DID JOSEPH RECEIVE FACIAL FRACTURES ?
We need to return to history to help answer this question. There are
several eyewitness accounts recording that Joseph fell on his head/face
from the second story of the Carthage Jail. (see Fig. 7. below)
Fig. 7: An artistic rendering of the martyrdom of Joseph Smith.
Eyewitnesses to his murder claim that he fell from the second story of the
Carthage Jail, head first, to the ground.
These eyewitness stories are told from different perspectives that sometimes
contradict each other, but always there are common elements.
One of the most consistent aspects of these stories is that Joseph fell
or jumped out of the Carthage jail window head first, landing on
his head/face and then, as if that weren't enough, he was hit in the face.
The first account is from Willard Richards who was in the room with Joseph
when he went out of the window.:
"Joseph attempted, as the last resort, to leap the same window... when
two balls pierced him from the door, and one entered his right breast from
without, and he fell outward, exclaiming,-"Oh Lord, my God!" As
[Joseph's] feet went out of the window my head went in, the balls
whistling all around. He fell on his left side a dead man."
When we compare the Richard's accounts to the next few, it will become obvious
that his feet went out last or in other words he went out head first,
falling on the ground below.
The second account is from Wm. M. Daniels, an eyewitness. It was published
by John Taylor for the Proprietor in Nauvoo, in 1845:
"He seemed to fall easy and struck partly on his right shoulder and
back, his neck and head reaching the ground a little before his feet.
He rolled instantly on his face. From this position he was taken by a young
man, who sprang to him from the other side of the fence, who held a pewter
knife in his hand... "
The young man with "a pewter knife in his hand" was named William
Webb. Mr. Webb gives a testimony of his version of the death that may give
another reason for the fractured condition of the Prophet's skull:
"The door flew open; I saw two men in the room. We shot at them several
times; at length one of them fell on the floor; the other [Joseph Smith]
jumped out of the window. I ran down the stairs to see where he was. When
I got to him he was trying to get up. He appeared stunned by the fall. I
struck him in the face and said: "Old Jo, damn you, where are you
now!" I then set him up against the well-curb and went away from him.
Signed, Wm. Webb"
Another eyewitness mentions how he saw the young man, Mr. Webb, hit Joseph
in the face:
"It seems to me [Joseph] came out head first, and he was shot
while passing through the window... [On the ground] I think he raised himself
to a sitting position. A young man went up and struck him either with
the end of his gun or a bayonet. "
Several of these accounts also state that after he was hit in the face by
Webb, the mob shot him and he fell over on his face, "a dead man."
Did the Prophet Joseph receive facial fractures at the time of his death?
The historical record shows that he received more than enough trauma to
cause facial fractures. When you combine the historical probability of trauma,
with the fractured condition of the skull as it was found in 1928, one must
concluded, as the Pathologist concluded, "You can come to no other
conclusion than he must have fractured his face at the time of his death."
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