Given the seriousness of Booth’s crime, in the absence of any clue to his whereabouts, the authorities focused on arresting as many people as possible. They hoped to get maximal information out of all those who had dealt with Booth, whether they had known about his earlier plan to kidnap Lincoln or not. The authorities underestimated how much Booth’s own expertise about the theater had allowed him to act independently on the night of the crime; they suspected the theater owners and staff of helping him.