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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 **
Taped coversation with Michael Barrett
Casebook Message Boards: The Diary of Jack the Ripper: General Discussion:
Taped coversation with Michael Barrett
Author: John Omlor
Wednesday, 22 August 2001 - 10:32 pm |        | Hi RJ,
I just wanted to clarify a few details about my own position here.
You write:
"Some have implied that what we have in this tape is Mike Barrett being candid. Some (including you) have suggested that Mike has 'recanted' his confession."
Well, as you suggest, I have never felt that Mike is being completely candid, or even in any way reliable, on these tapes (or anywhere else, for that matter).
But, the fact is that Mike does literally "recant" his confession. He says repeatedly and clearly that he was lying to Alan Gray, telling him what he wanted him to hear, that he did not write this diary, that he made up the stuff in the first confession, including the entire account of buying the book at auction, and that he is willing to swear on anything asked to all of this.
The question is not whether Mike recants the first confession on these tapes. He does.
The question is whether there is any reason to believe this recantation.
There is not.
Nor is there any reason to believe his original confession, of course.
Nor is there any particular reason to believe his second confession which recants this on-tape original recanting of his original confession (and which itself has a number of evident misstatements about this meeting).
There is no real or logical reason to believe any of it, since Mike seems bound and determined to say whatever his audience at the time wishes to hear, even if his tales are directly and repeatedly contradictory.
Consequently, it seems foolhardy to suggest that one can determine what Mike does nor does not know from these provably unreliable, contradictory, and self-interested statements.
Just wanted to be clear about that.
You then say,
"I don't feel that Mike is particularly believable when he states on this tape that he "knows" the diary to be genuine."
As I've said, I agree completely with this. He's not particularly believable, period. Whether he is saying he knows the diary is genuine or whether he is saying he wrote the thing himself.
You go on, agreeing with me, I think:
"Further, I feel that it is likely that Mike was motivated by ulterior motives (for instance, to see AG and his daughter) when being interviewed."
Absolutely, and this was my point in my first post on the diary today, up above, where I said almost exactly this. That's why I wrote:
"I do believe that this is a man who would say almost anything to get back the woman he believes he has lost (or to at least have a chance to speak to her). I do believe that this is man who would say almost anything when faced with the prospect of a free drink (which makes the allegation that Alan Gray might have shown up to meetings with Mike with Scotch in hand particularly troublesome)."
You go on:
"[Shirley Harrison seems to give a sigh near the end of the tape, as if--understandably!---in exhasperation, stating something along the lines that she hoped that Mike was being honest for honesty sake. Which I took to mean that she hoped he wasn't saying this because he thought it would patch things up with Anne and help control the damage he had done to the diary. So I think I am not alone in my doubts here]."
You're not alone at all. I have the very same doubts. That's one of the reasons I have said what I have above about Mike's complete lack of believability about all things diary-related.
Finally, you summarize the problems and choices admirably:
"Some, quite understandably, might come to the conclusion that Mike knows nothing. Others might even come to the conclusion that MB, through some quirk in his personality, is unable to be candid. Others might suggest that he knows, but has never given a completely true account. My hunch is that it is a combination of the last two suggestions."
My "hunch" is that there is no real way of knowing whether one or two or all of these suggestions carry some truth. Consequently there is no real way of knowing whether Mike knows more than he is saying or less than he wants us to think he knows or everything about the diary's origins or nothing.
I do not think he is candid. I do not think he has ever given a true account. I do not think I can fairly conclude from this what the truth, either of his involvement or of the origins of the diary, is from those two premises. For that, I'm afraid, I would need corroborating evidence.
And that's what remains missing. And Mike's discussions with Keith and Shirley demonstrate once again how much we need it before we can claim any knowledge about what really happened here.
I don't think we are in that much disagreement, RJ. But I also don't think Mike helps us much either way in determining where this book came from, either with his story to Gray or his story to Keith, especially since both of them directly and repeatedly contradict one another.
There is much more to be said about Mike's words. His own confusion mixes with his apparently deliberate attempts to confuse his listeners so that a listener cannot reliably tell where one starts and the other ends.
But one other question remains.
Did this guy write this diary? Did he compose the lines of "James Maybrick" and find the book and create or buy the passable ink and buy the proper pens and put this whole project together? And who, then, held the pen and wrote out his words?
More thoughts on Mike's voice and speech patterns and the language of the diary later....
Thanks, and have a fine evening,
--John |
Author: R.J.P.
