Elmer J. McCurdy (January 1, 1880 - October 7, 1911) was an American bank and a railroad robber who was killed in a shootout with police after robbing Katy's Train in Oklahoma in October 1911. Nicknamed "The Bandit Who Would not Give Up ", his mummy body was first displayed at Oklahoma's funeral home and later became a fixture on the carnival circuit and traveling spectacle during the 1920s to the 1960s. After changing ownership several times, the remnants of McCurdy finally ended up in Pike's entertainment zone in Long Beach, California where they were discovered by a film crew and identified positively in December 1976.
In April 1977, Elmer McCurdy's body was buried at the Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie, Oklahoma.
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McCurdy was born in Washington, Maine, on January 1, 1880. He was the son of 17-year-old Sadie McCurdy who was unmarried at the time of his birth. The identity of McCurdy's father is unknown; one possibility is Sadie's cousin, Charles Smith (McCurdy then uses the name "Charles Smith" as an alias). To save Sadie, the embarrassment and embarrassment of raising an illegitimate child, his brother, George, and his wife, Helen, adopted Elmer. After George died of tuberculosis in 1890, Sadie and Helen moved with Elmer to Bangor, Maine. Sadie finally tells her son that she, not Helen, is her mother and that she is not sure who her biological father is. The news disturbed the upset McCurdy and became "naughty and rebellious". As a teenager, he began to drink a lot, a habit he would continue throughout his life.
McCurdy eventually returned to Maine to live with his grandfather and become an apprentice plumber. He was reportedly a competent worker and lived comfortably until the economic crisis in 1898. McCurdy lost his job and, in August 1900, his mother died of a ruptured ulcer. His grandfather died of Bright disease the following month. Shortly after the death of his grandfather, McCurdy left Maine and began flying around the eastern United States where he worked as a miner and plumber. He can not have a job for a long time because of his alcohol. He eventually went to Kansas where he worked as a plumber in Cherryvale. McCurdy then moved to Iola where, in 1905, he was arrested for public poisoning. He then moved to Webb City, Missouri.
In 1907, McCurdy joined the US Army. Assigned to Fort Leavenworth, McCurdy is a machine gun operator and trained to use nitroglycerin for discharge purposes (this level of training may be minimal). He was dismissed with respect from the Quartermaster Corps on November 7, 1910. McCurdy then went to St. Joseph, Kansas where he met an Army friend. On November 19, McCurdy and his friend were arrested for possession of robbery equipment (chisels, hacksaws, channels for nitroglycerin, gunpowder, and money sack). The St. Joseph Gazette reported that during their indictment McCurdy and his friend told judges that the tools were not meant for robbery but were a tool they needed to work on machine guns operated on their feet. In January 1911, a juror considers McCurdy innocent. After being released from the county jail, McCurdy's brief career as a bank robber and train began. His robbery is generally careless because of McCurdy's clumsiness. Maps Elmer McCurdy
Crime
McCurdy decides to include his training with nitroglycerin into his robbery. This often creates problems because he is too excited and fails to determine the right amount to use. In March 1911, McCurdy moved back to Lenapah, Oklahoma. He and three others decided to rob the Iron Mountain-Missouri Pacific train after McCurdy heard that one car contained a safe with $ 4,000. They managed to stop the train and found the safe. McCurdy then puts nitroglycerin on the safe door to open it but it's too much used. The safe was destroyed in the explosion like most of the money. McCurdy and his colleagues managed to collect $ 450 in silver coins, most of which were merged and merged with a safe frame.
In September 1911, McCurdy and two others robbed The Citizens Bank in Chautauqua, Kansas. After spending two hours piercing the bank wall with a hammer, McCurdy placed a nitroglycerin load around the door of the vault outside the bank. The explosion blew the door of the vault through a bank that damaged the interior, but did not damage the safe inside the vault. McCurdy then tried to open the safe door with nitroglycerin but the charge failed to burn. After the scouts were frightened and fled, McCurdy and his minions stole about $ 150 in coins on a tray outside the safe and fled. That night, the men took the train that took them to the Kansas border. They split up and McCurdy runs to the farm of a friend, Charlie Revard, near Bartlesville, Oklahoma. He stayed in hayshed on the property for the next few weeks and drank a lot.
