|
| TIME: |
April
1865 |
| CRIME: |
John
Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln in
the state box at Ford's Theatre in Washington,
DC, jumped onto the stage, and escaped
through the back of the theater -- dramatically
changing the course of our nation's history
with a single bullet. |
| EVIDENCE: |
Booth
dropped his gun in the state box. The
recovered gun was a single-shot pistol
with a black walnut stock inlaid with
silver, manufactured by the Henry Deringer
Company of Philadelphia, PA. It was placed
on display at the Ford's Theatre National
Historic Site in 1940. |
Did
the gun go missing? Possibly. In
1997 -- 132 years after Lincoln's death --
the authenticity of the pistol on display
was called into question when the estate
of a member of a Northeastern U.S. burglary
ring was settled. Members of the ring had
allegedly stolen the original Booth pistol
in the 1960s -- when security at the theater
was less vigilant than it is today -- and
replaced it with a replica.
Who
did the National Park Service call to find
out if they had the real thing or a fake? You
guessed it. The FBI. Specifically, the FBI
Laboratory.
The
lab's assignment? To determine beyond
a reasonable doubt whether the Deringer pistol
displayed at Ford's Theatre was the same
pistol pictured in pre-1960s historical photographs
of the gun.
Let
the tests begin. After a National
Park Police captain hand-carried the firearm
from Ford's Theatre the half-block to FBI
Headquarters -- where our lab was then located
-- the lab's Firearms-Toolmarks Unit conducted
a series of physical analyses of the pistol,
comparing it to other pistols of similar
style and caliber. Because its age and historical
value precluded test-firing it, a dental
material was used to make a cast of the inside
of the barrel and other internal parts. Meanwhile,
the lab's Special Photographic Unit superimposed
images of the Deringer on historical photographs.
The
results? Physical examination revealed
a number of imperfections to the display
pistol that were unique to the firearm. The
most significant was a major crack in the
forestock of the gun, which bore evidence
of previous repair. The cast of the barrel
revealed a counterclockwise rifling (or left
twist), which was unusual for that make of
gun.
Photographic
superimpositions using the Deringer pistol
and images from the 1930s demonstrated a close
correspondence between them, with unique characteristics
such as the crack in the stock, swirl patterns
in the grain of the stock, and pit marks on
the barrel visible in both.
These
and other comparisons led the lab to conclude
that the Deringer pistol displayed at Ford's
Theatre is the real thing, which you can still
see there today.
CASE
CLOSED.
Links: FBI
Laboratory | Ford's
Theatre National Historic Site
|
