Other evidence

[Adam_Douglas]

I have read the diary, but dont know a lot about Maybrick as a suspect outside of it.

My gut feel is that the diary is a fake - simply because it reads too well and seems too well plotted (I was struck by the repitition of the phrase "funny little games" for example) and that the guy who discovered the diary has admitted it was faked (and I think retracted that statement...) - I also think the discovery of the watch, while again I dont know enough about it to say I definitely believe it to be a fake, just seems too good to be true. When I read the thing, without looking for factual errors or anacronysms (sic, surely!) it just didnt feel right.

I also feel that even if the diary was written by Maybrick, it could just as likely be the drug addled sick fantasy of an ailing man than a true account.

But so many people do believe in Maybrick as a suspect, and I know there must be more evidence behind this than I have seen, otherwise he would not be such a prime suspect.

Is there any evidence, outside of the diary and watch, that places Maybrick at the time and place of the murders, or links him to them in anyway?

The only thing I have read (and cant remember where) was the suggestion that the initials FM were written on the wall of Kelly's room. But as far as I can see this must be false, as the room must have been examined and no contemporary report mentions it that I know of (and there is no conspiracy explanation to keep it quiet)

If, as a court, were to rule the diary inadmissable as evidence since its reliability is certainly disputed - whatever evidence could we offer that Maybrick was JTR?

[Von Schwantz]

Witness statements aside, the evidence is all circumstantial. But I'd be surprised if anyone could come up with a better circumstantial case for any other suspect, other than Robert D'Onston Stephenson, of course. Ha ha!

1. He has an M in his name. Whether you accept the M from Hanbury St. and/or the inverted Vs from Mitre Square and/or the M on the wall at Millers Court, I always thought the M was a signature mark.

2. The Diego Laurence letter from Liverpool when a witness said Mary lived with a Mr. Laurence. The letter also accurately predicted the lull in the Ripper killings and accords with Maybrick's departure for America.

3. If Stan Russo is right as I believe and JtR was leaving a message for Masons, Maybrick would be a good candidate because he's the brother of a Mason.

4. He had a lodging in the area and was known to frequent prostitutes on a regular basis.

Doesn't this remind you of the fuss surrounding American Psycho? He was a businessman too but, in the end, it was all a fantasy.

[Mr. Poster]

I think he had business partners in the area at some point?

p

[Adam_Douglas]

Thanks for answers!

I think I have also read that he did business in London, which for a succesfull businessman sounds natural... but in fairness saying he sometimes stayed in London on business makes him no more likely to be the killer than any of the people who lived in London in itself.

It would be interesting to study records of his company (if they still exist) to see if it can be proved if he was in London - or in the other direction proved that he was not - on the actual days of the murders (and also as the diary seems to specifically link him to the Dear Boss letter - was he in London on the day that was posted): maybe by meetings attended, or sales orders placed or something like that.

I know that 3 of the murders were on the weekend (and the other two on Friday) - when you would expect he would go down to London in the week normally.

I dont know the Laurence letter, but will check it out - if he was suspected or linked to some suspicion by a contemporary source this would be strong evidence.

With regards to to the letter M - I know it isnt a factual argument, but I do find it hard to believe that someone in the kind of emotion state to commit such crimes woud be selecting place names with special significance to his surname. If there was an M on the wall in Mary Kelly's room though - surely this would have been noted at the time?

Im not sure of the Masonic element of it, but again if there WAS, having a connection to Masonary would have been shared by 1000's of people.

I will be interested to look up the letter though

[Caroline Morris]

Hi Adam,

The guy who ‘discovered’ the diary claimed he had been given it. He claimed at one point that it was faked, but I firmly believe that he has no more idea when it was written, why or by whom, than anyone else alive.

There is no evidence that the watch scratches were made after the diary emerged, which makes things interesting to say the least. Nobody appears to be better off, financially or otherwise, as a result of the diary or watch touching their lives, and in all too many cases it’s quite the reverse.

I don’t know what you mean by ‘so many people’ believing in Maybrick as a prime suspect - he is actually nothing of the sort, and most ripper commentators would much prefer him erased from the suspects list. Neither the diary nor the watch can be used as evidence as their status remains in limbo and there is nothing else to link Maybrick to the murders.

The FM is a double canard: it is almost certainly just a photographic effect, and in any case there is no mention in the diary of these initials being written together on the wall beside Mary Kelly’s bed.

Hi Von Schwantz,

The only suggestion that Maybrick had lodgings in the area at the time of the murders comes from the diary itself. The real James did go to London frequently, and in 1888, whenever he was going to be away from Liverpool for a few days, he would stock up with supplies of arsenic from a local chemist called Edwin Heaton, telling him he was taking it for its aphrodisiacal qualities. As James was no longer sleeping with Florie by this time, he was presumably still using prostitutes or seeing his long-term mistress, Sarah Robertson, who had followed him to Liverpool from Stepney, where the couple got together originally, close to Whitechapel.

None of this is evidence that James was in the right location at the right time to have committed murder there, but his lifestyle - and premature death, in May 1889 - certainly provided the diarist with plenty of circumstantial fuel.

Despite extensive research over many years, by Paul Feldman, Shirley Harrison and their teams, it seems that Jim's exact movements during the autumn of 1888 have yet to be established. It's not as easy as one might think to find an alibi when so few murder nights are involved, and it's doubly difficult when the individual concerned was living a semi-secret double life in any case.

Love,

Caz
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