|
 |
 |
|
|
|
** 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 **
No Hoax, this Diary must be real
Casebook Message Boards: The Diary of Jack the Ripper: General Discussion:
No Hoax, this Diary must be real
Author: Paul Begg
Monday, 04 January 1999 - 01:17 pm |        | Caroline
Before you tell me off again: 'you would know for what he was renowned'! |
Author: Yazoo
Monday, 04 January 1999 - 01:37 pm | | A Serious Message Cloaked in (Hopefully) Amusing Terms (but after all, what's so funny about the Spanish Inquisition?):
Peter and Paul (there's something, I don't know, euphonious about that naming sequence!) should be beatified for their exemplary tolerance and conviviality on this topic. I hope Peter Birchwood takes no offense (egads and gadzooks, if he even takes notice) of my remarks on the puppy food comment. I sincerely meant it when I said it was uncharacteristic of what I've seen him post, and though Nikki is passionate and dedicated and correct to defend her rights, as St. Paul points out...much of the problem is in how we say things, and I do think Nikki's challenging TONE (not so much a good-natured challenge, Nikki) would have tried my patience, as well.
You aren't wrong in your beliefs and your fightin' spirit, Nikki -- you got Little Caz on your side, after all, and I don't want THAT one comin' after me...nosiree! -- but not every statement is a personal affront. Though I don't know St. Peter and we've never "spoken" here or elsewhere, his posts are usually full of wit, humor, and a touch droll. He has a style to his writing that you have to learn and become accustomed to it. He saves his "best" for his fellow saint, Paul, and for the dead or presumed dead (isn't Feldman dead, by the way...or just presumed dead...oops, shouldn't have said that!...and if St. Peter holds the Keys to you-know-where, will he let Feldman in without certified spiritual documentation he is who he says he is?). Follow the writing styles of Paul and Caz Senior and you won't get half so much trouble...though the forces of the Maybrick Inquisition (where's Avala when I need him?) are lurking everywhere and will stoop to anything to WIN, WIN, WIN. Then it's just a matter of pest control.
So if St. Peter hasn't permanently shut the Pearly Gates and refused all of us sinners admittance, I hope he realizes that I sympathize with him, despite the puppy food provocaive rejoinder.
And the other candidate for beatification, St. Caz Senior put it best...echoing St. Paul and St. Peter..."‘Calm down,……Calm down! I fear for your collective blood-pressures."
It's a shame people reach the point of frustration that they either lash out or leave. Is there no room for a middle ground? I believe there is: follow the examples of Paul, Peter, and Caz Senior who joist and reposte with wit and urbanity. And of course I will see you, Shelly, all about the Casebook until I am burned at the stake as a heretic, excommunicated, put on the Maybrick Inquisition Index, or ruin my health shovelling this nasty Michigan snow!!
As for RN, does that stand for Registered Nurse? Cuz if I have to shovel one more pile of snow here in the frozen Midwest US of A...I'm gonna need traction and an army of registered nurses.
It only hurts when I laugh, so don't make me!
Yaz |
Author: Yazoo
Monday, 04 January 1999 - 02:12 pm | | Hey!
You all have mentioned David Canter's name here. I am very interested in Mr. Canter and his approach to "profiling," differing -- as I believe it does -- significantly enough from the American FBI's system of profiling. All of his books are on their way to my little hole in the earth, but does anybody want to open a topic on "Profiling"...and compare what we learn from Ressler, Douglas et al. and David Canter? (Or point me to where the topic already exists, please...and none of your Maybrickian funny business now...I'm sens-i-tive!) I also believe there's a third methodology that has to do with geographical data -- sorry for the vagueness, but the guy who founded this method died before he finished the work, which is being carried through by others.
And if anybody knows Canter, would you ask him if he really thinks that the psychpathology of a Victorian serial killer would be one of the following compared to "modern" serial killers: 1) the same as, 2) similar to, 3) superficially similar due to our lack of empirical data on serial killers from various cultures/societies/eras -- including our own!, or 4) not very similar at all.