Death
McCurdy's last robbery took place on 4 October 1911 near Okesa, Oklahoma. McCurdy and his two accomplices plan to rob Katy's Train after hearing that it contains $ 400,000 in cash intended to pay royalties to the Osage Nation. However, McCurdy and the men mistakenly stopped the passenger train instead. The men were able to steal only $ 46 from the postman, two demijohns whiskey, automatic pistol, coat and rail conductor watches. A newspaper report about the robbery later called it "one of the smallest in the history of train robbery." McCurdy was disappointed with the catch and returned to the Revard farm on October 6 where he began drinking the whiskey whiskey he stole. At this time, he also had tuberculosis (which he developed after working in the mine), cases of mild pneumonia and trichinosis. He kept drinking with some farming hands before going to bed in the straw loft the next morning. Unbeknownst to McCurdy, he has been involved in a $ 2,000 robbery and reward for his arrest.
In the early hours of October 7, a group of three sheriffs, Bob's brother and Stringer Fenton and Dick Wallace, tracked McCurdy to hayshed by using sniffer dogs. They go around hayshed and wait for daylight. In an interview featured in the October 8, 1911 edition of the Daily Tester, Sheriff Bob Fenton recalled:
It started around 7 am. We stood around waiting for him out when the first shot fired at me. It missed me and he then turned his attention to my brother, Stringer Fenton. He shot three times at Stringer and when my brother was under cover, he turned his attention to Dick Wallace. He kept shooting at us all for an hour. We reply whenever we can. We do not know who killed him... (on the street) we found one of the jugs of whiskey taken from the train. It was almost empty. He was drunk enough when he got on the ranch last night.
McCurdy was killed by a gunshot wound to the chest he suffered while lying down.
Post mortem commercialization
McCurdy's body was then taken to Johnson's Funeral Home in Pawhuska, Oklahoma where he went unclaimed. Joseph L. Johnson, owner and caretaker, embalmed the body with arsenic-based preservatives commonly used in embalming in that era to preserve the body for a long time when no closest relative was known. She then shaved her face, wearing it in a suit and putting it behind the funeral home. Since McCurdy is not claimed, Johnson refuses to bury or free his body until he is paid for his services. Johnson then decided to show off McCurdy to make money. He put the corpse in the street clothes, put the gun in his hand and stood in the corner of the funeral home. For a nickel, Johnson allows visitors to see "The Bandit Who Would not Give Up" (at various times, McCurdy is also called "The Mystery Man of Many Aliases", "The Oklahoma Outlaw", and "The Embalmed Bandit"). "The Bandit" became a popular attraction in the funeral home and attracted the attention of the carnival promoters. Johnson received many offers to sell McCurdy's mummified body, but he refused.
On October 6, 1916, a man called himself Aver called Johnson who claimed to be Elmer McCurdy's long-lost brother from California. Aver had contacted Osage County, Oklahoma's sheriff, and a local lawyer to get permission to take over and send him to San Francisco for burial. The next day, Aver arrives at the funeral home with another man who calls himself Wayne, who also claims to be McCurdy's brother. Johnson released the corpse to the people who then put it on the train, as if to San Francisco. It was instead sent to Arkansas City, Kansas. The people who claim to be McCurdy's long lost brother are actually James and Charles Patterson. James Patterson is the owner of the Great Patterson Carnival Show, a traveling carnival. After learning from his brother Charles about the popular "Embalmed Bandit" exhibition, they fabricated a scheme to take over the body to present it in the Patterson carnival. McCurdy's body will be featured in Patterson's travel carnival as "The Outlaw Who Would Never Be Captured Alive", until 1922 when Patterson sold his operation to Louis Sonney.
Louis Sonney used the body of McCurdy in a traveling "Crime Museum" featuring replicas of candles from famous criminals like Bill Doolin and Jesse James. In 1928, the corpse was part of the official spectacle accompanying the Trans-American Footrace. In 1933, he was temporarily acquired by director Dwain Esper to promote his exploit film Narcotic! . The body was placed in the lobby of the theater as a "stupid lethargy" which Esper claimed had killed himself when surrounded by police after he robbed a drugstore to support his habit. By the time Esper took over McCurdy's body, it became a mummy; the skin becomes hard and wrinkled so the body shrinks to the size of a child's body. Esper claims that skin deterioration is evidence of drug abuse suspected of drugs.
