Steve Powell & The Maybrick Saga

[How Brown]

Thread for Steve Powell ( and of course,everyone else...) and his ruminations on the Maybrick story.
____________________________

[Steve Powell]

In 1992, A ‘diary’ supposedly written by none other than ‘Jack the Ripper’ was brought to the attention of the world and has since been tested by renowned experts.
Both the F.B.I. and Scotland Yard have been involved in investigating its authenticity.
It has been scanned by electron microscopes, probed with protons and the diarist’s very words have been analyzed by graphologists, forensic document examiners and specialists in psychopathic personalities.
The diarist makes it plainly obvious that his real name is James Maybrick, a Liverpool cotton merchant, whose wife, American born Florence, was sentenced to die for his apparent murder by arsenic poisoning in 1889.
Two unique crimes that stole the headlines and dominated conversations in parlours and pubs throughout the world.
The Maybrick murder would fall into obscurity over the years but not so the story of Jack the Ripper. His sordid tale would keep armchair detectives occupied forever, as he was never caught and no one knew his identity.
That is before the diary came to be.
Now, finally, if the diary was ‘real’, a name could be put to the unknown maniac of Whitechapel: James Maybrick.
While all the research was going on regarding the diary and its provenance, a watch was also brought into the Ripper spotlight.
It was an old gold ‘Verity’ pocket watch, which on close inspection by the new owner, was found to have the initials of the five victims of Jack the Ripper and the name of Maybrick scratched into the metal.
Here were now two pieces of ‘evidence’ linking Maybrick to the killer. The verdict of the ‘experts’ was split.
Before 1992, the diary has a shadowy provenance and to this day, continues to be a contentious issue between those who believe the diary to be a hoax and those that believe it to be the actual written words of Jack the Ripper.
In 1980, twelve years before the diary was known to exist to the public, it was handed to me delicately, in order to not damage or mark it in any way. The black covers had been handled many times but were still in good condition and the gold leaf was still visible on bands that decorated the spine.
As I opened the book I noticed that quite a few pages had been cut out from the beginning and the words, written in a fast, rough scrawl, began its horrific story in mid-sentence.
It told a tale of evil and destruction and the sadistic anticipation of future gruesome murders. It shouted of shrieking pain and desperate drug addiction and seeks revenge on all those who would dare to cross words with the writer who penned these chilling and revealing lines.
I turned the pages to the end and the signature of the writer was boldly displayed with a flourish, as if proud of his diary of doom and madness. The signature read: ‘Jack the Ripper’ and was dated the 3rd of May 1889.
I looked at the person who had given me the book and his face was one of eager anticipation at my response. He already knew that I thought it was a waste of time, from the moment he began to write it twelve years previously.
His name is Steven Park and he began the diary when he was sixteen years old in 1968 in Sydney, Australia.
He was born in Lancaster, England in March 1952 and immigrated to Australia with his parents Ray and Jean Park in the early 1960's
He wanted to be famous or infamous, it didn’t matter which to him. I was his ‘best’ friend.

The diary of Jack the Ripper started out for Steven as a simple ‘good idea’ and ended in a macabre obsession to fool the entire world into believing that it was the ‘real’ thing.
To fool the experts, he found a bottle of pre 1940 ink, which had no modern additives.
He then found some old, small brass nibs to write with.
He had trouble finding the right book to pen his words of deception in, but eventually settled on an old scrapbook with gold leaf on the spine.
There had been a faded photograph pasted on the inside of the front cover but this was taken off and discarded.
He found a book on Jack the Ripper, that had a photograph of an actual letter sent to police in 1888, during the Ripper’s killing spree. Known as the ‘Dear Boss’ letter, it coins the name ‘Jack the Ripper’ for the first time, and Steven decided to copy the style of the letters of the name for his own book.
The information that he needed to fit the crimes was in abundance in every bookstore.
He then only needed to add his own bloodthirsty narrative from the perspective of a madman to the blank pages.
He started at the beginning of the scrapbook and began to write. His notes and ideas were written on assorted pieces of paper that he had been hoarding for this moment and as he sorted through the jumble of scrawled ramblings surrounding him, he realized the magnitude of his undertaking.
He had always been an impulsive person.
To write a book, any book, takes time and a lot of thought. He had to learn patience. He had nothing else to do anyway.
I would often visit him and he would tell me of his progress and would ask my opinion of how I thought it could be improved.
We had argued about the diary before and he knew I wanted nothing to do with it, but it didn’t stop him from asking me for ideas. He was daunted by the amount of writing he had to do just to complete one page, let alone fill most of the scrapbook.
The idea came to write some poetry, as that takes up space.
If it was a diary of a madman he figured, then he could write whatever he wanted. It could be good or bad, it didn’t matter all that much.
So began the lines of verse that pervade the diary, and fill pages. One of the poems he used, he stole from me. I didn’t know that he had used it until I saw it written in the published diary.
At the time, he wanted something about the Queen and a ‘Sir Jack’. Steven had asked my girlfriend Victoria, behind my back, to see if she could get me to write something for him. I was annoyed that he would involve her, so I wrote these lines as a sarcastic remark to her and him.

