Beard Laws (00:00.202)
Welcome back, you're townians. Is that the thing? That's a new term. That's a new term. I just thought of that, right. As I was pressing record, I was like, what should we call them? Your townians. You it's way more cool than like your town listeners, right? But either way, I'm Matt. And that's Meg. What's up, Meg? Hey, we have a pretty cool story today, don't we? We do. Actually, we're we are watching a show and kind of heard a little bit about the story. So we both kind of looked at each other. We're like your town episode.

had to do it so I'm excited about this one again you don't know a ton of the details about it but you know a little bit right I know quite a bit you know quite a bit not even a little bit so well I don't know maybe you know more than me well let's not get carried away okay no this one how would you describe it because it's more than wild I don't think there's words to describe it there's not but thankfully we have

I don't know. And I think it's like a once in a lifetime story. I don't think it, whatever. No. And unfortunately, come up again. I would love parts of this story to happen to my life, even though it can never happen. And we'll let the viewers determine which parts they think that they were going to be here. So again, shout out to the Deluxe Edition Network before I forget. We're part of that amazing crew and super excited about it. Check out the February podcast of the month, Films and Fermentation and Friends Talk and Nerdy.

March is coming up and I'm not going to give any spoilers away on it, but maybe I would be lucky to be a part of this, you know, with St. Patrick's Day month and luck of the Irish, even though I'm not that much Irish, but a lot of Scottish. I'm pretty sure I'd have to look at it. I did the whole like spit in the tube thing and they look at it and tell me what I am. And I don't remember. So maybe it's a, it'd be a good time to brush up on that. But I'm actually both. There we go. All right. When should we do the intro? Yeah.

There's a lot to read through here. A lot of stuff. We've been doing a little bit of some longer episodes for you guys. Let us know if you like the little bit of a longer ones or you want us to go back and quicker ones. I just feel like more details and more story is something that would be cool. We're not doing the music in the background. People didn't like that at times. But if you want some more of that in certain times, let us know as well. So should we do the intro? All right, let's do the thing. It's intro 30, hopefully. And if it doesn't work, sorry about that. Just picture it in your head.

Beard Laws (02:41.834)
I have a feeling that didn't work.

Beard Laws (02:46.478)
I don't know. Maybe, maybe. I don't know. Do you think we should try it one more time or no? Nah, we're going for it. Picture the intro. We'll do it again for the outro. All right. So if you don't normally like reading descriptions of podcast episodes, this one is going to be the Elmer McCurdy Sideshow Corpse. All right. And it's a name that echoes through time is one of the most bizarre and unusual stories.

in history that I've ever heard and potentially Meg's ever heard. So I think we should probably start with who was he, who is he, and how did his life take such an unusual turn? Well, he was an American outlaw, I guess, of that which you would want to call it. Gained his fame or misfortune in the early 20th century. Born in 1880 in Washington, Maine, which is kind of weird. I always think it's weird when there's like other states as places within states. But hey.

I didn't name any of these because mine would be like Jenny Light Lane and all these other weird ice cube Chronicles Avenue. But he was born on January 1st, New Year's Day. I wonder if he was the first one born potentially in his area in lovely Washington, Maine, 1880, who was the son of a 17-year-old Sadie McCurdy who was not married at the time of his birth. The identity of McCurdy's father is officially unknown. But there was a report that…

His dad was actually Sadie's cousin, Charles Smith, who McCurdy actually used the name Charles Smith as one of his many aliases. In order to protect the mom, kind of in the social stigma of the day, raising an illegitimate child in, that her brother George and his wife Helen actually adopted Elmer. But then George dies of tuberculosis in 1890, so Sadie and Helen moved to Bangor, Maine, or Bangor, Maine.

put bango it's probably bango right? mmm it's either one of the two I don't know we're gonna go with bango or banger I don't know all the places in Maine me neither we should go let us know in the comments maybe you guys should check out the patreon that doesn't exist for the yorktown donate some money so we can go to maine on a honeymoon that we haven't had yet from our marriage yeah figure that out okay Elmer finds out the truth of his parents and becomes out of control

Beard Laws (05:11.978)
As a teenager, he turns to the bottle and becomes an alcoholic, something that unfortunately followed him until the day he died. He did become an apprentice as a plumber at some point after he did move in with his grandfather in 1900. He lost his mom and grandfather within two months, tried to hold down several jobs with being a drunk. Naturally, it didn't work out. He drifted most of the Eastern U S for many years until he moved to Kansas, where he was arrested for public intoxication in 1905.

