Archive through 13 February 2002

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Archive through 13 February 2002

Casebook Message Boards: The Diary of Jack the Ripper: General Discussion: TIME FOR A RE- EVALUATION!: Archive through 13 February 2002

Author: Caroline Anne Morris Saturday, 09 February 2002 - 07:01 am
Hi All, Maybe the overdraft of over 3k was allowed by Mike's accommodating bank manager on the strength of evidence that the 8.8k royalty payment was imminent. I don't know, we are all just speculating. I could also understand it if Mike was then told the maximum he could withdraw in cash per day was 1k, and if that's exactly what he did, every other day until it all ran out. There could be no such upper limit on cheques made out by Mike to someone else. But surely the dates given are when the cheques were processed through Mike's account, ie paid in by, or credited to that of the payee, and therefore not the date that Mike wrote on the cheques - unless he made each one out to 'Cash' and presented it to his bank the same day. But even if this leaves insufficient time, between the receipt of the 8.8k on 13th May, and the first of the 1k cheques to clear through Mike's account by 17th (if it had been made out to someone else that is), we would still be left with the possibility that Mike took the 5k out in cash then paid it straight to a co-forger. But, as John has done, we can at least look at what else was going on at the time. Wasn't it around this time that he had a new girlfriend, Jenny? And didn't Mike say that he took the Sphere set round to her place, in case her son could use them for his studies, sometime around his birthday (29th May was it? when he'd just got through the royalty money?). Shirley Harrison said that, on 21st June 1994, she went to see Mike in 'a new home, where he was living with a lady who had taken him under her wing'. Love, Caz
Author: Caroline Anne Morris Saturday, 09 February 2002 - 07:35 am
Hi again all, I've checked back over the contradictory information that Shirley, Melvin and Keith have all received from the Liverpool Library, regarding the availability of the Sphere book. Here is a brief summary of what each of them found: Casebook Message Boards: The Diary of Jack the Ripper: General Discussion: The Maybrick Diary-2000 Archives: Archive through July 6, 2000 Author: Melvin Harris Thursday, 06 July 2000 - 04:20 am It was claimed in Harrison's book that Mike Barrett had badgered the librarians at Liverpool who had given him the name of the Sphere History of English Literature. I checked and double checked with the Liverpool Central Library and their records show they do not hold a copy of this book and never have. Author: Shirley Harrison Thursday, 06 July 2000 - 12:16 pm On March 22 1998 I wrote to Janet Graham at the Liverpool Library "in the pursuit of exact information" to double check the existence of the Sphere books in the library. I had been told Volume 2 was missing. I was told that all the volumes were in fact there - not on the shelves but in their repository upstairs. I telephoned Janet Graham today and she has just returned my call - with the volume containing the Crashaw lines in her hand. Author: Melvin Harris Thursday, 06 July 2000 - 06:17 pm Regarding Mrs Harrison's statement it appears that the Liverpool Central Library must have computer problems, I have checked with them today and the information given to me is quite different to that given to Mrs Harrison. Even so, Mike's copy does open at the right page. Author: Caroline Anne Morris Thursday, 07 February 2002 - 11:02 am From Keith Skinner To Melvin Harris There are three hardback copies of the book here, one published in 1970, two published in 1986 and, according to my enquiries, none of these books have ever been withdrawn or �stacked�. And of course, we know that Shirley managed to get the relevant page from a library copy of the Sphere book, which was available on the shelves on 6th October 1994, faxed through to her that day - six days after Mike first announced his 'discovery'. Love, Caz
Author: John Omlor Saturday, 09 February 2002 - 09:19 am
Hi Peter, Thanks for your thoughts on the banking situation. It seems to me that somewhere in that trail of money lies an important aspect of this case. But we don't have quite enough information about the sequential 1000 pound checks yet to determine just what they mean. It is a fascinating piece of info though. And we can say this: the guy gets over eight grand, which for him is probably a serious amount of money -- three grand pays off his bank debt immediately, leaving him over five grand all his own. Within two weeks, it's gone. Now maybe this is just Mike's way. Or maybe there was, as Caz has pointed out, stuff happening in his life that demanded this sort of spending and that wasn't related to the source of the original eight grand, the diary. But to be three thousand pounds in debt one day, have five thousand to your credit the next, and blow the whole five grand within the next two weeks, writing checks for identical amounts on Tuesday, Thursday, then Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and be two hundred pounds in debt again by the end of the second week still seems a bit odd to me. Then again, I'm a saver. I think it is at least worth continued investigation if possible. On the other hand, I suspect the fact that our players known so far are Catholic is probably not a likely explanation for the Crashaw quote. Crashaw nowadays is not likely to be read by ordinary Catholic churchgoers any more than he is by anyone, other than literature students and scholars (and they could be of any faith). And yes, someone might have had a teacher who was teaching the 17th century metaphysical poetry (they wouldn't have had to be Catholic -- Crashaw doesn't make an extra appearance in Catholic schools, I don't believe, he is now more a historical figure in the literary canon than he is a religious one, even though it's his religion and the Latinate style that accompanied it that separated him from his fellow poets of his time). And yes that someone might have read Crashaw in such a course. But unless it was a teacher for whom Crashaw was a personal favorite (and there wouldn't likely be many of these) or who was a Crashaw specialist (and there would be even fewer of these except at University level), this poem would not have been among the ones taught. It hardly ever gets anthologized (I've never seen it in any collection of Metaphysical poetry or of 17th century literature) and would most likely only be taught if the teacher was using Crashaw's Complete Works, and that would suggest a fairly intense course, like an upper level seminar or grad course on Crashaw or the Metaphysicals. Just your average Catholic, even one with a Catholic school education, isn't really that much more likely to have read this poem than the rest of us, I don't believe. Not unless they studied literature at the University level, at least. And of course, historically speaking, it is much, much less likely that someone with no Catholic background and no university level literature education and working in a regular business, in a time when Crashaw was much less taught or read or even published (the 19th century -- before his rehabilitation in the early 20th by Eliot and his subsequent re-entry into the academic canon ) would have ever even come across an especially obscure piece like this, let alone casually cite it in his own writing. No, I still think the only likely source for this particular line from this particular poem remains the Ricks' essay which conveniently excerpts this very line, in a highly specialized context, in the Sphere Guide -- which happened to be in the Barrett house. Until another likely source turns up, this still seems to me by far the best possible account we have of where this quote originated. All the best, --John PS: But, Peter, I agree completely with you when you say, "one of the things that still could be done would be to research the backgrounds of our characters more closely." As they say, it sure couldn't hurt.
