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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Archive through June 11, 2000
Casebook Message Boards: The Diary of Jack the Ripper: General Discussion:
The Maybrick Diary-2000 Archives:
Archive through June 11, 2000
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Thursday, 08 June 2000 - 10:07 am |        | From Keith Skinner To Peter Birchwood
From your “Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics:” post, I extract the following
1) It is possible for a stock-broker’s secretary and ex-nurse to forge the Diary of Jack The Ripper.
2) This possibility has more persuasion than a disabled scrap metal merchant with a dodgy past and a minor history of magazine writing.
3) It is highly unlikely that Anne Graham forged the Diary with the sole purpose of keeping the marriage together.
4) The most likely motive for this forgery is a financial one.
All of which reduces down, I think, to a forgery for financial gain, masterminded by Anne Graham, and created with the complicity of Mike Barrett?
Good. I have no problem with that concept. It straightforwardly identifies motive and the two forgers.
Now, which of them physically wrote it? |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Thursday, 08 June 2000 - 10:12 am | | Hi All,
Joke letter from the latest Viz:
'They say a woman's work is never done. Well, perhaps if they got on with it instead of painting their toenails all day we might see some results.'
(Written in supposedly by a gent from Florida)
At least I hope it was a joke. J |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Thursday, 08 June 2000 - 12:33 pm | | From Keith Skinner To R.J.Palmer
Dear R.J.
Thank you very much for your response. Would it be possible for you to explain to me how my comments about Mike Barrett’s ‘Confessions’ were helpful and enlightening for you?
Allowing you believe the Diary to be of post 1987 origin, what sort of information would you be looking for in order to make an informed conclusion about Mike Barrett or Anne Graham?
There is no disputing that our two “particularly odd fish” have both benefited financially from their hoax. Do you think Mike had a touch of moral conscience when he publicly confessed to forging it? Was Anne’s story a desperate measure to retrieve the situation? Their personal lives had fallen apart; Anne and her daughter, (Caroline), had left Mike; Anne was unemployed, her father was slowly dying, she and her daughter had nowhere to live, Feldman was hounding her friends to try and find her – and now her husband had made the front page headlines in the Liverpool Post by telling everybody that he, (not Anne), forged the Diary. Gallantly, he had not even implicated her in his confession. So, with all this emotional chaos going on in her personal life, Anne then puts the spotlight on herself by coming out with a story, that Mike then spends the next four years challenging, as he does not wish the stigma of the Diary to be attached to his daughter, because of the Diary’s connection to JTR and his wife’s alleged descent from Florence Chandler.
Those are some of the facts. I haven’t created or manufactured any of them – it is what has happened.
Best Wishes
Keith |
Author: Simon Owen
Thursday, 08 June 2000 - 04:17 pm | | Hi Caz !
I haven't been around for a bit as I have been having problems with my computer , it has been back to the shop to be mended many times over the last few weeks ! It seems alright now though.
I am going to try and restrict my comments on the Diary to a minimum after the hassle it caused last time ! |
Author: Ashling
Friday, 09 June 2000 - 02:28 am | | Dear Keith and Everyone:
For a variety of reasons, including time constraints, I have modified my board preferences, so this particular topic will not show up on my screen. By visiting the Archives periodically, I will stay reasonably abreast of developments without being tempted to post. I used this method for several months last year, and am reinstating it before I get hopelessly behind on my other writing commitments.
I don't mean to be rude by leaving a few questions unanswered for now, but it is the best way to maintain my own serenity!
Best wishes to all,
Janice |
Author: Paul Begg
Friday, 09 June 2000 - 06:16 am | | Peter:- To add to Keith's question, which I look forward to you answering, I'd just like to say that you have my complete and utter agreement that financial gain is the most obvious motive for a forgery. However, my post postulated a scenario in which Mike was not party to the forgery.