In 1907, he joins the US Army. He was trained as a gunner, and in that training, he, not certified, but he worked with nitroglycerin quite a bit. He was honorably discharged, and he meets up with Army friend in Kansas, and within months, gets arrested for burglary. They stole chisels, hacksaws, funnels for nitroglycerin, gunpowder, and money sacks. They then tell the judge they actually were just stealing the tools because they were inventing.

a foot-operated machine gun that they were going to potentially sell to the government and was going to be life-changing. It was going to revolutionize so much. 1911, the jury finds him not guilty and he gets out of jail. He now decides on a career of robbery. Why wouldn't you, right? Sounds right. Sounds like a good path to go. Yeah. So then McCurdy's criminal career was short-lived and relatively unsuccessful.

In the shadows of the early 20th century, Elmer McCurdy, a man whose destiny seemed entwined with chaos, embarked on a criminal journey that would leave a trail of destruction in its wake. Armed with a dangerous combination of bravado and nitroglycerin, McCurdy set his sights on the high stakes world of bank and train robberies. What not, right? Why not? His endeavors, however, were far from polished heists.

Rather, they were a series of bungled affairs marked by just a ton of explosive miscalculations. His inability to gauge the appropriate amount of nitroglycerin often turned his aspirations of fortune into a smoky haze of failure. I mean, I don't know what he got this honorably discharged from the army, but he probably should have worked on the training a little bit. But for everybody's sake involved.

Beard Laws (07:38.818)
probably for the best that he wasn't so good at it. Now I have to admit that I am going to mispronounce a lot of cities and names of places very wrong. I probably should have done the research, but you know me, I think at this point, people love to laugh at me that I can't pronounce. We're used to it. What? Okay. A pivotal moment in McCurdy's criminal odyssey unfolded in Lena Pah, Oklahoma in March 1911, fueled by whispers of

fortune hidden with the Iron Mountain, Missouri Pacific train number 104. Cause why would they want to shorten names? McCurdy joined by three daring accomplices, accomplices. I know, but I feel like if there's more than two, it could be accomplices. Cause there's three. No. Should have played that on the songboard. All right.

He was the three of these people orchestrated a plan to seize the presumed wealth. The result, however, huge explosion that not only blew up the safe, but left four hundred and fifty dollars in silver coins because most of the coins actually stuck with the safe when it exploded. He was undeterred by a setbacks, though. Gertie's appetite for ill gotten gains led him to a fateful night. Oh, Shadako Shadakua.

somewhere in Kansas on September 21st, 1911. Armed with a hammer and an audacious determination, he spent hours chiseling through the bank's wall. Nitroglycerin once again took center stage as he attempted to breach the vault door. The ensuing blast tore through the bank, leaving chaos in its wake. But the elusive fortune remained locked away. So then his lookout guy gets pretty nervous. So they all decide to leave. Leaving themselves with

under $150 in coins from a tray outside the safe. $150 was roughly about $4,000 today. Under the cover of darkness, they commandeered a train to Kansas, to the Kansas border, where they parted ways. McCurdy, nursing his wounds and nursing a heavy thirst as he normally did, found a refuge on the ranch of a friend, Charlie Rivard, near Bartsville, Oklahoma. I feel like I nailed that one.

Beard Laws (10:00.13)
Bartlesville. What did I say? Bartsville. You forgot the L. I'm the worst. You were so close. That calls for a…

Beard Laws (10:13.386)
Okay, so he's with a friend, Charlie. The hay shed on the property became his house, a place where the line between fugitive and recluse blurred. In those few weeks fueled by the weight of his failures, McCurdy sought solace at the bottom of a bottle, wrestling with a destiny that seemed both elusive and inevitable. In the moonlight darkness of October 4th, 1911, Elmer McCurdy, a desperado with dreams of wealth plotted to intercept.

a Katy train transporting a princely sum of $400,000 that was actually intended as a royalty payment to the Asagi nation. Is that how you'd say that? I think so. Let's go with that. However, McCurdy's got that luck on his side. Fate had a different plan for him and his two accomplices as they mistakenly halted a passenger train instead. What unfolded became an ironic twist in criminal history.