"Victoria, Victoria,
The Queen of them all.
When it comes to Sir Jack,
She knows nothing at all."

Steven became aware that Victoria’s brother was a watch collector and had an extensive variety of old watches. He had been thinking of a watch for Jack the Ripper for a while and went to see the collection.
He found a gold ‘Verity’ pocket watch made in 1846 that was perfect for his scheme of an accompaniment to the diary.
Steven only had an elementary schooling, his spelling was atrocious and would cause him to make mistakes as he wrote. Yet once again, it would be assumed to be the work of a madman, and so he didn’t worry about it too much.
His girlfriend was an English nurse: Anne Graham.
She began to help him with the diary and they both flung themselves into the world of the Ripper and the confessions of a madman.
Over time, the diary would take on a different meaning to them both as they became engrossed in its manufacture.
When Anne left Australia and returned to England in 1975, she met a man who would have a profound effect on Steven and the diary’s future place in history.
His name was Paul H. Feldman, a producer of films and documentaries, who was always on the lookout for new ideas.
Anne told him of Steven’s diary project and he became very interested in its potential as a money-maker.
Soon after this, Feldman paid a visit to Steven Park in Australia. They argued about the diary and its morality and Feldman threatened to ‘blow the whistle’ on Steven if he ever planned to publish it. This was his ruse to the young and naïve writer of this pulp-fiction hash. He left Steven fretting that his work was now jeopardized beyond his control.
The next day, Feldman got in contact again with the now pliable Steven and told him of his plan to use a real person who could be named in the diary as being the Ripper.
A person who could be linked to that location and time of 1888 and had a history that could be checked against the diary’s narrative.
A ‘patsy’ that would fool the experts is what was needed.
This is how James Maybrick became the preferred Jack the Ripper. The combination of the two infamous crimes would create a hornet’s nest of intrigue and was sure to become a best seller in print and a film would no doubt follow.
Feldman would be there waiting for both of those opportunities.
Steven saw himself in his imagination, stepping out of the shadows of obscurity and accepting the glory from an enthusiastic audience for having written a masterpiece of fiction, dressed up as reality.
This was the opportunity he had been waiting for.
All he had to do was write under Feldman’s direction.
Feldman stressed to Steven that no one should ever know the real story behind the hoax. He could never reveal his or Feldman’s involvement under any circumstance to anyone.
This bothered Steven.
How could he be famous or infamous if no one knew it was him?
I had known about it from the very start, so Steven told me alone of the dark proceedings.
Although I told Steven that I would not tell anyone, time and history have changed all that.
It is time for the truth to be told and the hoax to be exposed.
I feel comfortable with now telling all.
I also know that Steven really wanted me to eventually reveal who was behind one of the greatest hoaxes of all time.

[SirRobertAnderson]

I looked at the person who had given me the book and his face was one of eager anticipation at my response. He already knew that I thought it was a waste of time, from the moment he began to write it twelve years previously.
His name is Steven Park and he began the diary when he was sixteen years old in 1968 in Sydney, Australia.

Welcome aboard the Forums, Steve.

I realize your story is quite controversial, but I appreciate being able to read the gist of it in one detailed post.

Let the discussions begin !

[Caroline Morris]

Now if only this had been your very first public statement, Steve... :suspicious:

If you were going to cry wolf, you ought to have checked on the wolf's whereabouts a long while ago.

Love,

Caz
X

[Steve Powell]

Let's make one thing perfectly clear Caz,
I didn't come over here to listen to your wrongful assumptions or intimidations.
You have made it perfectly clear that you think I am a 'timewaster' and making up this whole story and I don't appreciate it at all.
If you have something to say besides little snide remarks then good, but bringing wolves and the such into it, is only going to get me mad.
Ask me a question if you like but don't start with that rubbish over here.
love to you too gal.
Steve Powell

[SirRobertAnderson]

Let's make one thing perfectly clear Caz,
I didn't come over here to listen to your wrongful assumptions or intimidations.
You have made it perfectly clear that you think I am a 'timewaster' and making up this whole story and I don't appreciate it at all.
If you have something to say besides little snide remarks then good, but bringing wolves and the such into it, is only going to get me mad.
Ask me a question if you like but don't start with that rubbish over here.
love to you too gal.
Steve Powell

Allow me to make two things clear as well.

Debate is encouraged, heated debate is fine, but

1) Don't carry Casebook beef over to here.

2) Personal insults will not be tolerated.

Your story and the manner in which you have told it are controversial, to put it mildly. I want you to get a fair hearing, but behave. And please keep your Steven Park remarks to this thread, or I will move them.

Thanks.

[Steve Powell]

I think you should direct that post to Caroline Morris sir.
Thank you for letting me post anyway.
Goodbye.