I was a little concerned that Canter made the statement he did about the psychopathology of the Diary, without knowing his criteria. He is certainly an unquestionable authority, but the murderer lived and acted in another age...more than a century ago. Is Canter saying that JtR -- supposing he left us a Diary or confession -- would have manifested the same psychology as a Gacy, Lucas, Sutcliffe, or whoever? Enquiring minds...
Yaz |
Author: Christopher T. George
Monday, 04 January 1999 - 04:55 pm | | Paul Begg wrote:
Hi Caroline:
Is your brother famous for his music though. If your brother was nationally or internationally renowned for something then I suspect that you'd know what he was renowned for. Michael Maybrick was nationally famous, very wealthy, very influential. I find it difficult to accept that James really would have been ignorant of what Michael did. But I do find John Knight's comment intriguing and, like you, I wouldn't be in the least surprised if Michael did write verse.
**********************************************
Well, not to be seen as a Diary aider and abetter, and to play the Devil's advocate, of course everyone in that age -- or many of the gentry at least -- did write verse, so it is therefore not out of the bounds of possibility that James Maybrick could have been jealous of his musician brother who happened to write better verse than he did. As an "artiste" in fact who wrote music it is not outside the bounds of possibilities that Michael wrote verse although not necessarily song lyrics. So to throw the Diary out as a hoax on the basis of the line of thought that James Maybrick would never make a mistake of saying his brother Michael wrote verse may be wrong. Are you all with me?
Chris "don't want to believe it is the real thing but sometimes have to give it a break" George |
Author: Shelly Lindley
Monday, 04 January 1999 - 04:59 pm | | I have a question: How old was Maybrick when the murders took place and how long after the murders did he die. I'm sure I know this but all the cold air in my section of the country has frozen my brain cells and I can't seem to remember.
Shelly |
Author: Christopher T. George
Monday, 04 January 1999 - 05:08 pm | | Hi, Shelly:
James Maybrick was born October 24, 1838, so he was exactly fifty years old at the time of the Autumn of Terror. He died May 11, 1889. He was therefore a little old for most of the suspect descriptions, which appear to identify a man in his thirties. Another little problem with the so-called Diary and the James Maybrick-as-Jack-the-Ripper thesis!!! But small stumbling blocks like that do not stop authors hypothesizing do they????? :-)
Chris George |
Author: Yazoo
Monday, 04 January 1999 - 05:45 pm | | Hey, Chris!
Maybrick looks surprisingly young in that goofy picture of him where he's wearing the top hat -- but then I don't know when that was taken. (Stephen should get a franchise on that picture and turn it into a dartboard -- make millions, I tell ya!) And being long in the tooth would also disqualify Dr. Tumblety -- an interesting suspect -- would it not?
Yaz |
Author: Caz Senior
Monday, 04 January 1999 - 05:54 pm | | Hi Paul,
James may have been all too aware ‘for what Michael was renowned’! That may have hacked him off no end. Knowing he could not hold a tune in a bucket himself though (just surmising here), he may have been trying to emulate Michael’s lesser-known but equally impressive verse! (surmising again).
He could hardly have whistled a tune in the diary to try to privately outsmart---sorry, to outsmart his brother privately, when unable to do so publicly. Ooh, I’ve just had a thought---wouldn’t it be queer if poor misunderstood James turned out to be head and shoulders above Michael in the fame-game!
Hi Chris,
Nice to see you again, good work as always on the Victorian aspects.
Hi Yaz,
'Peter and Paul' made me think of the two little dicky-birds sitting on the wall, showing how much I know about sainthood!
Caroline |
Author: Nikki Dormer
Monday, 04 January 1999 - 10:32 pm | | Hello again Everyone.
Yaz: I didn't mean to take people's comments to me as a personal attack, but that original comment of Anonymous's (Think again sonny) really ticked me off, not to mention Birchwoods comments beginning with 'You're wrong'. I'll freely admit that maybe I got a little hot under the collar.
