"...my Father's hair was not curly."
-Joseph Smith III, March 10th, 1910 letter to The Salt Lake Tribune
The Daniel Larsen Locket, Joseph Smith- or Another Family Line Entirely?
July 2022, a locket was declared as Joseph Smith Junior, by his descendant Lach Mackay in the “Hidden Things Shall Come · to Light: The Visual Image of Joseph Smith Jr.” His relative, a direct descendant of Joseph Smith had found it in locket, passed down by his grandmother. His name was Dan Larsen.
Dan Larsen is quoted a Peggy Fletcher Stack piece, as saying:
“I just knew it was Joseph,” Larsen said this week. “I looked at it for an hour or so with my wife. It was an emotional moment.” It was also a “spiritual confirmation” of a mystical experience Larsen said he had in the Kirtland Temple shortly before converting from the Community of Christ to the LDS Church. “I knew Joseph was with me, I felt his spirit,” he said. “I saw him.” At Long Last, a Photo of Mormon Founder Joseph Smith Emerges, "Lion and Lamb Apologetics, article by Peggy Fletcher Stack.
Joseph Smith Jun.'s Images' team, has spoken and heard from many others who've made similar claims, of seeing Joseph Smith, even one who told them another photograph was the long last item they'd been looking for, only to change her mind when the Larsen Daguerreotype came forward, now it better matched her "vision" she'd had years past. Many others have made similar claims, I know of five people, all but one- do not agreed with Dan's visual assessment and conclusion (the one who does, told me my picture looked like her "vision" of Joseph Smith, in 2019).
Emma J. McCallum's 1875 Double Pose Photographs, Depict her wearing... the Larsen Locket?
As the quote goes, Emma Josepha Smith McCallum was allegedly discussing Emma's Smith's bead necklace, Emma J. notes she "never saw her [Emma Smith Bidamon] wear the watch. When [Emma J.] was a child Gr[andmother] kept it in a drawer of dresser Elbert has got.
Emma [ J.] used to go & look at there and saw [the] watch. Elbert has Gr[andf ]ather
Smith’s leather dressing case.” (Buddy Youngreen, Reflections of Emma: Joseph Smith’s Wife (Orem, Grandin Book Company, 1982), 57.)
Lach Mackay and Romig alleges that Emma J. didn't know the "truth" that is "watch" was the locket Dan Larsen would inherit, of a curly headed male, who appears to be 5 foot 9 inches. The Larsen "team" only shown the image above, of an 18 yo Emma J. with her hand up, NEVER show her 2nd pose, arms DOWN, (same day same fly aways, same wrinkles on her clothes, same lighting) that shows the "locket" flipped around, and what is obvious, this I am 99% sure, is a flat, not curved, watch face. This version is archived on Rick Grunder's old website here: https://web.archive.org/web/20230729200012/http://www.rickgrunder.com/VanNorman/Julia%20Album/julia.htm
1.
The watch back: photograph of Emma J. McCallum, 1875, cropped from the image above, with her right arm up.
2.
Cropped, cropped from the photograph of Emma J. McCallum, 1875, with her arm down, discovered on her FindaGrave page, clearly showing the watch front.
3.
Emma Hale's verified watch, with a unique placement of the hands that are place "bottom heavy", off center, just as the watch Emma J. wore in her photograph above.
The Emma Hale watch, shown to our right, has a similar attachment piece as the Larsen daguerreotype's, however, it is of course, a watch, with a bottom heavy watch base.
Image 3. shows Emma's watch was very corroded (but likely was still shiney in 1875, for some context). We can see there is a visible lower place circle, where the minutes are etched, matching image 2.
Oddly missing are any photographs of the back of Emma Hale's watch. Image 1. matches the other photographs of watch Emma J. wears in the 3 photographs featured The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal, which leads me to conclude Emma Josepha never wore the Larsen Locket, and therefore, no evidence exists of it even being in the Smith family, beyond 1992, when Dan inherited the item from his mother Lois Audentia Smith.
1840s, or post 1850s Locket? Numerous duplicate lockets found, all dated later than the 1840s...
Image of the back of the 2020 discovered locket.
Similar looking Locket that I found in 2023, small deviations in the actual river scene, likely the mold captured the same design of the lines coming outward from the center, the surrounding paisley, and likely an artist ethced the river scene, which likely was the design choice for all of these mass produced lockets.
Rarely seen, front-piece of the 2020 discovered Larsen Locket
2025 a 2nd even closer match is found in ebay, but it states to be "GF" or Gold Filled, and post 1850s
Back of an 1850s+ locket
Front of the 1850s+ ebay locket.
