Phantoms and Monsters

Among the Spirits - Part II
CCTV Captures Meandering Ghost in Cambria Pub
Fortean / Oddball News - 9/14/2010
John Wilkes Booth, Conspirators Curse the Nationals?

Posted: 14 Sep 2010 04:49 PM PDT

"There are an infinite number of universes existing side by side and through which our consciousnesses constantly pass. In these universes, all possibilities exist. You are alive in some, long dead in others, and never existed in still others. Many of our "ghosts" could indeed be visions of people going about their business in a parallel universe or another time...or both." - Paul F. Eno, in Faces at the Window

Last year Irene hosted friends at her house in Wales, including her nieces' boyfriends who, for the most part, were skeptical of the paranormal. Irene decided to hold a brief seance in order to 'stir up' the spirit activity in the house. Then each of the boyfriends sat in the dark parlour for several minutes. The activity is documented in the videos and screen captures. Herbert didn't disappoint...he was very active throughout the sessions. There were at least two children present as well...most likely Myra, Herbert's daughter and Annie, Herbert's wife, who comes forth as a child.

You will notice in the first few seconds of the first video a clear EVP states 'good luck' and the boy on the couch replies 'thank you very much'...though, he later said that he never heard the EVP and doesn't remember responding to anything. In the same video, there are a few interesting anomalies. The first is a bright burst of light in the upper left corner. This is Herbert, who has been in front of the television, checking out the camera. Later on, a 'signature orb' manifests and vanishes near the floor by the boy's shoes. There is significant orb activity throughout the three videos as well as curious 'flashing orbs' which we have yet to explain.

Click for video 1

Click for video 2

Click for video 3

"The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity." – Seneca

In the following excerpt from Irene's yet unedited and unpublished manuscript, she details the social and paranormal history of her house in Wales as well as her relationship with the home's 'spirit family':

"The children had now grown up and Brian and I decided we would move to the countryside which had always been in my blood. Some of the happiest times in my life had been those ones living in my village. The hunt was now on to find a house and now with the technology of the computer it could be done in our spare time. Each evening we would log in and trawl through all the sites advertising homes for sale, houses all over the country but nothing seemed to stand out. If they weren't out of our price range they were either too small or had no garden as such. Month after month and still nothing jumped out at us, there was one house that Brian liked but the first time I saw it well it was way out of our price range. We carried on looking and now every few days this house seemed to crop up on the computer and each time although Brian was drooling over it, we had to turn the idea down. Then one day it was there again and this time the price had been dropped and now the house was within our price range, so there it was. We made the arrangement to see it, couldn't pass it over the deal was too good. 220 miles and 4 hours driving later we pulled up at the address the seller had given us, she had decided to meet us and cut out the estate agent fees. Well that was alright with us. As we sat there in the car opposite the house we could not believe what we were seeing if I say it had the wow factor I would not have been exaggerating, it was fantastic. The double Wrought Iron ornate gates at the end of the drive led the eye up to the house.

A beautiful Edwardian Villa standing in its own grounds with mature trees. We got out of the car and walked through the gates where we were met by the owners who explained that the house had stood empty for a few years. Walking down the side of the house we came into the rear garden, I was blown away by the size of it. To the rear of the garden was acres and acres of rolling fields with cattle grazing, we proceeded to the rear entrance of the house and went inside coming first into the breakfast room with its slate floor that carried through to the kitchen which to me was big enough to hold a party in. Next into the dining room and then into the parlour, off the parlour was another kitchen this would have been the old original one then out into the hallway, here there was a lovely mosaic floor and a sweeping staircase and ornate spindles and newel post. To the right off the hallway was another room, the sitting room with it's big bay window and very ornate ceiling this was obviously the best room in the house. The upstairs mirrored the rooms downstairs with the master bedroom having the bay window.

After the tour of the house we returned to the kitchen to talk and as the conversation was taking place I took my chance to have another peep upstairs. I approached and opened the door to the master bedroom and as I looked over toward the bay window, I saw a young woman with black hair tied up wearing Edwardian clothes standing looking out of the window as if viewing the garden to the front of the house. She was only there for a split second but she was there. Coming down the stair case a rush of cold went through me as if something was running up the staircase and I knew then that the house had at least two ghosts, now I understood why the house had stood empty for a couple of years.