Shelbi: You asked a while ago about the initials on Mary Kelly's wall. Be warned people, I'm about to back up what I say with reference material, so you may need to sit down. Apparently, according to Paul F's book, on page 64 of the hard cover version he wrote that apparently someone named Simon Wood, who I had previously never heard of, but who I'm sure Paul B will be able to fill us in on, noticed (and I quote) 'the presence of letters but not the two initials FM together...' Also, around the same area of the book, (I can't find it at the moment, even though it is sitting in front of me) Paul wrote that either during the inquest, or Florie's trial (also can't remember which, perhaps Paul B can enlighten us)somebody mentioned looking closely at the blood stains on the wall of Mary Kellys apartment. I think I'm right when I say that there was a lot of blood on Mary Kelly's wall, so I wouldn't have thought that anybody's attention would have to be drawn to it, unless there was something specifically special about it.
Once again, I'm sure my throat will be leapt down for this post, but it's all in the name of healthy debate, am I correct?
Nikki |
Author: Jack
Tuesday, 05 January 1999 - 12:49 pm | | A few questions concerning the "Diary" to bring me up to speed:
1) Where is Mike Barrett now and what is his state of mind ?
2) When is Anne Graham's book out ?
3) (For Shelby) How relevant would 1999 criminal profiling of the
late-Victorian psyche prove ?
4) Are the FM initials in the Kelly photo only extant on material enhanced to
prove the "Diary"'s claims ?.
5) Has anyone categorically proven that addiction to arsenic causes the
behavioural changes claimed by the author of the "Diary" ?
Apologies if these queries are being posted to the wrong board.
Jack |
Author: Kevin
Monday, 15 February 1999 - 04:23 am | | As someone stumbling into this interesting world of "ripperology" for the first time I'd like to make a few comments or observations in the belief that novices can contribute something:
1) A point I haven't yet run into and yet deserves mention: anyone who publishes a book on this subject doubtlessly expects to profit from it. I don't think I'm the kid saying the emperor has no clothes if I suggest that anyone who has devoted years to writing a book has made a substantial investment and will defend their opinions to the death regardless of evidence. Doubly true if forgery is involved.
2) What are the chances that a murderer who committed the most notorious crime in history would leave any written account? And that this would be discovered years later? Forget about the specific inks, quality of paper, small details, and all of the rest. What are the chances of this happening? Let's face it, they're slim. Those who support the diary should bear the burden of proving its accuracy.
3) Now back to the details, the kind of ink, quality of the paper, the fact that pages were ripped out from the beginning, etc. Logic suggests if the diary were authentic the author wouldn't care one whit about posterity's ability to verify it's authenticity, he would use the materials available in the current day. And yet, if it turns out the diary was put together using only those methods which frustrate later efforts to establish authenticity (ie. clean sweep, a series of unlikely coincidences in choice of ink, paper, number of pages missing, etc.) then that suggests forgery. Not proves, but suggests strongly. The original author wouldn't care about these things, authenticity depends upon a string of unlikely coincidences.
4) To the writer who suggested that a particular Jack the Ripper book was a better read than Mein Kampf, the second being boring and a waste of money. Think that through for a moment. No one disputes that Mein Kampf was written by Adolph Hitler. It might not be entertaining enough for you but if you're looking for insight into Hitler's mind there is no better source. This, in my opinion, cuts to the heart of the issue of "authenticity". The truth doesn't rest upon its being a good mini-series. To the contrary, most genuine documents of this sort make boring reading because they aren't written for an audience, the psychology is hard to penetrate, the minds which created them were not fabricating entertainment.
Guess it's not hard to figure out where I land in this controversy just based upon first impressions. If one is searching for the "coolest" story the diary is a serious document. If one is interested in truth then accepting the diary's authenticity does depend upon swallowing some amazing coincidences, by which I mean those who support the diary must at least conceed that these coincidences exist. Or there is some other interest at stake.
A final question to the experts. What is the nature of interest in a case which is now more than a hundred years old? Every participant in the original case has been dead for quite a long time, thousands of murders happen every year which are never solved. Why fight? This isn't about "who killed who", you're arguing over a puzzle (except for those who make their living from it).
But very interesting! |
Author: Matthew Delahunty (Dela) (orion.mel.ipax.com.au - 203.29.72.219)
Monday, 15 February 1999 - 08:50 am | | Hi Kevin,
I will address each of your points when I get the time which I don't currently have.
