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Facebook - WREG On Your Side Investigators
Twitter - @nc3investigates
keli.rabon@wreg.com
(Memphis, TN 2/10/2011) At some point in his class, University of Memphis instructor Doug Cupples will tell his students about the assasination of President Abraham Lincoln and the fate of John Wilkes Booth.
History says Booth was tracked down two weeks later in the tobacco barn of the Garrett Farm, was shot, and died.
But Juanita Keele knows a different story about Booth.
The version that's been passed down by her family for decades didn't end at Garrett's farm.
"I've never read in a history book where they actually told the truth," Keele said.
Keele says Booth escaped Garrett's Farm, changed his name to John St. Helen, moved to Sewanee, TN, and even married her great-aunt, Louisa Payne.
"They were married. He told her then who he was, what his name was, and what he had done," Payne said.
She says St. Helen revealed his real name, John Wilkes Booth, claiming that he was the man who killed Lincoln.
"She insisted them be married under his real name. So they went back to the courthouse in Winchester and filled out their papers again and were remarried," Keele said.
Keele says the proof is in the Franklin County Courthouse. The On Your Side Investigators went there to see for ourselves. We checked the 1873 marriage registry and we found the name "John W. Boothe" married to "Louisa J. Paine."
Not long after they were married, Keele says that John St. Helen and his new bride left Sewanee to claim his reward money for killing President Lincoln.
That reward was supposed to be in Memphis.
- Did John Wilkes Booth live for 40 years after assassinating President Lincoln?
- A Tennessee woman says Booth married her aunt and even lived in Memphis for a time.
- The man who claimed to be Booth was mummified and kept in a Memphis home for decades.
Facebook - WREG On Your Side Investigators
Twitter - @nc3investigates
keli.rabon@wreg.com
(Memphis, TN 2/10/2011) At some point in his class, University of Memphis instructor Doug Cupples will tell his students about the assasination of President Abraham Lincoln and the fate of John Wilkes Booth.
History says Booth was tracked down two weeks later in the tobacco barn of the Garrett Farm, was shot, and died.
But Juanita Keele knows a different story about Booth.
The version that's been passed down by her family for decades didn't end at Garrett's farm.
"I've never read in a history book where they actually told the truth," Keele said.
Keele says Booth escaped Garrett's Farm, changed his name to John St. Helen, moved to Sewanee, TN, and even married her great-aunt, Louisa Payne.
"They were married. He told her then who he was, what his name was, and what he had done," Payne said.
She says St. Helen revealed his real name, John Wilkes Booth, claiming that he was the man who killed Lincoln.
"She insisted them be married under his real name. So they went back to the courthouse in Winchester and filled out their papers again and were remarried," Keele said.
Keele says the proof is in the Franklin County Courthouse. The On Your Side Investigators went there to see for ourselves. We checked the 1873 marriage registry and we found the name "John W. Boothe" married to "Louisa J. Paine."
Not long after they were married, Keele says that John St. Helen and his new bride left Sewanee to claim his reward money for killing President Lincoln.
That reward was supposed to be in Memphis.
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