We all knew ex-President Dubya had skeletons in the closet…but the skull of Geronimo? The New York Times is reporting that last week – on the 100th anniversary of the death of Apache warrior Geronimo – his descendants filed suit against Yale University secret society ‘Skull and Bones’, charging that early members of the society robbed his grave in 1918 and have kept his skull in a glass case inside their clubhouse (‘The Tomb’) ever since:
Geronimo died a prisoner of war at Fort Sill, Okla., in 1909. A longstanding tradition among members of Skull and Bones holds that Prescott S. Bush — father of President George Bush and grandfather of President George W. Bush — broke into the grave with some classmates during World War I and made off with the skull, two bones, a bridle and some stirrups, all of which were put on display at the group’s clubhouse in New Haven, known as the Tomb.
The story gained some validity in 2005, when a historian discovered a letter written in 1918 from one Skull and Bones member to another saying the skull had been taken from a grave at Fort Sill along with several pieces of tack for a horse.
As I noted in my book The Guide to Dan Brown’s The Solomon Key, both candidates in the 2004 Presidential election (George W. Bush and John Kerry) were ‘Bonesmen’, and both refused to discuss their membership with the media (and I am amazed that the media went along with that!). Will be interesting to see how this pans out, although it should be noted that I posted a news item about this controversy (sans law suit) almost three years ago here on TDG.
Previously on TDG:
