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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Archive through April 15, 1999
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Suspects: Specific Suspects:
Later Suspects [ 1910 - Present ]:
Maybrick, James:
Archive through April 15, 1999
Author: Bob_c
Wednesday, 14 April 1999 - 06:46 am |        | Hi Peter,
She was not pardoned, but according to the law and proper interpretation, she ought to have been. Once again, she may, or may not, have committed murder. The evidence that was used to convict her was flawed, however. Ergo, the conviction was unlawful. While a conviction like that cannot be quashed, she should have been pardoned, not had her sentence remitted to life. That was the only point I made, and still make.
Matthews, in my opinion and the opinion of many other far more learned in the law than I, was not entitled to commute to a life sentence. Let us be pernicky and say if the conviction, by reason of unsafe evidence, itself be 'in Dubio' then a pardon is the only possible way out. Matthews, for reasons that he may have found in order, decided that Florence Maybrick should be punished for murder, although evidence suggested that she may well have been innocent, i.e the conviction was not lawful on the grounds of unsafe evidence.
If innocent or not, the conviction, and the punishment, was in question and the matter was therefore passed to Matthews to carry out that what he was evidently pleased to call justice.
So, Peter, while I fear we will otherwise quarrel over this in all eternity, my suggestion is that we decide to let the matter rest. You have as much right to your opinion as I have to mine, and if Flo really was guilty or not will probably never be known.
Of course we can continue if you so wish.
Best regards
Bob |
Author: Caz
Wednesday, 14 April 1999 - 07:10 am | | Hi All,
I think a lot of it depends on how thick we all think our Flo was. Pretty dense maybe to marry a man even partly for money (though understandable in those days of female lack of opportunity). Again, nowadays, meal tickets needn't enter the equation and nor should they, unless love and respect come first.
But would a woman with half a brain seriously be doing all that fly-papering and leaving arsenic around in meat juices and medicines and suchlike, (not to mention all those 'love' letters) in the hope that not one doctor, suspicious relative, jealous gossipy member of household staff or police officer would look into things and make a case against her? Do me a favour, please.
Whether she loved James or not, I get the strong impression he was on a downward spiral healthwise with or without her help, and she must have seen this. If she tried desperately to prolong his life, or simply watched and waited for nature to take its course (possibly with the help of a fatal decision by James to come off the arsenic, still waiting for the medical experts to arrive at this place, anyone out there?), again, this does not suggest murder to me, or even attempted murder. And yes, just because you aren't adept enough in the art of murder to polish off your victim, the attempt makes the crime the same, I would wholeheartedly agree.
Love to all,
Caz |
Author: Bob_c
Wednesday, 14 April 1999 - 07:14 am | | Hi all,
Karoline, there is, or at least was, a considerable difference over first and second degree murder, let alone the attempted bit. Correct is that attemted murder is still a very serious charge indeed, liable to severe penalty.
I would suggest, however, that the penalty is in general lesser to that of first degree or, I may be wrong, second degree murder.
There are with certainty those on the board (e.g. Bob Hinton) much better able to answer that than I.
Incidently, I don't hold Flo directly for a martyr. My unrest is directly directed at a probable misscarriage of justice that has never been properly reconsidered. She did commmit adultery, she may have tried to poison James, or at least to shorten his already doomed life. Indeed she may have even deserved the punishment that she got, but the conviction was simply not safe.
Jules, that would have been an interesting idea, but I do tend to ponder over the idea of Flo in Ye olde Knight's armour, sitting on a snorting charger, wielding sword and morning-star and calling the jury to battle.
Caroline, my dear. Hmm.. Well , I do admit that even I have to draw the line somewhere. Let's settle for Brigit Bardot or something (Is she still rich?)
Well, while I don't want to annoy Peter by getting him aroused by crowing, I shall in future bark.
Best regards/Love
Bob |
Author: Edana
Wednesday, 14 April 1999 - 08:07 am | | Interesting Caz. Was Florie that stupid and naive? At first after reading your message I was thinking....yeah, how could she be that careless? After all, just because she was a woman doesn't mean she was stupid...yet I can see her sort of floundering around with a half baked idea to put James out of the picture. She could have thought..well, I'll give him just a little more arsenic and see what happens. If she was a timid woman, and I think she was, this was probably the way her mind worked.