Author: Scott E. Medine Saturday, 09 February 2002 - 07:15 pm
I am Catholic, went to a Catholic high school. Graduated from Notre Dame, and I am left wondering....who in the Crap is Crapshaw? Peace, Scott
Author: Kevin S. Douglas Sunday, 10 February 2002 - 03:11 am
My gut feeling, the person who forged the Maybrook diary will turn out to be someone who thinks he or she "channeled" the information from "the other world" (one doesn't have to assume the intent was commercial gain). There was one Jack the Ripper but there are thousands of screwballs in the world. The defenders of the diary should accept the sheer unlikelihood of its authenticity as a matter of course (what would constitute firm evidence? a handwriting match with the real Maybrook would have impressed me, a scientific analysis could have proven that it was produced during the 19th c, etc.).
Author: Peter R.A. Birchwood Sunday, 10 February 2002 - 06:06 am
John: As a sidelight on the banking riddle I checked a few papers to see what might come to light and came up with two royalty statements from Rupert Crew Ltd. to MB. The first dated 4/12/93 gives the total amount due as £9742.19 of which the share due MB was 50%, ie £4871.10 less £487.11 agents commission. After VAT of £85.24 was deducted Mike got sent a cheque direct to his bank account of £3,000 and Anne got a separate cheque for £1,298.75. The second statement figures are for 25/2/94 and show a total of £21,808.76 of which 50% went to MB less $1,090.44 agents fee and £190.83 VAT. This time Mike got $8623.11 and a separate cheque to Anne of £1,000. Incidentally, I just found a message from Shirley confirming that the price of the car was £500: "The question of what Mike DID with his money has worried us from the beginning - he bought his girl friend a 500pound car and was paying out 60 pound a time to taxi drivers..but what else." (13/03/2001)
Author: John Omlor Sunday, 10 February 2002 - 09:04 am
Hi Peter, So this means that by February of '94, even before the 8,800 pound payment in May that vanished in two weeks via the sequential 1,000 pound checks, Mike had received over 11,600 pounds. And by May of '94, he was over 3,000 pounds overdrawn. And in the end of February of '94 Mike got a separate payment of 8,600 pounds and by May, only three months later, Mike had not only spent all of that, he was back 3,000 pounds in debt. So this means that he goes through at least 11,600 pounds in three months' time and then 5,000 pounds in two weeks, all in the same general time frame. And by the end of May, he's back to being 200 pounds overdrawn. So in the months of March, April, and May of 1994, Mike Barrett goes through a total of over 16,000 pounds of diary money. I hope he was living well. Seriously, this seems like an awful lot of money for someone leading Mike's lifestyle to be spending in only three months. I mean, he's not Elton John and I've never heard that he has a serious drug or gambling problem, and this averages out to over thirteen hundred pounds a week. And that's just of diary money, that doesn't even count any normal income Mike might have had at the time. And the way some of it goes is interesting as well -- with the sequential 1,000 pound checks in identical amounts every other day. Well, thanks Peter, for the further information. Perhaps someday we'll put it all together and it will mean something specific for us. But meanwhile the puzzle pieces are fascinating all by themselves. Drawing no conclusions, --John (who can't figure out how to make the little pound sign using his machine, but hasn't really tried, to be honest)
Author: Monty Sunday, 10 February 2002 - 11:01 am
John, Shift+3, like this ££££££...... so my accountant says !! Monty
Author: John Omlor Sunday, 10 February 2002 - 12:16 pm
Hi Monty, Not here. Here Shift+3 is the # sign, I'm afraid. But no matter. I'm sure I could set a shortcut key for the symbol on Word if I wanted, but writing the word "pounds" makes all this talk about money look like a much weightier issue. All the best, --John
Author: Peter Wood Sunday, 10 February 2002 - 06:21 pm
Hello again John. You ask and you answer: "Is there any real evidence at all for this? Is there any evidence that would allow us to think that the letters from the ship that we know the real James wrote weren't in his natural hand? No". John, yes there is. Quite simply they were business letters. We write differently in business letters than we do to friends. (At the mercy of being Omlorised) - we behave differently with friends than we do with business acquaintances, we even talk differently on the phone to friends than we don with business acquaintances. It shouldn't come as any surprise to you then, John, that we also write differently when addressing friends than we would to business acquaintances. But you knew all of this already. You are simply being mischievous. As regards Bill Waddell. I already asked Shirley's permission to quote Bill - and got it. I'm not quoting Bill out of any context, just reporting the words that he said, exactly as he said them. And apart from saying that Bill isn't an 'expert' you haven't countered the argument in a serious way. Of course Bill is not a recognised 'expert'. But as Shirley reports in her excellent book, Bill has a lifetime's experience of forgery. I think that would make him 'time served' ... Just for the record, Bill isn't the only one who sees the relationship between the Galashiels letter and the will. Shirley sees it too. And whilst we are on the subject, the Maybrick letter that PHF produces alongside the Galashiels letter in his book, the one written aboard The Baltic in 1881 - of this letter Shirley writes: "This letter in turn is also, to my mind, not unlike the hand that wrote the diary ...". The 'experts' can't agree John. And if the experts can't agree then we have to question their role. I don't have a problem with accepting the opinions of 'amateurs', after all that's what we all are in here. Maybrick wrote the 'Baltic' letter ... the writing of which looks like ... The Galashiels letter ... the writing of which looks like ... James Maybrick's will (and, according to Shirley, the diary). How much clearer do you want it to be? And here is the big question John: Do you have just one type of handwriting? Or do you write differently at different times? Regards to all. Peter.