The back of the Larsen Locket, for side-by-side comparison
Front of the Larsen Locket
Ebay Listing Description for the locket above Left (if on a desktop computer)
The item listed above, is still for sale on ebay, and is dated WAY later than 1844, part of this has to with it being "Gold Filled", which was not patented until 1853 by Christopher B. Hughes. The Larsen locket does not appear to be 100% gold, and is of such great similarity to the above locket, it too is post 1853, if not later, making it too late to be an original daguerreotype of Joseph Smith, who died in 1844, before the much more affordable Gold Filled jewelry even existed.
Now, the Larsen locket supporters could claim the item is a copy of the original daguerreotype, just as my carte-de-visite (which was also patented in 1850s), but the claims that this locket has provenance is non-existent. If this was the only issue and the image itself matched the death mask of Joseph Smith, I might have been supportive, but it does not match the death mask, or the verbal descriptions of Joseph Smith Jun.
"Bushy eyebrows", "NOT curly" hair, "long nose", "oblong face"- Verbal Descriptions of Joseph Smith
In 1962, William B. McCarl submitted a thesis, to BYU, having compiled every verbal description of Joseph Smith Junior, he could find in that decade. One letter, written by the eldest son of Joseph and Emma Smith, who took his father's name, Joseph Smith III, wrote the Salt Lake Tribune, critiquing a painting by a new Utah artist, Lewis Ramsey. In one interesting complaint, he stated,
"...the picture represents a curly headed man but my fathers hair was not curly[!]"
It is undeniable, the man in the locket Dan Larsen owns, has extremely curly hair (see highlights in Image 4.), when traced in red, shows actual ringlets have formed on this man's head, and does not fit this description. Also of note, is that curly hair is dominant gene, LINK, and the lack of any the biological children of Joseph Smith having curly hair, is also evidence it's not a photograph of Joseph Smith, simply due to genes, and a lock of Joseph's hair (image 5), shows the lack of curl, although stitched in a loop, 20 or more stands have since broken free, showing almost perfectly straight strands, so unless Joseph sat and let Emma curly his hair with a scalding hot curly iron, this is another person entirely. So, unless Dan's great Grandfather was blind his whole life, as he claimed to have had the daguerreotype of his father, over 25 years (since 1885), or the daguerreotype is most certainly not Joseph Smith; but the dissonances between verbal descriptions of the Prophet and obvious physical characteristics of this daguerreotype do not end there...
The Weekly Gazette of St. Louis Missouri, May 9, 1844 wrote:
"...the prophets most remarkable feature is his eye; not that it is very large or very bright... is shaded and at times almost veiled by the longest thickest light lashes you ever saw belonging to a man the brows are also light and thick indeed precisely of that description called bettle brow."
Benjamin Franklin Johnson described the prophet thus:
“His eyes were shaded by long light eyelashes and bushy eyebrows that were not arched, but ran straight across. The whole arrangement of his eyes, lashes, and brows is said to have produced an unusual or even magnetic effect.”
Note how the author says Joseph Smith Jun. had eyebrows that were "thick indeed" and a "bettle brow", things the Larsen Locket lacks, in fact the Locket Man has very thin eyebrows (zoomed and cropped in Image 5.), no one in their right mind were ever call them "thick".
Parley P. Pratt wrote:
"...his countenance was ever mild, affable, beaming with intelligence and benevolence; mingled with a look of interest and an unconscious smile or cheerfulness and entirely free from all restraint or affectation of gravity..."
My personal opinion is the Locket male sitter is very full of "gravity" in more ways than one, not mild, and certainly far from looking like he's cheerful, but contains a uniform frown on his mouth, no "unconscious smile" to speak of.
4.
5.
6.
Well, if he is not Joseph Smith Jun., who is he?
1st Mary Madison, 2nd Bertha Madison Smith, 3rd, Mary Audentia Smith
Frederick Madison Smith
Picture above is the matriarch of the Smith Household, Bertha Madison Smith, from 1869-1896; she is the grandmother of Lois Smith Larsen, and is of Norwegian descendent. Having following the lineage of Dan Larsen, his last name- Larsen is descended from Denmark, so it could be said much of his ancestry is heavily Scandinavian; this area of northern Europe is known popularly for having "Nordic Curl", men and women abound with natural, beautiful ringlet hair, evident in Bertha Madison Smith and her daughter Mary Audentia Smith, whose hair appears to be a 3c curly, Bertha a 3b. (it should be noted her brother Frederick M. Smith too had very tight curly hair, whereas the children with the other 2 wives of Joseph Smith III, the author has not found this same genetic trait, resulting in the theory the Curly hair was from Bertha, not a Smith Family line.)
What I noticed in studying the life of Jospeh Smith III, the past 7 or so years, is any image I come across of Bertha Madison, her hair is curly and appears to be naturally curly. Picture above is also Mary Audentia Smith Anderson, the sister of Fred M. Smith (the Grandfather of Dan Larsen), and Mary appears to have inherited a very tight curly mane. When I compare this image of Bertha, at 50 years old, to the supposed 38 year old locket man, their similarities are incredible, but when I compared a younger picture of the Great Grandmother of Dan, Mary Madison, the similarity to her unique nasal bridge, eyes, nose and mouth were extremely apparent.