Steve Powell

[Paul Butler]

Hi Steve if you're still around.

I've had the good sense to stay out of this from the very start, but if this is going to be a rather more concise version of events than we have seen so far, and is going to come to the point with a little less prevarication, then perhaps I can ask just the one question that's been in my mind for a while now.

If Feldman was involved with the creation of the diary, and behind the idea of using Maybrick as the Ripper from quite early on, then why the hell did he make such a hash of his book "The final chapter", which singularly fails to prove anything at all, either concerning the diary itself, or James Maybrick's candidacy as Jack? That book cost Feldman his health and his wealth, yet it achieved nothing at all. I'm afraid it just doesn't add up.

Regards.

Paul.

[Chris G.]

I turned the pages to the end and the signature of the writer was boldly displayed with a flourish, as if proud of his diary of doom and madness. The signature read: ‘Jack the Ripper’ and was dated the 3rd of May 1889.
I looked at the person who had given me the book and his face was one of eager anticipation at my response. He already knew that I thought it was a waste of time, from the moment he began to write it twelve years previously.
His name is Steven Park and he began the diary when he was sixteen years old in 1968 in Sydney, Australia.
He was born in Lancaster, England in March 1952 and immigrated to Australia with his parents Ray and Jean Park in the early 1960's.

Hi Steve

Welcome to JtR Forums. I may be wrong about this but I thought when you told the story over at Casebook that the Diary was being created in the 1970's in your presence from scratch and not begun when Park "was sixteen years old in 1968 in Sydney, Australia."

Chris

[Chris G.]

Hi all

I received the following private message from Steve Powell in response to my post above questioning his statement that the Diary was begun by Steve Park in 1968, which seemed to contradict what I thought he had said at Casebook about working with Park to create the Diary in the Seventies. Steve Powell has given me permission to post it in this thread. Thanks once again, Steve.

Chris

***********

Both of those statements are true Chris, I gave the date of the 70's as just a rough estimate at the time, but 68 is proper and yes, I was present on those occasions when he was writing it. He even asked me how to spell 'rondezvous' if you can believe that. I told him it was spelt (after brian wilsons song) 'Help me Rhonda' - 'rhondevous' and he was about to write that down, when his mother told him the correct spelling, but yet, the wrong spelling is in the diary - he already had written down his version and was only checking it with us. He left it like that as the idea was to re-write the thing later on and never did, for various reasons.

It's so simple yet tragically comic to think of it - like a Woody Allen character. His mother and I would have a joke about the things we both did to try to stop or thwart his grandiose plans and if Feldman hadn't come along and seen the dollar signs, it would have stayed a joke and never have been seen, as Steven didn't have a hope in hell of writing the thing himself.

I want to thank you Chris, as I know you believe I know 'something' yet don't believe it to the full yet, and that is fine by me, however, if you take my word for it - which is damn hard to do I know - your thinking will be able to unravel it much easier, as it is the solid, gospel, john lennon truth. Feldman is THE man, it is his work, only the idea was Steven's alone. Merry xmas and may your future years get better by the minute Chris.

Steve

[Caroline Morris]

Hi Steve,

There was no personal insult in my post. I was merely pointing out that the moment you remembered that Steve Park (a wolf in my analogy) was definitely involved in the diary's creation, it might have been a better use of your own time to try and establish his whereabouts before trying to convince us with no supporting evidence.

Similarly, if you could have established that the other wolves - Anne Graham and Paul Feldman - were actually both in Australia, at the right time and place to have met Steve Park, before adding more detail to your initial story, so much the better.

Why would you expect your fellow visitors to a Jack the Ripper site to accept any unsupported claims, and why so upset when they cannot and will not accept yours?

Love,

Caz
X

[Paul Butler]

Steve.

I'd like to ask a brief question if I may, and a similarly brief reply would be great.

If the diary was written by Steven Park in Australia circa 1968/70, how did he know that an empty tin matchbox was found adjacent to Kate Eddowes body in Mitre Square?

Thanks a lot.

Paul

[Scott Nelson]

That part was added in later...after the rediscovery of the police inventory list....Steve would say.

[Paul Butler]

That part was added in later...after the rediscovery of the police inventory list....Steve would say.


Presumably after having left an appropriate gap at the right place in the diary text to cover the eventuality that such a discovery might possibly be made a decade or so later!

To be fair, Steve did PM me a brief answer as I requested and the above is not it.

The trouble is Steve, if you're still about, you can't claim the diary was created when you say it was and then try and fit in the rather inconvenient fact that at least one item mentioned in the text wasn't rediscovered by ripperology until about 20 years later.

Harris used this fact mercilessly against Feldman in particular, and the diary in general. Are we to seriously believe that if an alternative source of that information was known by Feldman that he wouldn't have used it to wipe the floor with Harris? Of course he would.

It just won't wash mate.

regards.

Paul