Author: John Omlor Sunday, 10 February 2002 - 06:58 pm
Hi Peter, Actually, I have only one type of handwriting. And it doesn't really vary very much outside of sometimes being slightly less neat if I am rushing. And I still have no reason at all to believe you when you say that everyone writes their business letters in completely different handwriting that their non-business letters. You just say that. I've not seen any evidence anywhere to that effect (perhaps because you have none) and you've offered us no reason to simply accept it's true. Personally, I don't think it is. I think you are simply and rather desperately using it as if it were true to get around the embarrassing problem that we have good samples of James Maybrick's real handwriting, and not one of them looks anything like any of the writing in the diary whatsoever. Because that is so true, I'm going to say it again. We have good samples of James Maybrick's real handwriting, and not one of them looks anything like any of the writing in the diary whatsoever. Not one. Nothing at all like the diary. Why? Not because James Maybrick was some sort of scribbling chameleon. Not because he had MPD. Not because he was disguising his handwriting for some reason in his own diary, despite announcing himself as the author. No, it's because the handwriting in the diary simply does not match the real James Maybrick's. No expert will ever say that it does. No expert has ever said that it does, because it doesn't. That is an established fact. One of the few we have. And dancing the jig of "but ifs..." and "But there�s Galasheils and Bill's reaction" and all the other irrelevant nonsense written in desperate response to this problem does nothing at all to change that fact. The diary is written in a handwriting that does not even come close to resembling the handwriting of its supposed author. It is not written in writing that matched the real James Maybrick's in any way. And once again, Bill Waddell has no credentials at all that allow him to make any judgment on handwriting matches. And your "Shirley sees it too" endorsement is nice, but of course utterly irrelevant. You say the experts can't agree. But on this, Peter, they have definitely agreed. Shirley and Bill, of course, are not experts in this field. And not a single one of the real experts anywhere in the world has ever said or been willing even to speculate or suggest that the handwriting in the diary matches the available handwriting of the real James Maybrick and you and Paul Feldman are dancing the waltz of denial as you try and get around that one. And the Galasheils letter looks nothing at all like any of the writing anywhere in the diary, besides that. Nor does the writing in the Baltic letter. And no one with any training whatsoever has ever said it does (including Bill Wadell, who remains anything but an expert). You can look at them both and instantly see major differences. They are not even close to alike. I have a jpg of the Galasheils letter, by the way, which I can easily post if anyone wants to see clearly the painfully obvious difference between it and the writing in the diary and the writing in the Baltic letters, and especially to see the embarrassing way the case for authenticity has to be completely based on false premises and desire filled wishing rather than evidence or reasonable or rational thought. If people who think this diary was written by the real James Maybrick are going to pin their hopes on the handwriting in the Baltic letter or in the Galasheils letter (which themselves look nothing alike) looking anything at all like the completely different writing in the diary, then their case is lost even before it begins. And Peter, your final chain of sentences in simply magical. Unfortunately, it's also nonsense. The Baltic letter looks nothing at all like the Galasheils letter. The Galasheils letter looks nothing at all like the writing in the diary. The Baltic letter looks nothing at all like the writing in the diary. But you're correct about one thing. The only logical and rational conclusion couldn't be much clearer. It's so obvious, I'll let the readers look at the relevant documents and reach it themselves. Sorry, Peter, the handwriting is a disaster for the "case" for authenticity. And I use the quote marks there because there is no "case" for authenticity yet. There is not a single piece of evidence to support this book's claim to authenticity and nothing at all links it in any reliable way to the real James Maybrick or even to the proper century. And in all the writing you've done around here, Peter, you haven't changed that sorry and empty state of affairs concerning the evidence in the "case" for authenticity one little bit. Still, there is none. That should tell us all something. All the best, --John PS: Peter, the differences between our handwriting on the one hand and how we behave around or how we speak to different people on the other hand are so obvious and crucial that I shouldn't even have to explain them to you. Of course, we speak and behave differently to different people. We are there. And, yes, we write differently to different people, too -- our voice changes, our style changes, our content changes. But none of that suggests or demands that our actual, physical handwriting has to have such drastic changes too and differ as completely and utterly as the diary does from any of stuff we have that the real James Maybrick wrote.
