Drawing of Booth Body

[mikegriffith1]

(11-12-2018 10:33 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  IMO, Gene is correct. Dawson answered what was asked of him, and made a positive identification. He wasn't asked about how many scars or freckles the dead body had. To me it's a short, straightforward examination of a man who had seen John Wilkes Booth two weeks beforehand. During the John Surratt trial Dawson was asked if he knew Booth well. Dawson replied, "I saw him a great number of times in the course of two years."

I just don't understand that response given the issues I presented. That response ignores virtually every problem I pointed out. I would just repeat the problems and questions raised by Dawson's testimony:

* How did Dawson see the neck scar when Dr. May did not notice that scar when he first viewed the body? Dr. May only saw the scar after he asked Dr. Barnes about it and after Barnes showed it to him. So how would Dawson have seen it? How?

* How could Dawson have recognized the body as Booth from its "general appearance" when L. Gardner said everyone was "shocked" at the body's lack of resemblance to Booth, when Dr. May said the body's lineaments bore no resemblance to Booth's, when Dr. May said the body bore no resemblance to Booth, and when Dr. May said that never before had he seen a body undergo such a drastic change in appearance from how it looked in life?

Dr. May saw no "general" resemblance, nor even facial resemblance, and only went along with the Booth identification after he was shown the neck scar.

* How could anyone look at a person's body, a body with a face that was "very much freckled," and say they recognized the body as John Doe from its "general appearance," when John Doe had no freckles? Wouldn't a credible witness make note of this marked difference in appearance? You usually recognize a person by their face--not some common scar on the neck, or their hair color, or their vest, but from their face.

No, Dawson wasn't asked about freckles. He wasn't asked about initials or scars or clothing either, but he mentioned those items. He was asked how he identified the body as Booth. He mentioned the initials, the neck scar, and even the vest. So why did he not mention the scars on the face and arms and the freckles on the face? Answer: Because the body he viewed did not have those scars. You can't just take a witness's word when his testimony is so problematic.

* If Dawson saw JWB initials on the body, why oh why or why did no one else who saw the body--and who was interviewed on the Montauk that day--say anything about them? I keep asking this question, but so far have not seen a response.

I don't care about Montauk witnesses who claimed decades later that they saw the initials--yeah, saw them on the arm, or on the wrist, or the hand (take your pick). Except for Dawson, not a single witness who gave a statement that day, or wrote a report very soon thereafter, said a word about seeing any initials, not even the autopsy doctors, and not even Dr. May.

Surely we can all gather up enough objectivity to admit that if you had been a witness on that boat and you had noticed the initials "JWB" on the body, you would have said something right then and there to the other people viewing the body. Anyone's natural reaction would have been to say, "Hey, look at this. There are the initials 'JWB' on the wrist. Right here." That was crucial, crucial information, much more important than "a big ugly scare" on the back of the neck, which thousands of soldiers likely had.

* So are we to believe that the initials were in fact on the left wrist? I think H. C. Young's statement about the initials, given before anyone knew what they were supposed to say, is much more credible than Dawson's statement, especially given Seaton Munroe's account of what he heard Dawson tell Holt.

* Just because Dawson said that he saw Booth "many times" does not mean that he did, nor does it mean that he would have been in a position to identify the body as Booth. Dawson was a clerk at a popular, major hotel in DC, a hotel where many famous people stayed from time to time. He undoubtedly saw many famous people "many times," and he admitted that he was no more acquainted with Booth than he was with any other guest.

* It strains credulity that Dawson would have recognized the vest as a vest that Booth wore. That's just not credible.

Even a halfway competent lawyer would have followed up with a question like, "Oh, you recognized the vest as Booth's?! How? What features of the vest made it distinguishable and recognizable from other vests?" Saying you recognized the body's vest as John Doe's vest is like saying you recognized a body as John Doe partly on the basis of the suit coat that the body was wearing. Even a recent law school graduate would have been quick to ask how you could be sure that the coat was John Doe's coat. But of course Holt just sat there and accepted Dawson's reply at face value.

* Surely it occurred to Holt, Barnes, Baker, and Bingham that Col. Cobb would be a much more credible witness than any of the other witnesses they had on the boat, since Cobb had known Booth for many years and had seen him less than two weeks earlier.

Read with an ounce of critical thinking, Dawson's claims raise many questions for which there are no good answers. If this had been a trial about the identity of the body on the Montauk, Dawson would have been destroyed on cross-examination.