Assuming that Mike was not involved in the forgery, do you think anyone motivated by financial gain would have looked at the garrulous, heavy-drinking Mike with his 'got it from a bloke down the pub' story and thought it the most likely combination to convince anyone that the document was genuine?
And why do I postulate a hypothesis in which Mike was an innocent patsy? Well, apart from what Melvin Harris describes as some 'scraps of inside knowledge'(my italics, not Melvin's), as quoted by Keith above, has Mike ever given a realistic account of how the forgery was conceived and executed? Going right back to his confession to a reporter for the {Liverpool Post}, Mike proved unconvincing, being unable to say where he'd bought the book and the ink. The auction house where he later claimed he'd bought the book have denied that he bought it from them. Mike has never fulfilled any promise to produce evidence to support his tales. And so on and so on. I think Mike's involvement in the forgery is therefore open to some doubt.
So, if Mike's not party to the forgery, we're left with Ann planning long holidays on sun-drenched foreign shores, optimistic that Mike, his lame 'bloke in the pub' story and her 'crude' forgery will combine to make her wealthy.
But even so, is financial gain really the best explanation for this forgery? In light of the Hitler diaries and other similar fiascos, would any would-be forger seriously have thought a Ripper diary would be bought without first being subjected to comprehensive tests? And it may also be worth asking whether, if financial gain was the motive, the forgers would have chosen a subject on which they were so lamentably ignorant that their research didn't extend beyond or which they limited to three or four books.
The world is certainly a strange place and people do the strangest things, so far be it from me to say that financial gain wasn't the motive here, but I certainly think that there is good reason not to accept such an immediately obvious motive. |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Friday, 09 June 2000 - 08:10 am | | Dear Mr. Skinner--
Hello. In response to your questions, I'd like to say first of all that I am merely one of many facesless amateurs without any credentials, and I can't imagine my views are of much interest to anyone, except, perhaps, to give an idea of what the "general reading public" makes of this whole flap over the Maybrick Diary. So I write the following response in that spirit.
I think it is unfair and quite possibly inaccurate to 'try a case in the press' as it were. The objective 'facts' are of course all-important, but the wise judge also has to take into consideration the demeanor of the witnesses. We readers 'on the outside' cannot do this. This is why I have some sympathy with what Mr. Begg has said on these boards.
In a nutshell, it strikes me that Anne is somewhat credible, but not plausible; whereas, Mike is somewhat plausible, but not credible--if you get the distinction. So I'm stuck with a sort of Chinese Finger Puzzle that doesn't ever quite come off: a Diary that is demonstratably a hoax, and two people that publically confess to having perpetrated a fraud (Anne on her ex-husband and Mike on the world at large)with both confessions (curiouser and curiouser!) not yet being verifiable. A very odd puzzle-- or so it seems to the general reading public.
Ironically perhaps, the identity of whomever perpetrated the hoax can be of little interest to us amateur Abberlines, at least not to me. I'm convinced that Maybrick has nothing whatever to do with the Whitechapel murders, and can blithely move on to other things. I even feel like I am meddling by asking questions and feel it better to remain silent in the future. The identity of the hoaxer(s)is important only to those (like our fellow in Frankfurt) who will continue to find some measure of belief in the Diary until someone makes a full credible public disclosure. By 'a full credible public disclosure' I mean an explanation with Anne, Mike, the forensic evidence, and the genealogical evidence (if relevant) all being in agreement. Hell might freeze over first; but I suspect thirty years from now I'll read about it in the backpages of The Liverpool Post under the title of "The Maybrick Diary: the Final Chapter".
To answer your specific questions: I found the information about Mike Barrett's confession "helpful" because, frankly, it confirmed the doubts I already had about the worth of that affidavit. This is only my opinion, but to us in the general reading public it doesn't seem as though Mike's confession had much to do with a 'touch of moral conscious' as it had to do with some mysterious love-hate dynamic in his private life. That it is probably untrue is important in that it leaves open other possibilities to the provenance, including the strange story told by Anne Graham. To be honest, though, her story still doesn't quite convince me at this time, but then, after all the strange hubbub, what story WOULD carry conviction?