Author: John Hacker Monday, 11 February 2002 - 07:01 am
Hello all, It's been a while. It's been a fun week, chock full of downed internet connections and a new boss to replace the old one who experienced spontaneous employment failure. Fun. So much to catch up on... John Omlor, Do you think that those thousand dollar withrdrawls might have been the same amount due to a withdrawl limit instead of because he required multiple individual payments? For example, my bank has a 1000 dollar cash withdrawl limit. You can arrange for a larger withdrawl if you ask a day or two in advance. I don't know if there would be a similar setup in overseas banks or not. But I can certainly imagine that Mike might not want to ask for a larger amound to not draw attention to homself. Peter, "I guess my initial response to what Paul wrote was to think that handwriting may not have changed much from the late 1880's to the early 1920's. A span of just over 30 years. But from 1920's to late 1980's early 1990's is a span of 70 years and handwriting would have changed a lot. I still think that speaks in favour of the diary, or rather it would do if I accepted it as evidence." James Maybrick was born in 1838, his schooling would have been in the 1840s, some 70+ years earlier than the 1920s. Regards, John Hacker
Author: John Omlor Monday, 11 February 2002 - 07:16 am
Hi John H., Yes, I suppose there might well have been a maximum withdrawal limit of 1000 pounds for Mike's account. To be honest, I don't know. But that leaves open the question of why Mike would need to use this maximum limit roughly every other day until the whole five grand was gone, in only two weeks. It seems like Mike needed five thousand pounds in a very short time for something. He gets the money on a Friday, and by the end of the second week after he gets paid, it's all gone. And that something was fairly pressing, since he not only spent all the money he had just received but actually went back into debt because of it. And that was after an earlier payment of over eight grand also disappeared. So that in just three months time Mike goes through sixteen thousand pounds of diary money alone. In any case, I'm sure we can check and see if Mike's bank at the time had such a limit on withdrawal size. Thanks for the idea, John. All the best, --John
Author: Caroline Anne Morris Monday, 11 February 2002 - 08:59 am
Hi John O, I think it might be a bit of an assumption on your part that 'something was fairly pressing' and that Mike 'spent all the money he had just received...'. Isn't it possible that Mike didn't like his money sitting in the bank and wanted it all where he could see it as soon as possible, to use as and when he felt the urge? Perhaps he didn't even quite trust the bank with it, especially if he might not have been all that familiar with having an account. If these all turn out to have been cash withdrawals, there is very little we can do, apart from speculate, over what he did with the money, who he spent it on if not himself, or how much he was spending at any given time, or even over what period of time. By the way, the idea that Mike's bank had a withdrawal limit was Peter Birchwood's, in his post of Saturday, 09 February 2002 - 05:24 am, where he wrote: �It's just possible that there may have been a Bank-limit on how much Mike could withdraw in cash per day��, and I agreed, saying: �I could also understand it if Mike was then told the maximum he could withdraw in cash per day was 1k��. Love, Caz
Author: John Hacker Monday, 11 February 2002 - 09:51 am
"By the way, the idea that Mike's bank had a withdrawal limit was Peter Birchwood's" Many apologies to Peter Birchwood and Caz. I missed that in your posts when skimming through them this morning. Regards, John Hacker
Author: Christopher T George Monday, 11 February 2002 - 10:41 am
Hi, John Omlor: Try alt 156 ...... ££££££££££ Hi, John Hacker: I agree with you that James Maybrick would have been schooled in handwriting in the mid-nineteenth century, so Peter Wood's argument of a possible date of 1888-1920 for the handwriting would not apply to the hand allegedly seen in the Diary if it is, as he claims, James Maybrick's, which would have been formed much earlier. Best regards Chris George
Author: Lefroy Monday, 11 February 2002 - 10:46 am
Hi, Just curious as to how we know about Mike's private(?) banking details? Are there bank statements available for his account showing these transactions? I would not expect the bank to have a cash "limit" on withdrawals unless it was a Building Society account, most standard current accounts can be drawn in cash over the account up to the limit of credit available usually. Building Society accounts often have a daily limit. Was Mike's account with a particular bank do we know? Just a little curious about the finances and how we know so much...
