** NEW DISCOVERY REGARDING BOOTH AUTOPSY PHOTO

[Laurie Verge]

Given Stanton's aversions to dealing with death, I can easily see where he would not want to view the body of the man who had caused so much grief.

As for some other questions: I don't think we can dismiss a 42-year-old's memory as being vague after 25 years compared to other times when the "eyewitnesses" were in their twilight years.

Also, a 17-year-old is going to definitely remember the day that he went with his father and saw the assassin of the President. That would be burned into my memory until I was 42 or older.

I can also see where a photo of that corpse could create problems if it ever saw the light of day. Linda Anderson and I were discussing this about an hour ago. If the corpse didn't look like Booth (which it obviously didn't), the Northerners would immediately claim that the assassin had escaped (just like some of us are speculating now!). On the other hand, if the corpse was in bad condition (which frankly still shocks me that it was that badly decomposed in 24 hours), Southerners would scream that the authorities had desecrated the body (or even that Booth had been brutalized before death). It was a no-win situation to me.

And finally, since we have never found any further evidence to suggest what happened to the photo or anything to document that the photo was actually taken, we have to go with this account until something different can be proven.