Edana |
Author: Caz
Wednesday, 14 April 1999 - 08:08 am | | Hi Bob,
I think Brigit may have spent most of her dosh on poor dumb animals. One wonders why at least one of them is still having to earn a crust here in Britain, when he could join Bardot in France in search of missing grey hairs and suchlike. Oh well, each to his own. How's Germany treating you? Now Marlene Dirtytricks was a classy bint. Do you remember Witness for the Prosecution?...
Love,
Caz |
Author: Caz
Wednesday, 14 April 1999 - 08:17 am | | Sorry Edana,
I wasn't ignoring you, our paths just crossed. Howdy girl!
Funny, Florie ended up a bit like Brigit, didn't she? A recluse with loads of cats. And look how Goddamn beautiful Bardot used to be, still is to my mind. Hope she finds, or has found, a decent human being to spend her life with. Beauty is indeed more than skin-deep. Pity so few of us can see that fact.
Lots of love to all,
Caz |
Author: Matthew Delahunty
Wednesday, 14 April 1999 - 09:16 am | | If someone could be a junkie in Victorian times then James Maybrick, according to evidence at the trial was. Maybrick seemed to take anything and everything. Obviously the most lethal of these were arsenic and strychnine. 4 witnesses at Florie's trial testified to Maybrick taking arsenic. Another testified that Maybrick had told him that he took "poisonous medicines". Dr Hopper, while stating that he had not prescribed arsenic, testified that he had suggested Maybrick take arsenic (as he already was in the habit of taking strychnine and nux vomica as a sexual stimulant - a very interesting point if you think he might also have been the Ripper). Dr Humphreys actually administered arsenic to Maybrick six days before his death.
Maybrick died from symptoms of gastroenteritis which some of the doctors later attributed to arsenic poisoning. But it may have been anything Maybrick had taken of the many medicines he was in the habit of using. There was no mention of a possible overdose of strychnine - probably because it wouldn't have been easily detectible once consumed.
As for arsenic - there was enough in the house to kill hundreds of people. It seems strange that Florie, if intending to poison her husband, would bother to keep so many bottles with such high concentrations of arsenic in places such as Maybrick's hatboxes when just a small amount of any of those bottles would've killed him within hours.
Dela |
Author: Caz
Wednesday, 14 April 1999 - 10:00 am | | Hoorah for the voice of common sense, Dela!
And who was getting the benefit of James' sexual stimulant, if by all accounts Florie was getting her jollies elsewhere? The mind fairly boggles. Was it a bevvy of hookers, a bit of Liverpool totty (of indeterminate gender, how intimate a friend was the luckless suicide victim George Davidson, one wonders?), or just one of those good old 'solitary' vices, if James was not playing with a full deck? (grin)
Love,
Caz |
Author: Bob_c
Wednesday, 14 April 1999 - 10:41 am | | Hi Dela,
Your post (Caz, I concur) leads us to a very much dis(cussed) point of late. With tons of arsenic and other poisons all over the house, James evidently, when not guzzling the stuff like sweets, then at least pushing his body to the limit and perhaps over with it and arsenic even being prescribed by doctors shortly before his demise, has lead me to wonder the more that Flo was ever charged. I agree with Karoline that Flo may indeed have been timid, perhaps that is why she got punished so hard (assuming that she should have been punished at all, which I doubt).
Somehow the whole business with the Maybrick case stinks to me, morally and legally. I haven't spent much time on the non-ripper Maybrick side of things, my main source being Shirley Harrison's book plus a few inputs from a number of other Maybrick sages. In spite of that, with reference to Levy's Voluminous Volumes (sorry) and other legal eagle-type references, it does seem time to take a fresh look at Flo Maybrick and her story. While that IMHO has nothing to do with Jack, it doesn't really belong here on the ripper board.
Caz, if BB spends her lolly on poor lost animals, maybe there's chance for me. (Cock-a-doo---sorry, woof woof)
Best regards
Bob
Caz, love to you and L.C and best regards to H. |
Author: Karoline
Wednesday, 14 April 1999 - 10:56 am | | Bob C. - no offence intended, but you are moving the goalposts all over the field inyour debate with Peter. It seems pretty obvious to an outsider like me that you made a mistake over the Levy business, and then got mixed up about the law. Bob Hinton kindly put you right, and Peter did as well. There's no shame in being wrong. We all are sometimes, so don't bluster and get on your high horse, and try and make out you never said what you obviously did say. Just accept you were in error this time. It will probably be Peter's turn next.