Author: John Omlor Monday, 11 February 2002 - 04:05 pm
Hi Caz, Can we at least assume that if Mike was just taking the money out because he wanted it for himself and was keeping it around the house (not wanting it in banks or whatever), he still had spent it all by the end of May, since he was actually overdrawn at the bank by then? Or perhaps he wanted to be overdrawn for some reason even though he had the cash sitting right there at home which could have simply and quickly remedied the situation. As I say, I don't know. But that raises one of the problems I have with the idea that these five sequential checks were simply cash withdrawals. The last 1000 pound one was for more than Mike actually had in the bank -- over two hundred pounds more. Would Mike have been able to withdraw more in cash than he actually had in his account? Or would this have to have been a third party check to someone else that the bank covered? Doesn't this suggest that these checks were not simply cash withdrawals (exactly a thousand pounds, approximately every other day for two weeks) but checks to someone else? Hi Lefroy, Most of these details concerning the diary money are not exactly private (obviously) but are the result of documented research done by others, and I believe Mike's bank for these matters was Lloyd's, but someone will correct me if I remembered that incorrectly. All the best, --John
Author: Caroline Anne Morris Tuesday, 12 February 2002 - 06:11 am
Hi John, No I don't think we can assume that Mike had spent all the money by the end of May, just because he was back overdrawn by then. Would he know he had gone overdrawn again - even less, care? I doubt it. I certainly see no reason why he would have wanted to be overdrawn for its own sake. But I see no problem with him getting out as much cash as he could (or writing as many cheques as he could) before the bank said, "Hold, enough!" And how do you know that the final £1000 was what put Mike in the red again? All Peter B said was that: 'At the close of this banking period he was again overdrawn by about £284.' The payments Peter tells us about total £5500. If Mike started on 12th May with a debit balance of £3249, then £8886.38 was credited on 13th, but he ended with another debit balance of around £284, this leaves about £420 in other payments from the account during that period � more if there were any receipts apart from the diary money. Therefore he could have taken the last £1000 on 27th May and still left his account in the black by anything up to around £135 at that point. The bank obviously honoured whatever payment it was that finally sent him into the red again. But presumably, if Peter has access to a copy of the relevant bank statement, he can tell us about these other debits and the actual dates, so we wouldn�t need to speculate further over this particular point. And you may have missed a previous post in which I explained the problem if the cheques had been made out to someone else. If they appear on Mike�s statement as Peter suggested, ie 17th, 19th, 23rd, 25th and 27th May, these would not be the dates Mike wrote the cheques out, but when the money was actually debited from his account. So the timing would be entirely dependent on the person at the receiving end, and when they chose to pay the cheque(s) into their own account. If the first cheque was written out by Mike and handed to this other person as early as Friday 13th May, could it have shown up as a debit from Mike�s account as early as the following Tuesday? I don't know. Perhaps there's a banker out there who can help. Though why on earth anyone would choose cheques in preference to cash in order to pass diary money to Mr. Big beats me. And if Mike took the money out in cash, we can only ever guess what he did with it all and when � and it looks very much like, from where I�m reading, in accordance with the usual desires and expectations. But it would still be useful to hear from Peter B as much as possible about the details of Mike's finances. And, just out of curiosity, how he came by this info and when. Love, Caz
Author: John Omlor Tuesday, 12 February 2002 - 10:12 am
Hi Caz, I'm not all sure whether the dates given with these checks are the clearing dates or the dates these checks were written, as posted on an end of the month statement (my statements give me both). I think it is still quite possible that the dates we have are the record of the dates written on the checks rather than the dates they actually cleared. But you could be right as well, they could be the dates the money left the account. But I also believe that covering the final check for 1,000 pounds did in fact push Mike into overdraft. That is, I believe that on May 26th Mike had about 764 pounds in his account and there were two checks either written or cleared on the next day, the 27th, totaling 1,048 pounds (one of these was the last 1,000 pound check). The bank paid on both of these, thus putting Mike 284 pounds overdrawn again. Now, if the last 1,000 pound check was a check Mike was using to withdraw cash for himself on that day, would the bank have really paid him the 1,000 pounds cash even though he did not have that money in his account? I wouldn't think so. That suggests to me that the last check for 1,000 pounds was not a cash withdrawal but a third-party check that the bank covered. That is, it was written to someone else. And so, perhaps then, were the four previous checks for identical amounts that were either written or cleared on sequential, alternating days. This seems to me to at least be a fair possibility. But it's only that. All the best, --John
Author: Caroline Anne Morris Tuesday, 12 February 2002 - 11:00 am
Hi John, Well, either both dates - ie when Mike wrote the cheques out and when the amounts were debited from his account - would have been on any bank statement Peter B had access to, or only the latter. The balance is always calculated that way and shown at the right-hand side of the statement for the date of the actual debit, not the date on the cheque itself. (Of course, if Mike made the cheques out to 'Cash', and presented them the same day, those dates would be the same anyway.) So we'll have to wait and see what Peter can tell us about that. But I'm sorry, you've lost me on the next bit. Where did you get the info that Mike had about £764 in his account on May 26th and that two cheques were either written or cleared the next day, 27th, totalling £1,048 (one being the final £1,000)? I must have missed that post. Thanks. Love, Caz
Author: John Omlor Tuesday, 12 February 2002 - 11:33 am
