New Development in Booth Case Coming Soon

[Steve Whitlock]

(07-07-2019 08:34 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Perhaps Dr. Chitty will be mentioned at the April 2020 Surratt conference. Frank Gorman, the attorney for Green Mount Cemetery that opposed Dr. Chitty and Nate Orlowek's theories, is writing a book on the court case(s) in the 1990s, and will be one of our speakers at the conference. Surratt House also has the transcripts of the trial.

Thank you for that update! I humbly apologize that I'm unable to spell Verge, as opposed to my spelling of Virge!

A little more for Dr. Chitty:

John Wilkes Booth Mystery

A blog with information on the mystery of John Wilkes Booth, highlighting the theories of Dr. Arthur Ben Chitty about the escape of the murderer into South after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and his death by suicide nearly 40 years after he killed "the best man who ever lived."
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Arthur Ben Chitty and the Mystery of John Wilkes Booth
ARTHUR BEN CHITTY

Arthur Ben Chitty was born in 1914, the first child of Arthur Benjamin Chitty and Hazel Talitha Brown of Jacksonville, Florida.

Educated in the public schools of Jacksonville, Chitty matriculated at the University of the South when he was 16 years old, completing his college studies in English in three years and earning membership in Phi Beta Kappa.

Chitty worked for some years in his father's grocery business before enlisting in the U.S. Navy during World War II and serving as a recruiter stateside. After the war, he was called to the University of the South to serve as its first alumni and public-relations director.

In the summer of 1946, he married Mary Elizabeth Nickinson (Betty Nick), whom he had met while serving at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida; her father, Lt. Commander Edward Phillips Nickinson, had been called out of retirement to be the wartime commander of the naval base. He and his wife enjoyed a richly rewarding intellectual partnership for over 50 years, working together on many historical and literary projects together, he providing the creative flair and questing intellect, and she providing an editor's caution, a librarian's encyclopedic knowledge, and a passion for accuracy.


Posted by Em Turner Chitty at 8:20 PM
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Em Turner Chitty is Dr. Chitty's daughter, and a teacher. She says that it was Booth's signature on his marriage record to Louisa J. Payne that got him interested in the possibility that JWB escaped. If so he must have seen a signature that I haven't seen. All I've seen is a marriage with his name, John W. Booth, on it, written by a clerk, with no accompanying signature. JWB's normal signature would be J. Wilkes Booth.