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Now Available! The TRUTH About Jesse James by Betty Dorsett Duke

Betty Dorsett Duke’s provocative new book, The Truth About Jesse James, makes a convincing case that Jesse James pulled off one of the biggest hoaxes in American history by getting away with his own murder. Despite 1996 DNA results highly touted as proving with a high degree of certainty that Jesse James died and is buried in Kearney, Missouri just as history reports, the author presents findings from her investigation of the 1995 exhumation and subsequent DNA testing showing why they are tainted and proved absolutely nothing. Read more

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Jesse James Couldn't Have Been AKA Thomas Howard if this is true:

Written verbatim from The Letter Box, Golden West magazine, July 1968:

“Dear Editor,

I read your magazines Golden West, and The West, and I like your magazines and the stories of the Old West you publish. I have one question that perhaps some of your readers might be able to answer for me. I have lived at St. Joseph, Missouri, for several years now, and being interested in the story that Jesse James was killed here at St. Joseph, Missouri I was looking through the set of St. Joseph, Missouri, City Directories dating back to the year 1880, and I happened to come across the name and address of Thomas Howard in the 1882 St. Joseph City Directory; I then recalled that some books I had read about Jesse James had contained the statement that Jesse James was using the alias “Thomas Howard” in St. Joseph, Missouri when he was reported in the April, 1882 newspapers to have been killed in St. Joseph, Missouri on April 3, 1882.

What puzzled me was that as I looked through other old St. Joseph, Missouri, City Directories I found that Thomas Howard’s name and address are listed in the St. Joseph, Missouri, City Directories for the years 1882 up to the year 1900. I looked further in the old directories and found that Thomas Howard is listed in the City Directories up to the year 1930. Now, my question is this, if Jesse James was killed in St. Joseph, Missouri, by Robert Ford, on April the 3rd, 1882, then how is it that Thomas Howard is listed as a living resident of St. Joseph, Missouri from 1882 up to 1930? Maybe one reader of your magazines could throw some light on this matter for me. I am interested in the old West, and this matter has made me curious, as you might imagine.

Yours truly,

Mr. James Reid
Rt. #3
St. Joseph, Missouri”

Hoctor Contra James


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Mr. Emmett C. Hoctor conceived the excellent plan to exhume the reported grave of Jesse James in Kearney, Missouri for DNA testing in order to prove, or disprove, the age-old rumor that Bob Ford did not shoot him dead on April 3, 1882 and is not buried where history reports. He chose Prof. James E. Starrs to head the 1995 exhumation project, but now regrets his decision because of Prof. Starrs' unscientific and unprofessional handling of his "baby".

 


Jesse James' great-great-grandson likes gold too...visit Dan Duke's "The Gold Cache" for the latest news on the stock market.

A Welcome from Betty Dorsett Duke, great-granddaughter of the man known in Texas as James Lafayette Courtney:

Thank you for visiting.  I am a great-granddaughter of the man who lived over seventy (70) years of his life using the name of James Lafayette Courtney.  I believe my great-grandfather's true identity was Jesse James--the most famous outlaw in American history.

My main objectives in writing my book and in sponsoring this site are as follows:

1. To establish my great-grandfather's true identity and tell his story.

2. To correct the historically accepted version of the life and death of Jesse James.

After eight years of intensive research, I have unearthed strong circumstantial evidence indicating that Jesse James and James Courtney were one and the same.

However, some are understandably skeptical of my claim because of the 1995 exhumation, and subsequent DNA testing of the purported grave of Jesse James in Kearney, Missouri.  Exhumation project leader, Professor James E. Starrs, touts that those DNA results proved with a 99.7 degree of certainty that Jesse James lies at rest in that questioned grave.  But my investigation of Starrs' findings has yielded a much different conclusion---the 1995 exhumation and subsequent DNA testing proved absolutely nothing because of the following reasons:

1. The questionable origin of the teeth and hair used for DNA testing, and

2. The questionable genealogy of the DNA reference source.

Join me to see what I have discovered in my research and decide for yourself.


"When stemm and tryst James L. Courtney is my heist." 

-James L. Courtney/Jesse James

 

I believe this entry from his diary is just one indication that Grandpa stole the name James L. Courtney.  Stemm: a line of descendants from a particular ancestor.  Tryst:  a prearranged meeting place.  Heist: a robbery. 

 

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