Hi Caz, I'll have to check, but I seem to recall that's what the statement said. I wrote it down and saved it at some point. I don't remember about which dates where where, but I'll see if I can find that too. But first I must head off to a 1:00 tee time. Four hours of peace on the links awaits (and a couple hours of post-round drinking after that). All the best, -John
Author: Caroline Anne Morris Tuesday, 12 February 2002 - 11:42 am
Hi John, I never saw an actual statement, or even a cheque for £48 mentioned. Did Peter email you a copy then? Love, Caz
Author: John Omlor Tuesday, 12 February 2002 - 11:48 am
Hi Caz, No, he didn't. I'll try and send you e-mail shortly telling you what I recall. I want to make sure I'm getting things right. Must run, --John
Author: Caroline Anne Morris Tuesday, 12 February 2002 - 11:56 am
Hi again John, I managed to find the following in your post of Thursday, 07 February 2002 - 01:07 pm: 'And I'm not sure, but I believe it appears that the 1000 pound payments were written on check numbers 232, 234, 236, 238, and 239. And yet Mike still need to write a check for 48 pounds on number 237.' I don't know where you got this info from either, because it's in none of the posts I found by Peter B. (I must be going mad today.) But in any case, if the £48 cheque was number 237, it was written before the last two £1,000 payments numbered 238 and 239. I'm confused. My mum would be ashamed of me. She was a maths teacher. Love, Caz
Author: John Omlor Tuesday, 12 February 2002 - 12:00 pm
Hi Caz, You write: "if the £48 cheque was number 237, it was written before the last two £1,000 payments numbered 238 and 239." Yes, I think this is true. But, as I say, I don't want to put out any false or misleading information, so I am going to try and re-confirm this and I'll let you know what I can find out. Now I'm late, --John
Author: Caroline Anne Morris Tuesday, 12 February 2002 - 12:25 pm
Ok, I'll talk to myself until you're back. This doesn't tally with what you said earlier, ie: 'I believe...there were two checks either written or cleared on the next day, the 27th, totaling 1,048 pounds (one of these was the last 1,000 pound check).' See what I mean? And I'd love to know how you came by those cheque numbers in the first place. I can't find any other reference to them. I must be looking in the wrong place. But now I too must go. Hubby has brought me in a Smirnoff Ice in preparation for my birthday celebrations tomorrow, so I may as well get stuck straight in. Then there'll be a good excuse for seeing imaginary figures dancing before my eyes: 16 again... 16 again... 16 again... everything in triplicate Love, Caz
Author: Paul Begg Tuesday, 12 February 2002 - 01:43 pm
Hi John Do we know if Mike went overdrawn in direct consequence of the last of the £1000 cheques? Peter said on this Board on Saturday, 09 February 2002 - 05:24 am: �I can say that there is a separate standing order payment for his mortgage and other much smaller cheques that could be for utilities.� So we know that in addition to the £1000s and £500(presumably for the car) payment, other monies were exiting Mike's account and could have taken Mike into the red. Cheers Paul
Author: Guy Hatton Tuesday, 12 February 2002 - 02:00 pm
Would the bank have honoured a cheque payable to cash for £1000 if Mike only had £764 in his account? Well, they had previously allowed him to go more than £3000 into the red, so I think we must allow for him having an agreed overdraft facility which was probably still in force at the time the £1000 cheque was cashed. So yes, I think they would honour it. John - UK bank statements do not usually detail the date a cheque was written, only, as Caz says, the date on which the amount is debited from the account. Hope this helps somehow! Guy
Author: Guy Hatton Tuesday, 12 February 2002 - 02:07 pm
Paul - Our posts crossed there. Of course, you are right to point out that we cannot necessarily conclude that it was one of the larger cheques that tipped Mike's balance into the red. I think the fact that Mike was writing other cheques for small amounts suggests that the large ones were not cash for general personal use, but thats just my speculation - nothing more. Caz - I nearly forgot - Happy Birthday, and a big kiss from me - if that's not too forward! Cheers Guy
Author: Peter Wood Tuesday, 12 February 2002 - 04:13 pm
John Hacker: Good point, Well put. You must remember though that I place not as much relevance on the handwriting as other people do. It is the thing that bothers me least. I can't comment on handwriting from the first half of the nineteenth century as I have seen little examples of it, but if it was anything at all like handwriting from the second half of the nineteenth century then it would be stylised and difficult to discern from one person to another. Having seen the letters that Keith and Stewart have published in 'Letters from Hell', I would have no problem in believing that many of those could have been written by one person. Maybe I am missing something that someone like Chris George sees, maybe there are subtle additions to handwriting that mark out one person from the next. But I am not lying, I am not joking, I have at least three or four different styles of handwriting. John Omlor claims to only have the one, fair enough. What about anyone else? All these discussions about Mike's bank account: To what end are they leading? Regards Peter
Author: John Omlor Tuesday, 12 February 2002 - 09:13 pm
Hi Peter, I am interested in trying to follow some of the money that was made from the publication of the diary. That's why I am discussing some of Mike's bank records. And even if you have several "styles of handwriting," as I understand it, the study of handwriting is supposed to be able to discern whether or not you wrote a certain document in one of those styles -- the styles having at least certain common characteristics. Yet no expert has ever been willing to even suggest that the handwriting in the diary looks anything at all like any of the writing we have from the real James Maybrick -- not even like it might be "just one of his styles." That's probably because the writing in the diary is utterly and completely different from anything we have in the real James Maybrick's hand. And using the "but we all have many styles" argument as an attempt to get around these facts is actually just a dance of dreams in the face of the fact that there is no real reason whatsoever to suspect that this writing is the real James Maybrick's, it doesn't look anything like his, and there is no way whatsoever to link the real James Maybrick to this text or even to place the writing in this text in the proper century. But I have more pressing matters concerning money and where it went that have caught my interest. All the best, --John PS: Thanks, Guy, for the banking info. I've never been overdrawn. I really didn't know they were so understanding about these things.
