Booth's mistress, Ella Starr, and other "unknown" Booth ladies!

[Jenny]

Thank you, Susan and Steve! This entire “second letter” business is very odd.

Gene Smith writes::
‘“I do as you desired and keep as secluded as a nun, which is not agreeable to me as you have found out ere this, but anything to oblige you darling.” And: “I know important business kept you away today. Will you please try & come tomorrow as soon after two as possible? You can dine privately with me. So do not mind your dinner. I trust you are feeling better today. Be very good until I see you. Anything that pleases you will be acceptable. God bless you, my precious friend. N. One sweet little kiss.”’

The “and” that separates the first few sentences that are actually recorded as being in The Evidence and the “mystery text” seems to indicate that there was possibly a second Etta letter which no one seems to know about.

What’s interesting to me is that Abel specifically mentions in his book that certain words in the mystery text were underlined by the unknown writer. So has he seen this letter himself? There is no mention of these in Gene Smith’s book.

I am going through the online scans of the assassination files to see if I can find anything that would explain the origin of this mysterious text. It’s still beyond me why Abel would knowingly cite The Evidence as having this seemingly unknown text allegedly by Ella Starr in the first place when it’s obviously just not there.