Why Castrated Mad Hatter Murdered Lincoln’s Killer and Was Called a Hero

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Emmy-nominated comedian Jesse Joyce says Lincoln’s assassination by John Wilkes Booth led to very different outcomes for two people forever linked to him—his brother, Edwin, and Booth’s own killer, Boston Corbett.

In his new book, Killing the Guys Who Killed The Guy Who Killed Lincoln, Joyce explores the journeys of Booth’s killer—a mercury-poisoned mad hatter who castrated himself to end up being declared a patriot—and Booth’s own brother, a renowned actor and huge celebrity at the time, who soon became known only by his association to his younger brother.

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“I've always been fascinated by the guy who cut his own balls off with a pair of scissors and then killed John Wilkes Booth. And separately, I was always kind of interested in this one little story that I know that John Wilkes Booth’s brother Edwin once saved Abraham Lincoln’s son’s life,” he said. “I decided they should be a book together. They make a very good kind of pairing to sort of compare and contrast their lives.”

Joyce says Corbett bought into a wild conspiracy that he had actually killed the wrong man and that Booth was alive and well, which prompted him to flee to Kansas, fearful that Lincoln’s killer was coming after him.

Joyce’s book can be found through Scribd.

Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.

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