Were Joseph & Hyrum’s Skulls Switched in 1928? (Patrick Bishop 2 of 2)

Were Joseph and Hyrum’s skulls switched (misidentified) in 1928? Patrick Bishop answers this mystery!

https://youtu.be/ZVoXwDdNbVk

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Most of us assume the death mask is the closest thing we have to Joseph Smith’s real face. Just open the eyes, the thinking goes, and there he is. Patrick Bishop thought so too, until 25 years of research changed his mind. In Part 2 of our conversation, the producer of Brother Joseph Again makes a bold claim: the true gold standard for Joseph’s likeness isn’t the death mask at all. It’s his skull, and the skulls themselves may have been mixed up for nearly a century.

Joseph & Hyrum Skulls Switched?

When the Smith family graves were exhumed in 1928, nobody knew which body was which. Patrick believes the skulls were misidentified, and the evidence is the wound that killed Hyrum. Hyrum was shot in the face. In one skull, the entire facial structure has collapsed, which Patrick says is exactly what happens when a bullet ruptures the small bones of the face and the flesh later decays.

The other skull is nearly intact, missing only the upper jaw, and when the team overlaid the wound location, there was solid bone right where Hyrum’s injury should be. I’ve heard strong opinions on both sides of this. Lachlan Mackay has told me the skulls were mixed up; Curtis Weber once insisted they weren’t. Patrick says Curtis has since said publicly that his 2008 study was flawed, though Curtis hasn’t endorsed Patrick’s conclusions either.

Then there’s the death mask. Patrick lists the problems: cotton stuffed in the nose, the chin tied up, the weight of the plaster, dehydrated eyes, and injuries Joseph received outside Carthage Jail, which eyewitnesses described in letters, journals and trial minutes. (He’s saving those details for the film.)

The most surprising piece of evidence comes from John Taylor, who knew Joseph well and was with him at the martyrdom. Taylor tried to use the death masks to make a true likeness of Joseph and Hyrum and concluded, “We failed.” Once the masks are matched to the skulls and a few millimeters are adjusted, Patrick says, the face begins to look remarkably like the daguerreotype.