ask the experts l articles l discussions l media
recommended reading l about me l links
Meet the Experts
(and join the discussion HERE!)
Expert Bios
Dr. Blaine Houmes
Med school: University of North Dakota
Internship: Cook County Hospital, Chicago
Residency: Emergency Medicine, Cook County Hospital
At that time, this was one of two EM residency training programs emphasizing forensic medicine. We rotated at the Cook County Medical Examiners Office (about one block away), one of the largest in the country. This was way before anyone dreamed up CSI on television, and those shows have caused many sleepless nights and excess stomach acid for prosecuting attorneys and medical examiners across our great nation.
For ten years I was deputy medical examiner in Linn County, Iowa. I was a consultant in the 1995 hearing to exhume the body of John Wilkes Booth. I've taught mini-courses in forensics and lectured on the subject to various medical student as well as EMS/paramedic classes for years.
I've been an emergency physician in Iowa for almost 20 years.
Kate Clifford Larson, PhD., is an historian and author of The Assassin’s Accomplice: Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln (Basic Books, June 2008). With degrees from Simmons College and Northeastern University, and a doctorate in history from the University of New Hampshire, Larson specializes in 19th and 20th century U.S. Women’s and African American History. Dr. Larson is also a leading Harriet Tubman scholar and the author of Bound For the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero (Ballantine/One World, 2004), one of the first non-juvenile Tubman biographies published in six decades. She has been working as a consultant and interpretive specialist for numerous museum, community, and public history initiatives related to Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad in Maryland and New York, and also served as the consulting historian for the National Park Service’s Harriet Tubman Special Resource Study, resulting in the introduction of the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park Act, now awaiting approval in Congress. Dr. Larson has been a guest instructor at numerous professional development workshops for teachers, including National Endowment for the Humanities and Teaching American History programs, on the topics of American Slavery, the Underground Railroad, Abolition, and Harriet Tubman. She teaches at both Simmons College and Wheelock College in Boston.
Steven G. Miller, Steven is a writer and researcher from suburban Chicago-land. He's a long-time member of the Surratt Society, and a frequent contributor to the Surratt Courier. He was called as an expert witness for the defense in the John Wilkes Booth "Exhumation" trial in 1995, where he gave evidence discrediting the supposed witnesses who said the man killed at Garrett's Farm wasn't Booth. Miller has spoken on the assassination to historical societies Buffalo and Plattsburgh, NY, a Booth gathering at Tudor Hall in Bel Air, Maryland and recently asked to give his fifth address to the Surratt Society Assassination Conference in 2010.
Edward Steers, Jr., Dr. Steers was trained as a molecular biologist graduating from the University of Pennsylvania (BS 1959, PhD 1963). He joined the staff of the National Institutes of Health and worked as a biomedical researcher in collaboration with Christian B. Anfinsen (Nobel Prize winner in 1972) until 1984 when he was appointed Deputy Science Director for intramural research in the Diabetes and Digestive Diseases and Kidney Diseases Institute (NIDDK). He retired in 1994 and took up writing fulltime in his favorite avocation, history.
During the past thirteen years Dr. Steers has published four paperback books and four hardcover books dealing with Abraham Lincoln, and the Home Front during World War II.
Dr. Steers has appeared on such programs as BookNotes with Brian Lamb, Hard Cover History on the History Channel, Washington Journal (C-SPAN), as well as C-Span's Book TV and several radio programs (Chicago, Miami, Denver, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Philadelphia, Rochester, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and on PBS Morning Edition with Bob Edwards). As a result of the recognition Blood on the Moon received Dr. Steers has appeared in four television productions on the History Channel dealing with Lincoln’s assassination . He appeared on the Today Show where he was interviewed by Matt Lauer. The book was discussed by Robert Novak on CNN’s Crossfire in conjunction with the case of Dr. Samuel Mudd.
Rob Wick, Rob is a former journalist and has a bachelor's degree in history. He is currently working on a biography of Everton J. Conger, the commander of the expedition which captured John Wilkes Booth. Rob appeared in 2007 on the National Geographic Channel's documentary "The Hunt For Lincoln's Assassin". He also claims to be very good looking! (a claim that I would not even get into).