What is the latest on the Booth DNA Project?

[L Verge]

I fear that the "Booth escaped" canard will never go away as long as a certain gentleman demands his hour of publicity. I have heard rumors that the mummy will be brought out once again (after being told about 25 years ago that it would never see the light of day again) and that Miss Lucinda's lock of hair might carry a price for cooperating. And on it goes.

All it proves to me is that Americans will always fall for conspiracy theories and that we have no respect for solid historical investigation. That does not bode well for those of us in the history field. And seriously, how many of you on this forum would be delighted to have a reporter stick a microphone in your face and ask your opinion. I bet that 85% of your hands went up!

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Note to Joseph: You know very well that I can no longer climb up on a chair to either change or dust a light bulb, so the hoo doo dust up there will just have to mingle with the rest of the dust in my house! Next time, could you leave behind a genie to do my cooking and cleaning?

BTW folks - he's a Yankee, but he's a nice irritant (most of the time). I love having someone to spar with...

[RJNorton]

It, too is in pretty good shape and some testing was done on it a few years back to determine if there was arsenic in the hair - there was not -- so kill THAT old canard!

Vaughan Shelton wrote that the field glasses that Mary Surratt delivered to John Lloyd contained arsenic that David Herold later put in Booth's whiskey. It wasn't enough to actually kill Booth, and Booth lingered in agony. Was Shelton the only author to write about Booth and arsenic poisoning or were there others?

[KateH.]

The theory that Booth escaped will never die IMO. Not as long as people believe more in theories than cold, hard facts. Should the body in Green Mount truly be that of John Wilkes Booth, it won't quiet anything. Another theory will just appear to negate that finding. The possibilities are endless. We've already had an imposter Booth in the barn and the real Booth dead of arsenic poising. What will be next? Strange crop circles around the Garrett farm that could point to alien abduction? Say hi to Elvis for me

[DanielC]

Interesting article:

http://articles.philly.com/2013-03-30/ne...ly-members

[wsanto]

The Lucinda Holloway lock looks like it was very well cared for and preserved. Not knowing much about DNA testing, I'm wondering how that would work out. I'm against the whole thing, but if it would put an end to this, that would be a good thing. There's nothing worse than an irritating Yankee that won't go away. (At least that's what I've been told.)

Hair does not contain DNA. Hair follicles (the living bit at the base of the strand that grows the hair) do contain DNA. A lock of hair wouldn't contain any follicles as it is typically dead hair clipped from a longer bit of dead hair far above the follicle. Hair that falls out or, even better, is pulled out would have the follicle at the base in order to get DNA.

Dead hair strands can contain arsenic and other substances present in the body at the time it is growing from the follicle.

[J. Beckert]

Thanks, Bill. Looks like the Booth family is running out of options.

[L Verge]

Betty - this is sort of a sidetrack, but what is the provenance on the supposed lock of Booth's hair at the Museum of the Confederacy? Did it come from the Garretts/Holloway piece?

[Rsmyth]

1. Lock of JWB hair donated (unknown date) by Kate Mason Rowland to The Museum of the Confederacy.

Information on the JWB lock of hair supplied by Robert F. Hancock, Director of Collections - The Museum of the Confederacy. In an email from Cathy Wright curator at the museum, she states: Kate Mason Rowland, of Baltimore, Maryland, bequeathed one lock of Booth's hair. Her nephew Stevens T. Mason of Detroit, Michigan presented the bequest. Although the official date of donation has yet to be determined, she died in 1916, so the bequest must have been made that year or sometime soon thereafter.

Author and historian, Kate was the first VP of the Confederate Memorial Literary Society, the parent organization of the MOC and a charter member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

William Key Howard of Caroline County gave his to the MOC in 1927 and was informed then that Rowland had donated her lock of Booth hair in 1916. This information is from The Free Lance – Star, Town and Country Magazine, Saturday, May 28th 1977.

[L Verge]

Thanks, Rich. I guess there is no further "lineage" as to how these folks supposedly came by the locks?