The TRIO's loot, how much did they get, Meg? $46. Not $400,000, $46. They got the money, a couple Demi-Johns, a whiskey, a revolver, a coat, and the conductor's watch. Sounds like a sad cowboy country western song from the early 1900s. But then it led the newspapers to kind of call them one of the smallest train robberies in history.

Obviously he's disappointed. He returns to the ranch October 6th, where he drowns his sorrows in the stolen whiskey. Haunted not by only his failed heist, but the also physical toll of his criminal endeavors. He ended up kind of getting tuberculosis, the consequence of the little bit of time that he did spend in the mines. Pneumonia was also an issue that just kind of added to his terrible, terrible health. Undeterred though by his sickness.

He does indulge in a night of revelry with ranch hands oblivious to the $2,000 bounty that is now placed on his head for the terrible small train robbery that they did. We're now on October 7th, dawn breaks and a relentless posse led by deputy sheriffs Bob and Stringer Fenton, accompanied by Dick Wallace and some bloodhounds, closed in on McCurdy at the Hay Shed.

Beard Laws (12:35.006)
and unaware of the imminent danger, McCurdy met his demise with a single gunshot to the chest delivered while he lay in his drunken slumber. The once wanted outlaw now found his story etched into the tapestry of true crime history. And that's where it should end, right? You would think. Does it though?

Beard Laws (13:00.252)
There it is. So the only way to put this is step right up, ladies and gentlemen, let's talk about what happens to Elmer after he passes because this, if you've made it this far, it gets so much wilder. All right. This is the good part. This is where it turns. Almost as crazy as remember the one that we did a little bit ago with the other guy that started in an office and then, oh, the Odd Fellows.

Go listen to or watch that one as well, because that one's pretty good. This one is way better. Uh, the bandit who wouldn't rest in peace. Next chapter of the life began in PA, PA Huska, Oklahoma, where McCurdy's body was found by an unwilling caretaker in the form of undertaker Joseph L. Johnson, taking charge of the somber duty. Joseph L. Johnson, propeteer and undertaker skillfully and bomb the body using an arsenic based preservative common for preserving bodies.

in kind of an era where the next of kin wasn't known. So this would actually, you know, keep the body more intact for what they thought was a little bit longer. Turns out pretty good stuff in that regards. With, under his care, he then shapes the face, put them in a very nice suit and discreetly stored it in the recesses of his funeral home. Johnson then decides to, let's exhibit him, make a little bit of money for a nickel.

that you would actually take and put into McCurdy's mouth? Johnson allowed visitors to see the bandit who wouldn't give up. At various times, McCurdy was also called the mystery man of many Alice's, uh, Alice's. I can't talk. The Oklahoma Outlaw, the embalmed bandit, or just the bandit, and became a popular attraction at the funeral home and drew the attention of carnival promoters. Johnson received numerous offers to sell him, but he just refused. Let's fast forward.

To October 6th, 1916, a man calling himself Aver contacted Johnson, claiming to be McCurdy's long lost brother from California. He had already contacted the county sheriff and a local attorney to get permission to take custody of the body shipped to San Francisco for proper burial. So the following day, he arrives at the funeral home with another man calling himself Wayne, who also claimed to be his brother. Johnson releases the body to the men.

Beard Laws (15:20.334)
who then put it on a train to San Francisco. But it instead went to Arkansas City, Kansas. The people that claimed to be his brother were in fact James and Charles Patterson, the former of whom were the owner of the Great Patterson Carnival Shows, a traveling carnival. After learning from his brother Charles about the popular Imbaum Bandit, the two of them said, hey, let's come up with a little bit of a plan here to take this body so they could feature it in their carnival. So,

McCurdy's corpse would be featured in the Patterson's carnival as the outlaw who had never been captured alive until 1922 when Patterson sold his operation to Louie Sonny or Sonny One of the two we covered in both. So it's one of them So then they take his body and Put him center stage in a twisted extra little bit of some journey in Alma McCurdy's life traveling Museum of Crime showcased him and

the wax replicas of some more outlaws, maybe you've heard of them, Bill Doolin and Jesse James. I mean, decent company, I guess, to be in a outlaw traveling show with. But in another bizarre turn of events, the Corps now joins the official sideshow of the trans-American foot race in 1928, captivating audiences with its morbid history. Director Dwayne Esper seized the opportunity in 1933, incorporating McCurdy's mummified body.

into the promotional spectacle of his film, Narcotic.

