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Sir Robert Anderson
Inspector
Username: Sirrobert
Post Number: 164
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, January 21, 2005 - 12:47 pm: | 
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I am of the mind that a discussion of Florence Maybrick's guilt or innocence may shed light on the contentious Diary and Watch.
On another thread, Jeff said:
"It is an intriguing idea that someone tried to discredit Maybrick because Florence was unfairly tried. (which she almost certainly was) "
And I responded:
She may have been unfairly tried, but it is far from clear that she was not guilty. Some of the evidence presented against her is pretty damning. Here's one tidbit: On May 8th 1889 she wrote a letter to her lover, A. Brierley, saying that "he (Maybrick) is sick unto death." Only problem with that is that Sir Jim wasn't particularly ill on the 8th, and his physicians weren't that concerned. On the 10th he took a turn for the worse, and died on the 11th.
Oops.
It's my contention that we may not have to look too far afield to come up with people that may have been interested in besmirching Maybrick posthumously.
Sir Robert
"I only thought I knew"
SirRobertAnderson@gmail.com
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Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 1695
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, January 21, 2005 - 12:59 pm: |
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Hi Robert,
i have to say. i think this is an interesting possibility.
I don't think Florence should have been convicted on the evidence. which is something she wasnt and something different to if she did it.
Jenni
"What d'you think about that? Now you know how I feel"
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Sir Robert Anderson
Inspector
Username: Sirrobert
Post Number: 173
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, January 22, 2005 - 11:27 am: |
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On another thread Caz wrote:
"PS Maybrick was a horrible horrible specimen of manhood. And if that made him the ripper, there'd be a lot of rippers about. But at the time of Florie's trial, there would be thousands upon thousands of true crime buffs who were convinced that Florie was innocent, but who wouldn't have entirely blamed her if she had wanted shot of the old bastard - which she could have been, easily, by divorcing him for adultery. No murder required. "
Actually, Caz, I respectfully disagree with some of this, and I am not twisting the historical record to fit my own pet theory. (Or at least I hope I'm not!)
Florence seems to have been a piece of work in her own right, a compulsive gambler in addition to an adulterer. Some of the evidence introduced at her trial seems rather damning: arsenic bottles in her room, arsenic in foodstuffs she had handled, arsenic on her clothes, and the letter to her lover saying Sir Jim was dying before he took seriously ill.
Public opinion during her trial seems to have been that she was indeed guilty; sympathy turned towards her after the sentence of death.
She had a rough time of it in prison after her reprieve from the death sentence. She wasn't placed in the Star category, which was reserved for prisoners that were regarded as having done something awful once, but were not a danger to commit another crime.
Sir Robert
"I only thought I knew"
SirRobertAnderson@gmail.com
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Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1433
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, January 22, 2005 - 12:42 pm: |
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Hi Sir Robert,
In my humble opinion, Jim and Florie were both users; he thought he was marrying a young heiress, and she thought she was marrying an eligible older man with plenty of money to pay for a lavish lifestyle.
Jim apparently had two long-standing mistresses, one in Norfolk, Virginia and one in Stepney, East London, and later Liverpool. It's easy to see how the family income would have been swallowed up one way or t'other by the extravagancies of both Jim and Florie. It seems Florie stopped sleeping with him when she found out about his long-term infidelity. She was then unfaithful herself.
What I can never get my head around is how much arsenic Florie, if guilty, would have actually needed to dose Jim with in order to do him more harm than he was already doing to himself.
Just a couple of days before he died, in early May 1889, the doctor did tests on what had gone through his system and no arsenic was found, suggesting he was perhaps by then too ill to have dosed himself up in the usual way with the supplies he had obtained in the March from Valentine Blake - 150 grains, normally enough to kill well over 50 people, in three separate packets. I tend to think it was probably the withdrawal symptoms that finished Jim off. They hardly found any arsenic in his remains - not enough to kill a normal person - and it's apparently very easy to detect, even in the tiniest amounts.
Surely, from the evidence then, it would have been impossible to prove that Florie had knowingly given Jim any arsenic herself, or tried to give him some but failed.
And I thought 'sick unto death' could have been a colloquialism not necessarily meant literally.
A bit like: "He's looking deathly pale today", or "He looks like death warmed up", or "You'll catch your death if you don't wear a coat, my girl", or even:
"I'm sick to death of hearing for the millionth time that the diary is an 'obvious' modern hoax." 
Love,
Caz
X |
Sir Robert Anderson
Inspector
Username: Sirrobert
Post Number: 174
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, January 22, 2005 - 12:53 pm: |
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"What I can never get my head around is how much arsenic Florie, if guilty, would have actually needed to dose Jim with in order to do him more harm than he was already doing to himself."
That is a fair point, well taken.
I think the one point of agreement we can all have is that Florence was convicted because of her adultery, not the evidence against her.
In some ways it is irrelevant to my speculation as to the origin of the Diary. If she was a murderer, it's a walk in the park relatively speaking to libel Sir Jim. And if not, she must have been a very embittered woman.
Sir Robert
"I only thought I knew"
SirRobertAnderson@gmail.com
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John V. Omlor
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 1072
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, January 22, 2005 - 5:27 pm: |
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Now see, this is what I like.
An evidence free thread.
It really is quite liberating, isn't it?
Enjoying the reading very much,
--John |
Christopher T George
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 1281
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, January 23, 2005 - 1:33 pm: |
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Hi Caz
I have said before that it might have been the absence of the daily dose of arsenic that finished Maybrick off, or else as you put it, the withdrawal symptoms. The historical record has him asking Florence for his "medicine." The evidence seems lacking to prove that she actually did poison him. A number of containers in the house were found to contain arsenic, enough to poison the Queen's Guard as it was described at the time. However, a number of patent medicines and other substances might have contained arsenic anyway. I believe a bottle of Valentine's meat juice was famously found to contain arsenic, and that might actually have been as a result of Maybrick himself putting arsenic powder in the meat juice, or else arsenic having been mixed with the juice at his request.
Best regards
Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
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Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1437
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, January 24, 2005 - 4:59 am: |
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Indeed, Chris.
And there is at least the possibility that May pleaded with Bunny so pitifully to give him some of his 'powder', arguing that it was the lack of his regular dose that was doing him in, that it put her in a no-win situation.
If she administered the stuff he usually took himself, she would be accused of poisoning him (even if she didn't fully appreciate what the stuff was); if she didn't, and he was physically too weak to get it for himself, she would effectively be letting him die from the lack of his sustaining dose.
Love,
Caz
X
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Jennifer D. Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 1713
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - 12:02 pm: |
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but she wouldnt have the mens rea for murder unless she knew it could kill him.
Jenni
"What d'you think about that? Now you know how I feel"
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Sir Robert Anderson
Inspector
Username: Sirrobert
Post Number: 486
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 29, 2005 - 5:55 pm: |
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Poking around the web, and found this site:
http://www.lawbuzz.com/famous_trials/florence/florence_maybrick.htm
Sir Robert
'Tempus Omnia Revelat'
SirRobertAnderson@gmail.com
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