One more point: One of the determinants in Judge Kaplan's decision to deny the exhumation of Booth's body back in the 1990s was the fact that the Booths' grave plot (and several in the area) had been subjected to a great deal of deterioration due to underground water running through it over the years. For those of you who understand DNA, what effect would the multitude of embalmings done on the so-called mummy have on the DNA?

I believe that there are several newspaper interviews with the undertaker in Enid that state that he continued to embalm the body hoping for someone to claim it. If those pickling juices were anything like what Dr. Lattimer used to describe, I would think the DNA would have been corrupted.

[Houmes]

Thanks, Rich. I guess there is no further "lineage" as to how these folks supposedly came by the locks?

One more point: One of the determinants in Judge Kaplan's decision to deny the exhumation of Booth's body back in the 1990s was the fact that the Booths' grave plot (and several in the area) had been subjected to a great deal of deterioration due to underground water running through it over the years. For those of you who understand DNA, what effect would the multitude of embalmings done on the so-called mummy have on the DNA?

I believe that there are several newspaper interviews with the undertaker in Enid that state that he continued to embalm the body hoping for someone to claim it. If those pickling juices were anything like what Dr. Lattimer used to describe, I would think the DNA would have been corrupted.

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Thanks, Rich. I guess there is no further "lineage" as to how these folks supposedly came by the locks?

One more point: One of the determinants in Judge Kaplan's decision to deny the exhumation of Booth's body back in the 1990s was the fact that the Booths' grave plot (and several in the area) had been subjected to a great deal of deterioration due to underground water running through it over the years. For those of you who understand DNA, what effect would the multitude of embalmings done on the so-called mummy have on the DNA?

I believe that there are several newspaper interviews with the undertaker in Enid that state that he continued to embalm the body hoping for someone to claim it. If those pickling juices were anything like what Dr. Lattimer used to describe, I would think the DNA would have been corrupted.

Actually, there are protocols now available for collecting DNA from embalmed specimens. It's a complicated process and few DNA labs can perform it. Formaldehyde turns DNA into a tangled mess, but Booth wasn't embalmed. Mere body decomposition, however, can also deteriorate DNA, even before embalming. Dentine, one of the components inside the tooth, can be used to obtain either mitochondrial DNA or regular DNA. The argument of Judge Kaplan regarding exposure of the body to water was probably speculation. Evidence can still be collected after a considerable amount of time depending upon the type of exposure and amount of decompostion. In fairness, the Booth exhumation case was in 1995, with improved techniques available today.

[L Verge]

I am probably going to regret bringing this topic up again, but has anyone gotten any further word about Orlowek's and Hulme's attempts to gather DNA from Edwin Booth? I just read the following on a news report regarding failed DNA tests from a murder that happened in 1959:

"Testing decades-old DNA can be difficult, said Dr. Michael Baird, the laboratory director of the DNA Diagnostics Center in Ohio.

"He said genetic evidence can degrade over time. How much DNA was retrieved from samples, how it was stored and the conditions it was exposed to all play a role in whether a full DNA profile can be collected.

"He said testing a partial DNA profile would be like looking at a fingerprint that didn't have all the swirls.

"The ability to make a match with an individual would be compromised," Baird said. "It's not uncommon for this to happen with a sample that old."

My point is: If the DNA has degraded in 54 years, what has both Booths' done in over a century? This pretty much is in agreement with what Dr. Houmes posted back in April.

[LincolnMan]

The comments I'm getting from my Lincoln blog indicate that those who believe JWB escaped now believe it even stronger because the whole DNA thing has fallen through apparently.

[L Verge]

I assume that they figure the DNA project fell through because powerful figures in a 150-year-old cover-up conspiracy sabotaged it?

[J. Beckert]

Edwin paid for his brother's crime by bearing the Booth name for 28 years after the fact. I really hope this exhumation effort dies very soon. Personally, I think it would just be a final indignity.

[Jim Garrett]

I believe the status of the project is sort in limbo. There is a very well done video produced by "The Verge" featuring the alternate story and Nate Orlowek. It's on outube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPtfCbmLz2o I emailed Nate a couple of times. He has been in Israel for the summer. I would love it if the story of Booth's escape were true, but.........