Identification of Booth's body

[mikegriffith1]

(10-14-2018 03:59 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  A person aboard the Montauk who said he saw the J.W.B. initials was John Peddicord. The article below is from the Roanoke Evening News, June 6, 1903, and it was posted last year by another forum member.

I might add that Asia Booth Clarke's memoir was still unpublished at the time of Peddicord's statement, so he would not have known that she had written, "He had perfectly shaped hands, and across the back of one he had clumsily marked, when a little boy, his initials in India ink."

In the article Peddicord noted that the letters were "in pale, straggling characters, 'J.W.B.', as a boy would have done it."

Even a casual critical analysis of Peddicord's story reveals a number of glaring problems.

First off, did you notice that later in the article Peddicord claimed that the body was buried at sea? Does anyone here believe this occurred? (The buried-at-sea myth was started by Lafayette Baker. He ordered that a fake burial at sea be staged, and that's the story that the public was fed, yet many people did not believe it because reports began to surface that the sea burial was staged and that the body had actually been buried on land.)

Moreover, notice that Peddicord claimed to be present at the start of the autopsy and that he was "quite close to the examination." Okay, well, then how come Peddicord said nothing about the alleged Todd-Stafford incident, which, if he was really there, would have occurred right in front of him and would have greatly bolstered his own story's credibility?

Supposedly, the ship's surgeon, George Todd, noticed some "marks" on one of the hands of the body just after Dr. Barnes cut away the body wrapping, and then, as the story goes, Patrick Stafford, another crew member, leaned over, looked at the marks, and told Todd that they were the initials "JWB." Peddicord says nothing about this alleged incident. If this incident really happened, it would have happened right in front of Peddicord, assuming Peddicord was really there. Is it not very odd that Peddicord said nothing about this incident, nor about anyone else noticing the initials, especially when this would have corroborated his story?

Here's the core problem with the "JWB" evidence: When they gave their initial statements and/or wrote their initial reports, NONE of the three doctors who examined the body mentioned seeing the initials "JWB" on either of the hands, or the wrist, or the arm. Not one word about them.

If we assume the Todd-Stafford incident actually occurred, it is very odd and suspicious that Dr. Barnes said nothing about the initials when Dr. May initially expressed strong disbelief that the body was Booth. If Dr. Barnes had seen Todd and Stafford identify "JWB" initials on one of the hands, the first words out of his mouth when Dr. May voiced his disbelief would have been "Oh, but, Dr. May, Booth's initials 'JWB' are tattooed here on the left hand." That would have been a much more credible identification feature than "a large ugly scar" made nearly two years earlier (and that looked like a burn scar and not a surgical scar).

It is especially odd and suspicious that Dr. May did not mention seeing or hearing about any initials being found on the body when he gave his statement to Holt that evening, when he testified at the John Surratt trial, or when he wrote "The Mark of the Scalpel," since Dr. May was acutely aware of the doubts about the body's identification and did his best to support the War Department's story while being honest enough to admit--several times--that the body bore no resemblance to Booth.

Additionally, if we accept for the sake of argument the doubtful story that the authorities on the boat decided not to take any photos of the body because the body looked so unlike Booth, surely Barnes or May or L. Gardner or Todd--or Holt if he were acting in good faith--would have said something like, "Well, let's at least get some photos of these 'JWB' initials."

You know, initially, I was fully prepared to grant that the body on the Montauk had the initials "JWB" on it, since I knew that Luther Baker had ample opportunity to write the initials on the body while he had the body for several hours. But when I began to study the "JWB" evidence, I was struck by how doubtful, contradictory, and flimsy it is, not to mention belated.

(10-14-2018 03:59 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Mike, could you at least answer Susan's question: "Why did the fake Booth not surrender?"

According to Conger, who was in the back of the barn, the man in the barn was surrendering when he was shot. Conger said that the man dropped his crutch, and then dropped his weapon and began to walk toward the front door, and that he was shot a few seconds later:

Quote:I looked in and heard something drop on the floor, which I supposed to be Booth’s crutch. He turned around towards me. When I first got a glimpse of him, he stood with his back partly to me, turning towards the front door. He came back within five feet of the corner of the barn. The only thing I noticed he had in his hands when he came was a carbine. He came back, and looked along the cracks one after another rapidly. He could not see anything. He looked at the fire; and, from the expression of his face, I am satisfied he looked to see if he could put it out, and was satisfied that he could not do it, it was burning so much. He dropped his arm [weapon], relaxed his muscles, and turned around, and started for the door for the front of the barn. I ran around to the other side; and, when about half round, I heard the report of a pistol. (The Conspiracy Trial for the Murder of the President, volume 1, Ben Poore transcript, pp. 311-312)

And I note again the medical evidence that Boston Corbett could not have shot the man in the barn, unless the man had been practically kneeling, because the wound track went downward at a significant angle. Dr. Arnold:

Quote:The total height that Corbett would have had to fire from is about twenty-one feet [assuming the victim was standing]. The story of the pursuit of John Wilkes Booth is riddled with myths, contradictions, and misinformation, but there is one fact that yet exists that is irrefutable--the bullet that killed the man in Garrett's barn entered his neck at an angle of twenty-five degrees above the horizontal. (The Conspiracy Between John Wilkes Booth and the Union Army to Assassinate Abraham Lincoln, p. 264)

This is not to mention the forensic evidence that the bullet was a rifle bullet, not a pistol bullet.