Where was John Surratt on April 14, 1865 ?

[John Fazio]

(01-17-2018 11:45 AM)JMadonna Wrote:  

(01-17-2018 04:11 AM)John Fazio Wrote:  

(10-16-2017 10:00 AM)JMadonna Wrote:  Remember, Smoot said she told him the boat would be used that night. Was it a lie or evidence that she didn't know the plot had changed? Impossible to know for certain.

Jerry:

Those who continue to talk about the plot changing are "missing the boat". .... How much evidence do you need?

John, you think like a prosecutor explaining to a jury that there is no reasonable doubt. This is both a blessing and a curse.

There is ample evidence to show that Mary Surratt knew of the kidnapping plot. There is none to show that she knew of a murder.

Why would she have been told? In a plot such as this the less one knows the better. Your position, that if you were in for the kidnapping you knew and were in for the murder - is the same used by prosecutors in the case.

There is no actual evidence that she knew, which is what Lewis Powell said and why he bet his life by returning to her house. As prosecutor you can dismiss this with a wave of the hand but I can't.

Jerry:

If one starts out with a false premise, everything that follows and that is dependent on that premise will be, in some degree, false. There was no bona fide kidnapping plot, not one that involved Booth and his team anyway. The evidence that it never existed is rock solid and is based on five years of research, study, consideration of the evidence, reason and an understanding of human nature. This is not the place to recite the reasons for the conclusion. Please read Chapter 12 of Decapitating. Then read it again.

If the purpose of the Booth conspiracy was never really kidnapping, and that fact was known to its leaders, i.e. Booth, Surratt and Powell, then it was almost certainly known to its enablers, i.e. Mrs. Surratt and Dr. Mudd, as well as Booth's government and Secret Service contacts who were meeting with him, encouraging him, instructing him and, above all, financing him, all of which has ample evidence to support it. Mrs. Surratt did not have to be "told" anything. She was part of the Confederate underground going back to tavern days (1862, when her husband was postmaster) and may very well have purchased the boardinghouse pursuant to her superiors' instruction for the purpose of establishing a safe house for Confederate agents, operatives, blockade runners, etc., in Washington. As for the details that establish Mrs. Surratt's guilt in the conspiracy to kill, beyond a reasonable doubt, see pages 60-68 of Decapitating.

John