Brian used to travel down from London every weekend to decorate and do work on the house to ready it for us to move in. It was on one such weekend that he had his first experiences of the unusual happenings this house had to offer. As the bedrooms were the first rooms he was working on he had decided that he would use the sitting room downstairs as the room to sleep in. On this particular night he was woken by the bed shaking, as he sat up he realised the whole house was shaking. Getting out of bed, he ran to the window to see if the farm over the way was running some heavy machinery that could be vibrating the house but all was in darkness. Asking the neighbours the next day if they had felt anything strange, he was told no nothing they had all slept well that night. There were no reports on any earth tremors or anything natural that could have caused the house to shake it was just one of those mysteries. The following weekend, early on the Sunday morning as he was lying in his made up bed in the sitting room he was awoken to the sound of a woman singing. He lay there listening for a few minutes before he realised it was coming from the old parlour, the singing was of hymns sung in a chapel.

We moved in a few months later when the house was liveable. I had already told Brian about our two residents but he had not been put off buying the house. Little did I know that the two we had was not the only ones, there was another spirit. That of the daughter who is active in the house also another, the step mother, only she is not with the house all the time but is more a sort of visitor. It's easy to know when she is around as the clanking of pots and pans can be heard as if she is putting stuff away in the cupboard in the old kitchen. There are no pots and pans in this room it is now kept only as a utility room.

Researching we discovered the history of the house; it was built by Herbert Morgan, a Blacksmith and Deacon at the local chapel for his wife Annie. Annie had been to the North to visit family, the year was about 1905. On returning home she begged Herbert to buy a house up there that she had fell in love with. Herbert did not want to leave the village he was born in and so decided to buy some land off of a local farmer and on this land he built for his wife an exact replica of the house she had fallen in love with. The house took some years to build but was finally completed in1910 and Herbert and Annie moved in. As time went by Annie gave birth to a little girl Myra and all was well until when Myra was eight years old Annie fell victim to Tuberculosis and passed away. She was buried at the graveyard of Herbert's chapel.

Herbert was finding it difficult to raise Myra on his own so he asked Gladys, Annie's sister to come and live at the house and help raise Myra. Shortly after Gladys moved in the tongues in the village started wagging and Herbert after a period of time asked Gladys to marry him and become Myra's stepmother. But Herbert's true love was Annie and when Herbert passed he was buried with his beloved Annie down at the chapel and the grave they are in is the only one that has the house name written on the tombstone.

Now we were living in the house and after we had moved in the previous owner handed us a framed photograph that had been in the downstairs toilet and asked us to keep it, saying it must stay with the house even if we were to move again. The photograph was an old sepia one showing a very handsome young man, Herbert about thirty and a pretty dark haired woman Annie, the lady I had first seen upstairs in the bedroom. Standing in front of them was a child of about six or seven this was Myra and the professional family photograph showed them all in Edwardian dress, more then likely the last photograph taken of them as a family. It was the first time that Brian was able to see what they looked like.

It is nothing to see them wandering through the house and Annie has even been seen walking down the drive. We are used to having them around and they don't worry the dogs, so I would be loath having to move them on unless they were causing problems or needed help because they themselves were ready to go. This was their house before ours and it is the love for the house that keeps them here. Sometimes it's not always good to remove something that brings a positive energy to a house as it leaves a door open for something nasty to enter. I believe the energy of my spirits is good for this house and they have helped me on more then one occasion. And I feel safe having them about.

There was a time when I had my mother who is in her eighties come to stay and on one of the nights she was here there was a terrific storm. The wind was blowing a gale and thunder and lightning sounded as if it was direct above the house. Mum was nervous, I found it exciting as the lightning looked fantastic in the sky and the thunder that followed echoed across the valley. It must have hit a power line as all of a sudden all the lights in the house went out. Not knowing how long the power cut would last I made up my mind to find some candles. I knew there were some in the cupboard under the stairs and got up to go and get them, "I am not staying here on my own in the dark" mum said, as she rose to her feet and tried to follow me. I was worried she would fall in the dark so I told her to hold on to my hips as we made our way to the cupboard groping through the dark with only the light of a cigarette lighter. I tried to open the cupboard door but it wouldn't move, it was always sticking and no matter how much I tried I couldn't get it open. By now mum was panicking, suddenly I felt a presence next to me and took my hand off of the door handle and stood back away from the door. I was just about to go and take my mum back to the sitting room, the only light being that of the cigarette lighter when the door of the cupboard flew back with such a force as if yanked open by unseen hands.

