The Legend Of John Wilkes Booth

[Houmes]

(02-04-2016 08:19 AM)maharba Wrote:  No access to that book, and the link to Steers expert analysis doesn't work for me, either. I'm guessing that the 'published experts' somehow are able to assess that the eyewitness and direct acquaintance of JWBooth was 'mistaken', but scores of years later...the experts are able to 'clear up the confusion'? The autopsy report is interesting on the man shot in the back, the man in the barn leaning on crutches shot by the coward "Boston" Corbett. But again, Corbett went on to make some money at churches and lectures swearing that God had directed his aim to the exact bullet location behind the ear as Lincoln's wound. It gives me pause to think that this 'born again zealot' Boston Corbett would go to those churches and lie before God and lie ABOUT God to naive folks. The autopsy shows Corbett was lying. And I wonder if the bullet was ever found which hit "Booth"? Or what gun or pistol or rifle that Thomas Corbett used to shoot the man, leaning on his crutches in the back? It's been 151 years later now, wonder when we'll find out what weapon it was the the man was shot with? And the odd comment of '2 hours of suffering and horrors of death'. But the man was paralyzed and likely felt little pain at all, from limbs and body which he could not enervate.

To begin with, your reference to the 1903 newspaper account misspelled the name of the eyewitness: "Morley" was actually Basil E. Moxley, a former doorkeeper at one of Ford's theatres. One could argue that either the journalist or the typesetter made a simple spelling mistake, or had an agenda to hide the eyewitness, or wanted to add color to a sensational story--any of which could compromise the validity of the article.

Eyewitness identification is notoriously inaccurate, especially years later. Google: public.psych.iastate.edu/glwells to read the research of Gary Wells, an internationally known professor of psychology at Iowa State University. He's spent 40 years on memory recall (publishing 175 articles and book chapters along the way) and has been consulted by judges, law enforcement (defense and prosecution) in state/federal criminal cases involving eyewitness memory, crime investigation procedures, and evidence collection. Or contact him, and get an earful.

The report of Surgeon General Barnes is perfunctory, leaving out far more than it contains. In regard to your statement that Booth had no suffering after being shot through the neck, that is undoubtedly incorrect. Google: American Journal of Physical Medicine Rehabilitation 1999 March/April 78(2): 102-7. The authors studied 49 living victims of gunshot wounds to the spinal cord, including complete spinal cord injury (which Booth had), and 54% had complications with pain. A bullet shredding the spinal cord does make you paralyzed and insensitive below the wound site, but one in the neck at the level of Booth's wound fractured parts of the 4th and 5th vertebrae. Bits of bone would be scattered along the bullet wound tract involving superficial nerves above the level of paralysis. Not just pain but sharp, searing pain. Plus, the wound involved the phrenic nerve, which goes down from the spinal cord to the diaphragm and coordinates breathing. No diaphragm action equals no ability to breathe, except by trying to force gulps of air in and then out. Back then all victims like Booth died, from suffocation and not enough oxygen, as well as inability to clear their throats from normal secretions. I'd consider that suffering and a horror.