He's a movie star. He's all over the place, literally. Literally. Still looking, I guess, pretty decent. And Esper actually spun a dark narrative, placing the corpse in the theater lobbies as a dead, dope fiend. According to Esper, the unfortunate figure had allegedly taken his life surrounded by police after robbing a drug store to fuel his habit. By the time Esper acquired McCurdy's body, its skin had hardened and shriveled, creating a mummified spectacle that he claimed

Beard Laws (17:25.194)
witness to the ravage of drug abuse. The saga of Elmer McCurdy's corpse continued to be a chilling chapter in the tale of exploitation and sensationalism. I just wanted us to do at the same time. Jinks, knockin wood. In the eerie aftermath. It's not either. Okay, you win. You owe me a beer. Tink, tink, you win. In the eerie aftermath of Sonny's demise in 1949, Elmer McCurdy's

cadaver found itself entombed within the shadows of a Los Angeles warehouse. Little did the McCabrie artifact known. We're using big words, you know why? Cause we're smart. I'm really trying to learn big words and be better at this, but guess what, Meg? The restless journey was far from over. The year 1964 unveiled the ghastly collaboration as Dan Sonny.

The heir to the sinister legacy lent McCurdy's remains to filmmaker David F. Friedman. The corpse, like a specter, made a fleeting appearance in the Friedman's film She-Freak, 1967, its special presence adding a touch of the supernatural to the silver screen. He's now a she. Look at that. However, the cursed tale turned darker in 1968 when Dan Sonny, perhaps influenced by shadows, relinquished the body.

The ensemble, including McCurdy and other Wax figures, exchanged hands for a devil's sum, $10,000. Spoonie Singh, the propeteer of the Hollywood Wax Museum, became the next steward of this haunted relic. Yet, even under Singh's possession, misfortune clung to McCurdy's like a vengeful spirit. The corpse, now a grotesque exhibit alongside Mount Rushmore's grandeur, suffered mutilation in a malevolent windstorm.

ears, fingers, and toes torn away, transforming McCurdy into a grotesque embodiment of tragedy. Haunted by the visage of their own creation, the Canadian exhibitors, upon witnessing the monstrous aftermath, reluctantly returned the wretched corpse to sing. The once possessor, now repulsed by the body of McCurdy, they actually said he was too gruesome to behold, questioning lifelike semblance of the once living bandit.

Beard Laws (19:48.362)
You got that. I mean, that's how many decades of this? It goes on forever. Forever. And we're not done yet. All right. So the curse journey continued as Singh, undeterred by the just nastiness and everything that's been attached to his body, actually sells it to Ed Learche. Sure. Yeah. Part owner of the Pike and Amusement Zone in Long Beach, California. We're in 1976 now.

The chilling tale reached its zenith as Elmer McCurdy's corpse swung in the laugh in the dark funhouse exhibit at the Pike, the dark secret lurking amid the laughter forever trapped in its own nightmarish carnival. They legit were hanging him like somebody that hangs themselves in this laugh in the dark house exhibit. So now he's just swinging by some rope. December 8th, 1976 marked a chilling revelation at the Pike. A moment etched in the

uh, Annals of the Extraordinary. On this fateful day, the production crew of the iconic television series, The Six Million Dollar Man, descended upon the amusement zone, intending to capture scenes for the Carnival of Spies episode. So if you guys ever saw that show or that episode, here we go. In the dance of fiction reality, a prop man oblivious to the lurking horrors approach what appeared to be a lifeless wax mannequin suspended from a gallo.