I don't know anyone who is posting on these boards, but there are many people of rare intelligence, wit, and integrity all around. You and Mr. Birchwood among others. I hope people on all sides of this ticklish affair can be on friendly terms.
Well, I've got to run. I've went and promised to read "Jack the Ripper: Light-Hearted Friend" by Richard Wallace, which I've just procured. I see that Lewis Carroll entertained Mowtnay (Monte?) Drewitt, a young Oxford undergraduate in 1878. Ahem.
Best regards,
RJP
"Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing"--Oscar Wilde |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Friday, 09 June 2000 - 09:12 am | | From Keith Skinner To Simon Owen
Dear Simon
If you are able to e-mail your address to either Caroline or Stewart then I would be happy to send you a photocopy of the ‘Druitt’ newspaper report – which, of course, is not about Druitt!
What sort of “hassle” does the Diary cause you, I wonder? The biggest problem, I think, is the dearth of accurate, impartial and objective information, related to the eight year investigation into provenance. To me, it is apparent that, the only constructive way to break the deadlock, is for those of us who do not believe it is a modern hoax, to try and prove it is! The only method I know of achieving this objective is by concentrating on the alleged forgers.
Wish me luck!
All Good Wishes
Keith |
Author: Christopher T George
Friday, 09 June 2000 - 09:18 pm | | Hi, Paul, Keith, MELVIN!!!! and the assembled multitudes:
Paul, you stated while you were in the United States for our JtR conference in Park Ridge that you had no interest in true crime as such but are interested in historical mysteries. I don't know if you have read about the Jon Benet Ramsey case but the Maybrick Diary saga is beginning to remind me of that case in which a child beauty queen was found murdered in the basement of her parents' house in Boulder, Colorado, at Christmas several years ago. Many people strongly suspect the parents of having murdered the child but there has been no arrest. There was a ransom note.... some people suspect Jon Benet's older brother, still others think an intruder sneaked into the house and did the crime. In any case, just as with the Maybrick Diary, and please excuse this diversion, facts do not add up, the affair seems illogical, and the whole mess is a maddening nightmare which never seems to end.
Having heard the tape of Barrett's C&D appearance I can say that he is obviously a man out to impress, to show he knows the inside story even if he does not. As Keith has said, Mike has said much but has never produced the evidence to back up his claims. Also, as we have said, given his character, Mike makes a very unlikely "front man" for a scam, and the "my old mate down at the pub Tony Devereaux gave me the Diary" line sounded phoney right from the beginning.
Unlike R. J. Palmer, I would like to know the answers to the riddle of the Maybrick Diary and to the questions of who produced it and why. Yes, Melvin is absolutely correct that the document has been a huge "time waster" that has diverted from the real quest for JtR. On the other had, as with the Jon Benet Ramsey case, it presents us with a maddeningly intriguing historical puzzle whether the thing was produced fifty years ago or yesterday.
Chris George |
Author: stephen stanley
Saturday, 10 June 2000 - 01:29 am | | Heaven be praised !!!
Reading the most recent postings there seems to be a consensus developing best summed up as 'O.K.,it's a fake and very little to do with the Ripper,but for our own piece of mind,we need to know, who,when, and why?'...I couldn't agree more...yes , the story of the Diary is fascinating in it's own right, but let's keep it in proportion .
Steve s. |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Saturday, 10 June 2000 - 06:44 am | | From Keith Skinner To Paul Begg
Dear Paul
I knew it would come to this – we’d end up talking to each other only through a third party!
Picking up on your hypothesis of June 9th 2000 – postulated with scholarly awareness (in case Martin’s reading this – he’s already been caught out browsing on the Maybrick board!)…
However – allowing that:-
1) Financial gain was the sole motive.
2) Anne, single handedly, forged the Diary.