After Louis Sonney died in 1949, the corpse was kept in a Los Angeles warehouse. In 1964, Son Son Dan's son loaned the corpse to filmmaker David F. Friedman. It ended up making a brief appearance in the 1967 Friedman movie She Freak . In 1968, Dan Sonney sold the body along with another $ 10,000 wax statue to Spoony Singh, owner of the Hollywood Wax Museum. Singh has bought a number for two Canadian men who showcased them at a show at Mount Rushmore. When exhibited there, the corpse was damaged in a storm; the tip of his ears with his fingers and toes in the breeze. The men eventually returned McCurdy to Singh who decided that the body looked "too horrible" and not real enough to show off. Singh then sold it to Ed Liersch, owner of The Pike, an entertainment zone in Long Beach, California. In 1976, McCurdy's body hung in a funhouse exhibit "Laff In the Dark" on The Pike.
Rediscovery and burial
On December 8, 1976, the Six Million Dollar Man television production crew was filming for the "Carnival of Spies" episode on The Pike. During filming, a clever man transfers what is considered a wax mannequin hanging on a gallows. When the mannequin arm is broken, human bones and muscle tissue are seen.
The police were summoned and the mummified corpse was taken to the Los Angeles coroner's office. On December 9th, Dr. Joseph Choi performed an autopsy and determined that the corpse was a human man who had died of a gunshot wound to the chest. Her body was completely petrified, covered in wax and covered with a layer of phosphor paint. It weighs about 50 pounds (23 kg) and is 63 inches (160 cm) tall. Some hairs are still visible on the sides and back of the head while the ears, big toes and fingers are missing. The examination also revealed the incision of the original autopsy and embalming. Tests performed on the tissues showed the presence of arsenic which was a component of embalming fluid until the late 1920s. The test also revealed tuberculosis in the lungs that McCurdy developed while working as a miner, bunion and scar that has been documented by McCurdy. While the bullet that caused the fatal wound was probably removed during the original autopsy, a bullet jacket was found. This was determined to be a gas check, first used in 1905 to 1940. This clue helped investigators determine the era in which the man had been killed. Further clues to the man's identity were found when the mandible was removed for dental analysis. Inside the mouth it is 1924 cents and tickets stub to 140 W. Pike, Side Show and Museum of Crime Louis Sonney. The investigator â € <â € On December 11, the story of McCurdy's journey has been published in newspapers and on television and radio. Some funeral homes call the coroner's office offering to bury McCurdy at no cost, but officials decide to wait to see if any surviving relatives are coming to sue the body. Fred Olds, who represented the Western Conference Post in West Oklahoma, finally convinced Dr. Thomas Noguchi, then Head of Medical Examiners for County Los Angeles, to allow him to bury a corpse in Oklahoma. After further testing to ensure proper identification, Olds were allowed to take body custody. On April 22, 1977, a funeral procession was carried out to transport McCurdy to the Boot Hill section of the Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie, Oklahoma. A graveside service attended by about 300 people was done after McCurdy was buried next to another criminal, Bill Doolin. To ensure that McCurdy's body will not be stolen, a two-foot (60 cm) concrete is poured over the coffin.
In popular culture
The story of Elmer McCurdy is featured in the 1996 episode segment of the HBO Autopsy documentary series, and the 1998 episode of the BBC Timewatch series titled "The Oklahoma Outlaw".
The story of Elmer McCurdy is shown in season 6, during episode 4 (2014) of the Mystery at the Museum , where they discuss his body discovery at Funhouse.
Elmer McCurdy is the subject of the 2016 episode of the Closet Closet Podcast.
In 2017, the story of Elmer McCurdy is featured in the 14 season episode, "Stone Lion Inn" of Ghost Adventures on the Travel Channel.
In July 2017, Elmer McCurdy became the subject of an episode of The Memory Palace with Nate DiMeo.
In the Netflix 2017 series Toys That Make Us , the encounter with McCurdy's corpse at the Pike theme park is called the original inspiration for designer Mark Taylor from Skeletor He-Man character.
The story of McCurdy is told in episode 33 of InCredulous's skeptical podcast.
McCurdy is the inspiration for a popular pizza entitled "The McCurdy" at a Washington General store in his hometown of Washington, Maine.
The story of McCurdy is told in an episode of Wild West Tech.
Elmer McCurdy is the inspiration for the main mystery in Phryne Fisher's The Mystery of The Castlemaine Murders.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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