Wednesday, 22 August 2001 - 11:23 pm | | John--One last blurb. I don't think we are entirely in agreement. Why? Well, here's my thinking. Yes, Mike tells contradictory stories. I agree with that. I also agree that it is difficult to fathom exactly where the hell he is coming from. Yet, I would still argue that this doesn't mean that it is entirely safe to throw everything Mike has said out the window. There are still a few decent reasons for believing that Mike's earlier confessions indicate he knows where the diary came from. Yes, even though Mike does later 'recant', he still has given some details and hints that seem to hold up to scrutiny. He claims to have purchased a maroon diary, and when AG is asked about this, it comes out that Mike & Anne did indeed buy a maroon diary. The 'Williams' alias also held up. Mike's statement that the diary's ink came from a specific ink shop in Liverpool is still somewhat interesting. We are told that the ink he would have bought would have contained chloracetimide, and an independent test by scientists confirmed the diary's ink contained that chemical. And of course, the old puzzling Crashaw quote that we keep turning around and around. So, despite the many lies and contradictions, there are a few of us (o.k., I can only speak for myself) that might argue that Mike has given 'inside' information that can't later be convincingly dismissed with a few winks & nods & rambling statements. This is what might make Mike's 'confessions' in the sworn affidavit a little more interesting. Final question: does a private statement hold as much weight as a sworn affidavit?
I'll probably be gone for a few days, but will look forward to any responses. Have a good evening, RJP |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Thursday, 23 August 2001 - 08:59 am | | Hi All,
Hi RJ,
You wrote, with admirable concern for Mike and his family:
'Much in this tape is too personal for public consumption. Regardless of Mike's involvement in the Maybrick fiasco, I think he was genuinely appalled that his personal life was hung out on the laundry line for all to see. Some would say he deserves it, I reckon. But I tend to feel for the old boy.'
This is precisely why it is so difficult to make people aware of the whole story, so that they can finally base their opinions on what has really been said, rather than depending on hearsay, guesswork and preconception.
To my mind, all the conversations and statements I have ever heard or read, coming from Mike Barrett include so many elements of confusion, lapse of memory or concentration, boasting, error and outright lies, that any nuggets of truth are in danger of being missed, obscured or misinterpreted anyway. Even at the point when he is expressing what appears to be genuine distress and emotion at the turn his life has taken, now Anne won't talk to him, or let him know how Caroline is doing at school, it's impossible to tell if he is nevertheless weaving in lies about his bitterness and anger at Anne, for keeping her knowledge of the diary's origins secret from him, all the while he was supposedly struggling night after night with the thing in her presence.
I basically tend to agree with John - that it remains hard to tell if Mike knows nothing, or is pathologically incapable of being candid, or knows more, but has somehow managed to avoid blurting out anything that demonstrates this knowledge beyond doubt. For several reasons, not all of them easy to analyse let alone express, I feel it's more likely to be a combination of the first two, rather than the last.
Using the 'Williams' alias does not convince me either way. It could incriminate Mike as a placer of a known forgery, or it could suggest he was simply putting a toe in the water before committing himself with an unknown quantity that could prove lucrative, but only in the right hands. (Someone other than Mike might have taken it to a museum rather than a literary agent, and Melvin Harris would still have said it was a modern fake, forged by someone not interested in the money. But this is Mike we are talking about, and seeing a money-making opportunity doesn't amount to evidence of any criminal behaviour.)
We still don't know if the amount of chloroacetamide found in the diary ink made up anything like 0.26% of the total ingredients, in accordance with Diamine's formula (which it damn well ought to, since it's job is to preserve the ink!).
And you haven't mentioned what you think about the chances of our diarist including, by accident, a couple of lines by Crashaw, completely unaware that the poet had a strong family link with Whitechapel.
All in all, coupled with Mike's private letter to Anne, in which he accuses or threatens her with the words "I know you wrote the diary", if pressed, I would lean in the direction of a still-confused and angry Mike, who perhaps doesn't know quite as much as he has sometimes liked to boast, and whose relationship with the truth has been a traumatic one from his earliest days - with or without the diary.
(And incidentally, would a street-wise forger really have taken his own work, or someone else's, into the commercial domain like this and not expected his personal life to be 'hung out on the laundry line for all to see'?)
