Scholars, descendants seek answers in explorer's death

Can modern forensic science help solve a 200 year old mystery?

The descendants of famed explorer Meriwether Lewis sure hope so.

The family is seeking permission to exhume his remains in the hopes of shedding light on whether their famous ancestor took his own life in 1809 or was murdered for political reasons.

Lewis, of course, earned national acclaim for the 1804 expedition in which he and William Clark charted the land acquired in the Louisiana Purchase from the Mississippi River all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Upon his return in 1806 Lewis was appointed governor of the Louisiana Territory. In September 1809, Lewis left St. Louis with a small band of travelers for a meeting in Washington, D.C. to answer complaints about his actions as governor. Along the way he became sick from a recurring bout of malaria and stopped off for the night at an inn called Grinder's Stand about 60 miles south of Nashville.

Herein lies the mystery. Nobody knows for sure what happened on the night of Oct. 10.

Lewis was reportedly depressed and feeling suicidal. He excused himself from dinner that night and went to his bedroom. In the predawn hours the innkeeper heard shots ring out. Lewis was found by servants and had gunshot wounds to the head from two flintlock pistols. He died shortly before sunrise.

His death has gone down in history as a suicide. Some historians and scientific experts aren't so sure of that though. Forensic scientist James Starrs of George Washington University believes Lewis was assassinated because the description of the wounds do not suggest suicide.

Starrs and 160 descendants of Lewis who disagree with the historical consensus have been leading a more than decade long effort to get the National Park Service to allow Lewis's body to be exhumed. The explorer is buried on federally controlled land at the Meriwether Lewis National Monument along the Natchez Trace. National Park Service policies prohibit the disturbance of burials in national parklands unless threatened with destruction.

Recently, however, the government has agreed to move forward on the request.

Let's play detective for a minute. Starrs and the family bring up some good points. Lewis is believed to have shot himself twice in the head -- once in the back and once in the side - in an attempt to commit suicide. Other accounts claim he was shot three times including a shot to the forehead. And still others say he cut himself with a razor. But how could a man who was such a good marksman bungle his own death?

Mrs. Grinder, the tavern-keeper's wife, claimed Lewis acted strangely the night before his death. She said Lewis paced about the room talking to himself during dinner and later heard him talking to himself. Mrs. Grinder also said she heard the gunshots and what she believed was someone asking for help and claimed to have seen Lewis through the slit in the door crawling back to his room.

At a 1996 Coroner's inquest held in Hohenwald, Tenn., historians, forensic scientists and experts on everything from firearms to handwriting argued against the suicide theory. Starrs and co-author Kira Gale wrote in their 2009 book "The Death of Meriwether Lewis: A Historic Crime Scene Investigation" that some of the documents pertaining to Lewis's death are lies and identified a key piece of evidence as a forgery. Gale believes Lewis was the victim of a political plot by James Wilkinson, commanding general of the U.S. Army, and John T. Smith, a notorious land speculator, in an attempt to silence Lewis from disclosing a plot to invade Mexico to gain control of its silver mines.

Is it worth all of the fuss? Well, at a minimum, it could help clear up some lingering questions. Then again, it might not. President Zachary Taylor's remains were exhumed and tested for possible arsenic poisoning in 1991. Some believed Taylor was assassinated because he was going to veto the Compromise of 1850. The scientific findings though showed that the level of arsenic in his body was several hundred times lower than they would have been if he had been poisoned.

Either way, it is a fascinating mystery which shows why history still matters.