Didn't you answer your "final question" back in point 2. It's "the most notorious crime in history". Personally, it's the mystery of such a notorious crime. It's possibly the most researched and studied series of murders in history yet nobody has come up with the killer (at least to a satisfactory/conclusive level). There is just that attraction which you just have- it's hard to describe.
Dela |
Author: Bob_c
Monday, 15 February 1999 - 01:20 pm | | Hi Kevin,
We have already discussed on another board so I don't need to say welcome again.
I will give a few answers to your points as I see them here:
1) Of course there are those with pecuniary interest, and it is also understandable that they will want to protect their interests as they can. I don't think anyone minds, I believe even that most people appreciate, others doing their researches and trying to or making commercial gain from them. What I don't like, and I believe I speak for many others, are those who try to disparage the efforts of others while themselves trying to kid us to swallow the nonsense they scribble, as if all those reading it are to dumb to even consider that the work could be put at question. There have been some very nasty statements made by a few certain people, not only disparaging but down-right insulting, in some cases by educated people who ought to know better.
There are a number of serious authors, doing serious work, who can disagree with each other completely in some cases but would never allow themselves to sink to such a level. I would like to request those few lesser minded people to try to reach and keep the high standard held by the others.
2) The chances that Jack would leave a written chronicle is not necessarily small. The reason why Maybrick's diary tends to be held as nonsense by a number of people (not all by any means) is not because it is held for unlikely that Jack could have written, but the diary itself is written in a manner that leads to suspicion about a man who does not fit the picture. We have already discussed this elsewhere.
Everyone who makes a claim has the burden of proof. In the matter of the diary, the proof is, to my mind, wanting seriously. I do not, and can not, claim that the diary is a fraud. I can say I do not believe the evidence is sufficient, even if I can't prove the opposite.
3) This point you have largely answered by yourself. I don't have anything worth while to add.
4) No one disputes that Mein Kampf (have you read it?) was written by Hitler, or they would at least have a rather hard time of proving he didn't. The difference is that Hitler gave the book out of his hand, with his name on it, and said 'That is my book, I have written it.' (Das ist mein Buch. Ich habe es geschrieben.) Imagine what would have happened if Mein Kampf was first discovered in 1990, with not a sign of it until then. How many people would be convinced that Hitler was the author? In this case the book would have been real, but who would, or could believe it? A ghost slinks through this question...... May I mention the 'Hitler Diaries'? (Hah!)
Your last point is interesting, but very easy to answer. Jack has been turned into Folklore, like Robin Hood and King Arthur, although a bad guy. He has one side to his story that Folklore doesn't always have, however. He is, we assume, dead for round about one hundred years, but we can still feel his presence, see photos of his victims, read what people of the time said and thought. He has the unquestionable attraction of having been very, very real.
Best regards,
Bob |
Author: Kevin
Monday, 15 February 1999 - 04:50 pm | | Hi, thanks for the response. Want to respond to the Hitler point only because it gets to the heart of it. If someone had discovered "Mein Kampf" in 1990 I think it's quite likely many would have challenged its authenticity. "It's not the book Hitler would have written", which is another way of saying 1) it's not the book I wanted to read; 2) it's not the book I expected; 3)it doesn't answer the questions which interest me.
In some sense I think that should be a predictable reaction to a diary, a book written for no audience or, in the case of "Mein Kampf" (not exactly a diary), for a particular audience in a unique time and place (Germany in 1924). Have read it, think your description of the work was on target, and yet the very unsatisfying nature of the book argues 1) for its authenticity (it wasn't written for us) 2) opens a window into the real psychology of Hitler and Germans in 1924, not what we might want to imagine, believe to be true, etc., but what happened, which requires more work and leaps of imagination.
I don't think you're disputing my point, don't see this as an argument. I'm suggesting that one measure of a diary's authenticity, ironicly, and I've read hundreds by now, might be just how little it satisfies a reader's curiousity or directly answers questions s/he might have today, ie. those which posterity has created but which weren't in the mind of an original author.
