Identification of Booth's body

[mikegriffith1]

(10-19-2018 03:17 PM)L Verge Wrote:  * ...Barnes stepped onto the Montauk as if he owned it and went immediately to the carpenter's bench , took a knife, and cut away the wrappings of the corpse (remember that Booth had been sewed into blankets at the Garrett house). [You're assuming it was Booth, but Garrett said the man's name was Boyd, and even Townsend believed that the weight of the evidence showed that the man was dressed in gray clothing, but let's continue.--MTG.]
* "That's it," said Patrick Stafford, one of the Montauk's firemen standing nearby. "That's Booth." "Look at that," said Dr. George B. Todd, the vessel's surgeon, pointing to the marks on Booth's left hand. "What do you make that out to be?" Stafford leaned in to take a look, then straightened up. "J.W.B."

Okay, let's stop right there. Now, if this additional and very belated claim (given in 1926, 61 years after the fact) that "oh, yeah, I saw his initials too" is true, then:

* If this really happened right in front of Barnes right after he cut away the wrapping, why oh why didn't Barnes mention the initials when Dr. May told him that the body looked nothing like Booth and that he could not believe it was Booth? This would have been the perfect time for Barnes to say, "Oh, but doctor, look: Here are Booth's initials on the left hand. Dr. Todd pointed them out right after I cut open the wrapping."

* Why didn't anyone else who was standing nearby, some of whom surely would have heard Todd and Stafford, point out the initials to Dr. May?

It just defies all common sense and reason that no one there would have mentioned the initials when Dr. May so emphatically said he could not believe the body was Booth when he first saw it after the tarp was removed.

* If the initials were so obvious that Dr. Todd noticed them but could not read them (Stafford had to lean in and read them), how did all of the identification witnesses, except for Dawson's after-the-fact doubtful and convenient claim to Holt, miss them?

* And, again, why didn't any of the doctors who were there to observe the body mention the initials in any of their reports?

You can dig up a zillion of these oh-so-convenient belated witnesses who later decided that they remembered seeing initials on the hand/wrist/arm/forearm, but someone needs to credibly explain why in the world, then, neither May, nor Barnes, nor Woodward, nor Holt, nor Baker, etc., etc., said a word about seeing the initials that night. In reading Holt's questioning of the witnesses after the autopsy, it's readily apparent that he knew nothing about any initials until Dawson claimed he had seen them.

(10-19-2018 03:17 PM)L Verge Wrote:  * Barnes had doubts that the soldiers had caught Booth. New York newspapers had described the actor as a "whilom fop," but the body was no longer that of a dandy. soiled clothing, remains smelled. hair was ineptly clipped and badly matted, no mustache at all, just a stubble of beard. The face was wild and worn and older than its years. The lower part was discolored by extravasation of blood -- freckled.

One, extravasation of blood is not freckling. It is discoloration. Go check any number of online forensic/medical sources on the symptoms/signs of extravasation: they are swelling, erythema (reddening), and blistering.

Second, L. Gardner said that the body had "quite a growth of beard," not just stubble, in addition to saying that the face--not just part of the face, but the face--was "very much freckled." Who would describe "quite a growth of beard" as "just a stubble of beard"?

Third, why would the hair have been "ineptly clipped"? Booth took great care to maintain his hair and facial appearance. Barnes' description of the hair sounds a lot more appropriate for what we would expect of a common soldier (Boyd?) or a low-income person. Booth's flight had not been some ravaging ordeal in the Amazon. He spent the night indoors for at least three nights of those 10 days, and he had a steady supply of food and water. Furthermore, based on Townsend's research, we can logically and credibly assume that he had at least one more chance to shave after he left Dr. Mudd's house.