Oh and by the way - I don't think we have first and second degree murder in the UK, Bob, - I think you're getting confused with the US.
And I was told by a practising barrister recently that the mandatory sentence for attempted murder is the same as for murder itself (ie life imprisonment). I don't know if that was true in the 19th century. Maybe someone can advise.
Dela: I think 'gastro-enteritis' just means a general inflammation of the gastro-intestinal tract. The causes can be anything from bacteria to poison.
The significant thing about Maybrick, if you remember the posts from Chris George a few weeks ago, is that he also suffered from numbness and tingling in his limbs. This, in combination with the acute gastric symptoms, is a strong indicator of arsenical poisoning.
As regards Maybrick's habitual ingestion of arsenic and/or other substances, we have a surfeit of inference, but not much fact.
Do we agree that , in considering Maybrick's habits, we have to distinguish between any medicines the man was legitimately prescribed by his doctor, and any more abusive, non-prescrptive intake.
Many 19th century medicines contained very small amounts of arsenic, and many people took them as a matter of course. This didn't make them habitual arsenic-users, and it doesn't make Maybrick one either.
The question must be: is there any good evidence that he took the stuff in larger quantities and less legitimately than in his medicines?
What precisely did the four witnesses say?
best wishes
Karoline |
Author: Bob Hinton
Wednesday, 14 April 1999 - 12:36 pm | | Dear Everyone,
The reasons for commuting a death sentence to life imprisonment have nothing to do with the verdict being a bit 'iffy'. They are many and varied.
Perhaps the commutation is because of extenuating circumstances, perhaps the accused was manipulated in some way, or perhaps his or her reasoning power isn't as strong as it should be. Florries conviction was therefore quite correct, it may be thought that the evidence was flawed but this immaterial, until another court of law says its flawed its spot on.
Karoline (nice to meet you by the way) is quite correct in Britain we do not have degrees of murder. It is basically murder or manslaughter. In any case even in countries that do have degrees (such as America) I don't believe (I'm skating on thin ice perhaps one of our American friends could help me out here)that the degrees have anything to do with culpability.
For instance First degree murder in New York is where the victim is a government employee, such as a police officer or prison officer, second degree murder is against basically everyone else. It is not a level of guilt.
Florrie could not be charged with manslaughter unless it could be shown that the action she is accused of taking would not be thought by any reasonable person to be certain of leading to death within a year and a day of the action being taken.
However as It is quite correctly assumed by most reasonable people that the administration of a deadly poison would lead to certain death within the time specified that option was not open to her.
all the best
Bob Hinton |
Author: Peter Birchwood
Wednesday, 14 April 1999 - 01:00 pm | | Matthew:
That's the strange point, isn't it? Too much arsenic for medicinal doses, too much for cosmetic treatment. One point which F.E. Smith raises is that the poisoner Vacquier had only a small amount of arsenic traced to him by the prosecution. It was only after he had been sentenced that he told the police where a "large store" of the poison was hidden. Which I suppose might go to show that poisoners shop in cash and carry's rather than corner shops.
Peter |
Author: Peter Birchwood
Wednesday, 14 April 1999 - 01:02 pm | | Bob:
Once , when I was being treated to lunch in an Irish Seminary, the Priest told me a story involving a Catholic Archbishop and the Rev. Ian Paisley. The payoff line was the Archbishop saying: "Mr. Paisley, we will have to agree to disagree. You carry on worshipping God in your way and we will carry on worshipping God in His."
I will therefore, as you suggest, leave you to think of the Maybrick case as you would wish to.
God be with you my son.
. |
Author: Peter Birchwood
Wednesday, 14 April 1999 - 01:04 pm | | Hi Julian:
You're thinking of the case of Mary Ashford, found dead May 27th 1817 in a water-pit off Pen's Mill Lane, Erdington. (Your area isn't it?) Her lover, Abraham Thornton was charged with the murder, although it was perfectly possible that it was in fact suicide or an accident. He was found innocent As you said, Mary's brother William made the Appeal of Murder which was defended by Thornton throwing a leather gauntlet on the floor and declaring: "Not Guilty, and I am ready to defend the same with my body!" Quite wisely, William Ashford declined to proceed. It's thought that Thornton later emigrated, probably to America but possibly Australia!
