The Corpse of Outlaw Elmer McCurdyElmer McCurdy was not the most successful outlaw in the history of

The Corpse of Outlaw Elmer McCurdyElmer McCurdy was not the most successful outlaw in the history of the West, but the tale of his corpse certainly is an interesting tidbit. McCurdy was an outlaw who robbed banks and trains in the closing days of the Wild West.  After being discharged from the Army in 1910, McCurdy tried to use his training in explosives to blow open safes and vaults.  However, McCurdy had very little training and his limited knowledge often led to very bungled robberies. Such was the case in March of 1911 when he robbed the Iron Mountain Missouri Pacific train in Oklahoma. After applying a generous amount of nitroglycerin, he accidentally blew the safe sky high destroying most of the money inside. Later, when robbing the Citizen’s Bank in Chautauqua, Kansas, he used too little nitroglycerin and was unable to blow the vault.On October 4th, 1911 McCurdy learned that a train carrying $400,000 in cash was scheduled to arrive in Okesa, Oklahoma. McCurdy and two partners attempted to rob the train only to find that they had accidentally boarded the wrong train, which contained only passengers. The robbers only made away with $46 taken from a hail clerk, a revolver, two jugs of whiskey, a coat, and the train conductor’s pocket watch. On October 7th McCurdy busied himself with drinking the whiskey when the local Sheriff and his posse surrounded his hideout. An hour long gun battle ensued, ending with McCurdy sustaining a fatal shot to the chest.No one claimed the body of Elmer McCurdy, so it was taken by a local undertaker (Johnson Funeral Home in Pawhuska, Oklahoma), embalmed, dressed in a suit, a rifle placed in his arms, and put on display for people to view for a nickel a piece. In 1916 the undertaker sold the corpse to a pair of men claiming to be McCurdy’s brothers, in truth they were James and Charles Patterson of the Great Patterson Carnival Show. For the next 12 years McCurdy’s corpse traveled with the show until 1928, when it was once again sold to Louis Sonney’s Museum of Crime. Over the next several decades it changed hands several times. By then it had become shriveled and mummified, and it’s identity had been forgotten.By the 1960′s the corpse had become a Hollywood film prop, with everyone believing it was nothing more than a mannequin and not a real corpse. It made a brief appearance in the film She Freak before being sold two a pair of men who displayed it at a show based at Mount Rushmore.  It was then sold to Sapuran “Spoony” Singh, who displayed it in his Hollywood Wax Museum. Finally Singh sold it to Ed Liersch, co-owner of the The Pike, an amusement park in Long Beach California.  The corpse was used as a prop hanging from a noose in the “Laff in the Dark” funhouse.On December 8th, 1976 The Pike became a filming set for an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man called “Carnival of Spies”. During filming, a prop man attempted to move the “mannequin” when it’s arm broke off, revealing bone and muscle tissue. It was then realized that the prop was actually a real human corpse. The corpse was sent to the Los Angeles Coroner’s Office for analysis. The corpse was found to be embalmed with arsenic, which was commonly used in embalming fluids around the turn of the century. Furthermore, coroners were able to date the body based on the bullet jacket in it’s chest, and inside it’s mouth was a 1924 penny and ticket stubs to the 140 W. Pike Side Show and Louis Sonney’s Museum of Crime. The coroners called Louis Sonney who confirmed that the corpse was that of the late outlaw Elmer McCurdy. Forensic Anthropologists were able to confirm this by superimposing a photo of McCurdy over an x-ray of his skull.On April 22nd, 1977 a funeral was held and McCurdy’s body was finally laid to rest on Boot Hill of the Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie, Oklahoma, next to the grave of another Old West outlaw, Bill Doolin. Two feet of concrete was poured over the casket to ensure no one would steal the body. -- source link

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