It is not uncommon to open the kitchen door and see a small cat like shape flash across the floor into the far corner and disappear. It was known that at one time a cat lived in the kitchen of the house this cat sadly lost its life on the road outside. One cold winter's night I decided to go to bed early as the house was quite chilly, I had just got into bed and was squirming around trying to get comfortable. The door was open and the landing light was on, suddenly I heard what sounded like a cross between a scurrying/flapping noise coming from above me as I looked up I saw what I like to call an astral critter. It was a mass about one foot long, black in colour and at quite a speed travelled across from the doorway along the ceiling and disappeared through the wall on the other side of the room. Getting out of bed I went downstairs to where Brian was watching the television, and re-laid my story to him, his words were "you're tired, your eyes are playing tricks on you" so I left it at that and returned to bed. Roughly a month later Brian was in the sitting room which is situated directly under my bedroom where I had seen my little critter. He was laying on the sofa which was on the same wall as my bed was against upstairs when all of a sudden he heard the noise and saw a small black mass go across the ceiling from the door and disappear through the opposite wall. Now he was a believer of my little critter, his description was exactly the same. The house I know is built on several Ley lines and I believe this little fellow was just a traveller along that particular line. It is said that paranormal entities can and do follow Ley lines.

There was a time when after my daughter in law Della had been out to do some shopping for me she came back and just dropped the change on top of the refrigerator. I didn't bother to move it as it was only coins and left them lying there that night when I went to bed. When I got up in the morning they had been piled neatly on top of one another in size of the coin with all the queens heads facing upwards. I wanted to mention these happenings as during the TV show that was to follow these happenings were re-enacted."

NOTE: Herbert Morgan...B. 1883 D. Sept. 13, 1957 - Annie Morgan...D. Jan 3, 1922 age 38 from tuberculosis - Myra Morgan, daughter 8 year old when mother Annie died B. 1914 - Gladys Morgan, stepmother and aunt to Myra.

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Among the Spirits - Part II

CCTV Captures Meandering Ghost in Cambria Pub

Posted: 14 Sep 2010 01:41 PM PDT

Click for video

thesun - Landlord Andrew Batemen was left stunned when he checked CCTV footage at his pub — and saw a ghost.

The spooky spirit appeared at 18 minutes past midnight in the Wolfe Pub in Penrith, Cumbria, hovered in the air in the deserted bar for 31 seconds and then shot off.

Shocked Andrew, 38, mentioned the footage to staff at the Thomas Cook travel agents next door who said they had also captured ghostly images on their security cameras.

They believe the building was once used as a funeral parlour.

Andrew, who has run the pub for 17 years, said his Patterdale terrier dog Dudley gets scared when passing through the pub's doors.

He added: "I don't believe in ghosts but this freaked me out."

The footage from Thomas Cook, which was shot exactly a week later, shows a computer mouse move of its own accord across a desk.

The office is then bathed in a soft light as the computer monitor switches on.

Moments later a large sign falls from the shop's front window.

Andrew said of the pub CCTV: "I was with a friend and we were looking at the footage from Tuesday, September 1.

"At 18 minutes past midnight the pub was in darkness.

"I was about to turn it off when my mate spotted something strange. On the screen a glowing shape came down from the ceiling into the lounge and floated around the room.

"At one point, it looked as though it were polishing tables, it seemed to pulse and then boom, it then shot off upwards through the wall and ceiling.

"I don't believe in ghosts but this has really freaked me out. I've looked at a still of this thing as it shoots off and I'm sure that I can see a face.

"What's really strange is that something similar was going on next door.

"Our lounge area used to be part of next door, which I've been told was once an undertakers.

