Mudd sought to stay loyal to Booth and the principles they shared, but he did not have the ability to lie convincingly to investigators. His lies became more complicated, tipping detectives off to the fact that he was feeding them bad information. Mudd began to cave under the pressure, unsuited as he was to lying to authorities. But although he was not a good liar, the time it took investigators to get a clear answer from Mudd turned out to be enough time to give Booth the opportunity to make it across the Potomac to Virginia.