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(07-28-2016 03:24 PM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  

(07-28-2016 02:43 PM)Pamela Wrote:  Susan, I've read McDevitt's testimony several times and I don't find that it contradicts Clarvoe's. I also find nothing wrong with the syntax and don't think it's appropriate to change verbiage of trial transcripts. To coin a phrase, it is what it is.

It's reasonable to imagine that Richards didn't have his A team with him and just weren't aggressive enough with a cool customer like Mary who played the genteel lady card to advantage. Not long afterwards, Richards or maybe Clarvoe decided the house and it's occupants needed a thorough rousting. Clearly, Mary made some play acting choices and they weren't good ones.

Oh, dear. No one was changing the trial transcripts, simply suggesting that Clarvoe misspoke or that the court reporter made a slight error. It does happen, really.

Clarvoe's testimony aside, Richards' going to the Surratt boardinghouse with a force of detectives in search of Booth and John Surratt, learning from an officer that a man was asleep in his room, and letting him slumber sweetly on despite his suspicions about the landlady's appearance and demeanor strikes me as grossly incompetent, which is one of several reasons (no reason to reiterate the others here), I don't find his postwar recollections to be credible. I'll leave it at that.

I'm chiming in only to agree with Susan's assessment and to say that the questions surrounding Richards may be the reason that quite a few of the learned historians in the field give no significant attention to the Chief.