6.
7.
The resemblance between Mary Madison, (Great, Great Grandmother of Dan Larsen), and the Larsen locket image is undeniable; their most striking similarity is the wide and flat upside-down shaped glabella, the space between their eyes, heavy unilateral droopy eyes, thin eyebrows, and short nose.
When I first saw the daguerreotype Mackay claimed was for sure Joseph Smith Jr., in 2022, and analyzed it to the death mask myself, I could not agree it was "Joseph", as the nose was so very different from the death mask of Joseph Smith, the chin too flat (rounded in the artwork and on Joseph's Death mask), and the artwork (from LIFE), which all show a very prominent nasal bridge, protruding from his upper, not lower lash line, and of course, a large protruding nose.
Many, such as Joseph Brickey, have made attempts to alter the skull and death mask of Joseph Smith, to better match the Larsen Locket male sitter. Brickey has made blanket statements, that he has "studied forensics", but has no degree in it, and can reconstruct a face as well as any forensic anthropologist, using the photographs of the skulls. He has spoken at the Joseph Smith Senior Family Reunion, summer of 2024, I will summarize as acknowledging that photography has distortions, but his knowledge of vanishing points, per his article Summer of 2024, in Meridian Magazine, he's claimed to know exactly how the camera distortions changed affected said image, and using a high tech 3-D program, flipped the skull around, and somehow with his art background (vanishing points), he magically make it all disappear, resulting in leveling out the unlevel eyes, that many doctors stated was a true injury Joseph Smith obtains when his left orbital bone was blown out like shattering glass, causing a step deformity, which results to a lowering of the left eye, also seen in the Dibble Death mask of Joseph Smith, and SHOULD be seen in a true photograph of Joseph Smith, as according to Dr. Niles Herrod, a maxillofacial surgeon, this injury was old by 1844 and remodeling on the bone was noted (Dr. Niles Herrod's notes, 1995, "In Search of Joseph"). Brickey removed this injury, in his Meridian Magazine article, which asserts the skull buried as Hyrum Smith- is Joseph's, is not perfect angled facing forward and shows a little more of his right parietal bones than his left, I don't think that caused in any way, shape or form, the left eye to be lower than the right, considering the inferior left eye is on Joseph Smith's death mask, at any and all angles, it's not something that can justifiably removed or made to disappear.
Brickey also changed the Dibble Death mask of Joseph Smith, making the eyes smaller, of course- level (which they are not), nose thinner, eyebrows made to be thinner, lips thinner, cheekbones flatter (allegedly post mortem swelling), yet adding a brow furrow, an expression line not there in reality. When I looked at his final sculpture of Hyrum Smith, the lips oddly were enlarged, eyebrow hair added, whereas Joseph's eyebrows were thinned and his lips were thinned, Joseph's lips has nuances that are seen in artwork from life, which Brickey removed; which thinking critically, why would swelling in Joseph's face result in only his lips decreasing in size, but doing the opposite- increasing the thickness of Hyrum's lips? It's rather odd logic to me.
Scientists CAN and do reconstruct faces from skulls, sometimes with accuracy, sometimes not; however no forensic anthropologist I know would do it from a photograph of a skull, let alone with limited angles. Despite all of these issues, many doctors agree the skull buried as Joseph Smith is Hyrum's and the skull buried as Hyrum is actually Joseph's and when the correct skull is superimposed onto another competitor for photograph of Joseph Smith, the step deformity actually lines up extremely well and that is a CDV of a man, found in a Smith ID family album, authenticated by Gawain Weaver in 2020, as legitimately 1860s, made from photographing an older metal daguerreotype, of a man coincidentlly wearing 1840s clothes, a vest much too similar to one worn by Joseph Smith, with his hair brushed forward (not outward or in ringlets) . This CDV image, fortunately has a photographer's stamp, with the location and name of the photograph, J.S. Bibbins, of Newark, Illinois, which further research has proven 1860s is perfect decade, as that is the height of Joseph Smith III's preaching in that exact county, Kendall County, and Newark/Georgtown, Illinois is mentioned numerous times, even as a place he could go to if he ever got lost, saying he even had friends in that town (mere 10 miles away from his family home, in Plano, Illinois), proving strong provenance, when evidence was also found the Smith descendants were using and aware of this exact copying technique and Emma Smith herself wrote about trying to get this done, early as 1866, video link, with sources attached.
Facial Sketching Comparison Technique
Below I have traced in turquoise the eyes and eyebrows of Joseph Smith, as left as a final physical impression onto his death mask. Of note is the level placement of the bilateral nostrils, cropped just above the eyes, it is obvious Joseph's left eye is lower than his right and his left cheekbone is flattened (described as a step deformity by Dr. Niles Herrod's 1995 notes, when studying the bones and mask of the late Prophet).