"They showed me their footage when I went in to tell them about the CCTV.

"There is nobody near the computer but it just comes on and the whole room starts to glow.

"Then it gets brighter and brighter and a big sign falls out of the front window. It's strange."

Amy Dryden, 22, who works in the Thomas Cook shop, said: "I have found it difficult to sleep since seeing the footage.

"It's scary. This place used to be a funeral parlour and when I go upstairs to where we keep our brochures I often get the feeling that I'm being watched.

"I was amazed when I saw the CCTV from the pub."

Andrew has been visited by a medium who said she could sense 'visitors' from the other side.

Fortean / Oddball News - 9/14/2010

Posted: 14 Sep 2010 09:42 AM PDT

Mothman Festival to Feature Eyewitness Among Speakers

The ninth annual Mothman Festival is set to take over downtown Point Pleasant this weekend.

Aside from several activities, including a pageant, 5K run/walk, hayride and live music, this year's festival will feature several guest speakers. Those speaking at this year's festival primarily have ties to the paranormal world and the Mothman legend.

All guest speaker presentations will take place at the Historic State Theater, located on Main St. Chad Lambert, creator of the Mothman Comic and festival regular, will take the stage first at 10 a.m. Saturday. Following Lambert's presentation several other guest speakers are lined up for the day, including: Joe Clark, founder of Commonwealth Paranormal, 11 a.m.; Alan Caviness, UFO investigator, "Caviness Report," noon; Susan Shephard, author and ghost hunter, 1 p.m.; Rosemary Guiley, author, 2 p.m.; and Tom Ury, Mothman eyewitness, 1966, 3 p.m.

A special screening of the "Eyes of Mothman" movie also is set for Saturday. The screening will take place at 4 p.m. and will feature a question and answer session with Matt Pellowski. Sunday's festival activities will feature more guest speakers as well, including: Christa Carr, West Virginia State Social Studies Fair project winner, "Mothman," noon; Ericca Cordier, author of "Mothman Returns," 1 p.m.; Kurt McCoy, author of "White Things," 2 p.m.; and Andy Colvin, author and Mothman photographer, 3 p.m.

In addition to guest speakers, festival-goers will have an opportunity to meet with the original Mothman eyewitnesses on Saturday from 1-3 p.m.

For more information on the Mothman Festival or for a complete schedule of events, visit the Web site, www.mothmanfestival.com.

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Russian Scientist Claims Anti-Aging Drug Proven To Work

RT - A Russian scientist says he has beaten the problem of aging and in just a few years the medicine that stops it will go on sale.

Professor Vladimir Skulachev says he managed to find an anti-oxidant that stops the gradual deterioration of health caused by age.

It looks complicated and it certainly is. For Vladimir Skulachev it is almost a life's work. Two more years of testing and the doctor thinks he will have finally cracked the enigma of aging.

Apparently it's all about how oxygen reacts in the body.

"99% of the time oxygen turns into harmless water, but there's that one percent that turns into a super-oxide that later turns into very poisonous elements," Vladimir Skulachev, Professor of Bioenergetics, reveals. "So the task was to find an anti-oxidant that stops that process."

And hence, according to the professor, it would also stop people from getting old.

He has been working to prefect his treatment for more than 40 years. The difficult part of the process has been to try and prevent any side-effects, he notes.

Colleagues around the world think Dr Skulachev is on to something.

Nobel Prize winner Dr. Gunter Blobel, M.D., Ph.D. at Rockefeller University, believes Skulachev's theories look very realistic.

"It has been shown that oxidative damage is huge. But we do not have an anti-oxidant of the type that Skulachev has developed. He coined the term bioenergetics. He is clearly the world's best bio-chemist and bio-energetic scientist," Blobel stated.

The compound has already undergone animal testing and the results appear promising.

Rats that have been given the drug are much more lively than those not treated.

"Finally, we hope that we will manage to convince people that a single pill treats many threats of aging. So, it must be doing something with the aging itself," Maksim Skulachev Cand. Sc. (Biology) explains. "Then, if authorities will accept this logic, maybe we could somehow market it as anti-aging drug."