As his hands meet the supposedly artificial figure, guess what happens next. The arm, brittle from the passage of time, crumbles beneath the prop man's touch, revealing a pretty horrifying truth. Guess what? It's not synthetic. It's human, a bone, stark and skeletal, protruded from the shattered limb, accompanied by a grisly glimpse of muscle tissue. I'm only laughing because like, I'm just trying to picture this

this prop man's face like, hey, this thing looks pretty real. Oh, my God. Oh, that's not a mannequin arm. The Pike, once a haven for laughter and amusement, had unwittingly housed a secret. And on that day in December, the line between entertainment and horror blurred in a way that no one would have anticipated. The discovery of his petrified remains at the Pike unleashed a series of forensic revelations that plunged investigators into the depths of a true crime mystery.

Beard Laws (22:11.202)
And this is the 70s, which a lot of our, it's kind of ironic, a lot of our, you know, from murder cases and some other stuff we've done in episodes that technology isn't always great. And we're about to learn some really cool things that they actually do with technology in the 70s to figure out who this person is. So I found that a little ironic. Just crazy that he went so long with people not knowing that he was a real person. Like, it's just wild. It's just this thing, this mannequin. So the police obviously show up.

The once forgotten about Banda's journey took a new turn under the scrutiny of Dr. Joseph Choi at the Los Angeles coroner's office. And I believe the first guy was named Joseph too, right? I think so. Everything's coming full circle. On December 9th, the behind the corners of the coroner's office. Now they're looking through the, and doing another autopsy, which I have to imagine it's pretty tough to do decades later, but Dr. Choi skilled hands and feel the tail etched in the petrified.

features of the body. It was no mere wax figure, but the mortal remains of a human male, a specter from a bygone era. Cause of death was determined by Dr. Choi, echoed what everybody kind of, which we already know in this thing, it was a gunshot wound to the chest. All right. But the body also kind of revealed that it now stood at 63 inches in height, shrouded in layers of wax, paint, and just everything else at this poor

body has been through over the years. And man, also revealed some eerie details. The body now was a mere 50 pounds of just bone and scars and whatever else is left of it. Hair, a somber reminder of the living clung to the sides of the back of the head. Yet the ears, big toes and fingers had succumbed to the ravages of decay. So still a little bit of his hair left. It's just wild. Beneath the layers, the examination laid.

traces of an earlier autopsy in a bombing, a Mark Left, Martitians of a bygone era. Arsenic wants a staple in the embalming fluids until the late 1920s lingered in the tissue still. A chemical ghost whispering preservation rituals. So they keep going in there and I mean they were able to see the tuberculosis in the lung, they saw bunions, scars, and everything came back to McCurdy and just…

Beard Laws (24:36.478)
was unbelievable. A gas check used between 1905 and 1940 became kind of a compass that helped investigators reconstruct actually the bandits' demise. So, in the eerie unraveling of Elmer McCurdy's true identity, forensic investigators delved deeper, peeling back layers of mystery that clung to the petrified remains as the mandible was delicately removed from dental analysis. The Whisper and Secrets.

of its tail started to really kind of come for scene. And they actually in the lifeless jaw, a 1924 penny that was still in there. Cause remember they were putting nickels and pennies in the mouth to be able to see him. And they, that wild, they find a penny in there. I only found one. Right. But they also found ticket stubs, apparently to the museum of crime.

that were in the oral cavity as well. A special ticket to a carnival of horrors nestled alongside the skeletal remains as well. In a quest for validation, investigators reached out to Dan Sonny, keeper of familial secrets. His confirmation echoed through the corridors of time, the body, obviously the bandit who wouldn't rest. It's just unbelievable. They take radiographs of the skull.

And I mean, just the jigsaw puzzle unfolded. The past just kept unraveling. And I couldn't imagine just these doctors, these scientists just finding more and more and more at the time. But obviously, then the media, they find out about it. They see the opportunity. And you know what I mean? They just start to talk about it everywhere. December 11th, newspapers, TV, radio broadcast, everything. They just start just kind of telling the tale.

that kind of has emerged from the shadows. And the public response, you know, was kind of both, um, you know, horrified, a little bit of sympathy for the body. But in a gesture of final dignity, several compassionate funeral homes reached out to the coroner's office offering, you know, to take him in and just, you know, do whatever they needed to do, um, free of charge. However, officials harboring a glimmer of hope for any living relative stepped forward, decided to defer the final chapter.