8.
9.
nasal bridge
Joseph Smith's death mask nose has been traced in magenta, for better contrast, and superimposed onto the cropped Larsen Locket Male. Some major differences are also seen here, as Joseph had a broken and remodeled nose, (seen in the David Roger's forward facing painting, made from life). Image 10. shows a nasal bridge which sharply angles to his right (medically speaking, from the patient's perspective), then sharping pivots to his left (likely done when the nose was placed, either in the mobbing of 1832 attack, or violent attack by William Smith in 1835), from there Joseph's nose tapers into a wider width, with larger flared nostrils, some have falsely claimed was created by cotton being placed into the nostrils, however the Joseph Smith papers entry on this alleged claim only states cotton soaked in camphor was placed INTO the their bullet wounds, not their nostrils. I have shoved hot wax up my own nostrils, a professional skin therapist, and ripped them out, and been just fine, as have many of my past cliental.
"...he put cotton soaked in camphor, into each wound, and laid the bodies out with fine plain drawers and shirts, <white neckerchiefs> white cotton stockings and white shrouds." LINK to History, 1838–1856, volume F-1 [1 May 1844–8 August 1844]
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11.
Image 11. shows when the complete opposite, a narrowing along the whole of nose, no widening of the nostrils. Being there is no similarity between the nose width, length and he's missing the remodeled, curving to their right nose, this is only adding up in the line of major differences, which exclude the locket as being of Joseph Smith Junior. There exists evidence of the Smith siblings of Joseph Smith, having wider noses, particularly Lucy Smith Millikin, seen below.
Lucy Smith Millikin
Image 12. shows the death mask of Joseph Smith's mouth traced in green, superimposed onto Image 13., cropped version of the Larsen Locket male's mouth. Joseph Smith's "unconscious smile" seems to be a result of a scar, pulling the right side of his mouth, evidence as existing before his death, in the Roger's painting, which will be compared later in this analysis. Image 13. shows a man with the opposite feature, the right side of his mouth droops further down. Image 12. also shows another unique feature seen in the forward facing painting, a thick medial upper lip which curves more sharply upward on the right lateral commissure. We can see their left later commissure lines up, the lower lip is relatively similar in thickness, but image 12. again shows a man with a thicker and larger lower lip overall (lower lip is thicker laterally as well).
Image 13. shows a man with a more straight upper lip which is much thinner than the traced upper lip of Joseph Smith, from Image 12.
12.
13.
According to forensic Anthropologists Teghan Lucas, and Maciej Hennberg, who've taught comparative Anatomy, in Universities, (Henneberg who's been published over 400 times), wrote that the CDV from a Smith ID Family Album is "likely" Joseph Smith and in reference to the Larsen Locket male, they stated the opposite in the January 2023 Issue of the Anthropological Review, LINK:
"Many people have come forth with daguerreotypes claiming to be the prophet, however, none have been conclusively proven to be Joseph Smith Jnr (McCarl 1962). The latest of these claims has been made in 2022 when Ronald Roming and Lachlan Mackay presented a picture found in the locket inherited from Joseph Smith III’s son’s wife. The origins of this image are still discussed, while the similarity of the person depicted on this image to Joseph Smith Jnr is not apparent..." A morphological comparison between a death mask of the American Prophet Joseph Smith and a photograph likely to depict him, Teghan Lucas, Debra Hatfield, Maciej Henneberg.
Lucas and Henneberg were never paid by the owner of the CDV they analyzed, and as non-members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, totally free from bias, meaning they have no emotional or financial sway towards it or the Larsen Locket male. Below, is the death mask of Joseph Smith and the Larsen Locket Male, zoomed out, better showing how unlike Joseph Smith the Larsen Locket male truly is.
The Locket Male is Tall?
Joseph Smith was 6 feet two inches, per accounts published in "The Visual Image of Jospeh Smith". In 2019 talking to Teghan Lucas and Maciej Henneberg, Teghan noted that Spiritus Photograph looked too short to be Joseph Smith; he had done thousands of anthropometric measurements of service members for her 2015 study, and probably could see the average of length with the naked eye. I questioned how she could tell, from a headshot? Using superimposition with my image and the Larsen Locket image, I superimposed images onto tall and short male actors, below you will see the Larsen Locket matched the height of men like Tom Cruise, who is well under six feet.
From this body analysis, I found mid body photographs shows a wider length between shoulders in comparison to head length, of men over 6 feet, and men under 6 feet, of course have shorter necks and narrow shoulders (the forward facing painting itself debunks the Larsen Locket, for it's a man with a very wide shoulders and "big carriage" as many noted in 1844.
Forensic Photoshopping
June of 2023, and in July of 2024, both Joseph Brickey and Curtis G. Weber published either via YouTube or website based publications their studies of the Larsen Daguerreotype. I have analyzed both men's work and noticed a few concerning choices that led me to believe Brickey photoshopped the skull of Joseph Smith to no longer have the step deformity of the left orbital bone (yet believing, like I that the skull buried as Hyrum Smith is truly Joseph's); using a 3-D computer program.
