Elmer McCurdy

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Elmer McCurdy (before 1911)

Elmer J. McCurdy (born January 1, 1880 in Washington , Maine , † October 7, 1911 in Bartlesville , Oklahoma ) was an American train and bank robber who was shot after a failed robbery. Then his preserved corpse went on an almost 60-year odyssey.

Early years

Elmer McCurdy grew up in Maine , which he left as a young adult. He worked as a plumber and miner until he joined the United States Army in 1910. His service went without incident, but also without an honorable mention. In connection with his service, McCurdy was briefed on the handling of nitroglycerin by Lieutenant Douglas MacArthur .

Crime and death

His acquired military skills in dealing with nitroglycerin used McCurdy in March 1911 during an attack on a train of the Missouri Pacific Railroad , the one safe was bringing with 4,000 dollars. McCurdy stopped the train with three accomplices, and the men found the safe. McCurdy blew it up with nitroglycerin, but he used too much disintegrant. The force of the explosion destroyed most of the silver coins contained , which is why McCurdy and his accomplices had to flee with only $ 450.

In September 1911, McCurdy and two other men robbed a bank in Chautauqua , Kansas . After trying unsuccessfully for two hours to break the bank's wall with a hammer, McCurdy installed a nitroglycerin charge. The explosion opened the way for them and destroyed the inside of the bank, but left the safe undamaged. McCurdy then tried to blast the vault door with another charge of nitroglycerin, but it didn't ignite. After their lookout ran away in fear, McCurdy and his accomplices stole $ 150 in coins they found outside the vault and fled.

On October 4, 1911, McCurdy ambushed a passenger train on the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad in Okesa, Oklahoma. He had intended to rob a train with his accomplices that was supposed to bring $ 400,000 in cash to Osage County ; however, the criminals were wrong. So they threatened the train passengers and stole 46 dollars, two bottles of whiskey, a revolver, a coat and a watch. With his prey, McCurdy fled north towards Kansas, but still hid in a barn on Oklahoma state territory in Bartlesville and got drunk. A $ 2,000 bounty was available for his capture. In the morning hours of October 7th, a squad of three sheriffs with Bloodhounds found him in the barn. McCurdy was shot dead in an hour-long gun battle.

When McCurdy died, aged just 31, he was in very poor physical condition, showing clear signs of alcoholism, and suffering from silicosis and tuberculosis .

Embalming

Elmer McCurdy embalmed (before 1916)

His body was taken to Joseph Johnson, an undertaker in Pawhuska , but none of McCurdy's family members contacted him. So the undertaker decided to create an exhibit with McCurdy's body, a not uncommon practice at the time. So the undertaker mummified the dead body by injecting a solution containing arsenic and exhibited it in his living room for the next five years. Onlookers could look at the body for a price of five cents, putting the coins in the body's mouth.

In 1916, showmen appeared at the undertaker and pretended to be McCurdy's relatives, so that the body was handed over to them. In fact, they used this in an exhibit called the Oklahoma Outlaw .

For the next 60 years the corpse was shown at various exhibitions and fairs : It was in the lobby of the cinema where the film Narcotic was premiered in 1933 . During the 1930s and 1940s, the body of police officer Louis Sonney was exhibited in his Museum of Crime . In the 1960s, it was completely forgotten that it was a corpse, and McCurdy's remains were sold as a "mannequin" to a wax museum in 1971 .

Rediscovery of the corpse

In December 1976, the episode entitled Carnival of Spies for the television series The Six Million Dollar Man was filmed at NU-Pike amusement park in Long Beach , California . A member of the film crew damaged a neon-orange mannequin, whose arm broke off. When human bones were discovered and the authorities informed, the body was examined more closely.

Medical assessor Thomas Noguchi opened the body's mouth and was able to find a 1924 coin and a ticket to the Museum of Crime . This ticket and archived newspaper reports helped police identify the body as Elmer McCurdy's.

On April 22, 1977, the body was buried in Summit View Cemetery ▼ in Guthrie , Oklahoma. McCurdy's glass coffin was accompanied by police officers, local politicians, and historians. McCurdy found his final resting place next to Bill Doolin , another outlaw. To prevent another odyssey, two cubic meters of concrete were poured over the coffin.

In the years since his body was rediscovered, McCurdy achieved fame: he is the subject of two biographies and a BBC documentary. In addition, a Celtic folk band wrote a song about his fate.

literature

  • Richard J. Basgall: The Career of Elmer McCurdy.
  • Mark Svenvold: Elmer McCurdy: The Misadventures in Life and Afterlife of an American Outlaw.
  • Arthur C. Aufderheide: The Scientific Study of Mummies.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Clyde Snow : In: Kingsley Abbot (Ed.): Clinical Toxicology 14 (1) 1979. pp. 123-131.
  2. ↑ Jenk Jones, Jr. 2030 Osage County Comprehensive Plan Osage County History. ( Memento of March 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Tallgrass Prairie docent reorientation. March 1, 2003
  3. ↑ a b c 2030 Osage County Comprehensive Plan.
  4. ^ A b c Robber, Mummy, Dummy: The Odd Story of Elmer McCurdy. Oddly history
  5. ^ Arthur C. Aufderheide, The Scientific Study of Mummies. ( online ); Christine Quigley, Modern Mummies: The Preservation of the Human Body in the Twentieth Century. ( online )
  6. ^ A b Grave of Elmer McCurdy the Sideshow Mummy.
  7. ↑ Steve Harvey: Inept train robber had an unimpressive life but a celebrated afterlife. Los Angeles Times, July 3, 2011
personal data
SURNAME McCurdy, Elmer
ALTERNATIVE NAMES McCurdy, Elmer J.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American train and bank robber
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Washington , Maine
DATE OF DEATH October 7, 1911
Place of death near Bartlesville , Oklahoma