Beard Laws (26:56.358)
of the bandits saga. Amidst this morbid limbo, Fred Olds, a representative of the Indian territory posse of Oklahoma Westerns, emerged as a peculiar guardian of McCurdy's resting place. Advocating for a return to the land of McCurdy's origins, Olds sought the approval of Dr. Thomas Noguchi, then the chief medical examiner coroner of the county of Los Angeles. So

After the testing and everything that like with the body, Olds garnered the reluctant approval to claim McCurdy's custody. The final act of this dark drama unfolded as Fred Olds, standing at the intersection of history and spectacle, got the rights to bury Elmer McCurdy in the soil of his Oklahoma roots. April 22nd, 1977, now bore witness to the solemn cumulation of Elmer McCurdy's twisted odyssey. They then had the funeral procession.

Mark both fascination and just, I mean, could you imagine the show that I mean, the media, the, the intriguing, you know, just random people in the area. Everybody wanted to see this. Went to Boothill section of summit view cemetery in Guthrie, Oklahoma, which is the final resting place for McCurdy. Paul Bearer's unwitting custodians of the legacy transported as remains.

300 onlookers. You know, they're just curious, like we kind of talked about and everything. And, oh man, it's just crazy. But what's even crazier is McCurdy found companionship in death as he was laid to rest beside Bill Doolin, we mentioned earlier, who was another, you know, big, big name in the Wild West. Now you have these two just kind of infamous souls separated by time, but united in the peculiar theater of Boot Hill. But what's even

crazier is they wanted to ward off the ghoulish prospect of, you know, potentially people trying to snatch his body and everything else. They put in a ton of cement, two feet of concrete, sorry, not cement, two feet of concrete over his casket, sealing him in a tomb of eternal silence. Isn't that wild? I mean, it's…

Beard Laws (29:18.878)
It doesn't get any crazier than that. I mean, I don't even know how, I mean, there's no other way to wrap this up. It's two feet of concrete that will wrap it up. So this guy born in 1880, this story goes on until 1977. Is that right? Yeah. 1977, almost a hundred years. Can you imagine? No. That's the wildest afterlife story I've ever heard.

That's why I want part of my body to live some of that. Like, you know, like a like Weekend at Bernie's. Maybe maybe they did Weekend at Bernie's after him. Maybe maybe we'll have to get a hold of the writers and see if they want to come on. Probably not going to happen, but do you want to do the quote or you want me to? You can. OK, quote. I am an invisible man. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids. And I might even be said to possess a mind.

I am invisible, understand simply because people refuse to see me. Ralph, Ralph Ellison. Source is big shout out to the Wikipedia, ripplies.com, blogs.loc.gov and kcrw.com. That was wild. So now in the beginning.

when the guy was taking care of the body. Did he mean to do that? Because I thought he had accidentally used too much of the arsenic solution. So it was common. The story that I knew was that he had done it on accident by having the wrong ratios and mummified the body. So it was a common practice back then from everything that I've read to use the arsenic as the bombing solution. Because a lot of times they, in that

time with technology not being great and obviously if there was no next of kin it would allow the body to stay a little more preserved until they could find the next of kin and so I think that they did this and then he was just like huh well I'm gonna put this up for display so maybe because he used a wrong ratio or maybe in the back of his mind he had plans to make money off this corpse he was like let's hit him with a little bit more but yeah that's

Beard Laws (31:37.102)
Unbelievable. You know, so and then it did say in the 1920s, they kind of got rid of being able to use that for bombing and everything like that. So wild. But yeah, let us know if you like this again, feel free to, you know, set up a GoFundMe or a Patreon on our behalf so Meg and myself can go to, I guess, Maine is what we decided on our honeymoon. No, all kidding aside, we can't thank you guys enough for taking some time out of your busy day to listen or watch this greatly.

it and if you guys have any recommendations for any stories like I said just give us a topic give us a location and we'll do the rest so that's a lot of fun can't thank you Meg for doing this hopefully you're still enjoying it stuck with me yeah you are stuck with me so I can't thank you guys enough we'll be back next week with another episode and like I said check out your town calm check out the map every time we do a story we put a little pin on there and we're approaching

almost the halfway of all of the states but it's a lot of fun can't think enough that's all I got you anything else nope okay gotta go bye