After success with eye drops in animals, the inventor tried the medicine on his own cataract. Six months later, his physician told him his cataract was gone.

Thousands are queuing to take part in the clinical trials, which have just begun. But it will be a few years before Dr Skulachev's discovery reaches the shelves of an average pharmacy.

Some have already dubbed the drug a panacea. And if it lives up to its promise, the treatment should have an effect on the diseases of aging and bring with it the prospect of a longer and better quality of life.

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Male Genitals Sold Outside Bank

IOL - Kenyan police on Monday said they arrested a mortuary attendant and a hearse driver for trying to sell male genitals outside a bank in Nairobi.

Following a tip-off, police nabbed the unidentified pair while they were waiting for their client outside the bank.

"We received a tip-off and laid an ambush and that is when we arrested these two gentlemen just as they were trying to sell the male private parts," said Johana Cheboi, a police official, displaying the genitals wrapped in a green plastic bag.

Another police official said the men were cooperating.

"They have told us how it all started and have even agreed to take us to the mortuary to show us the body from where they chopped off these private parts," said the official who did not want to be named.

Selling of human body parts is rare in Kenya although belief in witchcraft is widespread.

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School Suspends Crying Son of Murdered Man Because His Eyes Were Red

A high school in the town of Trophy Club, TX suspended a 16-year-old boy because he came to school with bloodshot eyes. School administrators say that's enough to make the case he was using marijuana.

When the boy's mother called the school to explain that the boy had been crying because his father had been murdered, the school said the boy could return to school, provided the boy pass a drug test.

He took the test, and was allowed to return to school.

The boy's mother says she is trying to get the district to remove the suspension from his permanent record. Administrators told her she must go through the formal appeals process for that to happen.

And that's how it works in the happy hamlet of Trophy Club, TX.

NOTE: I can surely relate to this incident. One morning, during my son's junior year in high school, I get a call from the assistant principal. He tells me my son is 'under the influence of cocaine.' So, I rush to the school and led into a conference room where my son is sitting (and looking totally disgusted)...the vice principal follows me in. So I ask him where is his proof my son is using cocaine. His response was that his 'eyes are bloodshot.' I ask him if my son explained that he had been sick (and had a doctor's note) the last few days, even though he only missed one day of class. His response...'well, you'll need to clear it with the school nurse', then walked out and refused to answer anymore questions. BTW, the school nurse was also perturbed and told me that this wasn't the first time this happened. I filed complaints with the school board but didn't receive any satisfaction though, the vice principal was let go before the next school year...Lon

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Another UFO Shutdowns Chinese Airport

shanghaidaily - The appearance of an unidentified flying object had forced an airport in Baotou in Inner Mongolia to delay the landing of three planes by nearly an hour on Saturday night.

The UFO, the third reported in China so far this year, was seen hovering about four kilometers east of the Baotou airport at 8pm, the online news portal Dbw.cn reported today.

Airport officials immediately called off the landing of three flights from Shanghai and Beijing at 9:14pm out of safety concerns. Another two planes were ordered to land in neighboring Ordos Airport and Taiyuan Airport.

The airport operation went back to normal by 10pm, the report said. But officials gave no further details about the object.

Fortean / Oddball News - 9/14/2010

John Wilkes Booth, Conspirators Curse the Nationals?

Posted: 14 Sep 2010 07:36 AM PDT

yahoo - The Chicago Cubs have the curse of the billy goat and the Boston Red Sox had the curse of the Bambino.

Might the Washington Nationals be cursed by the ghosts of John Wilkes Booth and the conspirators who helped him in his plan to assassinate Abraham Lincoln in 1865?

That's what Mark Greenbaum and David O'Leary are suggesting in a Baltimore Sun op-ed while pointing out that the relatively new Nationals Park rests near land where Booth's body was once buried and where four of his conspirators — Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold and George Atzerodt — met their fate on the gallows.

From the Sun:

"While the Nationals' woes can be traced to a legacy of administrative incompetence and player failures, the team's location at the Washington Navy Yard should also be considered as a source of their ineptitude. Nationals Park sits directly on an infamous stretch of the Anacostia River where authorities conducted the autopsy of John Wilkes Booth on the ironclad U.S.S. Montauk anchored at the Navy Yard. Next door at Fort McNair, Booth's co-conspirators were held and tried at the country's first federal penitentiary, and four of them were hanged there in July 1865. Booth himself was buried there until his remains were later moved.

