Outliers: Bones of contention key to John Wilkes Booth mystery

The National Museum of Health and Medicine could hold the key to answering a controversy that's nearly 150 years old: Is President Lincoln's assassin actually buried in the historic Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore?

According to the official government report, John Wilkes Booth was killed on April 26, 1865, after being surrounded in a barn in Port Royal, Va., 12 days after he shot and killed Lincoln. His body was eventually returned to the Booth family, who buried him in an unmarked grave in the family plot at Green Mount in 1869. But since then, theories have circulated that the man shot in that barn was not Booth and that he had escaped justice. One theory suggests he lived until 1903, when he supposedly committed suicide in Oklahoma.

One way to answer the question would require exhuming the body in Baltimore. Booth's descendants—supported by the Smithsonian Institution, which said it thinks the Booth escape theory is worth a closer look—filed a court case to exhume the body, but that request was denied in 1995. The judge's decision cited possibly severe water damage to the plot, evidence that siblings were buried on top of Booth, and the “less than convincing escape/coverup theory.”

So, how does the National Museum of Health and Medicine fit in? The Silver Spring, Md., museum holds three of Booth's cervical vertebrae, which were kept by the U.S. Army after an autopsy. Given advancements in technology, DNA from the bones of Booth's thespian brother, Edwin, could be compared with DNA from the museum's bones to end the controversy. And a direct descendent has agreed to the exhumation of Edwin Booth, who was buried in Boston.

However, earlier this year, the U.S. Army Medical Command, which is in charge of the museum, denied the request, since a proposed DNA test would require using less than 0.4 grams of the bones. In a letter to Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who helped submit the request, the museum said “the need to preserve these bones for future generations compels us to decline the destructive test.”

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