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Article: Unearthing Truth About Demise of Lincoln's Assassin; Remains May Be Exhumed
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- May 18, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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Did John Wilkes Booth, President Abraham Lincoln's assassin, die a
fiery death in a Virginia barn at the hands of federal captors 130
years ago, as official history tells us?
Or is the truth more lurid -- a tangled tale of conspiracy and
coverup in which Booth escaped his pursuers and lived to 1903, when
he died a suicide in Oklahoma Territory, as a coterie of revisionists
say may be the case?
That long-held contention underlies an unusual court hearing
started here today by two Booth family members seeking to exhume and
identify the purported remains of John Wilkes Booth buried in 1869 in
Baltimore's venerable Greenmount Cemetery.
Attorneys for the family say they simply want to establish ...