On The Trail Of The Forgers

[detective abberline]

Maybrick

Hi. I read the diary when 1st published and I thought YUCK! I know that there are many people who Honest to God believe in its provenance and I've read the books and articles that support it.

But I welcome an author who has definitive proof that it is a forgery so we can lay it to rest. It wasn't Maybrick and some one who can lay that furphy to rest sooner than later...bring it on!

Best wishes


Det

[Ally]

HAH! We've been challenging Powell to "bring on" his proof for years. So far all he's done is bring on ever more inventive lies and story telling.

There is not a single long term poster on the boards who actually thinks the Diary is the real deal. There is also not a single long term poster who thinks Steve Powell is anything other than a lying, fraudelent shyster.

He says he has a publisher, hasn't named them. He's been caught in SEVERAL outright lies. He's never once been able to bring forth a single shred, scrap or iota of proof to back up his claims.

So yeah, Det. Abby, go ahead and challenge Powell to Bring it on...

You'll be waiting a loooooooooooong time.

[Steve Powell]

bla bla bla,
go and feed the cat.
'Queen Mean?'
You're proud of that?

[Steve Powell]

queen mean? like an angry gay?

As if I would tell you the name of my publisher!
I've mentioned you in my book too...
so sue me queenie.

[Ally]

I can see you're working hard there to keep this a "serious" suspect thread, Powell. Pub Talk in t-minus..what, 3 days from now?

Anyone care to place a wager?

[Mike Covell]

In the Uk it has been reported that anti depressants do not work, I offer a cheap and simple solution to cheer up folk.

Come and read the claims on this thread, I love it,

Mike

[Steve Powell]

In Defence of Maybrick.

By CALEB CARR;
Published: December 12, 1993
'New York Times'

James the Ripper?

"SOMEWHERE in the very special hell reserved for serial killers, the man who set the modern pattern for that horrendous behavior is having himself a good long howl. One of the very few things about Jack the Ripper that we have always been relatively sure of is that he had a macabre but pronounced sense of humor, one that was tickled by all the journalistic, social and political confusion that surrounded his activities. Far from clarifying the situation, the publication of a fascinating document that purports to be his diary only further confuses things, and has revitalized the acrimonious criminological and psychological debates surrounding the case.

Jack would be very pleased.

In the spring of 1992, a working-class Liverpool factotum named Mike Barrett wandered into a London literary agency with a document he claimed was the diary of Jack the Ripper, whose identity remains the greatest mystery in the history of modern criminology. Mr. Barrett said the document -- bound in an old leather scrapbook -- had been given to him by another Liverpudlian, Tony Devereux, who refused to tell Mr. Barrett how he'd laid hands on it and then promptly died of heart failure. (The reader of "The Diary of Jack the Ripper" will learn very little more than this about these two men -- the first of many infuriating shortcomings in this volume.) The London literary agents teamed Mike Barrett with one of their clients, Shirley Harrison, a journalist and editor, who was interested in the affair but was not by inclination or profession a "Ripperologist."

Ms. Harrison spent some time (not enough, to judge by many of her statements) researching the diary and the Ripper case, and became convinced that the diary was the genuine confession of the man who had terrorized London by disemboweling prostitutes in the late summer and early autumn of 1888. Handwriting and documentation experts were called in to do tests; meanwhile, Ms. Harrison set about writing a 200-page introduction to the diary. The entire package was bought by a London publisher for a moderate sum.

What does the diary reveal? Supposedly that Jack the Ripper was a man who was at the center of another of Victorian England's most celebrated cases: James Maybrick. Maybrick, a 50-year-old Liverpool cotton merchant, died in May 1889, almost certainly from the effects of arsenic and strychnine poisoning. He had been recreationally addicted to both drugs for many years, having originally taken them to treat a bout of malaria. However, following his death, his 26-year-old American wife, Florence, was accused and convicted of murdering him -- becoming, Ms. Harrison notes, "the first American woman to be tried in a British court." The crown's case was specious and sensational, and although Florence Maybrick was originally condemned to hang, her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. She served 15 years before being released, after which she returned to America to die in poverty and obscurity.

Nowhere in the very detailed purported diary of Jack the Ripper does Maybrick's name appear; but there are many facts mentioned concerning his personal life that indicate either that Maybrick himself wrote it (perhaps as a genuine confession, perhaps as a deluded bit of gamesmanship) or that someone who knows (or knew) a great deal about his life forged it. Shirley Harrison and her British publisher, Smith Gryphon, believe wholeheartedly in the first of these possibilities: that Maybrick was, in fact, the Ripper. The American publisher of the British text, Hyperion, has added a short report by some document experts who believe the diary a fake, in an attempt to cover what might politely be called their tails. The attempt is a failed one -- both Smith Gryphon and Hyperion have placed before the world an unprofessional, premature and irresponsible treatment of what may or may not be a document that will finally help us unravel the greatest murder mystery of all time.