Trouble is, when looking at Chris George's question about whether the diary was forged by someone with a family tradition of James Maybrick as "That not impossible [Ripper]" (assuming you were thinking of Billy and Anne Graham's family, Chris?), I would be back to the old question of how Anne could possibly have duped Mike with a known forgery - not only in terms of the betrayal, but the practical and logical problems involved in the charade of handing the diary over to Tony, trusting that it would find its way safely back to Mike, and thence into the public domain, but only after making Mike believe she wanted to destroy it instead.
None of it yet makes a lot of sense to me, and still we go round in circles, like the London Underground's Circle Line, stopping at Citizen Kane for a while, then it was back round to Mike Avenue, and the possibility that he penned it after all, in a hand affected before or since by health problems, and now we are back at Anne Central, and whether she knew something Mike didn't.
(Where's the Disprin?  )
Love,
Caz
PS A sworn affidavit holds as much or as little weight as the general credibility of the person doing the swearing. It has nothing to do with who is reading or being asked to accept it as the solemn truth. It depends on how intimidated we judge Mike would be by the idea of signing his name to any false statements. We can't go by what you or I would do. |
Author: John Omlor
Thursday, 23 August 2001 - 09:42 am | | Hi RJ,
OK, let's look at this piece by piece to see if Mike might sometimes be telling the truth. (Of course Mike might sometimes be telling the truth, by the way, but we would know that only because we could verify it externally -- like the name Williams or the bus line/Outhwaite lot number relationship explained on the tape or why he picked that ink shop because of its location, as he seems to explain on the tape, etc... all of these things of course require separate and independent verification.)
Remember, in Mike's earlier confession he says he composed the diary and Anne wrote it out. Nothing he says anywhere in his remarks to Keith hint that he did compose these lines or that Anne wrote them out. We have no clear, reliable material evidence to support this scene of composition yet, so that aspect of his original confession remains unsupported and, since we know he lies regularly and often, therefore relatively worthless until we find corroboration for it.
But let's look at the pieces you cite to suggest that he at least "knows where the diary came from."
He talks about buying the maroon diary. And we know they bought a maroon diary. But of course, he gets all the dates wrong, and the details, and we have no evidence at all that he and Anne bought this diary in order to commit a forgery. In fact, we do have a reliable, material record that tells us that he gave his own name and home address when he bought this diary (not some alias) and that he made no attempt whatsoever to prevent the purchase from being quickly traceable back to him. In fact, the reliable material evidence might suggest that he bought this diary not at all expecting to use it in a covert, criminal act that would inevitably be thoroughly investigated. And he has actually said elsewhere that he bought this diary for the purposes of comparing it to the diary he had been given -- to see if a genuine Victorian diary was anything like the one he was holding. Now you may not believe this story either -- it may not seem like a logical thing to do. But this is Mike, remember, and there is no real, reliable reason to believe one of his illogical stories (that he bought this diary for criminal purposes and identified himself for the record while he did it) rather than another of his illogical stories (that he bought it for comparison purposes after having acquired the diary).
So just the fact that he tells us they bought a diary and they did is not evidence that they (or he) knew anything in particular about the "Maybrick" diary's origins. It cannot be without further outside, corroborating evidence that fairly allows us to decide why, in fact, the little maroon diary was purchased the way it was.
Then you say,
"Mike's statement that the diary's ink came from a specific ink shop in Liverpool is still somewhat interesting."
Interesting, yes. But neither verified nor clearly supported by corroborating evidence. And on the tape he offers an entirely different story for why he picked that particular shop for use in his story (having to do with the routine route it was on, I seem to recall).
As material evidence of the truth of Mike's claim , you offer the following:
"We are told that the ink he would have bought would have contained chloracetimide, and an independent test by scientists confirmed the diary's ink contained that chemical."
But there is a logical problem here. Remember, you cannot begin by assuming your conclusion. You cannot start by assuming Mike bought the ink. Your fact above is not evidence of anything actually. If I lied and said I bought the ink at a shop here in Florida, you would go to that shop and see what ink I would have bought. That ink might very well have contained chloracetimide, right? But I would not have known this, I was just naming the shop out of the blue and knew nothing about ink chemistry myself at the time. Then you would have discovered the diary ink also contained chloracetimide! But this would in no way allow you to assume that I was telling the truth about my buying anything when I named an ink shop down the street in my lie. It would not even be a coincidence. It would just be an unrelated fact. How could Mike have named a nearby ink shop in a made-up confession wherein the ink he would have bought for this project there would not have contained chloracetimide? I don't understand why you think the evidence of chloracetimide in the ink is also evidence that Mike was telling the truth about buying the ink himself. Wouldn't that chemical evidence be exactly the same even if he was lying? So this too tells us nothing about the truth of Mike's confession.