Sutcliffe Maudsley's Military Painting of Joseph Smith Junior, June 1842
A
B
Exhibit B is a screenshot from the June, 2023 Interview Curtis Weber had, with Steve Pynakker published, LINK
Analyzing from top of their head to bottom of the face:
Exhibit A is a high resolution copy of the "better" painting of Joseph Smith in his military uniform, circa 1842, LINK to a 1997 Church News (yes LDS Church News) article, that features what the unaltered up close, super high resolution B&W photograph of the painting, right is the Mormon Book Review's slideshow- "photoshopped" version. First major difference on the hairline is a long strand of hair on the left image is a completely different brush stroke and higher up than what Curtis shows, who sets the hair strand considerable lower (I assume to make it appear to have a less receded hairline), the hair overall is edited, brush strokes ALL changed.
Their eyebrows are extremely different, Maudsley has distinct individual pencil or brush strokes, showing very bushy eyebrows, that thicken on Joseph's RIGHT eyebrow, CW version has thinner, barely there right eyebrow.
Joseph's right eye in Maudsley's unaltered portrait, of Joseph Smith, has two wrinkles that curve upward creating a "nike swoop", which is seen in the right eyebrow of the death mask, and the forward facing painting. Joseph's right eyelashes are blurred, and his expression line is COMPLETELY changed into a straight line, downward angle, unlike the original, but much like the Larsen Daguerreotype. The entire face is essentially repainted, Maudsley used a stippling effect on the skin, whereas Curtis Weber made it look watercolor, totally changing the texture 100%.
Another change is the entire lower half of the face, it has been unaltered so much, it was quite literally impossible to perfectly superimpose the two, which being from a high quality camera, taking a photo of a flat surface, camera distortion is not a major issue when photographing a flat piece of artwork, as it is of a live human/object in 3-D.
Morphing CW edits to Maudsleys painting of JS
David Roger's Forward Facing Painting of Joseph Smith, September 1842
C
D
Exhibit above, C is the photoshopped version by Curtis G. Weber. Exhibit D is the David Roger's Forward facing painting (Circa 1842) unedited.
In the video below, you will see another morphological comparison between Curtis Weber's lighter and tilted version, supposed onto a google stock photograph of the "forward facing painting of Joseph Smith" by David Rogers. Mainly, the biggest change is the hairline, which is clearly photoshop as what we artist call "hard lines" are present (and usually is a good indication of sloppy photoshopping, you can spot if you're ever looking at lying gossip magazines in the food checkout line). CW has widened the hairline a lot, removed the vellus hairs (often lighter than your natural hair, but always along your hairline, receded or not). I saw a lot of minor changes I honestly do not have the time to go through in this short paragraph. Please, watch the superimposition below, the changes are significant from the position of Joseph's left eye, shading on the bridge of the nose is altered some. I rewatched each of these two slides, what he says before the minute point and after, and thought he often has said he changed things, in these cases he did not.
CW Rogers painting edits vs original
Meridian Magazine's Publication of JB Alterations to the Skull AND Death Mask of Joseph Smith
E
In this section, Exhibit E, and associated video shows Joseph Brickey's fun times with photoshop, his edits using the, you know... thousands of dollars 3-D Joseph Smith death mask+ fake 3D of the skull (as a REAL 3D would have done with physical handling of the skulls, which JB has never done, and scans of the skulls in the ground is POSSIBLE- but Brickey in the Meridian Magazine's article, only states he can assume/guess using depth perception/light perception to magically find details of the skull not shown in the photos). In other words, Brickey was left to make up what he could NOT see, at angles he has not seen the skull at and conveniently removed a major HEALED injury to the left orbital region.
Joseph Brickey takes what I call "artistic liberties" to such a degree, all major injuries previous the late professor Dr. Van de Graff, from BYU, and facial surgeon Dr. Niles Herrod- noted were broken and remodeled injuries to specifically the left eye, are very simply vanished.
Curtis Weber, in his June 8th, 2023 interview knew all about the death mask showing a lower left eye socket, saying at 2 hours 25 minutes,
“The eyes in the mask are eyes 24 hours after death, I even think that the left eye might be displaced, it is not symmetrically placed… it might be that that’s a thing that can happen, we can have experts weigh in and say, can this explain why people who have looked closely, like DJ Bawden and say, 'The eyes are too small or are too close together', a combination of a couple of known factors of things that can happen to eyes following death."
Dr. Niles Herrod notes July 9th, 1995 (in the much attacked book, "In Search of Joseph"- for NOT agreeing with CW and Bawden that the Hyrum Smith Skull is actually Joseph's),
""There appears to be a step deformity to the left zygoma viewed at the infraorbital rim, as well as the zygomatical frontal suture, however not evident in the sub-mental view. The bone is intact, as in the buttress of the zygoma. The left zygoma appears less prominentthan the right. Argument could be made that this is a healed zygomatical maxillary fracture."
