Abraham Lincoln was watching the play ‘Our American Cousin’, when actor John Wilkes Booth approached the 16th President of the United States and fatally shot him. He assassinated the leader in the hope of reviving the Confederate movement. After he fired the pistol, Mr Booth raced out of the theater and jumped onto a horse, which he rode out to West Virginia. He would eventually be killed after a 12 day manhunt. The subsequent trial saw four people convicted for conspiring to murder Mr Lincoln and all of them hanged for their crimes. But decades after the trial, one police chief cast doubt on the testimonies given during the court proceedings, which he detailed in an unearthed letter. Historian Curtis Lindner told Express.co.uk more about that fateful day and how the murder altered the course of history.