Experts Looking At Lewis’ Grave Again

A man wanting to exhume the body under the Meriwether Lewis monument will be looking at the monument itself when he visits this weekend.

James E. Starrs, a forensic science professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., knows the marker has sunk about 4 feet into the ground, or about 4 feet of earth has been piled up around it.

He worries that if the marker has been altered, it may have altered the remains below it.

“We want to know if it’s been altered in the above-ground part, or at least the part we can see,” he says.

Starrs and his team want the exhumation as part of an investigation into how Lewis died. He is trying to determine whether Lewis was murdered or committed suicide. Most authorities believe Lewis killed himself.

The National Park Service turned down his request to exhume the body, but now Starrs has relatives of the explorer and a congressman on his side.

He has signed consent forms from 110 of the explorer’s relatives to dig up the body. One, Jane Lewis Henley of Charlottesville, Va., director at-large of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, will join Starrs’ group this weekend.

And he’s gotten the support of U.S. Rep. Bob Clement, D-Tenn., in trying to overturn the park service’s decision.

Clement is expected to meet with Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, possibly as early as January, to pressure the department to change its position.

“It’s critical, if we do get the authority to go forward with the exhumation, that we’re sure the monument we’re dealing with is the monument of 1848,” Starrs said.

That’s the year the original marker was erected.