Identification of Booth's body

[mikegriffith1]

(12-12-2018 06:48 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  

Quote:Booth had already had one close call with federal troops and had had to delay crossing the river because he was warned that federal forces were nearby. So it seems unimaginable, incomprehensible that he would have hung around the Garrett farm for so long. For that matter, as Dr. Arnold points out, it is hard to fathom why he would have gone there in the first place instead of continuing to head toward safer territory.

Unless you accept the more plausible theory that Booth needed to rest after the 12-day ordeal he had just been through, and once he found safe haven with someone who didn't know what he had done, he let his guard down.

For two days, knowing that federal troops were swarming into Virginia to find him???! Really?

You first need to come up with a logical explanation for why Booth would have gone to the Garretts' in the first place, instead of continuing toward safer territory.

Quote:the behavior of "James W. Boyd," as the Garretts knew him, at the Garrett farm fits much better with the theory that Boyd really was Boyd. One can totally understand why Boyd would have felt free to hang around for days with the Garretts and would have been in the mood to socialize.

(12-12-2018 06:48 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  One can understand if they turn reason on its head and throw logic out the window. The lengths to which you'll go to make this all fit is so contorted as to defy belief.

You are the one who is turning reason on its head and throwing logic out the window. A man who is running for his life and who knows federal troops are desperate to find him is not gonna spend two days on a pleasure trip casually relaxing and socializing. For that matter, such a man would not have gone to the Garretts' in the first place but would have continued toward safer territory as quickly as possible.

Boyd, on the other hand, would have behaved exactly as the "Boyd" at the Garretts' behaved, since he had not assassinated the president and did not have thousands of federal troops trying to find him.

Quote:What about when Boyd hurried into the woods when warned that federal cavalry were coming, assuming this event actually occurred?

(12-12-2018 06:48 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  And what proof do you have that it didn't? Why would the Garrett's have locked Booth and Herold in the barn? They were concerned about losing their horses because of the reaction of Booth upon hearing the news. Otherwise, locking them in the barn makes no sense.

Uh, no it makes perfect sense if Boyd's reaction (which Bainbridge and Ruggles duplicated) made Garrett uneasy about his guest. Even without the reaction, Garrett did not know Boyd and his companion and might have ordered his sons to lock the barn just as a commonsense precaution that he would take with any strangers.

Quote:If Boyd was wearing a Confederate uniform, as some accounts state, then it makes perfect sense that to be on the safe side he would have sought to get out of sight.

(12-12-2018 06:48 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  "If" seems to be one of your favorite words. What accounts? No one at the Garrett farm ever said that Booth was wearing a uniform. Why run into the woods? Why not just walk into the house or to the other side? The house was set back from the road, so seeing someone clearly was not a given. None of the Garrett Farm Patrol even noticed the house on their way past. Indeed, Conger forced Jett to take them back to the house as a guide.

Obviously, you're reading has been rather one-sided and incomplete. The Garretts said he was wearing gray clothing. Two of the soldiers there later said he was wearing a gray Confederate uniform. Towsend agreed that he was wearing gray clothing. I already answered the question about why he would have run into the woods, assuming this happened.

And speaking of Conger and Jett, why did Jett insist on talking to Conger alone?

(12-12-2018 06:48 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  As for your fascination with freckles and the state of Booth's corpse, all I can say is if that's your ace in the hole as to why Arnold's theory is anything but nonsense, you need to do better.

No, you need to provide a scrap of scientific evidence that freckles can magically sprout on the corpse of a person who was not freckled in life. You need to explain how "Booth's" body could have aged so markedly, not to mention when it did this magic act, since no one who saw him through April 25 noticed that he looked markedly older than 26 or that he had freckles.

While you're at it, you also need to explain how the body that was viewed in 1869 had hair that was 10-12 inches longer than Booth's, had the wrong number of fillings, and had damage on/just below the knee, which no one at the autopsy mentioned. I've already documented that hair never grows more than a fraction of an inch after death, and that it is rare for teeth to fall out of a corpse, not to mention that a missing tooth would have contradicted the dental chart.

(12-12-2018 06:48 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  I'll put my research and that of Steve Miller and Dave Taylor above anything you've provided.

Then you should have no problem explaining the freckles, the too-long hair, the wrong number of fillings, and the inexplicable damage to the knee. I've provided plenty of sources to document that these are serious issues that cannot be dismissed with your echo-chamber appeals to authority and casual dismissals. Just fine one single case in the history of forensic science where a body underwent the kinds of changes that Booth's supposedly underwent.

We can go back and forth all day about the accounts of Booth's appearance and clothing, and you can accept the accounts you like and reject the ones you don't like, but you can't fiddle so easily with science.

We know from medical science what does and does not happen to bodies when they are dead. And you and your band of fellow I See the Emperor's New Clothes believers can posture and dismiss all day, but you can't play your games with medical science. If you can find me just one, just one single case in the history of forensic science that provides a precedent for what the fairy tale you're defending about the body on the Montauk and at the 1869 viewing, then let's see it.