The mention of a "healed" facture to the left eye, proves that the lower left eye socket was from a healed injury. An example of this specific injury and how it appears in real life, on a real patient, is in this Springer article here:
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-15-1346-6_56
The Zygoma is the bone that you might also call your "cheekbone", but when you look at a skull, like in the above article, you see it acts as the lower orbital bone, as well, and when broken, lower of the eye can occur. See examples below, credit to Springer journal above.
The Larsen Locket shows a man who has very level eye sockets, something Joseph Smith's mask and skull does not show, but a very clear lower set left eye, with broken and remodeled injury to the not only orbital bone, but the zygoma (cheekbone) which according to maxillofacial surgeon Dr. Niles Herrod, is a COMMON injury he's seen and I've read about in scientific journals. My opinion is solidly set on Brickey being totally aware, he worked with Curtis and this would have been discussed, and the ignoring of this very real injury on the death mask is brushed aside with his artistic renderings of the "reconstructed death mask of Joseph Smith", which in the video I will link, I have analyzed and found to be changed in ways that are inspired by nothing more than make the "death mask" look more like the Larsen Locket.
My CDV of Joseph Smith, on the other hand, perfectly matches the injury to the Dibble Death Mask of Joseph Smith, and Joseph's skull. To say perfect sounds obtuse, but when I mean it. When I line up the man sitting in my CDV's face to the death mask and skull, line up the mouths, noses, eyes, I don't need to tilt anything, it simply falls into place like magic, without any heavy photoshopping, only superimposition and sketching on a other layer to point of the details, as I lower the opacity the morphe the images together. Morphological comparisons is standard for facial comparisons, because it brings out the finer details simply sketching cannot, details int eh shadows that create the 3-D images of faces we love and recognize, were are not cartoons walking around, after all!!
The eldest son of Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith III, commissioned a "duplicate" oil painting, copied after the only forward facing painting of Joseph Smith Jun. by David Rogers, (in September 1842), this 1880s-90s duplicate oil painting is completed by artist Victor Kress, house in the Iowa Historical Society. This painting is different from the original, in that the left eye perfectly lines up with the man I believe is Joseph Smith, no tilting involved in this analysis, all I had to do was resize, superimpose and decrease opacity to make them fit together so well; only differing in the spacing between the eyes, which is the same issue with the original in comparison to the Dibble Death mask of the prophet, except the original does not have the inferiorly placed left eye, but right; only Victor Kress's commissioned piece, which per the 3rd Joseph, was "sustained in it's characteristic likeness" to his father by use of the daguerreotype in his possession (The Salt Lake Tribune, March 20th, 1910), so it's easy to conclude that ONLY this painting, start to finish, had the daguerreotype in hand to help the artist get a more accurate result, which result was so impressive to Joseph Smith III, he was asking Utah artists to come and see the painting, on display in Iowa.
Kress's painting of Joseph Smith Jun. looks very similar to the image of the woman above, we can see the displacement of the suspensory ligament of Lockwood, of their left eye and what they call "anti-mongloloid slant". I noticed how the woman has the line dragging down from her left eye, matches the line coming down from Joseph's left eye in the Victor Kress painting. Clearly, Joseph Smith III wanted to see his father's face as he saw it as a child, flawed and injured from past beatings. This Science Direct article better explains this slanting:
"The lateral palpebral ligament is attached to the zygomatic portion of the orbital rim. Displacement of the zygoma carries the palpebral attachment with it and thus produces a dramatic visual deformity. When the zygoma is displaced in an inferior direction, the lateral palpebral ligament is also depressed, causing a downward slope to the fissure (antimongoloid slant) "
In analyzing the Kress portrait to the man in my CDV, I noticed how the left eyebrow also is also slightly less thick, angles upward like in my image I own of him, and his right eyebrow (seen on our left) is the exact same thickness and shape, proving Joseph Smith III was only satisfied with THIS painting as being the best likeness of his father. With a damaged and oxidized daguerreotype of his dad, this painting was completed likely before it sustained worsened damage, by 1910- it is the best he's got (in the son's opinion) and it's the MOST overlooked painting of Joseph Smith likely for it's paint quality (the jacket for example has odd striations that make it look not as quality as the "authentic" portrait).
The video below, you can see my reaction to analyzing the Kress painting to my CDV, in real time (sketching as I screen record, not the most entertaining), start around 38 minutes, to see me analyze the eyebrows as I do above. The Maudsley Portraits and an "unknown" artist's work is analyzed as found to be incredibly supportive to the more than a theory, of my Carte de Visite being of Joseph Smith Junior (copied from his 1844 daguerreotype, same decade Emma Smith's 1845 daguerreotype was too copied, which now is totally damaged from the glass being removed).