Ever read the memoirs of Napoleon? Boring. Or the dairies of Konrad Adenauer? Better than Nytol. I can't think of a diary which offers some sense of completeness, a full accounting of events, or anything close to what a modern reader might consider "satisfying" outside of a few books by artists and writers (ie. people whose diaries are their work, who are creating a product, texts which, as in the case of "Walden", are heavily edited and revised).
So what might be a reader's reaction to a genuine Jack the Ripper Diary? "Well that was less than I expected", "Didn't answer many questions", "Wonder what's on tv tonight". Some sense of incompleteness or dissatisfaction should be expected. Or, I'm suggesting, the work has come from an artist's hand.
If the proponants of the Maybrook Diary were less satisfied with their discovery I might have more confidence in their conclusions. My sense, anyway. |
Author: Matthew Delahunty (Dela) (orion.mel.ipax.com.au - 203.29.72.219)
Tuesday, 16 February 1999 - 07:55 am | | Hi Kevin,
In reply to that last point I don't think that the diary is anything special - it's not exactly a work of art and at times drifts into draft verse. The only thing I believe that places this diary in the interesting category is that it's the thoughts of a murderer (whether the author is really Jack or is a forger) and a famous series of murders at that. A lot of diaries are quite boring but there are just as many that have made great reading. If you're going to write about Jack the Ripper I don't see how you can make an account of a murder NOT BORING!
If just the diary had been released into print I don't think it would've sold very many copies. I believe that it was Shirley Harrison's fantastic book which made it a bestseller - and even if you think it's a forgery I think that you'd have to agree that the descriptions by Harrison were far more interesting anyway. And it's Harrison's appraisal (and Feldman's later support) which makes the anti-diarist's actually care that it's a hoax.
How many people actually read the diary first? Or did they all read Harrison's account before proceeding? Maybe Harrison's account coloured their thinking on how interesting the diary really is?
For example, "Thomas was in fine health. The children enjoyed Christmas. I did not. My mood is no longer black, although my head aches." Boring? What you'd expect in any diary? I don't think people should have pre-conceptions about what the diary should be - whether a forgery or not we should all expect a Ripper diary to be something out of the ordinary because the Ripper story is all about murder, hysteria in Whitechapel and a deranged mind at work.
Dela |
Author: Kevin
Wednesday, 17 February 1999 - 03:10 am | | Ever read the poetry of Charles Manson? I'd cite what Hannah Arendt noted about Eichmann: we might want people who do larger than life acts (even those which are horrendous) to have larger than life personalities; in fact the opposite is often true, they're quite boring, they crossed a line others didn't, doesn't mean their personalities equal in largeness the consequences of what they did.
If Lee Harvey Oswald had survived would he have written a fascinating book? More likely, in my opinion, he would have written the kind of book Timothy McVeigh might be working on now, a tiresome screed by an angry loner which doesn't compel because as a person he's not compelling.
It's just a hunch of mine that the real Jack the Ripper was not some evil genius who evaded capture by his brilliance, think he was a schmuck who got lucky and journalists and authors crafted the rest.
But others are free to disagree. The other aspect of the Maybrook Diary which is potentially bothersome, at least to me, is if the document is a forgery then people in responsible positions let themselves be duped.
Won't offer any final judgements, just amused that in the modern age whole cottage industries have emerged around UFOs, monsters, various unsolved conspiracies. This is another one, anyone who offers a sensational, not true, explenation can make a good living. |
Author: Bob_c
Wednesday, 17 February 1999 - 03:36 am | | Hi Kevin,
Again I agree with you that people like Manson are not 'great' people, any more than Hitler or Napoleon were great. They may have caused 'great things', good or, as here, bad, but that doesn't make them great.
Hitler, for example, was one of the lazyist leaders of a State on record. His private record is petty and small-minded. He was no coward, he may have been brave when young as 'Gefreiter' and 'Meldegänger' in the 14-18 war, I don't demean his soldierish qualities then in any way, but he was not 'Great', he just had a screw loose.
I believe seriously that Jack had a natural cunning, often found amongst low-educated or unsound minded persons. I have worked as student in a Criminal Lunatic Asylum and can tell stories about that!
