ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Wednesday, June 5, 1996                TAG: 9606050046
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL   PAGE: A-3  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: ANNAPOLIS, MD.
SOURCE: Associated Press 

COURT REJECTS BID TO EXHUME BODY IN BOOTH'S GRAVE

RELATIVES OF LINCOLN'S KILLER had wanted to test a theory that he escaped and that someone else was buried in his place.

An appeals court refused Tuesday to let relatives of John Wilkes Booth open his grave to determine if soldiers who tracked down President Lincoln's assassin shot the wrong man.

Four distant relatives wanted the body exhumed to test a persistent theory that he escaped after the assassination and lived for years under aliases while someone else was buried in his grave.

Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore refused their request, and a lower court upheld its right to control the grave site. That ruling was affirmed Tuesday by a three-judge panel of the Court of Special Appeals, Maryland's second-highest court.

The appeals court opinion by Chief Judge Alan Wilner said there is little doubt Booth is buried in the cemetery.

``Certainly, the Booth family and indeed all students of history should be very disappointed with this ruling,'' said Mark Zaid, the attorney who represented the relatives in their suit against the cemetery.

``This seals, probably forever, not only the alleged grave site of John Wilkes Booth but the opportunity to dispel once and for all the continuing myth surrounding Booth's possible escape,'' he said.

Booth shot Lincoln April 14, 1865, while the president watched a performance in Ford's Theatre in Washington. According to the official account, Booth was tracked to a Virginia farm 12 days later and shot in the neck when he tried to escape from a burning barn.

At court hearings, cemetery officials argued that there is overwhelming evidence that Booth was killed by U.S. troops and buried in an unmarked plot at the request of his family.

Lawyers for the cemetery also said it would be difficult to find the remains, since wet, acidic soil would have done serious damage, and that there is little chance that scientific tests could establish identity.

``I'm very disappointed,'' said Lois Rathbun of Hopkinton, R.I., Booth's great- great-grandniece.

LENGTH: Short :   49 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  (headshot) Booth.