3) Mike was a complete innocent.
How then, does it end up in Mike’s hands? Eh? Answer me that Begg?
Answer me that!
Incidentally, I have to totally agree with Melvin Harris about Martin’s choice of hats! And whilst we’re discussing Martin’s sartorial elegance, have you ever seen him wear any socks that were not yellow?
All Good Wishes
Keith |
Author: Paul Begg
Saturday, 10 June 2000 - 09:27 am | | Hi Keith:- But at least talking via modern technology means you have entered the 20th century, albeit that we are now in the 21st!
If the motive was financial gain and the forgery was perpetrated by Ann, then I would suggest that Ann got the 'diary' to Mike via Tony D., just as Mike has always said, so that Mike would see the cash signs and 'do something with it'.
However, the point of my post on June 9th was a follow up to my earlier one in which I suggested that financial gain was not the motive. I have always had difficulty accepting that anyone would think that Mike and the 'bloke in the pub' story would prove persuasive to anybody - and from day one it never did, Martin in particular yelling "provenance" at any given opportunity. Thus I suggested the possibility that Ann forged the 'diary' for other reasons. That's why I find the image of Ann 'planning long holidays on sun-drenched foreign shores, optimistic that Mike, his lame 'bloke in the pub' story and her 'crude' forgery will combine to make her wealthy', a rather silly vision.
But, as Peter B. cannily pointed out, forging a 'diary' to save a marriage is unheard of. I accept this and I am sadly forced to hang my head and acknowledge that maybe it ranks among the dumbest theories anyone could advance.
Of course, maybe the theory wouldn't be so stupid if all Ann did was give Mike an old 'diary' which had been in the family for years in the hope that it might steer him from the drunken destructive path he was following. But that would mean giving serious thought to the possibility that the 'diary' is old, which nobody wants to do, so that's a theory we have to shelve. Especially as it isn't so much a theory as the story told by a demonstrable liar.
Or there is another explanation... |
Author: Peter R.A. Birchwood
Saturday, 10 June 2000 - 01:36 pm | | Paul:
What do we really know about the background of Mike Barrett and Anne Graham? Feldy implies that Mike had had problems with the Police at one time and it's certainly true that scrap-metal dealers (at least in South London where I come from) have a certain reputation which brings to mind Lord Birkenhead's comment "touch it with a feather and it is gone forever." He was also fond of the odd few shandies and had some sort of disability. But was he a man who read a lot, talked to his friends about life and what he really wanted to do? Neither Feldy nor Mrs Harrison seem to want to examine his life whereas others might ask "OK he was supposedly involved in an assault which reached the pages of the newspapers; shouldn't we try to check whether he had any other problems?
Similarly with Anne. We know that she was a nurse, she went to Australia and latterly she was secretary in a stockbrokers office. But how about Feldy's mysterious information about her which she tried to explain and where Feldy said that he didn't believe a word of her explanation? Is this associated with Feldy's theory that her records had been altered? In short, is there a secret in Anne's past or has Feldy just made an incredible mistake? If the explanation is indeed innocent there shouldn't be any reason why we can't learn about it.
We really don't know enough about this pair and whereas it might be true to say that neither of them on their own could have concocted the diary, can we say that the two together could not have? I could guess that Anne, who was quite a high-ranking secretary must have had some writing skills and Mike had the time to do the very basic research needed. I therefore uspect a collaboration rather than one party doing all the work and keeping the other in the dark.
Whose word (other than Annes) do we have to say that the marriage was falling apart before the projected construction of the diary? They weren't starving but a little extra cash would help. Perhaps there really had been a Maybrick legend in the Grahame family to the effect that there was a connection with "the skivie," and this together with the plethora of books out in 1988-89 gave them the idea. And then Mike got too involved with the project, wanting to help out with the research in order to give himself a much greater role in the affair.