The evidential and scientific arguments for and against the diary are only beginning, and will doubtless be examined with far greater depth and completeness in some other book soon to be written. (Even Ms. Harrison and her publishers admit that they published their interpretations before the necessary range of scientific tests had been completed.) What is most outrageous about the current work is first its insidious approach to its readers and second its sloppy treatment of the psychological issues involved -- not only in the Ripper case but also in serial killing generally.

Ms. Harrison begins, properly, by referring to James Maybrick, to the writer of the diary and to Jack the Ripper as three separate entities. Any sound historical investigation would have to do so until it proved unarguably that the three were one. Ms. Harrison never completes this task; but she does, almost immediately, begin to refer to both the writer of the diary and Jack the Ripper as "Maybrick." This is worse than salesmanship, worse even than a con job; it is a not-so-subtle Oliver Stone-ish form of brainwashing, in which the assumption is made that if one simply repeats a supposition in highly dramatic terms over and over again the audience will eventually come to accept it. Of course, the members of the audience who know anything at all about the facts of the case will not; they will simply become more and more annoyed and insulted every time it happens. But the danger is in how those members of the audience who know nothing about the Ripper case (or, in the similar example of Oliver Stone, the J.F.K. assassination) will react.

Some simple advice to those members of the audience: Do not read this book until you have first read as thorough a compendium as Donald Rumbelow's "Jack the Ripper: The Complete Casebook," most recently issued in paperback in 1990. Then, to gain a solid grounding in the subject of serial killing generally, read Joel Norris's short but classic work, "Serial Killers: The Growing Menace," published in 1988. Finally, if you wish to indulge in some learned speculation about the Ripper case, try "Murder and Madness: The Secret Life of Jack the Ripper," by David Abrahamsen (the psychiatrist whose expert testimony helped put David Berkowitz in Attica), a book published last year and just issued in paperback. Only after such preparation will the reader be ready to approach the ham-fisted bit of mind-gaming that is the current presentation of the "Maybrick diary."

There are reasons to doubt the assertion that James Maybrick was the Ripper, some of which concern the physical profile of the man: in 1888 Maybrick was a 49-year-old drug addict whose physical health and strength had been destroyed by arsenic and strychnine, whereas we know that the Ripper was powerful enough to have gained complete physical control over his victims, who were some large ladies accustomed to rough treatment. But the more important problems here concern the Ripper's psychological motivation.

Nowhere in this book are we given any meaningful details concerning Maybrick's childhood -- by every professional account the crucial period in the formation of a sociopathic personality. Nor is there any suggestion that Maybrick engaged in violent or aberrant behavior in his adolescence or early adulthood. Serial killers are not respectable people who suddenly take a mental turn that leads them to kill strangers. Their behavior is always presaged, however covertly or subtly, in the intimate details of their lives to the point where the killing begins.

Maybrick's age does not fit the classic profile of serial killers developed by the behavioral science unit of the F.B.I. (usually they are much younger), but if the killer has always been significantly troubled or violent, then a middle-aged man cannot be ruled out as a suspect, as we saw in the case of the Rochester prostitute killer Arthur Shawcross. There is nothing in this book to suggest that James Maybrick had such a history.

But the greatest problem of all is the specificity of motive cited in this book. In 1888, James Maybrick was becoming increasingly jealous of his wife's liaison with Alfred Brierley, a man closer to her own age; and Ms. Harrison and her publishers have no apparent difficulty in accepting the idea that Jack the Ripper was born, purely and simply, out of this jealous rage. Ms. Harrison says, with characteristic lack of historical objectivity, that Maybrick "was angered by Florie's tactless coquetries. But it was without doubt her developing friendship with Brierley that sowed the seed for murder. Maybrick had the motive." The motive for what? To kill his own wife, perhaps; but to travel all the way to London, carefully plan and carry out the murder and mutilation of at least five London prostitutes, and then revel privately -- in great detail -- over his acts? Again, even the semi-educated reader should be roused to indignation by such a slim and facile explanation. If every cuckolded husband had "the motive" for butchering prostitutes, the world's oldest profession would not have endured past the Stone Age.

Again, there are powerful circumstantial and scientific reasons to doubt the diary, in addition to the psychological ones mentioned here; but there are compelling reasons, inside the document itself, to consider the validity of these mysterious handwritten pages signed "Yours truly, Jack the Ripper." Someday, when the scientific tests of the diary's paper, ink and age have been definitively concluded, a genuine expert will work with a responsible publisher to produce a study that thoroughly examines all these possibilities. Until then, the immortal Jack will continue to laugh as his pursuers assert, dissemble and bicker among themselves."

