[The following is in regards to John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln. Apparently, there was some controversy over whether or not he was actually killed!]
After twelve days on the run, Union soldiers surrounded Booth and an accomplice in a Virginia tobacco barn. The accomplice surrendered, but Booth refused, and the barn was set on fire. As the flames rose, he was shot in the back of the neck. Whether this was due to suicide or a soldier firing against orders is unclear.
Some people believe this wasn’t really Booth at all, but another man whose body was passed off as Booth’s The controversy began almost immediately because so much mystery surrounded Booth’s autopsy and burial, but it died down about the time the conspirators’ trial ended – only to flare up again in 1867, 1898, 1903, 1907, 1937, and various times since then.
[…]
Those who believe Booth wasn’t killed disagree on what happened to him after his escape. Some reports said he went to South America. Others believed that he eventually went to Canada and then on to England, where he married Elizabeth Marshall Burnley – a girlfriend he had prior to the assassination – and that he changed his name to John Byron Wilkes. A few insisted he then went on to India, where he died.
But probably the most interesting theory is that he escaped to Kentucky and Tennessee, where in 1872, he married Louisa Payne as “Jno. W. Booth.” It’s said he abandoned her and made his way to Texas using the name John St. Helen. Then he moved on to Oklahoma, where he assumed the name David E. George and where he committed suicide by poison in 1903.
Apparently George confessed to being Booth the previous year to Mrs. E. C. Harper, the wife of a minister, during a suicide attempt. When she read of his death, she revealed the confession, and newspapers began reporting it. A Memphis lawyer names Finis Bates read about this and went to see the body. Bates insisted George was also St. Helen, who he said had confessed to him thirty-one years earlier that he (St. Helen) was Booth. Bates also said he had a photograph of St. Helen that proved he was Booth and George.
Because of the controversy and because no one claimed the body, the undertaker preserved it. Some months later, Bates bought it, and the corpse was displayed in carnivals around the country as Booth’s until it disappeared in 1976. The body was examined by a group of expert medical men and criminologists in 1931, who claimed the fractured leg, broken thumb, and scar on the neck all proved it was the remains of Booth.
[…]
However, almost all historians still believe Booth died near that tobacco barn in 1865.
Source:
Stephens, John Richard. “Eyewitness Reports.” Weird History 101: Tales of Intrigue, Mayhem, and Outrageous Behavior. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2006. 34, 35. Print.
Further Reading:
[John Wilkes Booth] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkes_Booth)
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