Author: Christopher T George Wednesday, 13 February 2002 - 03:08 am
Hi, John: I am waiting for the money to come in from Jack--The Musical and then I won't be overdrawn. Paul Begg in the current issue of Ripperologist had a nice thing to say about our show and the current negotiations ongoing with a European producer to buy the rights to the show. To quote Paul: "we should all be very nice to Sitbon and George because very soon they are going to be filthy rich, will be hosting Jack: The Dream Cast and holding a champagne reception for a ten year West End run!" Being in suspended animation waiting for things to develop, I can well understand how Shirley and the others involved in the Diary have felt with the plans for a Maybrick film being so drawn out, starting with some hoopla when Anthony Hopkins was mooted to play Maybrick in the mid-1990s, then seeing them shelved in the later '90s, and just recently ressurrected as the Friedkin film project Battlecrease said to be on its way to completion. It ain't easy having an interest in a creative property! Chris George
Author: Caroline Anne Morris Wednesday, 13 February 2002 - 08:10 am
Hi Guy, Thanks for the birthday greetings and the big kiss. I do like having my birthday so close to Valentine's Day. It makes the postman think I'm a very popular girl. Hi John, All, I tend to agree with Guy that if the bank let Mike go into the red by over three grand before the receipt of the diary money, it's not so surprising they would honour the cheque that put him back in the red afterwards. Peter Birchwood's post described the diary money as a "Credit by Post", so it still looks to me like the bank could have been notified by a third party to expect Mike's account to be healthy soon due to diary royalties, and possibly on a regular basis. The bank would have made sure they gained out of Mike going overdrawn so we shouldn't worry about that, or be too concerned over why they would have honoured his cheques at this time. Now let's look again at what these £1000 payments might have represented. Is Mike the sort of bloke who might try to spend his diary money before it actually reached his account, for instance, or even perhaps before he knew exactly how much he was going to get? If so, can we imagine him borrowing from various places or individuals on the strength of it? And could some or all of the five round amounts of a grand each therefore have been payments on account to the creditors that were pushing him the hardest for repayment? I don't know, but it would make as much, if not more sense to me than Paul's �bloke wearing dark glasses and a mac and smoking a Sobrani� taking Mike�s five cheques and farting about every other day paying them into an account of his own. What would obviously help is if Peter B has seen any more of Mike�s bank statements which show previous or subsequent royalty credits. If so, he can tell us if these are followed by a similar pattern of spending that we see from the 13th May 1994 credit. Love, Caz
Author: R.J. Palmer Wednesday, 13 February 2002 - 08:16 am
Chris--Hi. You're confusing me a little here. Probably my fault. It was my impression from Keith Skinner's post of last week he was stating that the Maybrick Diary material would not be used in the film Battlecrease. [Although I believe that he did state that Anne Graham has working as an advisor]. So, is the current film really a 'ressurection' of the one planned in the mid-1990s or is it something entirely different? Isn't it only a re-working of the Maybrick case? And am I correct in thinking that Paul Feldman or Mike Barrett wouldn't have any financial interest in the current film? Or am I wrong? Best wishes. RP
Author: Christopher T George Wednesday, 13 February 2002 - 09:22 am
Hi, RJ: I get the impression that the movie Battlecrease will be based on Shirley's book, which was the original idea when the movie project was mooted in the mid-1990s. After I posted a couple of URLs on the boards giving information about the Friedkin project several months ago, Shirley contacted me a few weeks later to ascertain the exact web addresses, and she indicated to me that she should be in the know about the project but wasn't. Who else might profit from the movie, I have no idea but I should think that Shirley is in line to do so. I probably should clarify as well that although I stated that "the Friedkin film project Battlecrease [is] said to be on its way to completion" I merely meant that it seems to be more definite than it was some years ago when the project appeared to have been shelved. As far as I know, the film is in the works and will be finished sometime in the near future but whether filming has actually started I don't know. I intend to do some checking to see if there is any more news about it. As an aside, I have some knowledge of the convoluted path these film projects can go through. I had some passing involvement with the making of the movie Schindler's List in that I interviewed for the Baltimore Sun author Thomas Keneally on whose nonfiction novel the film was based and I later met with Leopold Page aka Pfefferberg, the Beverly Hills luggage shop owner whose story about being saved from the Holocaust by Schindler persuaded Keneally to write the book. At the time that I interviewed Keneally in fall 1983, he told me Kevin Kline and Robert Duvall were being thought of as possible leads to play Schindler and that perhaps the British motion picture company Goldcrest or (I believe) Merchant-Ivory might make the film. By the time I spoke to Page in the summer of 1984, he and Keneally had met with Stephen Spielberg (whom Page characterized as a "boychick") and the film was slated to be made by his U.S. production company. Of course, the final film was not released until 1993, nine years later, with Liam Neeson in the title role of Schindler. Best regards Chris George
Author: Christopher T George Wednesday, 13 February 2002 - 09:46 am
Hi, all: The following is a bit old but comes from a 1998 interview with director William Friedkin. It contains the startling information that the film may be called "Battle Grease"!!!! Anyway I offer it for whatever enlightenment (?) it may give on the director's conception for the film. The entire interview is on the Guardian site (URL appears too long to post, sorry. Will e-mail to anyone who wants it.) The mistaken name of the mansion where Jim and Florie lives is not the only blooper here. Mr. Friedkin appears to believe that the Scotland Yard files on the Ripper case are still open and that Florie's trial took place either in 1888 or 1890! Perhaps even more alarmingly he seems to believe the Diary has been proved to be genuine and that Maybrick knew details of the crimes that noone but the killer would have known. It also amazes me the number of times where in journalistic pieces or broadcasts the Maybrick Diary is called "diaries" and this is not the only place where a reference to "diaries" occurs by media folk (vide Radio Merseyside's interviews with Mike Barrett and Anne Graham). MK: One more question, before we throw this open to the audience for some questions. I've just finished reading the script to Battle Grease, which you are potentially going to work on. This is a script based on the diaries of Jack the Ripper and is a very powerful piece of work. You've adapted it from the literary source. Can you tell us something about what the film means to you? For me, the connection is that, like The Exorcist, it's a film about a strange event happening that is absolutely rooted in geography. It's rooted in the place in which it happens. WF: Yes and it's also rooted in reality. Some of you may be familiar with the Florence Maybrick murder case which occurred in Liverpool in 1890. Florence Maybrick was the only American woman ever to be put on trial in a British court for murder. And there was a great outcry, both in America and here, over the trial. Maybrick was accused of having poisoned her husband James Maybrick in Liverpool in 1888 and stood trial and was found guilty of having murdered her husband. She was a young American woman who married this chap who was about two and a half times her age. He was a cotton broker in Liverpool and he was an open user of arsenic and strychnine, that you could buy over the counter as a sexual stimulant. Eventually he died as an overdose of these two. She was found guilty of his murder and sentenced to death at the gallows and there were literally hundreds of thousands of signatures to save her life. The man who was the ambassador to the Court of St James then, Robert Lincoln, who was Abraham Lincoln's son, he petitioned Queen Victoria and the British government to save her life, which they did. She did 15 years in a British prison, in several British prisons, and then she was released. She went back to America, where she lived until 1941. Then these diaries were found about five years ago and they're James Maybrick's diaries where he is giving every imaginable detail about the Ripper murders and why he had done them. The diaries were sent to the British museum where there was a lot of debate about whether they were authentic or not. But finally they came down to the fact that the paper and ink did date from that period and the diaries were shown to the person who kept the Ripper files at that time, over at Scotland Yard. (These files are still open, because there are still five unsolved murders). And he said there were details in these books that were only available to the police at the time, and the murderer. So I'm going to try and make a film of that story, mostly from her point of view, from the woman who was married to this fellow.
