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December 8, 2024

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philalanDecember 21, 2014

Meg ... having seen how a smaller caliber bullet ( 45 Cal.) can knock a person backwards and the Hawkins were 54 Cal it might be your analysis needs review or revision.

Meg StoutDecember 20, 2014

My favorite two stories about Joseph are the way he invited the sheriff and deputy who had pistol-whipped him and arrested him earlier in the week to be his guests of honor. This is alluded to in the Joseph Smith movie, but when you realize the actual brutality of the abuse Joseph had suffered at their hands, his reaction in honoring the men is amazing. The second story has been hidden in plain sight since Joseph's death because John Taylor thought a bullet had pushed him back from the window at Carthage jail. However modern analysis of John Taylor's watch shows that the damage was not caused by a bullet, much less any bullet that could have imparted enough force to stop John Taylor's fall from the window and propel him back to relative safety in the upper story of Carthage jail. If the imagined bullet didn't push John back, how did he avoid the fall and live to tell the tale? The only natural possibility is that Joseph pulled John back from falling out of the window, where John Taylor could have been shot by the same individual who killed Hyrum (a shot that entered Hyrum's back, pierced his body, and shattered his watch - clearly a shot from a rifle, most likely a Hawken rifle with a hair trigger, a shot John Taylor determined must have come from a great distance because it entered the window and hit Hyrum's chest, while a shot from mob members from just below the window would have hit the ceiling). Moments after John was pulled from the window, Joseph was shot simultaneously by bullets from the doorway to the room and a bullet from outside the jail. Just as with Hyrum, the fatal shot came from outside the jail. Thus Joseph's last act was pulling John away from the window through which the fatal bullet that killed Hyrum had flown, in the process putting himself in the line of fire.

ShareeDecember 19, 2014

Very interesting. However, I do think most people know about Emma not liking to clean up after the men had been meeting.

Jean SaintongeDecember 19, 2014

Thank you for this article. I will share it with my Seminary students. A question: What ever happened to the stone box that contained the plates ?

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