Identification of Booth's body

[L Verge]

"Furthermore, I haven't even brought up the issue of the scars on Booth's body that nobody saw on the body on the Montauk that night. Theodore Roscoe, among others, discussed this issue. Booth had several scars from accidents and altercations over the years. Nobody on the Montauk that night saw a single one of them, a very odd omission given that the Montauk witnesses were able to spot "pale" characters on a hand that could not be read unless you took a closer look at them.

" And how about the tattoos on Booth's other hand, which consisted of a cross and some stars. If all these decades-belated witnesses amazingly noticed the small "pale" initials on the left hand, which could not be read unless you got a closer look at them, how is it that not a single person there or at the burial at the Old Arsenal Penitentiary noticed the cross and the stars on the body's other hand? "

I assume you are citing Roscoe here. First, Roscoe is still one of my favorite authors on the subject - even though he wrote nearly 70 years ago. Because some of his posits have been disproven in the ensuing years, however, I have stored away my copy. Please cite page or notes on the above from Roscoe - or any other source since we are now "learning" about cross and stars on the right hand. How did a right-handed boy manage to do that with his left hand?

Also, if you study Booth at any length, you learn of his other scar-producing episodes. But, how would those present on board the Montauk at this time find out about them? Despite what you are trying to get us to believe, there was enough clear evidence to identify Booth without having to go on an invasive "scar hunt."

Finally, (and other readers may want to click off at this point because I'm going to share another personal story...) have you, Mike, ever been with a dying person throughout the death watch and then for several hours after that with the body not being touched? I sat with my mother for two days as she went into a coma and lingered. Her facial features did not change one iota during that time, the changes came during her suffering.

In most cases, relatives would leave the corpse alone to be handled by funeral home personnel who came to take it. My mother died after just a few days in a nursing home, and when the funeral home was called, they did not have staff available to come right away. Therefore, I chose to stay with her. The nurses turned the AC on arctic blast, wrapped me in blankets, and I remained with her for about four hours. They also told me to expect to see movement within the body as muscles reacted to death and blood and bodily fluids moved to settling points. That all happened.

When the funeral attendants finally arrived, I was asked to leave the room. Given my knowledge of the Booth inquest and the "freckling" issue, I deliberately asked if her back and the back portions of her legs would show coagulated blood spots (and I likened them to freckles). I was told YES, but more bluish purple than a true "freckle brown."

Thanks to my mother's death, that closed any question of Booth's freckling in my mind. Since Booth's body was not handled carefully and in a timely fashion, I would say that (as that coagulated blood dried), it became more of a brown color. Sometimes I think that I eat, breathe, and sleep the Lincoln assassination story, but I have been able to learn quite a lot about today's world from learning the details of this 1865 event.