Crimes of Jack the Ripper by Roland Paul

Author:Roland, Paul [Roland, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Arcturus Digital Limited
Published: 2012-07-10T07:00:00+00:00

Sketch of Elizabeth Stride’s murder scene.

A possible suspect?

As for Maybrick having motive, means and opportunity, it is a matter of historical record that his wife had a lover and that Maybrick had an addiction to strychnine and arsenic which, when taken in small doses, were a mild aphrodisiac and stimulant. A habitual user might have delusions of infallibility and be oblivious to danger or the possibility of being caught. Add to this the fact that Maybrick’s whereabouts cannot be accounted for on the night of the five ‘official’ Whitechapel murders and perhaps there is a compelling case for adding him to the list of suspects.

Maybrick was a well-known hypochondriac and visited his physician an astonishing 70 times during 1888, all of which are a matter of record. Not one of these appointments conflicts with the dates of the five canonical Ripper murders. Either the forger was uncannily lucky or the diary may just have been genuine.

Handwriting experts have declared the writing to be stylistically ‘of the period’ and the distinctive features to be characteristic of a deranged person. Moreover, these features (such as the crossing of two separated ‘t’s with a single flourish) reappear throughout the diary, which would be difficult for a forger to maintain. On the other hand, the script is wholly unlike that of James Maybrick when compared to his will. Again, advocates of the diary’s authenticity have a ready explanation. Maybrick was too ill to write his will and so dictated it to his brother. This scenario is reinforced by the fact that the name of Maybrick’s daughter has been misspelled in the will, a mistake a father would never make.

Forensics find the truth

The ‘acid test’ for any disputed document is, of course, the forensic dating of the paper and ink. In the case of the Ripper diary the British Museum confirmed that the paper did indeed date from the Victorian era (which was never in dispute) and that the fading of the ink was also consistent with its age.

However, powdered Victorian ink can be purchased in many antique stores and, though it may be in a poor state, it can be rendered usable by dilution with water. Ink can also be artificially dated, as the forgers of the Mussolini diaries have shown, by baking it in an oven for 30 minutes.

For many years following the publication of the diary, Ripper scholars were divided between those who accepted its authenticity with reservations and those who dismissed it as a forgery out of hand. It was only when ink samples were subjected to a specific test for the presence of chloroacetamide, a modern preservative, in October 1994 that the truth was finally revealed. The test proved positive. The diary was a fake and Barrett apparently confessed to being its author, though it is possible he only did this to remove the pressure of the publicity to which he was subjected. There are still Ripperologists who contend that the ink test is inconclusive perhaps because, like the general public, they prefer the myth to the facts.

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