"Nestled beside where Lincoln's killers were executed, the placement of the stadium may have unwittingly exposed the Nationals to the conspirators' vengeful ghosts."

So are the ghosts responsible for the Tommy John surgery that Our American Phenom (aka Stephen Strasburg) needed after injuring his elbow in August? With tongue planted firmly in cheek, Greenbaum and O'Leary — who both live in the ballpark's neighborhood — believe that may be the case and cite Lincoln's interest in early forms of baseball as a natural tie-in.

Of course, they and the rest of us acknowledge that the real reasons for the Nationals' failures come in Triple A-level pitching staffs, unfortunate injuries and the front-office foibles that date back to the Jim Bowden era.

Still, it's a bit ghoulish to learn that the Nationals Park is located so closely to where some of America's most infamous met their deserved fate. Bryce Harper, beware!

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JOHN WILKES BOOTH'S AUTOPSY

John Wilkes Booth died at about sunrise on Wednesday, April 26, 1865, on the porch of Richard Garrett's house near Port Royal, Virginia. Sergeant Boston Corbett had shot him through the neck. As Dr. Edward Steers, Jr. writes in The Escape & Capture of John Wilkes Booth, "All the evidence to date suggests that he (Corbett) was in the right position at the right time, and he acted from the belief that he was doing exactly what was expected of a soldier facing the enemy." At about 8:30 A.M. Booth's remains were sewn up in a horse blanket and placed on a wide plank that served as a stretcher. An old market wagon was obtained nearby, and the body was placed in the wagon. Using the wagon the body was taken to Belle Plain. There it was hoisted up the side and swung upon the deck of a steamer named the John S. Ide and transported up the Potomac River to Alexandria where it was transferred to a government tugboat. The tugboat carried the remains of Abraham Lincoln's assassin to the Washington Navy Yard, and the corpse was placed aboard the monitor Montauk at 1:45 A.M. on Thursday, April 27.

Once aboard the Montauk Booth's remains were laid out on an improvised bier (a rough carpenter's bench). The horse blanket was removed, and a tarpaulin was placed over the body. A number of witnesses were called to identify the body.

Within a short time, several people who knew Booth personally positively identified the body which was haggard from 12 days of riding, rowing, and hiding in underbrush. One of these people was Dr. John Frederick May. Some time prior to the assassination, Dr. May had removed a large fibroid tumor from Booth's neck. Dr. May found a scar from his operation on the corpse's neck exactly where it should have been. Booth's dentist, Dr. William Merrill, who had filled two teeth for Booth shortly before the assassination, pried open the corpse's mouth and positively identified his fillings. Charles Dawson, the clerk at the National Hotel where Booth was staying, examined the remains, saying "I distinctly recognize it as the body of J. Wilkes Booth - first, from the general appearance, next, from the India-ink letters, 'J.W.B.,' on his wrist, which I had very frequently noticed, and then by a scar on the neck. I also recognize the vest as that of J. Wilkes Booth." (As a boy Booth had his initials indelibly tattooed on the back of his left hand between his thumb and forefinger.) Seaton Munroe, a prominent Washington attorney who knew Booth, viewed the body and said that he "was very familiar with his (Booth's) face and distinctly recognize it." Alexander Gardner, a well-known Washington photographer, and his assistant, Timothy H. O'Sullivan, were also among those called to the Montauk to identify Booth's corpse. After photographing the body the plates were confiscated by the military and taken directly to Edwin Stanton. These photos have never surfaced.

Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes and Dr. Joseph Janvier Woodward performed John Wilkes Booth's autopsy aboard the Montauk. On April 27, 1865, Dr. Barnes wrote the following account to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton:

Sir,

I have the honor to report that in compliance with your orders, assisted by Dr. Woodward, USA, I made at 2 PM this day, a postmortem examination of the body of J. Wilkes Booth, lying on board the Monitor Montauk off the Navy Yard.