The Tony Devereaux affair is I think easily explained. There was no provenance for the diary; it wasn't a Grahame heirloom, it hadn't been seen in the 1940's and 1950's because it didn't exist and no one thought of connecting the Grahame family to Florrie Maybrick or to Alice Yapp because it wasn't necesary. For these people, the answer to the provenance was simply to place it in the hands of someone conveniently dead and therefore have no need to explain how it got to him. This held, in perhaps a rather creaking fashion but it did hold, until Feldy got involved. The whole "Electrician" story seems to have been Feldman's idea and I suspect that it frightened Mike who perhaps could see problems coming his way if Feldy kept hammering at the idea that the diary had come from within Battlecrease House. But by this time the Barrett marriage was coming unstuck and Anne (who at this point wasn't getting any of the royalties) made a decision prompted by the conversations and letters from Feldman and his associates came up with another story. And what I still fail to see is why, if that story had any basis in reality, why could it not be used right from the beginning? The whole explanation about giving her husband something to do so that her marriage could be saved does not ring true and I think that the diary provenance and indeed the diary itself fails on that very thing: that her explanation post-Mike is logically impossible and therefore the diary is not an old forgery nor the true voice of James Maybrick but a document written about 10 years ago with the assistance of recently published books and no original research.
Peter. |
Author: Simon Owen
Saturday, 10 June 2000 - 03:52 pm | | To Keith Skinner from Simon Owen.
Hi Keith , thank you for your reply. You can e-mail me at sjowen100@hotmail.com
For anyone else who wishes to e-mail me in person please use this address too , not my earlier one previously printed on these boards.
Thanks ! |
Author: Joseph Triola Jr.
Saturday, 10 June 2000 - 10:27 pm | | Hi,....oh.. sorry,... hang on a second, I have to put these books downnnn..right.
Lets see,...humm; Last September you were talking about Mike Maybrick, and his sister,.....no that isn't it...his cousin...nope, nope...wait a minute,...it was his wife.. er..ex-wife,
Little Nell. That's it right? Anyway...now it's June..and you're still talkin' about Mike Maybrick? Yeah.....everything's right where I left it.
So, Mr. Birchwood, can I sell ya a short block, for an Ford Escort? |
Author: Joseph Triola Jr.
Saturday, 10 June 2000 - 10:32 pm | | Sorry for the double post.
JMT |
Author: Paul Begg
Sunday, 11 June 2000 - 06:01 am | | Peter:- thank you for your long post, but you have only re-stated your thinking about the 'diary' and have not answered Keith's question: if Mike and Ann concocted the 'diary' together, which one actually penned it? Nor have you addressed my point that Mike's apparent ignorance of the most basic details of the forgery, such as where the book and ink came from, and failure to provide a coherent account of how the forgery was conceived and executed, suggest that he wasn't involved. As interesting as you may find the claims made by Feldy, I'm not clear what bearing they have on these questions.
Secondly, whilst I believe that the 'diary' will be a bit like a magic trick, namely simple and obvious when explained, and am therefore wary of introducing too many complexities, I am far from convinced that your 'Mike-and-Ann-forged-it-together-for-financial-gain' theory is either simple or when analysed, obvious. I know little about Rosa and Amalia Panvini, but Clifford Irving was an accomplished forger and so, too, was Konrad Kujau. Neither sat down one day and thought what a jolly wheeze it would be to fool the world by forging a diary. Kujau was knowledgeable about the Nazi's and was an established dealer in and collector of genuine Nazi memorabilia smuggled into the West from East Germany. He sold to fanatical, unquestioning amateur collectors who had no cause to distrust him an who were unlikely to seek expert authentication of their purchases because the display of Nazi memorabilia was illegal. Kujau also possessed some artistic skill, was extremely proficient at forging Hitler's handwriting, and had graduated into forging the diaries from forging Hitler paintings, poems, speech notes, letters and manuscripts. When the story of the Hitler diaries really begin to open eyes wide with astonishment is when the forgeries begin to be presented to and be authenticated by experts. But that is not what Kujau set out to do. It is, however, what Mike and Ann Barrett are supposed to have done.