Regards
Bob |
Author: Matthew Delahunty (Dela)
Wednesday, 17 February 1999 - 07:56 am | | Kevin,
You missed my point. I never stated that I thought the diary content was exceptional - I don't think it is. It is the fact that it connects with the Ripper crimes which makes it interesting, whether it's a forgery or not. If there is any paragraph in the diary you can point to which is "sensational" I'd like to know what it is.
Who are these people in responsible positions? The people who have expressed an opinion are either historians or people just interested in the Ripper. And each of those are entitled to their opinion. The very problem with the diary is that there's been no conclusive evidence to say whether it's authentic or a forgery. Sure there's evidence both ways but I don't believe the evidence which currently exists eliminates the possibility that it is authentic. It merely allows people to form an opinion, many of which have thought it's a forgery. But that's still speculating, just as those who are of the opinion that it's authentic are speculating. Those who have written on the subject have attempted to introduce some hard evidence to back up their position - look at Feldman - sometimes it's persuasive but other times it's not. I don't think you can say that these people have been "duped" merely because the diary is not written how you'd expect the killer to write a diary - because that's mere speculation!
I'm not running around saying the diary is real - I just don't believe you write off the possibility until you eliminate that possibility with conclusive evidence.
Dela |
Author: Robert Buckley
Sunday, 07 March 1999 - 07:21 pm | | Hi Everyone,
I have posed this before, but nobody really answered so I will ask again if some enterprising pro-diarist is willing to spend a little time to help prove the non fakeyness of the diary.
First if you accept the diary and the watch as geniune then you must be aware that the diary claims his first and last crimes happened in Manchester, and as yet nobody can find any record of these. The diary portrays them as simple crimes with no ripping, and as such something that might even have gone unnoticed as a murder, which would explain why there are no records of such. However if you also accept the watch, you must also accept the other two initials scratched on it are almost certainly those of Maybricks other two vistims. Weird it would be if the other five were initials and the other two weren't. We even have a date against the first initial which tallies with the diary for the first murder.
Maybrick must of done the scratches on the watch sometime after each murder, else how would he know the initials of the victim. No prostitute would give her proper name to a client! These names would of been gained from the numerous press reports of the murders. However we are told by our eminent pro diary writers that no evidence of any murder exists for the first and last atleast within the press. How can this be, cos Maybrick knew their initials?
Given that we have a date and the initials I find it difficult to believe that names can't be found from Newspaper or church records. Maybrick had no problems finding their names and he did'n't know the initials to begin with.
Armed with these facts a few days in a Manchester library should reveal intereting facts eh! However Im sure its already been tried, and if you can't find the answer, it's better to ignore the question.
Good luck cos the diarys about as real as Burt Reynolds hair. Rob |
Author: thom bratt
Thursday, 25 March 1999 - 03:08 pm | | To believers and non-believers:
I believe the diary and the watch are both a hoax. If either had included information that was never before known (like the name of a previously unknown victim) then I would give them credit.
However, I do feel that Maybrick is an excellent suspect, for several reasons; It was believed at the time that the Ripper spent some time in the U.S. since some American lingo appears in notes he sent to authorities; Maybrick lived for a good time in the U.S.(in the Norfolk, Va area I believe). Maybrick was using hard drugs and it was suspected that the Ripper was a drug addic. Although Maybrick did not live in White Chaple he had knowledge of the area, it was suspected that the Ripper lived elsewhere (not WC) but had knowledge of the area and fled by the underground.The initials "FM" appear on the wall next to Mary Jane Kelly's dead body. Finally, I think the police sketch is a dead ringer for Maybrick.
