Identification of Booth's body

[L Verge]

(11-10-2018 08:07 AM)AussieMick Wrote:  Interesting ... thanks to you Roger and Steve.
The descriptions are very very similar. But one article describes the damaged leg as being the 'right' one , the other says the 'left'. To my mind, that's not unusual. Many people will describe another person's appearance from their own point of view; other people would describe the appearance from the person's point of view. ( Hope I've made that clear)

As for teeth, I notice one article refers to the teeth being perfect (but then that's very subjective ... it doesnt really tell us anything). Another has the identification being by a 'peculiarly plugged tooth'. Of course that does not necessarily mean that there were no other plugged teeth. Just that one of the teeth was peculiarly plugged.

By the way just to comment on some other points that have been raised :
Of course we all know, I think, that ancient dead bodies have been found with many teeth intact in the jaw ... but ... we also know (at least I do) that some of us have managed to lose several teeth in our allotted lifetime.

As for Booth's hair length. Well, I'm old-style and would suggest that the photos I've seen indicate that he didnt visit the barber's very often. Its long. But what's long to one person is normal to another. If he'd been in the army at the same time as me the Sergt would have been screaming "Get yer 'aircut, you 'orrible little man !!!" ... He may even have said that it was a foot long.

It depends on where one starts measuring the hair. If from the crown of one's head to the tip of the hair, a foot does not appear that long. However, if one only measures from the base of the skull (where the hair starts to flow loosely), a foot appears much longer.

I would also suspect that Booth would have had to have chopped his hair with a straight razor (if at all) during the escape. How skilled would he or Herold be at that? I'm not sure that standard scissors of today were around then -- sewing scissors, yes.

I believe our theorist mentioned an unnamed source a few posts back stating that the left leg was in very poor condition from the knee down. This would be consistent with the Ruggles/Bainbridge statement that they had seen Booth's leg and that it was in very bad shape and might likely have caused his death within a few days. Gangrene, perhaps? It can set in quickly if blood flow is cut off or damaged.

And finally, in reading newspaper reports from those days, one must consider that much of the article could be based on: hearsay, since most reporters were not present at the Arsenal exhumation or at either of the funeral parlors; journalistic "liberties," where some things were thrown in to make the article more interesting to the average reader of that day; and also padding of information in order to make the article longer, since reporters were often paid per line of type. Fake news was not invented in the 21st century, folks.