Unpublished response to Amelia Hill

Subj: URGENT media enquiry
Date: 12/29/2000 10:55:43 AM Mountain Standard Time
Dear Mr O'Neil,
I am writing an article for this week's Observer newspaper on a book about to be published called 'We Faked the Ghosts of Borley Rectory.'
I would very much like to speak with you about the claims in the book but am very short of time - if you email me with your phone number as soon as you get this message, I would be very grateful.
Yours,
Amelia Hill

Subj: Sorry the phone failed us. Please try again.
Date: 12/29/2000 1:33:29 PM Mountain Standard Time

Much of the indictment against Louis Mayerling has been written by his own hand. In a package dated 6 December 2000 which reached me 27 December, he confesses to several key offences. Most of the photos in his book are very grainy with little definition - clearly second and third generation copies from other sources but with his own creative labeling. The incorrect labels themselves give him away to even the most casual Borley reader familiar with the originals in the Harry Price and Ivan Banks books. For one piece of self-incriminating evidence, he sent me proof he had lifted the skewered photo of Marianne - imaginatively labeled "at 18" from a TV log. Only one instance of unauthorized use from an original source is needed to seal the indictment, but he presents even more evidence against himself in the accompanying 10 page letter - portions of which have been posted on my web site (leaving out some private material). In those pages the reader will find the following additional confessions:

  • "M. at 83 was merely photographed [from Who Am I?] and a more suitable background inserted.. . . . the background. . . . was a staircase at Bramshill House in Hampshire."
  • "The marriage photo of Price Feodor. This, of course is quite ridiculous. It is of my own marriage reception to Barbara."
  • "So my birth certificate has been winkled out. Well, this would have been simple, its there for anybody to find." [Born in Wood Green, not Vienna.]
  • "I contacted [Harry Price's original publisher] and was told they did not own the copyright [to the drawing of Mrs. Wilson's insect]. Consequently, it was suggested that I dub the photo as 'copyright unestablished.'" [No such disclaimer is in the book.]
    • His clever use of editing tools belie his claims of near blindness, witness the creative cover, the flying brick creation, and the lifting of my mother's portrait to be laid in front of a new background. It does not take a forensic scientist to see the edits, but they were obviously created by someone with skill and - vision.

    Practically all of his sources are not longer alive to protest the use of the material, but I am, and I ash him to stop. I cannot speak for anyone else still alive - and there ARE others - but hopefully " The truth will surface," as one of Marianne's descendants has said. I hope so, but it needs to come from someone other than myself, I'm afraid. So far, this is a one man campaign. sorrow that age has deteriorated his faculties to the extent that his current and future contributions to the field must be considered, at best, entertaining fiction.

    I very much want to like Louis - at one time I thought we were good friends. Unfortunately, I believe he has used that friendship for his own profit - at my emotional expense. He has used material and photos from my various works - as well as others - without authorization. If he sent a letter requesting permission, it never reached me, but my phone number has not changed in over 15 years. Absent my approval, the photos and paraphrased text should not have been used.

    Meanwhile, he has built a house of cards with his fantasy about Borley - I can not speak for any of his claims away from Borley - and one by one he has pulled the cards away with his own hands. It would aid his case immensely if he would show a visitor just three of the questioned items he talks about - the inscribed watch my mother supposedly gave him, her passport photo, and the charts showing the floor plans of the rectory. The photo and the charts should show the appropriate age, not some modern copy paper backing. "If the watch doesn't tick (show any signs of engraving), you can not acquit."

    In a similar vein, I have proof he read my manuscripts and edited them in 1995. There are just a couple of items in a long chain that challenges the whole. You can only pull away so many cards before the entire house of cards collapses.

    This is a link to the review for my Bibliography, including his imaginative answers for everything - except what HE experienced, and the long list of questions his "answers" create.