THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 18, 1995 TAG: 9505180717
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: BALTIMORE LENGTH: Short : 44 lines
Mystery has always shrouded John Wilkes Booth's flight from Washington after he shot President Lincoln.
Army troops tracked him to a Virginia farm 12 days after the assassination, and a soldier shot him in the neck as he tried to flee the burning barn where he had been hiding. But rumors abounded that the actor-turned-assassin escaped and the body that was buried in a Baltimore cemetery wasn't Booth's.
Three women who claim to be Booth's relatives asked a judge Wednesday to allow his body to be exhumed and tested so descendants can know whether a stranger is buried in the family plot.
``I don't believe he's in the grave. I never have,'' said Linda Booth Booth, a Lynchburg woman who claims to be Booth's relative.
Booth's descendants petitioned the court to exhume the body after several historians expressed doubt that his body was in the Baltimore tomb.
``I feel very strongly that my daughter and I should know who is buried in that plot,'' said Lois Rathbun, 44, of Hopkinton, R.I., who says she is Booth's great-great grandniece.
An attorney for Green Mount Cemetery, however, said Booth's body should not be disinterred because it would disturb the remains of at least three siblings who are buried on top of him.
``The family's case is high on publicity and low on legal principles and low on dignity for those laid to rest,'' said Frank Gorman.
Gorman also argued that the descendants fighting for exhumation are not his immediate kin and ``too remote'' to make such a request.
``An exhumation is unlikely to be scientific or conclusive. But even an inconclusive finding would bring exploitation and gain,'' Gorman said.
Testimony before Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Joseph H.H. Kaplan was expected to last at least two days. ILLUSTRATION: John Wilkes Booth
by CNB