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Both James O. Hall and Michael Kauffman have addressed this issue fully over the years. I am up to my earlobes at work doing annual reports, etc., but please consult their work to see if it differs in any way from John's. I suspect that the research of those two men was primary in the research that John did. I do know that, when John Fazio first approached me, he was on the same page as Tidwell et al and Come Retribution.

Now, let's set the record straight. As far as Joan Chaconas, my staff historian, and I have been able to find out, those Parker papers (at least some of them) remained in the MPD files into the 20th century. Whether or not they were easy to find - or if anyone searched for them - we do not know.

Both Joan and I joined the Surratt Society in 1975. A few years after that, a friend of my mother sent me a few pieces of Xeroxed files from the case that her deceased husband had received from a colleague. Those pages should be in the Parker files of Mr. Hall at our James O. Hall Research Center. About the same time, Joan met an officer from MPD, who also had part of the files and allowed her to copy them.

As I mentioned much earlier on this forum, about 5-6 years ago, I worked with the now-retired historian for MPD. He told me that the story that continues to make the rounds is that the Parker files were thrown in the trash sometime in the mid-1900s and that an officer retrieved them. That officer is the one who shared his find, but never returned them to MPD since they had been deemed worthy of the trash. I suspect that this officer is the one from whom the pages that both Joan and I saw came. I also suspect that he is deceased by this time.

I continue to support Kauffman's theory that Parker was not assigned to stay with the presidential party - only to get them safely to and from the theater over the streets of the city. Mike also used to explain that other guards may have taken delight in accusing Parker. Unless descendants of the officer who rescued the Parker papers from the circular file come to realize the treasure they have, we may never know the exact wording of the entire police hearing. I suggest we stop speculating.