Evening star., 1944-10-25
BY GEORGE KENNEDY.

1t is John Wilkes Booth. who lie
buried in the Booth plot in Green.
mount Cemetery, Baltimore.
No one who heard William E
Ieahy. prominent member of tn.
District Bar, sum up the evidenc,
last night could have the slightes
doubt about it.
With the members of the Column.
bia Historical Society, some 200 ir
all, sitting in the East Room of the
Hotel Mayfower as if empaneled or
special coroners jury to review the
validity of the original finding, Mr.
Leahy hammered home the facts OF
the case and swept away fiction. He
spent an hour and half in an earn
est presentation in his best court
room manner.
No One Distracted.
Outside newshawks were crying
the carrier plane strike on the Japa-
nese fleet in the Sulu Sea. The
strains of I'll Be Seeing You" fill
tered through the doors from the
dance in the ballroom across the
corridor. But no one was distracted
from the subject of the meeting
WAS j. Wilkes Booths Corpse
Identified?"
Mr.. Leahy recognized that his au-
dlence was familiar with the main
events of the fateful days of April 13
to rs, 1864. He wasted no time with
Booths dramatic posturing after the
crippling leap to the stage. The
mud was soon flying from the heels
OF the hired horse as Booth galloped
down F street, across the Navy Yard
bridge and disappeared into Souths
ern Maryland.
The attorney devoted himself to
the convincing minutiae of evidence.
such as the compass that Thomas
A. Jones fixed for Booth to cross the
Potomac and the candle he gave him
to read it by.
Shot Rang Out.
Soon Mr.. Leahy had the fugitive
In the tobacco barn of the Garrett
farm near Port Royal, Va, the barn
ahlaze and the shot ringing out that
felled the defiant figure within.
Before Booth was buried, Mr.
Leahy said, Washington news
paper, the Constitutional Union,
published by man named Florence,
printed story that the body
brought back from Virginia was not
that of Booth. Since Booths in
terment, Mr.. Leahy said, there has
been a tendency to push the stone
of truth away from his grave"
Three years later, he said, the
LOUISVILLE Journal said that the rec
tor of an Episcopal Church in At
lanta, Ga, was John Wilkes Booth.
The story so persisted that when the
man died in 1891 the New York
Herald sent a reporter to investi-
gate. He found that the rector was
born in Ireland and was living in
Ohio in the exciting days of 1864. ),
Then, said Mr.. Leahy, in 1907 a
Memphis lawyer, Phineas L. Bates.
published book about man named
John st. Helen, bartender in the
Black Hawk Saloon on the Texas
frontier. who had taken Mr.. Bates
out into the loneliness of the prairie
to tell him he was Booth. 1t was a
plausible story, Mr.. Leahy said. st.
Helen recalled many circumstances
OF the assassination And after ST
Helen'S death Mr.. Bates had noted
signs of minor break on the mans
left leg.
Tore Story to Shreds.
Plausible as the story might have
seemed to the gullibles public, Mr..
Leahy with legal skill brought it's in
consistencies to the attention of the
historical society members. He
summoned all the witnesses, six or
seven Of them, who had seen
Booth in Washington on the morn
OF April 13, 1864. st. Helen said he
entered the city at pm. He cited
the pin found on the undershirt en-
graved From Ben B.-to j. w, b.