Lincoln Assassination Artifacts Kept as Evidence
By Nikki Schwab, Washington Whispers
The renovated Ford's Theatre Museum opened to the public this week, and among a slew of "beyond priceless" artifacts, as Ford's Theatre Society Director Paul Tetreault calls them, are John Wilkes Booth's boot, his compass, his appointment book, and some photos of his "girlfriends." What's notable is that these items, which Booth was wearing or had with him after assassinating President Lincoln on April 14, 1865, are in good condition. Even more amazing is that the government, and not historical scavengers, still has them. The reason, says Tetreault: "This was a crime scene, and all of this stuff was confiscated as evidence."
And behind the wall of conspirators' items you'll find the most dramatic Booth item of all—the Deringer pistol that killed the president, which appears to be floating in a simple glass box. Tetreault tells Whispers that the dramatic display was to "highlight, in a way, the elegant simplicity of it."
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Tags: Abraham Lincoln
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Reader Comments
Oh come on...
What are you, an Obama voter?
Lincoln "Crime Scene"...
How curious it is that these elements of "evidence from a crime scene" --an assassination of a president--were preserved,
…while all of the elements of "evidence from a crime scene" in the World Trade Center's WTC 7, 2 & 1, the 85 surveillance videotapes from around the Pentagon, as well as all the debris from "the flying thing" that hit the Pentagon, and the eight-square-mile swath of blown-to-bits aircraft pieces that fell to the ground after being knocked out by air-to-air missiles...
…were NOT preserved. These sites where thousands, then one hundred or so, then less than 100 passengers, respectively (WTC, Pentagon, PA) were murdered/killed/had their lives ended by others.
One certainly would not want to draw any conclusions about any of this, of course, but I'm just sayin'.
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