And Mike's mention, in his confession, of the Crashaw quote tells us nothing "true" by itself, since it doesn't tell us when he first learned that quote was there. We all know that he knew it was there by the time he confessed on January 5, 1995. So all his mentioning it there tells us is something we already knew. What we don't know is when he learned it was there and whether he used it in composing the diary. And if he did not, he certainly would have claimed he did when he was trying to convince Gray that he wrote the diary, in any case. We all know how he loves to please his audience -- the Keith and Shirley tapes demonstrate that decisively. So the confession does nothing, really, to establish this truth concerning whether Mike knew the quote was there before he "acquired" the diary.
In fact, if we do not assume what happened before we read the confession, and if we remember that Mike lies regularly, routinely and in detail, even happily contradicting himself, there is nothing in the confession that firmly establishes, with reliable corroboration, the truth of Mike's authorship or his knowledge concerning the real origins of this diary. There is nothing that disproves any of this either, of course.
And so Mike's confessions, recantations, and re-recantations all remain suspect and without support.
Therefore, they cannot logically or rationally be used as material or reliable evidence concerning his actual knowledge or concerning where this diary actually came from or who wrote it or where or when.
This does not mean Mike did not write the diary.
--John
PS: Finally, RJ, you ask, "does a private statement hold as much weight as a sworn affidavit?"
Two answers:
1.) Yes, if the maker of the "sworn statement" seems willing to lie under oath. Listen to what Mike says under oath in the second confession about what took place at his meeting with Keith and Shirley, for instance, and then listen to the tapes and see if you think Mike was telling the truth and nothing but the truth under oath. Read Mike's accounts of how he was beaten up because of the diary or, in his first confession, his description of the scene of composition. If you even suspect that Mike might be lying under oath, then his confession in a "sworn affidavit" can have no more weight than a "private statement" made on tape, since the oath in the former obviously does not bind him. The former can therefore have no more claim to the truth than the latter.
2.) Listen to the beginning of the Keith tapes and to all the things Mike is willing to swear on regarding the truth of his "I did not write this" claim. I believe he mentions certain religious phrases and names, the family Bible (which he is willing to retrieve from elsewhere), and perhaps even his daughter. He devoutly swears the truth of what he is saying to them. He also swears the truth of what he is saying to Gray. Swearing an oath does not seem to restrict Mike to telling the truth. So, in his case, the answer to your question would have to be that neither circumstance necessarily produces a story that "holds more weight."
Sorry, Caz, we crossed along the way... |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Thursday, 23 August 2001 - 11:55 am | | Hi John, RJ, Chris, All,
RJ still hasn't said what he thinks about the coincidence of Mike picking out the Crashaw quote, for a diary about the Whitechapel murders, without knowing a thing about the poet's Whitechapel link. Or does RJ think Mike must have known about the link, but for some reason didn't explain, when confessing, that this was precisely why he included a Crashaw quote?
Love,
Caz |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Friday, 24 August 2001 - 10:24 am | | Hi All,
Hi RJ,
I'm sorry I didn't respond yesterday to your question regarding the independent witness who was present during the taped conversation with Mike Barrett.
I confirmed with Keith that he is a retired detective chief superintendent from Liverpool.
Have a good weekend all.
Love,
Caz |
Author: John Hacker
Friday, 31 August 2001 - 06:13 am | | Hiya all,
I've (finally) managed to get a complete set of CDs burned from the tapes I recieved from John Omlor. I beg a thousand pardons for the long delay. Power problems, new and urgent work deadlines, crazed contractors, and cantakerous cars have been dominating my time of late.
I somehow doubt that they would change anyone's minds, but they do give an interesting insight into some of the participants of the diary drama.
If anyone is interested in obtaining a copy, please contact me via email.
John Hacker |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Saturday, 01 September 2001 - 07:37 am | | Hi John,
Thanks very much for all your hard work. I do hope there will be many people who are interested to hear what Mike (and everyone else present), had to say, between making the two sworn statements back in January 1995.
Hi All,
I know Keith Skinner would especially like to see how people will now view Mike's second statement, in light of what actually went on during the lengthy chat with him on 18th January 1995.