Meridian Magazine's article with Don Bradley and JB, they justify changing the "reconstructed death mask of Joseph and Hyrum Smith" by stating the swelling was measured digitally (although accurate scans of the skulls were never done, merely guessed using guessed angle distortion), this claim is debunked by YouTuber and Mortician, Lauren the Mortician, who has seen probably thousands of dead brothers and sisters and made it literally her life- to bring life back into them and she states the opposite is true,
"Once the heart stops, that process stops too, so why do people think that they grow, dehydration, 'Say it with be class, DEHYDRATION' ! After death the human body loses moisture very quickly, the skin begins to shrink, and retract, and when the skin around the hairline or nail beds pulls back, it can appear like the hair and nails are longer, it's an illusion, but they're not actually growing, honestly it's not dramatic... it's just dehydrating doing what dehydration does." ("Mortician Answers Your Morbid Questions", Lauren Frost, YouTube Channel "Lauren the Mortician", February 27th, 2026, 9:26 minutes, https://youtu.be/COfVT8J1gX4?si=yqgS8LeEXVzHfRFr&t=565 )
Lauren the Mortician goes further into detail, in her Mar 30, 2026 video, "People Think This Mannequin Is A Preserved Body | Mortician Explain", saying,
"When we embalm someone, yes, we are trying to restore volume, soften features, make them look more like themselves, because I cannot say this enough, death is dehydrating, everything sinks, everything tightens, everything changes..." ("People Think This Mannequin Is A Preserved Body | Mortician Explains", Lauren Frost, YouTube Channel Lauren the Mortician, Mar 30, 2026, 15:24 minutes)
In contrast, Joseph Brickey, painter turned sculptor states,
"Joseph’s death mask provides significant information about his face, changes that naturally occur after death distort its appearance, as does the weight of the plaster mold on his soft tissues during the creation of the death mask... the death mask image can be modified... removing swelling ... Reversing these effects shows us more of what Joseph and Hyrum looked like in life." https://latterdaysaintmag.com/tag/joseph-brickey/
JB death mask digital images show before and afters of the death masks of Hyrum and Joseph Smith. Hyrum is at times given more volume in the face in the same places Brickey chose to deflate in Joseph's face, claiming his computerized tissue depth markers are to blame of the changes; without a thorough knowledge of actual changes to the face, after death, his changes are wholly inaccurate and subjection, biased, deceptive and deeply flawed. Either the skulls have to disinterred to accomplish this "reconstruction" properly, or forensic anthropologists refuse to make such decisions as this sculptor makes.
Curtis Copying Me
Approx. 2022 is the first time I remember feeling like I did not believe Curtis Weber was an honest guy. He had written an 2008 paper about the Skulls of Hyrum and Joseph Smith Jr., which I had disagreed with all on my own, the moment I finished reading it in 2018, four years prior, and in that four years I had only found one person whom I thought agreed with me, that skulls of Joseph and Hyrum Smith were miss-ID, Joseph Lyons and his brother, "Physical Evidence at Carthage Jail and What It Reveals about the
Assassination of Joseph and Hyrum Smith", with BYU Studies.
2021, I was handed the book "Millions Shall Know Brother Joseph Again", found a lot the was interest, saw notes by actual doctors and found those notes were from an earlier 1995 book, "In Search of Joseph", which was about an attempt to make a 3D image of Joseph Smith. Yes, Shannon Tracy "wrote" the book, but the contents were about him watching four or so men from ZYGOTE media and two doctors, facial experts- anatomy experts- decide which skull really was whose and the DOCTORS concluded the skull buried as Hyrum Smith was Josephs, Shannon Tracy posted their "notes" in his book (at the end, which maybe most people didn't thumb through the pages to see? Lazy much?).
I found 6 doctors agreed with me (I would today know there are 9, but in 2022, I only knew of the 6). I was shocked to see how many people dating back to 1995 and 2008, had medical degrees and agreed with me. For whatever reason, I reread Curtis Weber's paper, from BYU Studies, and found some dishonest things, such as him referring to "In Search of Joseph" being a study conducted by Shannon Michael Tracy, and that Tracy had "ignored the basics of Anatomy", when in reality- Tracy had PAID other men, four from ZYGOTE Media, and it was ZYGOTE Media who recruited Dr. Van de Graff. Dr. Van de Graff wrote books on Anatomy, and in the book it is clear that as ZYGOTE media was waiting on him to decided if the skulls of Joseph and Hyrum were switched, Van de Graff noted that the skull he was seeing as matching the death mask of Joseph smith, buried as Hyrum, had a break on the maxilla, he asked his friend Dr. Niles Herrod, a Maxillofacial surgeon to join and help him analyze the skulls. Shannon Tracy did NOT attempt to write a study on the skulls himself, he PAID men to do that, saying he was the one who concluded the skulls were switched is an outright lie, he thought maybe they were, but it was two Pros who did, not Tracy.
