Identification of Booth's body

[mikegriffith1]

(10-04-2018 06:56 PM)L Verge Wrote:  May I recommend that you read American Brutus as quickly as you can? On the other hand, however, I am quite sure that you will find a way to play devil's advocate with any piece of documented evidence, so why bother...

As to your comments here, there are documented rebuttals available (I believe that Dr. May himself later described the effects of livor mortis). But, you will dismiss them, so I am choosing to dismiss further debates with you. Perhaps you should - or already have - team up with Nate Orlowek.

I consulted seven forensic sources on livor mortis. They all said that it causes skin discoloration, "blueish" or "purplish red" discoloration. Not one of them mentioned anything about it causing freckles. Some of the sources included autopsy pictures, and none of the pictures showed freckles but showed large areas of skin discolored in dark shades of blue or purple.

I notice you chose not to address the fact that Dr. May said that he had *never* seen a body whose appearance had changed so drastically from how it looked in life. Obviously, he was talking about a lot more than just the presence of freckles, which Booth did not have. Of course, by Dr. May's own admission, when he first saw the body, he said,

Quote:There is no resemblance in that corpse to Booth. nor can I believe it to be him.

Additionally, he specified that the body's right leg was broken, not the left ankle.

As for the autopsy photo, when interviewed by a historian in 1896, Detective Wardell made it clear that Gardner did take one picture of the body and that he accompanied the photo every step of the way--by the way, he also defended the War Department's decision to suppress the photo, which makes his account all the more compelling. Here's what he said:

Quote:Under no circumstances was I to allow him or his assistant out of my sight until they had taken a picture and made the print, and then I was to bring the print and the glass [negative] back to the War Department and give it only to Col. [L.C.] Baker [chief of the Secret Service] or Secretary of War Stanton. ...[Gardner] was told that only one plate was to be made and it was to have only one print made and both were to be given to me when finished….

Gardner took the plate and then gave it to the assistant and told him to take it and develop it and to make one print. I went with him and even went into the dark room. About 4:00 in the afternoon I got the plate and the print from the assistant and took it to the War Department. I went in to the outer office and Col. Baker was just coming out of the War Office. I gave him the plate and print and he stepped to one side and pulled it from the envelope. He looked at it and then dismissed me. (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/d...59798338/)

The excuses for the handling of the body just make no sense to me. The War Department invited people to view the hanging of the four people whom the tribunal sentenced to death and buried them in plots--and did all this very publicly. Stanton et al also allowed numerous photos of the hanging to be taken.

When Nat Turner and John Brown were executed, their executions were very public. In fact, Turner's head was placed on display for all to see. Brown's body was publicly transported to New York for public burial, a burial that included speeches by two abolitionists.

So why all the secrecy regarding "Booth's" body? Why the secret burial? Why no public viewing, or at least a viewing for leading members of Congress and select journalists? Why only one autopsy photo and why did it vanish? Why was not a single person who knew Booth well, or a family member, invited to ID the body on the Montauk or just before it was buried--not years later when the body was decomposed beyond recognition, but when supposedly it was recognizable as Booth by its "general appearance" and by the "JWB" tattoo (never mind that only one person said they saw the tattoo, and he said that after the fact when he was interviewed)?

What's more, when a request was made to subject a tiny fragment of the alleged Booth spine section being held by the Army Medical Command to DNA testing, why was the request denied? The Army claimed that it did not want to damage the spine section, even though the medical expert who authored the request pointed out that only a very tiny fragment would be needed to do the testing? Besides, what in the devil is the Army going to do with the spine segment? Who cares if a tiny piece of it is removed? What are they saving the spine segment for?