Peter. |
Author: Julian
Wednesday, 14 April 1999 - 05:59 pm | | G'day, Caz, Peter, everyone.
Yeah Peter, that's the one mate. I reckon he must of had a pretty good lawyer to have found that old medieval get-me-out. Just think if that law was still in existance the ensuing duels would probably turn into the nation's largest spectator sport.
Jules
Oh, I reckon he did it. |
Author: Ashling
Wednesday, 14 April 1999 - 07:21 pm | | Hi y'all.
DELA: Okay, I'll bite - were there any indications Flo was pregnant ... maybe miscarried later?
Your mention of arsenic in James' hatboxes fits the classic behavior of an addict hiding their "stash" ... to insure having a "fix" on hand in case of emergency (withdrawals).
BOB H: I'm guessing your remark was satirical - on the difference in the USA between 1st & 2nd degree murder.
This link is called Criminal Justice History Resource. Some here may already be familiar with ... Its massive lists include JtR newspaper articles taken from the Casebook.
http://arapaho.nsuok.edu/~dreveskr/cjhr.html-ssi
For a shorter version, try Encarta 97 online Encyclopedia, re: Murder - -
"Murder, in criminal law, intentionally causing the death (homicide) of any person. Murder is distinguished from manslaughter, which means unintentional killing. In most of the U.S., criminal codes distinguish between two degrees of murder, although as many as five degrees are distinguished in some states. "In general, murder in the first degree involves a deliberate, premeditated design to cause the death of the person; murder in the second degree involves the intent to cause death, but without premeditation and deliberation. Most states classify a homicide that occurs during the commission of a felony as first-degree murder, even though the element of premeditated intent is absent. In some states the commission of an act in itself imminently dangerous to others, such as throwing a bomb into a crowd and causing death, is classified as first-degree murder. Prosecution for murder is by indictment, and the maximum punishment in some states is death. In states in which the death penalty has been abolished, the maximum penalty is life imprisonment in a state penitentiary."
So-called Heat of Passion crimes fall into the 2nd degree category ... Spontaneous rage triggered by drugs, jealousy, etc. etc.
Take care,
Ashling |
Author: Christopher T. George
Wednesday, 14 April 1999 - 10:11 pm | | Hi, all:
James Maybrick was a hypochondriac who took everything and anything. The idea that he was strictly an arsenic and strychnine addict is an idea propounded by Shirley Harrison in "The Diary of Jack the Ripper" but is not as evident in any previous book on the Maybrick case.
At Florence Maybrick's trial, Dr. J. Drysdale, who attended James in November 1888 through March 1889, was asked whether Maybrick was a hypochondriac by defense counsel Sir Charles Russell. Drysdale replied, "Yes, I should say so." He said the dead man "seemed to be suffering from nervous dyspepsia."
The "medicines" taken by Maybrick according to Drysdale were "nitrohydrochloric acid, strychnine, hydrate of potash and several others."
Nicholas Bateson, a cotton broker from Memphis but formerly of Liverpool, stated that Maybrick contracted malarial fever in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1877. The two men shared lodgings together in Norfolk from 1877 to 1881.
Sir Charles asked, "Was he a man who was nervous about his health?"
Bateson replied, "He was."
"Will you tell me what was the sign of nervousness you saw?"
"He constantly rubbed the back of his hands in the morning and complained of numbness in his hands and limbs."
"Did he seem to fear as to what it would end in?"
"He was very much afraid of being paralyzed."
Bateson said Maybrick at that time was taking quinine for the malarial fever. He expressed the opinion that the arsenic-strychnine treatment that Maybrick later turned to had cured him after the quinine had failed to cure him. He concluded, though, that "They were, I should say, hypochondrial symptoms."
Here we see that this friend who shared lodgings with Maybrick in Norfolk, Virginia, traces the arsenic-strychnine dosings to fear of recurrence of the chills of malarial fever. To my mind, this intent in taking the medication contrasts with the aphrodisiacal dosing implied by Shirley Harrison.
