Identification of Booth's body

[L Verge]

(11-05-2018 09:53 PM)AussieMick Wrote:  

(11-05-2018 05:58 PM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  

(11-03-2018 09:42 PM)AussieMick Wrote:  Mike, you write "Yet, when the mouth of the body at the 1869 identification was examined, only one filling was found. Surely everyone will admit that it would have been extremely hard not to notice the other filling." Theres plenty of reasons why the body apparently only had 1 filling 4 years after demise...
Examples ...

#1 the filling had fallen out and disappeared within the body's remains,

#2 the filling was stolen some time in the 4 years,

#3 one of the fillings was small and with the passage of time and deterioration of the remains it was no longer visible.

One, forensic sources inform us that teeth take 40-50 years to decompose, since they consist of calcium and other hard substances. You can Google it if you don't believe me.

Two, if someone stole the one filling, why would they not have stolen the other filling?

Three, Joseph Booth indicated that the filled tooth was found where the dental chart said it should be. This is important because that chart was obviously drawn before the second filling was done. This would mean that if a filling had fallen out, it would have been the new filling that had done so, which seems unlikely. This would also mean that the tooth thief took the older filling and ignored the new one.

Four, it is very unlikely that any filling back then would have been "small," due to the fact that electric-powered dental drills did not exist yet.

Five, if one of the fillings was small and/or no longer visible (unlikely), or missing, what, then are we to make of the repeated claim that Dr. Merrill came on board the Montauk and identified two fillings in the mouth? And no one at the 1869 viewing, done with a dental chart in hand, mentioned any missing teeth.

Six, supposedly, Dr. Barnes told Col. Clarence Cobb that one of the reasons he was not needed as an identification witness on the Montauk was that Dr. Merrill had identified the body as Booth by identifying the two fillings he had done in Booth's mouth (Francis Wilson, John Wilkes Booth: Fact and Fiction of Lincoln's Assassination, p. 199).

This is interesting because Cobb would have been a credible ID witness, since he had known Booth for years. Cobb had been sent to the Montauk by Paymaster Benjamin Price to help ID the body. But he was turned away and never viewed the body. Did Barnes lie to keep Cobb from seeing the body?

Seven, as mentioned, the filling that was found at the 1869 viewing would have been the older filling, since the other filling was done shortly before the assassination. So the theory that the newer filling had become invisible is illogical and problematic.

Below are articles that I found--in a relatively brief search--that talk about cases where family members were able to identify a loved one’s body after the person had been dead for 24-72 hours and longer. Most of the cases involved bodies that were found outdoors.

I found these articles while trying to find a case where a body’s appearance changed so drastically from life to death that the body bore “no resemblance” to the living person (Dr. May), where people were “shocked” by the body’s lack of resemblance to the living person (L. Gardner), where a doctor who had operated on the person said that “never in a human being had a greater change taken place” between how the body looked in life and in death (Dr. May), where the body’s “lineaments”—distinctive features, especially of the face—bore “no resemblance” to the person in life, and where the body's face became "much" freckled (Dr. May) and "very much freckled" (L. Gardner) after death.

https://www.cecildaily.com/news/state_ne...002e0.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/cri...92d59ac3ec

https://www.wowt.com/home/headlines/52009492.html

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2006/0...-A_YbAUmpI

https://www.kansas.com/news/article1065175.html

https://myfox28columbus.com/news/local/b...creek-lake

https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/loca...76858.html

http://archive.boston.com/news/local/art...immigrant/

https://wearemitu.com/mitu-world/el-chap...-tortured/

https://www.pressreader.com/usa/chicago-...2739898798

http://nj1015.com/missing-womans-car-pul...dy-inside/

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/nyreg...ified.html

Mike , I randomly selected 3 of those links (I am not wasting time on viewing all of them) and they refer to people that have died and the identification of the dead bodies. They make no reference to a body’s appearance changing or not changing drastically one way or the other.
Is there supposed to be some sort of 'evidence' in those links supporting your case?

Also, you write "forensic sources inform us that teeth take 40-50 years to decompose, since they consist of calcium and other hard substances. You can Google it if you don't believe me."

Sorry, its not that I dont believe you ... but you did invite me to check ... so I did. Teeth , according to the Google I did, consist of ...

'four different types of tissue: pulp, dentin, enamel, and cementum.'

another link says "approximately 45% inorganic material (mainly hydroxyapatite), 33% organic material (mainly collagen) and 22% water. Cementum is excreted by cementoblasts within the root of the tooth and is thickest at the root apex"

Calcium is a very important part of teeth ... in the enamel. Which is only one part (a very important one, true) of the tooth. Oh, and you write "calcium and other hard substances" ... My school chemistry told me that calcium is a soft metal. Of course it exists in nature as part of various compounds including enamel and bones.

I think we all know that teeth last a long time after death. But I dont know how long they normally remain in situ ( I think Gene referred to the skull having been dislodged from the body). Obviously it varies.

You also write "Three, Joseph Booth indicated that the filled tooth was found where the dental chart said it should be. This is important because that chart was obviously drawn before the second filling was done. This would mean that if a filling had fallen out, it would have been the new filling that had done so, which seems unlikely. This would also mean that the tooth thief took the older filling and ignored the new one. "

There are so many comments I could make on that ... where to start ...
My fillings (mainly done in the UK, maybe those in the US are better) are notorious for being unreliable ... how good I wonder were they in the 1860's ?
Are you accepting Joseph Booth's identification of the body as being JW Booth?

I doubt that a thief would pick and choose ... he'd grab whatever was easy. "Ignoring" doesnt come into it ... sometimes a large molar filling is more obvious than a tiny canine.

I havent been able to find anything by googling regarding a chart of Booth's dental work, but maybe youre better at research than me.

This link below doesnt seem to have been referred to (recently, that is ... maybe I'm wrong) although I do recall Laurie discussing Booth's relatives and the body's identification :

https://www.courts.state.md.us/data/opin...531s95.pdf

In regards to the court case, I sat through the 4-5 days of the original suit. Very interesting - especially testimony from one forensic anthropologist ... More later.

Coincidentally, I received a call on Friday from Frank Gorman, the lawyer who brilliantly carried the case for Green Mount Cemetery. He had told me months ago that he was writing a book on the case, and it is 95% complete.

I will be meeting with him in December and will also assist in rounding up the good guys who supplied the testimonies and historical facts that sunk the case in the 1990s. And, that work was strong enough to sink it a second time when it went to the Maryland Court of Appeals and three judges (not just one) shot it down.

You can also bet your life that Frank Gorman and his book will be one of the topics at the 2020 Surratt conference (if I don't die from "freckle fever" brought on by this thread)!