2025 is not the first time Curtis Weber attacked me, publicly, but it was the first time did this on a popular YouTuber's channel, not once, but three times, he made sure he got onto three channels and published a HUGE statement attacking me, falsely claiming that I am not capable of understand "basic fact", saying that I was "delusional" in thinking that I came up with any of the techniques that he was using, and complaining about what I said in 2022, which I had quickly removed, ironically, and had publicly apologized THAT SUMMER, no never mind that (had said he didn't know what he was doing, because he was not trained, not that he was 'incapable of understanding basic facts- THAT is an insult on intelligence and he's just a liar, I'll just said it, he is, CURTIS WEBER HAS A BIG PROBLEM TELLING THE TRUTH).
Below I will share a small number of examples of Curtis Weber copying what I said, YEARS before his 2023 and 2025 "uber popular" slideshows on Mormon Book Reviews, with non-member and "Brigham Young killed Joseph Smith supporter"- YouTuber host- Steven Pynaker.
Around 5:30 minutes in, of my video "Library of Congress Photo, Photograph of a Painting, or of Joseph Smith in Person?", I say,
"No nose is just not realistic to a human face, if you look in the mirror, I mean where you line up, if you took photos and drew a line where your eyes, nose, your mouth and you chin, just by moving your head up and down, it can change where you nose lands. I did a whole video [previously in 2018] showing the death mask, my friend took a "million pictures" at so many different angles of the death mask of Joseph Smith and you can see the nose is higher, higher, higher, as the nose goes up, as the nose goes down... I mean OBVIOUSLY, ya know, but in the painting Joseph is not tilting his head all the way down, maybe it was possible he was really depressed and had his chin down going, "go ahead and do a painting" and maybe that's how it lined up "off", but when you look at the painting, it looks like it's straight on..."
Last April, in 2025, Mormon Book Review's video, titled, "BREAKING New Joseph Smith Photo Evidence! w/ Curtis Weber", at around 39 minutes in, something similar is said and done as was said above- in my 2020 video analysis of the forward facing painting and the death mask of Joseph Smith, here Curtis says,
"It is important to know that the painting which hung in Emma's house that we now own, does not match the anatomy of Joseph's face very careful, very closely, [Curtis shows a LINE where the eyes, and mouth are, with the death mask profile to the left of the painting] if you scale the daguerreotype or the drawing of Maudsley on the death mask to match eye to mouth, you can see that chins aline just fine, but the noses are not even close, right, and it doesn't matter how you scale it, here eye to nose then the chins don't align at all, but I can get the eyes nose and mouth to line up, but only by tipping the face forward 13% [like tilting your head or chin down] as if Joseph is looking downward a bit..."
Very uh, similar to my 2020 video, by 42 minutes he is actually doing exactly what I did in 2020, traced the forward facing painting, which in 2018 he said was just "facial approximations" and he was "measuring to the mm", which was photoanthropometry.
Above is my January 22, 2025 video, where I traced the eyes and eyebrows of the duplicate oil painting of Joseph Smith and superimposed that sketch onto my CDV, I had done the tracing of my CDV onto the painting before, but never the tracing of the duplicate painting and found incredible likeness and similarity between my CDV and specifically the VERY bushy and thick right eyebrows- match, all I did was size my CDV in half opacity and superimposed onto the painting and went onto to tracing, no tilting, no grimy photoshopping, just adding. layer and tracing in magenta on said later. Four months later Curtis would do EXACTLY the same thing, saying SAME things, and yet has the bitterness to say that he watches me but sees no benefit in watching me, that I have no ability to understand him or basic facts (calling me stupid, essentially, because I simply said he did know that photoanthropometry was wrong in 2018 and was clear lying us it, and NOT my technique, which he DID criticize in 2018, until he realized people like it and then on to copying and mocking he goes!).
Now, the SCARY... I got word that someone was trying to hack into my YouTube, some people have their CC info on there, everything SEEMED fine, until today and I saw THIS January 22, 2025 video- GONE- deleted, why would I delete it?... in the summer, just after sharing it on many platforms and showing that yes, Curtis DOES copy Debi and refuses to give her credit or say a SINGLE compliment, he's incapable of complimenting a Woman, it's a known virus among Utah men these days ;) :P
Video BELOW, I share that my video STILL EXISTS yay, putting this computer in lockdown AND it's STILL timestamped, Steven Pynaker is all about that drama, which why I will never go onto his channel.
I saw a lot more photoshopping, my Curtis Weber, today but it's neither here nor there, you either are capable of seeing his edits or you are not and either you think he's justified in doing so, or you do not. When eh says what he has done to change the original painting, sketch or death mask- fine, but it's the numerous times he just doesn't and has intentionally changed things to look like the Larsen Locket that get me riled up and mad, and I am sorry for that, but today God said to just share it all.