Identification of Booth's body

[L Verge]

Only two words, Mike -- GOOD GRIEF! The "right leg" error was just that - an error on the part of Dr. May (no matter what his son declared). There have been previous discussions about this over the years with one of the simplest being that Dr. May was one of those people who had trouble identifying right from left unless standing in the same direction as the subject! No other doctor at the inquest made that mistake.

As for the condition of the leg, there is a description from either Ruggles or Bainbridge, both of whom were with Jett when they encountered the fugitives at the Rappahannock ferry crossing. The leg was described as being in quite bad condition before Booth died.

As for the scar on Booth's neck, did you even bother to read what I posted about actor Matthew Canning describing the removal of the 1863 tumor? Or, that Booth went on stage that night and subsequent nights so that the healing process was disturbed? Another personal note, but my husband had several operations for carbuncles (what the doctors called fibrous tumors) over the years, and the tumors seemed to reoccur at or very close to the site of the first one. There is not a lot of space on the human neck for them to grow due to the spinal cord.

Do you have any surgical scars on your body? Do you describe them as granular or otherwise? What would Dr. Barnes or Dr. May describe them as? What in the world causes you to suggest that Lt. Baker burned that scar on the neck of the dead Booth?

My final comment/question here is: What is your purpose in trying to continue the old theory that the government allowed Booth to escape and then went to extreme measures to establish that the body on the Montauk and the body reinterred in 1869 was truly Booth, the assassin? You seem intent on establishing in one month what historians on both sides of the issue have studied (and failed to establish) for nearly one hundred years.