I believe that the diary was invented some 25 or 30 years after the murders by some one who either had strong suspicions of Maybrick for who knew first hand (through their own complicity in the murders) that Maybrick was the Ripper and they wanted to leave something to posterity, to ease their own guilty conscience. |
Author: Calogridis
Thursday, 25 March 1999 - 11:22 pm | | Howdy All,
What could FM possibly stand for, if in fact it was a murder-day trinket? I don't believe it would have been 'Florie Maybrick'. Something like 'Frank Miles' would make more sense, adding the artist's own name to the canvas. I can't say much that's positive about the diary. Cheers...Mike |
Author: Matthew Delahunty
Friday, 26 March 1999 - 09:07 am | | Hi Thom,
I don't quite agree with you about the police sketch indicating that Maybrick is the Ripper. It's really just a sketch of a guy with a hat and a moustache. Just go and have a look at some of the other suspects in the case - eg Chapman, Deeming, Tumblety - they all fit the bill too.
I don't discount the possibility that someone else may have hoaxed the diary, knowing that Maybrick was the Ripper but you have to ask how they knew of the empty tin matchbox and a few other intimate details of the case. For example the controversial "FM". The photo of Kelly wasn't in the public arena until well into this century. Perhaps it was a police officer with knowledge of the inside details of the case who could hoax it but then what would a policeman in London know about James Maybrick? Perhaps it was Michael Maybrick with his freemason connections? In the end I think you'd have to demonstrate some strong evidence to back up the theory.
Dela |
Author: Peter Birchwood
Friday, 26 March 1999 - 01:23 pm | | Hi Thom:
Nice to see a newcomer here.
I wouldn't argue with you about the forged watch and diary but I'd briefly comment on your other points:
there was comment at the time about the author of the "Dear Boss" letter having US connections because of the phraseology. If you believe, as do most researchers today, that the author of that letter was not the ripper, then there's nothing about the murders per se that make them the work of an American. Of course, as Stewart Evans has pointed out, an Irish American, Frank Tumblety was suspected and he is much more likely to be Jack than Jim Maybrick, who was not a drug addict in the current sense. There is evidence that he used arsenic and strychnine in a pseudo-medical manner: that's all. The only "proof" that Maybrick actually knew Whitechapel is what's written in the diary and that's forged. I know about his mistress but she lived in the City of London and not the East End for a year or two. There is no proof that Maybrick knew her there. There have been many wise words written here on the FM and I think it's clear that they are blood-drips and not written initials and finally the "police sketch" is no such thing but is simply a newspaper illustration. Could your author be Peter Underwood? You may be confusing him with Don Rumbelow.
Peter. |
Author: Brian Sisk
Tuesday, 27 July 1999 - 05:01 pm | | Someone mentioned about the watch being a hoax, and I didn't notice an answer (sorry if I missed it). I know an "expert" in the book pronounced it as "tens of years" old. Does anyone have an idea how this could been done?
And as for the statement that it would have meant more had it revealed some new info, I think the fact that it does NOT contain info that is now known to be false but was until recently believed counts in that direction. (I mean the body count being reduced to five).
Does this not eliminate a recent hoax? And I thought an old hoax was all but given up on.
Brian Sisk |
Author: Jon
Tuesday, 27 July 1999 - 05:09 pm | | Brian
The last I read on this watch issue was that the forger had used a womans watch to purvey this hoax, not realizing his mistake.
Jon |
Author: guess who.ha!ha!ha!
Thursday, 18 November 1999 - 06:27 pm | | | Shan't rest 'til you fools see.It's all there,my funny games,May you all play blind mans bluff.My mother loved me.ha!ha!ha! |
Author: anon
Friday, 19 November 1999 - 06:40 am | | | Prat. |
Author: ChrisGeorge
Friday, 19 November 1999 - 06:34 pm | | Hi, Anon:
Yes indeed here where I live in Baltimore, the public library is the Enoch Pratt Free Library. Well observed. Pratt it is!
Sincerely
Chris George |
Author: Yours truly
Sunday, 21 November 1999 - 03:36 pm | | Dear anon and chris george,would you like I seek you out and rip you.How dare you insult yours truly.I cannot understand why my words are not believed,its all there for you fools to see.Its not a diary as some have said its the words written of what i did
Its not a diary as people say they're words of the deeds of Sir Jimay.i wrote it down in the hope it would be found so that i may be forgiven need to speak with SH. may god help the poor soul i have entered its the clues that will help you see so that i can rest in peace. |
Author: ChrisGeorge
Sunday, 21 November 1999 - 04:41 pm | | Hi, Yours truly:
SH? Shirley Harrison? Special Handling? I don't think it is a diary either. Have you a point you want to make?
