
World’s Greatest Mysteries – Season 1 – Episode 6: Lincoln Assassination: Disgruntled Murderer Or Political Adversaries?
There’s universal agreement that John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. Booth, a recognized actor of his day, was identified by many eyewitnesses as the man who leapt from the presidential box onto the stage of Ford’s Theatre following the sound of a single gunshot. But, that’s where the consensus ends. For more than a hundred and fifty years, there has been a vigorous debate over whether Booth acted with the assistance of a few Confederate sympathizers or if he was part of a larger conspiracy that reached into the highest levels of the government. Did Booth know the president’s bodyguard would be away from his post – next door at a bar? Why was Lincoln denied services of the specific bodyguard he requested for that evening? Why was Booth’s personal diary never produced during the trial of his accused co-conspirators and how did 18 missing pages from that diary turn up years later among the personal papers of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton? This television program addresses the controversy surrounding the first presidential assassination in American history and presents newly discovered evidence questioning whether the wrong people were tried and hanged for the country’s most famous murder.