The left leg and foot were encased in an appliance of splints and bandages, upon the removal of which, a fracture of the fibula (small bone of the leg) 3 inches above the ankle joint, accompanied by considerable ecchymosis, was discovered.

The cause of death was a gun shot wound in the neck - the ball entering just behind the sterno-cleido muscle - 2 1/2 inches above the clavicle - passing through the bony bridge of fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae - severing the spinal chord (sic) and passing out through the body of the sterno-cleido of right side, 3 inches above the clavicle.

Paralysis of the entire body was immediate, and all the horrors of consciousness of suffering and death must have been present to the assassin during the two hours he lingered.

Dr. Woodward wrote the following detailed account of the autopsy:

Case JWB: Was killed April 26, 1865, by a conoidal pistol ball, fired at the distance of a few yards, from a cavalry revolver. The missile perforated the base of the right lamina of the 4th lumbar vertebra, fracturing it longitudinally and separating it by a fissure from the spinous process, at the same time fracturing the 5th vertebra through its pedicle, and involving that transverse process. The projectile then transversed the spinal canal almost horizontally but with a slight inclination downward and backward, perforating the cord which was found much torn and discolored with blood (see Specimen 4087 Sect. I AMM). The ball then shattered the bases of the left 4th and 5th laminae, driving bony fragments among the muscles, and made its exit at the left side of the neck, nearly opposite the point of entrance. It avoided the 2nd and 3rd cervical nerves. These facts were determined at autopsy which was made on April 28. Immediately after the reception of the injury, there was very general paralysis. The phrenic nerves performed their function, but the respiration was diaphragmatic, of course, labored and slow. Deglutition was impracticable, and one or two attempts at articulation were unintelligible. Death, from asphyxia, took place about two hours after the reception of the injury.

Booth's third, fourth, and fifth cervical vertebrae, which were removed during his autopsy, are housed (not on public display) at the National Museum of Health and Medicine at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. An additional fragment from Booth's autopsy (tissue possibly cleaned off the cervical vertebrae) is in a bottle in the Mutter Medical Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. At Secretary of War Edwin Stanton's order Booth's body was buried in the Old Penitentiary on the Washington Arsenal grounds in what is now Ft. Lesley J. McNair. It was taken there by boat. A grave was dug beneath the prison floor, and the remains, wrapped in an army blanket, were lowered in a gun box into the hole and covered by a stone slab.

In 1867 the body was exhumed and reburied in a pine box in a locked storeroom in Warehouse I at the prison. The corpse was again positively identified in 1869 when Booth's remains were exhumed and released by the government to the Booth family. At that time an inquest was held at Harvey and Marr's Parlor in Washington. It was noted that due to the nature of Booth's wound and autopsy and a generalized decaying of the remains, the skull had become detached from the body.

Booth's corpse was then taken to Baltimore for burial and was positively identified by many people including John T. Ford, Henry Clay Ford, and several members of the Booth family. The body was buried in the Booth family plot in Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore on Saturday, June 26, 1869. John Wilkes Booth's individual grave is unmarked at the request of the Booth family. On p. 376 (note 27) of Stanley Kimmel's The Mad Booths of Maryland, it states "Henry W. Mears, a young man at the time of Wilkes' burial, who became a Baltimore undertaker and occupied the building formerly used by Weaver, later recalled: "I saw the body of John Wilkes Booth lowered into the grave, and for many years had charge of the lot. While Edwin Booth was alive he evidenced a desire to beautify it, and sent for me to arrange the details. Each grave was discussed, but when that of John Wilkes Booth attracted his attention he turned to me and said, "Let it remain as it is -- unmarked."

In October 1994 a petition was filed in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City to exhume John Wilkes Booth's remains from Green Mount Cemetery. The petitioners were people who identified themselves as Booth's relatives. The cemetery argued that its solemn duty was to protect the sanctity of those interred unless there was overwhelming evidence that the body buried there was not Booth's. Judge Joseph H.H. Kaplan ruled that the evidence for exhumation was insufficient. The Court of Special Appeals in Annapolis upheld his 1996 decision. - Abraham Lincoln's Assassination

John Wilkes Booth, Conspirators Curse the Nationals?

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