The Spangler Connection

[Cliff Roberts]

(02-13-2014 01:35 PM)L Verge Wrote:  How about two chief reasons for your belief, Cliff? P.S. I agree with you. I also agree with Eva's assessment that Booth picked up the wood shavings after quickly drilling the hole and put them in his pocket where they stayed for the next twelve days simply because there were so few of them that he just forgot about dumping them. The gimlet would have been tangible evidence of the deed - the shavings were not.

Hi Laurie! I'll give you a few reasons: One, Rhodes says he was in the theater within half an hour of noon; Booth himself didn't learn Lincoln would attend the theater until noon, leaving hardly enough time to recruit Surratt or anyone else to prepare a bar of wood and to be caught in the act by Rhodes; Two, Surratt wasn't even in town; Three, why would Booth pick Surratt to do the job anyway, when he could have asked Spangler, and Spangler looks nothing like Surratt; Four, the idea that a stranger (Rhodes) would be allowed to enter the theater, roam around at will and just happen to catch a conspirator in the act . . . well, you can see where that's going. Frankly, I don't think Rhodes' testimony was a case of mistaken identity; I think he deliberately perjured himself, like the notorious liars exposed in the conspiracy trial. Personally, I think Booth himself prepared both the hole in the door and the wooden bar. I don't know where the shavings came from, but I doubt Booth would carry them around in his pocket for twelve days. I think it more likely he whittled his little stash of kindling somewhere in the woods of Maryland or Virginia. What I found most interesting in the testimony of Gifford was the amount of detail he was able to provide about the hole, including the fact that it was bored by a left-turning bit! Expert testimony from a journeyman carpenter.