Identification of Booth's body

[mikegriffith1]

(11-04-2018 12:01 PM)Steve Whitlock Wrote:  

(10-24-2018 05:42 AM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  For those who might be interested, I have uploaded the second edition of my article "Was John Wilkes Booth Killed in 1865?". Here's the URL:

http://miketgriffith.com/files/boothescaped.pdf

Among other things, the second edition addresses the alleged identification of Booth's teeth at the 1869 viewing at Weaver's.

Mike, I'm including a better photo of John Byron Wilkes than the one in your article.

Thank you. Much appreciated. I have replaced the old one with this one.

(11-04-2018 12:01 PM)Steve Whitlock Wrote:  Also, the 2nd photo of John Wilkes Booth appears to show a dark area between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, which is unreadable, but may confirm that's where his initials were were written in India ink, as reported by his sister, among others. I couldn't find a better photo of his left hand.

Or it could just be a shadow. It's just not clear enough to make out anything beyond the image a dark spot. I tried enlarging the photo by several orders of magnification, but that area blurred out at 300% zoom. And if I remember correctly, his sister did not specify which hand, at least not in her book. Did she specify the hand in an interview?

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

(11-05-2018 05:58 PM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  [quote='AussieMick' pid='73709' dateline='1541295732']
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.

[Links snipped--MG]

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.

Uh, that's the whole point. Every article in that list mentions that even after the passage of several days, the families were able to ID the body as their loved ones. So obviously the bodies did not magically become unrecognizable after 24-72 hours and longer. That's the whole point.

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

One, nothing you've said changes the fact that forensic sources state that teeth do not start to decompose for at least 40 years. If your searching was credible, you should have come across this fact.

Two, now you've shifted your argument a bit. I addressed how long teeth last in order to respond to your suggestion that "with the passage of time and deterioration of the remains it was no longer visible."

Now you're talking about how long teeth remain in situ--in this case, how long they stay attached to the jaw.

Three, you seem to be suggesting that perhaps the other filled tooth just happened to be the only tooth that fell out. Why did no one report that a tooth was missing from the mouth of the body? They had a dental chart. Supposedly, the plugged tooth was where it was supposed to be, and no one said anything about any missing teeth.

Four, regarding how long teeth remain in situ, the answer is: a long time. I quote:

So teeth are held in place in your alveolar bone by the periodontal ligament. Bone and ligaments are both constantly broken down and built up by various cells. What normally makes teeth fall out is that something . . . causes an imbalance so there's more breaking down vs building up. When you die these cells also die off so there are no cells around to break down the ligaments (https://www.quora.com/Do-our-teeth-fall-...n-we-die).

And:

Arguably, a person’s teeth are the most durable part of the body after death. Even with ancient skeletons, many of the remains still have teeth intact. However, ancient skeletons are also often well preserved due to very dry or wet environments. Still, remains that are several thousands years old and still sporting a solid smile is a sight to behold.

You may have heard stories of bodies being illegally exhumed in the western era to reclaim gold from teeth (https://klinedentistry.com/happens-teeth-die/).

And:

The reason that you can still find teeth in the jaw bones of the skull even after someone has died is because the teeth have long roots that are attached deep within the bone. When a person is alive, these roots are attached within the bones by lots of little ligaments (called periodontal ligaments). These little ligaments secure the teeth to the bone. When baby teeth are exfoliated, you do not see the roots because when the adult teeth begin to erupt, they resorb the roots of the baby teeth. When a person dies, these periodontal ligaments dry out and undrego a typr of calcification that somewhat fuses the teeth to the bone. Also because teeth (especially molars) have more that one root this helps to physically lock the teeth in place after a person dies (https://sg.answers.yahoo.com/question/in...7AAnlX5z).

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

Now, really, is this a serious question? Surely you understood that I was pointing out reasons that the 1869 identification is problematic, scientifically impossible (hair doesn't grow 10-12 inches after death), and inconsistent with the 1865 identification.

(11-05-2018 09:53 PM)AussieMick Wrote:  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 think the theory that someone stole the missing filling is far fetched, and that it is strained special pleading. The simple fact of the matter is that if the body viewed in 1869 was Booth, there should have been two fillings in the mouth, not just one; the hair should have been 10-12 inches shorter; and there should have been no serious damage near or at the knee (neither Dr. Mudd nor the autopsy doctors described seeing any such damage).

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

I've seen the dental chart mentioned in several sources, including Francis Wilson's book (p. 294) and Theodore Roscoe's book (pp. 528-529).

I think Basil Moxley hit the nail on the head when he said that the Booth family members at the 1869 viewing knew that the body was not Booth but did not want to cause controversy by saying so. They knew that if they failed to ID the body as John Wilkes Booth, they would (1) be subject to the wrath of the War Department and (2) cause an outcry for a new search to find him.

I notice you chose not to opine on why Barnes told Cobb that he was not needed to identify the body partly because Dr. Merrill had supposedly ID'd the body by identifying the two fillings he had done, even though Cobb, unlike the other "witnesses," had known Booth for years and had been sent to help the ID the body.

I actually do agree with the traditionalists who argue that there is UNofficial evidence that Merrill came to the Montauk that day. Yet, there is no trace of his presence or his findings in the official records. Surely even the most ardent traditionalist must know deep down that if Merrill had provided even a semi-solid identification of the body as Booth, his findings would have been included in the official records; he would have been listed as a witness; and Holt would have taken his statement on the Montauk, as he did with the other Montauk witnesses.