those who attended it and this way, we heard the Jeremy Beadle question verbatim, that is word by word. So the fact that I did not attend does not mean that I did not get an exact report of what happened by those who taped the event. It is only now that Caroline is saying that. At one point, she even claimed to know what Keith was referring to with his evidence but when cornered by John and Chris Phillips who has the sense of not bothering to write here anymore... she got angry.

-Maria

[steje73]

Maria is right. He wouldn't post it here himself, but someone would have by now if he'd released the results of testing.

[Graham]

Caz,

Does Keith say precisely when he came by the information he claims links the Diary to Battlecrease? Maybe this has been stated on these boards in the past, but if so I missed it.

Cheers,

Graham

[Maria]

John:

" Keith cannot expect people simply to take his word for what he claimed " ( Caroline´s words )

So... what does this mean ? We cannot take his word for what he claimed ? That´s interesting.

I don´t think you did, neither did I. Maybe other more gullible souls have taken his word for what he claimed, or for that matter, taken Caroline´s word for what she claims.

And because we cannot take his word for what he claimed, we are asking him where is the evidence ?

-Maria

[Maria]

Maria is right. He wouldn't post it here himself, but someone would have by now if he'd released the results of testing.

Thank you Steje, it is refreshing to see someone at last, who has common sense and intelligence on this loony diary threads for a change, from the usual ones who seem to have a very tenuous grip on reality.

-Maria

[Limehouse]

Maria,

If you think this thread is loony, you obviously haven't tuned into to the 'Dr Barnardo-was-JtR-and-there-is-a-connection-to-the-death-of- Diana-and- Dodi' thread.

[steje73]

Common sense? Grip on reality? Nobody has ever said I had those before!

[dougie]

Maybe if someone asked Keith (ive no idea who keith is by the way) politely, he might answer?......................

[Omlor]

Hi Dougie,

At Caroline's suggestion, I have done exactly that via e-mail this morning.

I look forward to reading his response.

Of course, this is all a bit disingenuous, since no one here is naive enough to believe that Keith does not know what has been said on these boards since he made his comments last year or what questions have been raised. He could have made a response available at any time, of course.

Still, I have asked him directly to share with us either what evidence he has or the reason why he has decided not to make that evidence public after announcing its conclusions to everyone at the Liverpool trial.

I'll let you know when I receive a response.

All the best,

--John

[dougie]

Hi Omlor,
Well whatever the response, at least you have tried.The trouble might be that, as is so often the case ,any "new evidence" regarding anything here so often has to run the gauntlet of ridicule.(Im not suggesting you are guilty of this by the way,just a general observation).I hope your e-mail gets a reply .
regards

[Omlor]

Hi Dougie,

Well, I did indeed receive a reply. Of course, Keith did not tell me what the secret squirrel Battlecrease evidence is, nor did he tell me why he could not release it (except that it would somehow "compromise" some allegedly "ongoing investigation" -- a vague answer that we've all heard so many times before and that we've been hearing for years and years).

Anyway, if anyone wants the complete exchange, with my e-mail to Keith and his response to me (which rehashes, for some reason, much of our past history in place of answering my direct questions), they can feel free to write me at omlor@tampabay.rr.com and I'll happily send them both my note to Keith and Keith's response in full. Interestingly, Keith copied Caroline Morris on his reply to me, so she can send it to you as well, if you'd all rather write to her.

Unfortunately, there is, in both my questions and his replies, still nothing new (with the possible exception of Keith admitting that he "should not have said anything at Liverpool" about his "information").

Oh, well. The game goes on. I'm sure no one is surprised.

--John

[Omlor]

Ah, what the heck.

I'm bored and have some time. So I'll just post my message to Keith and his response right here for everyone to enjoy. Who knows? Maybe I'm missing something or can't quite read between the lines. Maybe in his response Keith does tell me what the secret Battlecrease evidence is or at least explains precisely why he can't reveal it despite having already revealed its conclusions in public. Maybe I just didn't see it.

So here first is my message to Keith.

Keith,

At the suggestion of Caroline Morris, I am writing to ask you a couple of direct questions regarding the evidence you claimed, at the Liverpool trial last year, to have which allows you to conclude that the diary came from Battlecrease house.

What is this evidence? What exactly were you talking about when you made your comment? What materials do you have and in what form are they and what do they say?

If you are, for some reason, unable or unwilling to share that evidence, then for the sake of clarity in this matter could you please explain precisely why you can't? What exactly is preventing you from sharing this evidence with the public?

