4.6 • 4.2K Ratings
🗓️ 18 February 2025
⏱️ 48 minutes
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Retired FBI agent and criminal profiler Candice DeLong dives into the infamous case of John Wilkes Booth. Once recognized for his charm, good looks, and talent, Booth cemented himself in history when he shot and killed Abraham Lincoln in 1865 – becoming the first person to ever assassinate an American president. Candice examines how a promising actor became a cold blooded killer, and explains how radicalization and a thirst for fame played a role in his deadly actions.
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0:00.0 | Want to get more from Killer Psyche? |
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0:26.5 | advised. |
0:31.2 | It was April 11, 1865. |
0:39.7 | The Civil War was nearly over. |
0:42.8 | The Union had prevailed. |
0:45.0 | And yet, in the shadow of victory, President Abraham Lincoln spoke of a dream. |
0:51.6 | Not just any dream, a premonition. In his dream, Lincoln described wandering the |
0:58.6 | dimly lit halls of the White House, drawn by the sound of muffled sobs. He followed the mournful |
1:06.7 | echoes until he reached the East Room, and what he saw stopped him cold. A body draped in |
1:15.9 | funeral vestments. Soldiers stood at attention guarding the dead. A sea of mourners surrounded |
1:23.7 | the corpse. Their faces twisted in grief. Lincoln, confused, turned to one of the soldiers |
1:31.6 | and asked, who is dead in the White House? The answer chilled him. The president, the soldier replied. |
1:41.5 | He was killed by an assassin. Lincoln laughed off the vision, insisting that in |
1:48.4 | this dream it was someone else who had died, but the threats against him were real. He had |
1:56.2 | already survived one assassination attempt, the infamous Baltimore plot. |
2:02.6 | Another time a bullet tore through his hat, missing his skull by inches. |
2:09.6 | And now, in the final days of the war, with the Confederacy in ruins, another threat lurked in the shadows. This one would not miss. His name was John Wilkes |
2:23.3 | Booth, an actor, a southern sympathizer. A man who believed Lincoln's death could turn the tide of history. Just three days after Lincoln's prophetic vision, |
2:37.6 | on April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth stepped into Ford's theater with a pistol in hand, |
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