In Keith’s message to Melvin Harris, Chris George and John Omlor, which I posted for him on Thursday, 02 August 2001 - 07:32 am, he quoted the following from the PS to a letter Melvin wrote to Shirley Harrison, dated 4th February 1995:
‘PS. Since finishing this letter I have received a copy of an alarming statement made by Barrett. I enclose a copy. This man should be allowed to state his position freely, without any inducements to please either believers or doubters. Because a large sum of money seems to be on promise, but only IF he goes along with the Anne Barrett line, then any testimony endorsing that line is null and void, as a matter of course. But in this case, his witnessed repudiation means that you may not make use of anything said on those tapes. They are now meaningless, and I understand that an enlarged statement about this visit has since been made by Barrett, in which the repudiation is repeated and made even stronger by extra details. I have not yet seen this statement. This is an unfortunate turn of events, and since a crime is involved, can we, from now on, have this investigation conducted on a strictly equitable level?’
I must say, it really beggars belief if Melvin simply took Mike’s unsupported word for it that there were inducements which caused him to lie on the tapes that day. If only Melvin had listened to those tapes, instead of declaring them, unheard, to be ‘meaningless’ and ‘null and void’, purely on the say-so of a self-confessed liar! It doesn’t say much for a supposedly thorough investigator, who claims to be an expert in seeing through people’s lies and chicanery, does it?
Love,
Caz |
Author: R.J.P.
Sunday, 02 September 2001 - 10:35 pm | | Caz--I haven't seen Paul Begg's article, so can't comment on the the Crashaw/Whitechapel connection. But either way, it certainly wouldn't seem to erase the remarkable fact that Mike evidently owned the Sphere book prior to his appearance with the Maybrick diary.
By the way, what did you make of the Colin Dexter reference in the tape? I'm left wondering if Mike was a fan of Inspector Morse. Or was Anne? Mike made a big production of being a 'failed writer' [his emphasis] and at one point in the murky past must have lied about when he had bought the word processor. It is understandable, I suppose, that he wouldn't want anyone to know that he had been a would-be writer and a fan of detective fiction [if this is the case] when bringing the Maybrick diary to London. So this might not tell us much. But doesn't it at least suggest that Mike thought through the various angles, and is a little more astute than many have suggested? Colin Dexter was published by Pan Books, by the way. Pan Books was the first publisher Mike contacted with the Diary. So maybe he got their name off of one of the books? Best wishes, RP |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Monday, 03 September 2001 - 05:50 am | | Hi RJ,
Here you are:
'It was in that same year, 1649, that the poet Richard Crashaw died in Italy, possibly poisoned by his enemies. Crashaw, the topic of incidental debate in the strange world of Maybrick 'diary' discussion (because a line from one of his poems is quoted in the 'diary'), was born in London in 1613 and in 1618 he moved to the East End when his father William Crashaw was appointed to St. Mary Matfellon (known as the White Chapel, from which Whitechapel derives its name). He appears to have lived there until his father's death in 1626.
William Crashaw was twice married, his first wife, whose name is not known, being the mother of the poet Richard Crashaw. The second wife, who he married in 1619, was named Elizabeth Skinner. Tragically, she died in childbirth in 1620 aged 24 years and was buried in Whitechapel. She must have been a very remarkable lady because the antiquarian John Stow (1525-1605) recorded that at the funeral 'was present one of the greatest assemblies that ever was seene in man's memorie at the buriall of any private person.' A memorial to her memory was located in the chancel of the church.'
(From Ripperologist No.36, August 2001)
Certainly, RJ, I agree with you that it remains remarkable that the Sphere book was in the Barrett household at the same time as the diary. But isn't it even more remarkable now, if we believe the book fell open and caused Mike to choose that particular quote by that particular poet, to include in a diary about the Whitechapel murders, simply because the words 'intercourse' and 'death' seemed appropriate?
How far do you want to stretch coincidence and the forger's luck here, RJ?
How would you honestly assess the chances of a person composing/writing this diary on the Whitechapel murders having no real clue who Crashaw was, or that he was linked in this way?
Do you still believe that Mike - and his faulty Sphere Guide - had to be responsible for the quote's appearance in the diary, whether he knew about the Crashaw/Whitechapel link or not? And if Mike did know about it, why do you think this 'astute' fellow, when thinking 'through the various angles', never thought to mention this little gem, when claiming to be the world's greatest forger?
How do you explain it away RJ?
Love,
Caz
PS I think Keith may have some explaining to do. Elizabeth Skinner, eh? Hmmmm...
PPS Strange, too, that Crashaw was 'possibly poisoned by his enemies', considering the supposed diary author and would-be poet was also possibly poisoned by his enemies (for his awful poetry, perhaps? ) |
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