Where was John Surratt on April 14, 1865 ?

[loetar44]

Thanks Roger and Susan!

I’m skeptic too, because none of the others who testified NEVER mentioned that A.C. Richards was in Surratt’s boarding house that particular night. If he was there, one certainly would have known that: Weichmann ! Why had he not seen Richards in the house? I’m also skeptic that Richards was sitting in the dress circle when he heard the fatal shot.

Richards wrote all the letters from his home overlooking Lake Eldorado, east of Eustis, Florida … Maybe he dreamed away and let his mind and memories wander (after more than 30 years) and wanted some fame, or a (minor) place in history. Anyway we are still discussing his whereabouts shortly after the murder.

Is it true that Richards had gotten information (from Ferguson) that Booth often visited Surratt's house? John (Fazio) writes in "Decapitating", p. 62: “Further, Major Almarin Cooley (A.C.) Richards, superintendent of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department (1864-1878), had entered the house about 1:00 a.m., about an hour and a half earlier than Detectives McDevitt and Clarvoe, upon receiving information from James P. Ferguson, …. etc. And he writes that Richards confirmed this in his letter, dated February 22, 1899… I just read this letter in which Richards is retelling his account of events for Weichmann.

The letter reads in part: “There need be no question in your mind that I visited the Surratt house on the night of the assassination between 12 and 1 o'clock. I am not mistaken as to that point. I am not sure who I took with me. The only reason that led me to suppose [Detective James] McDevitt was with me is that I was with him at the Theatre earlier that night. He [McDevitt] told me that [actress] Laura Keene had told him that it was Wilkes Booth who vaulted from the box the President occupied. Soon thereafter it came to my knowledge that Booth and young Surratt had several times been in each others company the latter part of the preceeding [sic] winter. That information led me to seek Mrs. Surratt's house in search of Booth or to learn something definite about him and his intimates, not for one moment then suspecting that Mrs. Surratt was implicated in the assassination.”

No mention of Ferguson.