Thanks,

--John


And here, in its entirety, is Keith's response. It should be noted, of course, that I disagree with his characterizations of our past exchanges. But that's another debate.

Here's what I got in response to my questions:

John

Thank you for your e-mail which I have just collected from my old email address.

You and I were last in contact precisely four years ago when, in what I took to be a friendly and constructive exchange of information, I attempted to elicit from you the sequence of events which had led to the breakdown of the diary tests with the McCrone Group, which you had initiated. As I recall, (and like you I will have these emails on file), you backed off my questions, as you considered there was no point in trying to identify where it had all gone wrong and why. Instead, the discussion leeched into your outrage at Robert Smith's behaviour at challenging your professional credentials, twinned with your dictum that I should have immediately leaped to your defence - and this after you had more or less suggested I was guilty of continuing to pimp, as genuine, a document I knew to be a modern hoax, when all the written and public evidence had made clear that I did not believe James Maybrick had penned this journal, but neither did I accept it had been scientifically or historically exposed as being created after circa 1989.

At which point our communication ceased.

So, why should you be bothered, four years down the line, with what I have uncovered? Why should you even believe me?

It's a great shame John that our brief relationship has deteriorated because I strongly suspect you came into this controversy with a sincere and genuine desire to help.

Ally suggested that I should not have said anything at Liverpool about my information and - in retrospect - she is correct. So are you. Which was why, when I was preparing my presentation, I avoided any reference to this part of the investigation which is still ongoing and you have characterised as secret squirrel. The question from the floor - after the presentation -demanded an honest response which I gave. I could not go any further without compromising the investigation. I am not prepared to say who is financing it but the results will be eventually
published. As I say though - you either believe me, or you don't - and in your case, given your perception about my moral probity, it is clear which side of the divide you fall.

You were not at the Liverpool event and because you are so cemented into your belief that anybody who does not agree with your academic opinions and posturing are misguided, you could not be expected to appreciate or understand that I was actually advocating the audience, (jury), to return a verdict of not guilty against James Maybrick as, in my opinion, there was not a shred of evidence to prove that Maybrick wrote the diary or had anything to do with the murder of 5 women in the East End of London in 1888. Moreover, I suggested it was the diary and it's unsatisfactory, questionable provenance which should be on trial. not James Maybrick. What you have spectacularly failed to grasp - because you were not present and because you could not be bothered to ascertain all of the facts - is that my talk was heavily weighed in favour of the diary being modern and created by - or with the assistance of - Mike Barrett. And this was the reason the new evidence, (which I had sought permission to use), about the advertisement for the diary in a trade magazine, formed part of my presentation.

What I am mildly curious about is why you should at all be bothered about the date of creation of this journal if, as you have ruled, it is of modern origin? Why not just walk away from it ,as most of my colleagues have, resting on scholarship, common sense and a proper historical reading of the document? Might it give you a problem if ink met paper prior to 1987-89? You may, incidentally, be interested to learn that these same colleagues, with whom I disagree, have not severed personal or professional relationships with me, as you suggested would probably happen if I remained outside of the academic elite. Possibly, just possibly, they do not fear being contaminated, by association, with somebody who, in your opinion, brings the field of historical research and study into disrepute.

This response to your email of course will not satisfy you but if you had shown yourself more willing to work with me, four years ago, trying to determine what went wrong with the McCrone Group - and possibly it had something to do with you realising that this type of operation is extremely time consuming and expensive and you'd rather delegate the responsibility to somebody else - then I might have been more forthcoming. How much, incidentally, were you personally prepared to invest financially in these tests and how proportionate would that figure have been to the final cost?

You have, I understand, alerted the Message Boards that you have emailed me and will report back when you have received a response. So - for the sake of clarity - and not your representation of our exchange - I am suggesting you put up both of our emails and let anybody that is interested form their own judgement. You, no doubt, will want the right of reply and last word - and after that - using your own exit line to me in July 2004 - we're done here.

Keith


So that's it.

I did notice this, though. Keith writes that he "might have been more forthcoming" had I been more willing to work with him a number of years ago.

So maybe that's our next step.

Perhaps someone who has no history with him, someone who has not already pissed him off a few years back, should write and ask him the same questions and he will "be more forthcoming."

Maybe that way we'll finally get some clue as to what the secret squirrel evidence really is.

Any volunteers?

Thanks,

--John