Scientist Loses Bid to Exhume Explorer
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ATLANTA — The National Park Service on Monday rejected a forensic scientist’s request to exhume the body of 19th century explorer Meriwether Lewis.
Scientist James Starrs had sought to prove that Lewis was murdered and did not commit suicide in 1809.
Jerry Belson, director of the National Park Service’s southeast region, said in a letter to Starrs that the exhumation would be inconsistent with policies barring the disturbance of burial sites in national parklands unless threatened with destruction. Lewis is buried along the Natchez Trace Trail in Tennessee.
The exhumation request by Starrs, a professor of law and forensic science at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., had the backing of more than 160 Lewis descendants.
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