[Omlor]

A public challenge

Hello all,

While this is all amusing enough, I'd like to interrupt the festivities here to offer a public challenge. Since it concerns a sentence about the diary, I thought I'd post it here where the current diary chatter is taking place.

Elsewhere on the internet today I read a post by one Paul Butler. In it, he refers to, "a latter day ripper author 'fitting up' a very implausible hospital in-patient as some sort of attempt to deflect the limelight away from the diary!"

I would like here to challenge Mr. Butler (who I think also reads these pages) to name the author he is describing here and to offer one single piece of evidence of any sort that supports his claim that the author's work on another suspect was conducted as "some sort of attempt to deflect the limelight away from the diary."

This is a serious charge that Mr. Butler has made, suggesting that the work of a published author was written strictly as a diversionary response to the diary controversy. It implies that the motive behind the work was duplicitous and self-consciously dishonest.

So, Paul, let's see your evidence for this provocative claim. You're a brave man elsewhere, throwing out such a charge. Let's see you defend it. And if you can't, let's see you admit that you just made this whole thing up.

Put up or shut up,

--John

[caz]

None of your business Morris.

You made it my business, and everyone else's here, by referring to a certain individual as a crook, a coward and a traitor.

If he is not the individual you recently emailed me about, who has given his blessing for you to: 'share the details of any private matters, openly, with all the "troopers" on the Message Board', then who is he and what was the point of mentioning him?

If he is that individual, you should have no qualms about saying so - unless of course you know you are just making things up about him to get more of the negative attention you seem to crave.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Myths and Smog

By CALEB CARR;
Published: December 12, 1993
'New York Times'

...But the greatest problem of all is the specificity of motive cited in this book. In 1888, James Maybrick was becoming increasingly jealous of his wife's liaison with Alfred Brierley, a man closer to her own age; and Ms. Harrison and her publishers have no apparent difficulty in accepting the idea that Jack the Ripper was born, purely and simply, out of this jealous rage. Ms. Harrison says, with characteristic lack of historical objectivity, that Maybrick "was angered by Florie's tactless coquetries. But it was without doubt her developing friendship with Brierley that sowed the seed for murder. Maybrick had the motive." The motive for what? To kill his own wife, perhaps; but to travel all the way to London, carefully plan and carry out the murder and mutilation of at least five London prostitutes, and then revel privately -- in great detail -- over his acts? Again, even the semi-educated reader should be roused to indignation by such a slim and facile explanation. If every cuckolded husband had "the motive" for butchering prostitutes, the world's oldest profession would not have endured past the Stone Age...

Ha ha. Even the semi-educated reader should be roused to indignation by such a slim and facile dismissal of Sir Jim's motivation as 'the greatest problem of all'.

Doesn't Caleb Carr appreciate that anyone writing such a confessional diary might need to imagine some kind of motive - call it self-justification if you will - for a man who roams around London's East End ripping up complete strangers of the female variety? There is no rational motive, so why would we not expect to see a wholly irrational one being expressed, whoever wrote the thing and whatever they conjured up by way of explaining away such irrational acts?

Love,

Caz
X

[Omlor]

Well, as long as we're picking out quotes...

"Someday, when the scientific tests of the diary's paper, ink and age have been definitively concluded, a genuine expert will work with a responsible publisher to produce a study that thoroughly examines all these possibilities."

Written December 12, 1993.

"Someday...."

--John

[Jenni Shelden]

"You know they see it for miles
Did you get here in a rocket
And did you journey through space?
Did you mother never scold you
Oh when she looked at your face?
Do you know where you come from?
Because you look out of place
In a town where only the rain comes down
You fell down to earth
Like and alien, like an alien, like and alien. "

[Steve Powell]

Nice, like those words.
Much better than Steven's diary poems.

[detective abberline]

Who?

You made it my business, and everyone else's here, by referring to a certain individual as a crook, a coward and a traitor.

If he is not the individual you recently emailed me about, who has given his blessing for you to: 'share the details of any private matters, openly, with all the "troopers" on the Message Board', then who is he and what was the point of mentioning him?

If he is that individual, you should have no qualms about saying so - unless of course you know you are just making things up about him to get more of the negative attention you seem to crave.

Love,

Caz
X

Who? Who is this person? I'd like to know.

Cheers

[The Good Michael]

Steve,

Thanks for posting those thoughts of Carr's. He is a very good writer and I completely agree with his words there. I wonder how I missed his observations before.

Thanks,

Mike