In the case of Mike and Ann we have two people who apparently know nothing about forgery, know nothing about Jack the Ripper and know nothing about Maybrick, who decide to forge the 'diary' of Jack the Ripper and make Maybrick the murderer. They do minimal research, using only two or three books, though they have no knowledge whether the information in those books is accurate or not, and they come up with the stupendously lame 'bloke down the pub' cover story to provide provenance… And they set out to deceive a publisher who, after the experiences of the Mussolini, Hughes and Hitler diaries, is likely to be very wary indeed.
I don't say that this isn't what happened, but I do seriously ask whether it sounds all that plausible. Aren't they more likely to have thought of writing a novel? A film script? Even a 'non-fiction' Ripper book advancing Maybrick as a suspect?
Would anyone, in light of the Hitler diaries and similar fiascos, seriously believe that they could create a successful forgery? And let's not forget that the mid-80's saw the trial of Kujau and that 1986 saw the publication of Robert Harris's Selling Hitler, both of which could have provided the inspiration for but also given a horrible warning against forgery?
But, Peter, don't ignor the questions. Test your beliefs, as you have repeatedly asked Keith to test his, and answer Keith's questions. |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Sunday, 11 June 2000 - 11:31 am | | Hi All,
Whatever happens to Mike or Anne in the future, I seriously doubt either will ever consider forgery as a fast, effective method of raising the readies....
Bear with me, I have another post to type out for Keith, so watch this space.
Hi Joseph,
Yeah, you're absolutely right mate, everything's exactly where you left it. And all's right with the world. Unless, of course, you happen to be an innocent dealer in scrap metal (either scouser of from 'Sarf Lundon'), in which case you may be getting oiled up ready for an altogether different kind of scrap.... ;-)
Love,
Caz |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Sunday, 11 June 2000 - 11:34 am | | Hi Simon,
I don't believe Keith has the facility to email at present. If you like to email me (click on my name) with your address, as he suggested, Keith and I will be happy to do the rest.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Sunday, 11 June 2000 - 12:28 pm | | From Keith Skinner To Chris George & Stephen Stanley
(R.J. – Thank you for your post. I shall respond, eventually!)
Dear Chris and Stephen
Thank you for your observations and comments.
There is a point being overlooked here, which I believe is highly significant – and I’m curious as to why it never seems to be addressed.
If the Diary was produced yesterday, (ie. at any date after 1987), I would suggest there would be absolutely no “maddeningly intriguing historical puzzle” to try and resolve. The forgers would be known – and even if we were presented with an entirely new set of names as the culprits, I would personally find it more interesting and stimulating to debate Paul Begg’s forthcoming thesis, discussing Martin Fido’s socks, than waste one second fathoming out the practicalities of how the hoax was engineered.
But if the Diary was around pre-1987, then I think it is vitally important and imperative to account for it, because a proper historical reading of the document and – as I understand it – some of the scientific evidence and analysis, precludes the possibility it could have existed 50 years ago, or earlier. For it to have done so means it was written by the killer of several women in Whitechapel in 1888 – or somebody close to the killer – or somebody close to the investigation. And for some reason, the person being implicated is James Maybrick.
This concept, as I’ve previously written, is an extremely powerful one to embrace. The Diary, therefore, far from having very little to do with the Ripper, appears to draw us into the killer’s shadow.
So, unless expert opinion is wrong, then a majority consensus, designating the Diary a fake, must surely be absolutely certain it is a post 1987 creation and produce the irrefutable proof?
The experts stand their ground, apparently have no need to conclusively prove their case – and maintain that any further discussion is a time wasting exercise. Which leaves me no alternative but to constantly reassess and test my own belief that the Diary is not an amateurish modern fake and that Anne Graham’s story of provenance – consistent since July 1994 – is true.
Best Wishes
Keith |
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