Author: Caroline Anne Morris Wednesday, 13 February 2002 - 10:23 am
Hi RJ, Keith Skinner was talking about an entirely different project in his message posted by me on Monday, 28 January 2002 - 03:20 pm, on Casebook Message Boards: The Diary of Jack the Ripper: General Discussion: James Maybrick: Archive through 30 January 2002. He wrote: ��I am currently researching the Maybrick Case, in considerable depth, for a screenplay which has been commissioned by Columbia Pictures. It is the intention of the writer, (Bruce Robinson), and myself to make the script as accurate and historically responsible as possible � and for that reason, (in spite of our commissioning Anne Graham to work with us), the alleged Maybrick Journal � without authentication � will form no part in the dramatic reconstruction of events or character.� This has nothing to do with Friedkin�s Battlecrease as far as I�m aware, and, from what Keith says, neither Feldy nor Mike Barrett would have any financial interest in the Columbia one. Hope this helps. Love, Caz
Author: Peter Wood Wednesday, 13 February 2002 - 02:24 pm
For what it's worth ... The 'Battlecrease' film project was talked about on t.v. about twelve or so months ago at about the same time as the 'From Hell' project was getting underway. I've often wondered why 'From Hell' is now finished and on our screens, whilst Battlecrease seems to be on the back burner. I'm really looking forward to the film, I hope it shows more about Maybrick and Florie's lives than it does about the JTR murders in London (and Manchester - groan!). I'm sure I will swallow my pride and go check out 'From Hell', even if just to hear Johnny Depp attempt a cockney accent. Abberline a psychic? Why do they do that to our history? Regards Peter. P.s. John, I'll let you do the banking stuff to death. Frankly, it bores me. I reckon Mike just had more money than he'd ever seen before and squandered it on all kinds of things. That is just my reading of Mike's character. I'm impressed that you've never been overdrawn, but truthfully it's always been a case for me that the more money I earn, the more overdrawn I seem to go. That's until I got a joint bank account with my wife - and now I'm not allowed to go overdrawn. Cheers
Author: John Omlor Wednesday, 13 February 2002 - 04:39 pm
Peter, You mention the Manchester murders. I was recently reading someone's written thoughts on the diary (I'll leave them uncredited unless they want their name known) and they mentioned something interesting. The diary offers very little information on the first Manchester murder, it just uses it as a sort of vague preamble to the five canonical killings (thus fitting the crimes into the established patterns we nowadays have about serial killers). Then it has some little detail about the experience of the first canonical murder and then significantly more vagaries about the next one and then a whole lot more about the double event and then the most detail about the Kelly murder. Curiously, this is just the same pattern as the amount of information available concerning the details of the killings in Ripper literature. Now if this was really the killer writing this, one might expect his first murder to be his most vivid and the recollections of it to be rather detailed. But let's let that pass. If this pattern was to continue, we'd expect the graphic details of the last murder to be even more horrific or at least more powerfully recalled than the Kelly one. But oddly, it's not. The description of the second Manchester murder is once again back to being brief and sketchy and barely there. Interestingly, of course, there's no historical information about this mythical murder anywhere available and (surprise, surprise) there are no significant details in the diary. This is just one of the many, many aspects of the diary which suggest that the author was working from Ripper literature acounts of the killings. Sometime we should talk about the discrepancy in the diary between when the diarist talks of saving and writing with "red stuff" and when the real, historical letter in question actually mentions it. Or where exactly James cooked and ate his kidney (Shirley suggests the whole diary could have been written in James's office, but "James" talks about having the organ right in front of him -- is he cooking and eating his human kidney somehow on a hot plate in his office (were there even hot plates then)? Doesn't this seem ludicrous? And did the real James ever actually cook in his house at Battlecrease? Would this have been noticed by someone? Do we see him wandering down to his kitchen and shooing away the servants so he can have a convenient moment of cannibalism? Or is the diary simply lying about this, too? It's easy to "prove" the text is real if you just argue the text is always lying. There are many other such problems of course, but I just thought of these today as I read someone else's thoughts about this book. They mean nothing in and of themselves, but they just add to the silliness of the text, even as it remains completely and utterly unlinked in any way to anything but the second half of the wrong century. --John PS: Before Battlecrease I believe there was another film deal in the works with Paul Feldman, back in '94, wasn't there? I believe there was some squabbling over who would get what money from it. Lawyers were involved. The deal, apparently, fell through (or perhaps it evolved into this one, I'm not sure). It is part of the financial history of this case which I am still trying to put together and understand. And Mike going through over 16,000 pounds of diary money alone in just three months is more than just wild spending. He was spending it on something and there was nothing to show for it that anyone could see. There are problems here.