Chris George |
Author: D. Radka
Sunday, 21 November 1999 - 05:56 pm | | Chris,
I don't think he's got a point, but he well may have a pint.
David |
Author: anon
Sunday, 21 November 1999 - 10:01 pm | | | Re- 'Yours truly' above - amazing how this subject brings the fringe lunatics out of the woodwork. |
Author: Sarah R. Jacobs
Saturday, 04 November 2000 - 07:54 am | | On the "Natural Cunning" of psychopaths: Generally, if a person is not using up his mental energy feeling bad about the horrible murders he or she has committed, he or she will be able to use whatever paltry mental resources he or she has to try to escape.
On Jack's possible escape: One idea still haunts me. What if some group of ordinary citizens decided to take the law into their own hands, knew who Jack was, knew they didn't want him to even have the slightest chance of spending his life in prison, in a mental hospital, or anywhere else the Law might send him, so they lied to the police, killed him themselves, lynch-mob-style, and maintained their silence until their dying days? It happened in the case of a man in Nebraska, a state in the Midwestern USA. THe locals got tired of his bullying, and of the courts' insistence upon letting his ghastly terrorizing of the entire small, impoverished, farming town, slide. So they got all the men, including the terrorizer, together in the only bar in town, and one person shot him. To this day, "nobody saw nothin'" (direct quote from the daughter of the slain wife of the General Store owner).
Maybe looking at unsolved lynching-style killings is a new way to go. I'm sure they'd be documented.
Sarah |
Author: Daniel Lynn Hollifield
Sunday, 21 October 2001 - 03:25 pm | | Hi all,
I don't mean to step on any toes here, but Stephen, Colin, I and others hashed out the question of the "FM" on the MJK deathbed photo way back in the early days of the Casebook website. Not that we have the final word or anything, I just thought that you might like to know what we came up with back then. We concluded back then that the initials were an artifact of photocopying or image processing, with them being indented into a copy of the photo that was later photocopied by someone initaling a memo on top of the pic running a close third possibility.
Colin was particularly in favor of the Diary as being real. He argued ferverently in its favor at the time it came out. We ran this arguement in the first Ripper chatroom for several months. Not that our conclusions back then are necessarily correct. I'm speaking as the person who scanned and imaged about 70% of the original pictures in the Casebook website. I just paged through the MJK victims page looking at the illos, all but the last two are images I processed for the Casebook. Stephen is using a different deathbed pic of MJK than the one I originally scanned for him. The new image is sepia tone and is framed quite differently. The old image I worked with was B&W and cropped more closely on the corpse. When I processed that B&W image for sharper detail, the "FM" stood out more. That alone weighted the argument that the initals were an artifact more than any other theory.
I haven't read all of the archive of this topic, so I appologise if I am merely repeating previous posters. I also bow to the possibility that since I've been away from the Casebook for so long that I might have missed new info that you all take for granted. Be gentle with this old timer, please.
BTW Stephen, thanks for keeping as many of the old scans that I did for the Casebook as you have. I must say that what you have replaced are much better images. And thanks for keeping the MIDI and sheetmusic for "Violet from Mother's grave" since I've always been rather proud of the MIDI even still.
In any case, I spent a long time looking at that original B&W image under various magnifications and different levels of image processing. Speaking as someone who has been processing photos for webpages for years now, I have to think that the initials are an artifact of photocopying, rather than some writing that really was spattered on MJKs wall. If it had been as plain to the police as it is to us now, it would have been remarked upon at the time.
Or so our conclusions ran. Take it with as large a grain of salt as you deem necessary.
Dan |
Author: Peter Wood
Sunday, 21 October 2001 - 05:22 pm | | It was remarked upon. The coroner's court members were taken to Mary Kelly's room and asked to "pay special attention to the blood stains on the wall".
Anyway, why are we discussing in a strand that hasn't been visited for a year before today? Get over to 'TIME FOR A RE-EVALUATION'. That's where the action is at now. |
|
|
|
|