Thomas Stansell, a black waiter who served the two men from 1878 though 1880, testified that Maybrick continued to take arsenic after his illness had ended. He stated that he took the arsenic in beef tea, a significant statement since it could imply that the arsenic found in Maybrick's food and in the Valentine's meat juice produced at the trial was put there by himself and not by Florence.
Last, Liverpool chemist E. G. Heaton stated that Maybrick regularly came into his shop near the Liverpool Exchange several times a day for eighteen months prior to April 1888 for a "pick-me-up" comprising a potion laced with "liquor arsenicalis" in increasing doses with a "Seventy-five percent increase from first to last."
Heaton denied that he knew arsenic had aphrodisiacal qualities but when asked by Judge James Fitzjames Stephen whether it excited passion (to titters from the audience), he answered, "Yes, sir, it had that effect."
I leave it to the reader's judgement whether to take it from these gleanings from the trial transcript that these were the drug habits of Jack the Ripper, or of a hypochondriacal Liverpool cotton broker who is wrongly implied to have been, by a newly found (if not newly concocted) "journal," the Whitechapel murderer.
Chris George |
Author: Bob_c
Thursday, 15 April 1999 - 03:11 am | | Hi all,
Bob, you've hit the nail on the head. As you say, Florence would have been legaly innocent when a second court decided so, and I say that that may be the legal sight, but not that of a normal (i.e. ordinary) person.
If you have NOT commited a crime, you are INNOCENT of it, and it doesn't matter a damn how many police, courts, magistrates, juries and all the rest think or decide. You have not done that for which you have been charged. If you have been found guilty of a crime because of bad evidence, are you at fault or the evidence?
I am sorry to keep on harping about it but I have reasons to feel very strongly about this, as you know. I don't know how many innocents have been found guilty, and how many guilty have been found innocent, I know that the only reason why I personally could accept the abolishment of the death penalty was because of the real danger of executing someone who could be innocent.
I do not intend to insult the legal proffesion in any way, but to insist on the guilt of someone merely on the grounds that some court has so decided (for whatever reasons) and not on the real evidence known cannot be proper, even when formally no other way is possible.
I am no way derisive of the law, but I am very critical of it, and those who exercise it. The law, wrote Dickens, 'is a ass'. For the good of us all, I hope not such an ass as to not be able to seperate technical terms from real life.
I will not bother the board with this subject again, but if Florence Maybrick did not administer poison to James Maybrick with the intention of killing him, she was innocent of murder, irrespective of what was thought or decided by whomsoever at the time.
Karoline, please explain how I am moving the goal posts, I am afraid I can't see it.
Best regards
Bob |
Author: Caz
Thursday, 15 April 1999 - 04:08 am | | Hear hear, Bob, you get my applause, even if no-one else can hear a damned thing. And thanks for your good wishes to L.C and Hubby. Littlun is staying over with a schoolpal, and Hubby is busy organising people at work, who turn out to be playing Mah Jong on their computers, or even cards with girls from Sydney over the net. I kid you not!
Hi Chris!
Great input as usual. I thought I'd got that malaria stuff right in my head. Surely we can all now see that James was taking such serious risks with his own health (and in my own personal experience hopeless hypochondriacs are screaming out for attention, no more, no less) that there should have been at least reasonable doubt that it was Flo who finally pulled the plug on his precariously-balanced life.
God, if Florie's case had been typical,I hate to think of all the cases of death by natural causes or suicide, that would have been treated as murder simply because one of the partners was playing away from home at some stage! An adulterer would have to take exceptional care of their spouse to ensure they did not kick the bucket while the affair was in progress, to prevent being hauled in and charged, with no conclusive proof that he/she actually administered the fatal blow, either by poison, an overdose of sleeping tablets or recreational drug, or even encouraging an alcoholic to down the bottle of Scotch which would finally get the liver to give up the ghost, crying "Hold! Enough!" I really can't see the conclusive proof in Florie's case. Sorry folks.
Off topic for the time being, maybe.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Bob_c
Thursday, 15 April 1999 - 06:54 am | | Hi Caroline,
Thanks for the flowers. Just a small correction to my post above. Dickens didn't write '..the law is a ass'. He wrote '..if the law supposes that, Sir, then the law is a ass.'
He wasn't quite so blunt, but it does show an idea of humour of the times.
Love
Bob |
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