Elmer McCurdy: The Outlaw Mummy | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

Hey weirdos. I'm Elena. And I'm Ash. And this is M O R B I D. M to the O to the RM. Wait,
hold on. [Music] M. We need to keep that to the RBI. Morbid. We need to clip that [ __ ] right
out. Hold that up. M to the O to the R. Like, whoa, we had another M. They said Morbid. Morbid. It's more
I was thinking D to the E to the L I C I O U S and I was that's my inspiration. So I was like M to the O to the R to the
B to the R to the D. Oh my god. Spelling Mid. Sometimes you're just a crazy [ __ ]
Sometimes you are. Sometimes you're just an illiterate [ __ ] And this is one of
those times, you know, I just I don't really know what happened. Okay. You know, it it kind of fits with this wild
tale that I'm about to tell. Does it? Um just the the kookiness of it all, the misspelling of it all. The misspelling
of it all, you know. So, this is Take the [ __ ] off. That was such a good reaction. I've had like a sunglasses
headband all day. Do you guys ever just like do that? You put your sunglasses on
and then you go inside and you put them on your head and you never take them off. Yeah. I just remembered I had mine
on my head so I just put them off. She just slowly put them on. I was ready for you to tell me a cool case. a cool case.
She said, "Take those the [ __ ] off. Get those the [ __ ] off. Those the [ __ ]
off." That was so funny. That was very Yeah, it was very ocoded. It really was. I don't know why we're like super goofed
today. Oh, it's just It's the end of the week, you know? Yeah, it's the end of so
many things and the beginning of other things. We finally got some good news. Yeah, we got good news. So maybe we're
just feeling a little silly, goofy. Good news. Good news. Good news. That's all they want to hear. Yeah. Shout out to
Mac. And we're gonna talk about Elmer McCertie, the outlaw mummy. Okay. Uh who doesn't want to talk about an outlaw
mummy? Yeah. Sign me the [ __ ] up. You know, let's go, girls. Uh this is a crazy one. It's a wild one. He was like
a really bad criminal. And I mean bad in the way that like he wasn't good at being a criminal. Oh, okay. He wanted to
be, but he was not. That's kind of fun. Uh, so that gets silly. He was bad at being a criminal. He was very bad at
being bad. Uh, so on the morning of December, this and here's the thing. We're going to start in the end of the
story and go back because the end is really the like, wait, what? Excuse me. I love starting at the end sometimes.
Don't we all? We haven't done that in a while. We haven't. So on the morning of December 8th, 1976, the my half
birthday. There you go. Even the year. Yes. You know, uh, the crew of the $6 million man, which was a popular science
fiction series starring Lee Majors, begin setting up for a day shoot at the Pike, which was, and Blanch just chimed
in. She was like, "Love that place." She said, "Great flick." Uh, it was a family
amusement area along the boardwalk in Long Beach, California. The segment was going to be called the Carnival of
Spies, and it was supposed to take place inside one of the park's funhouse fright
attractions, which was called Laugh in the Dark. Well, in the Dark, which also reminds me of the Are You Afraid of the
Dark episode, which also that episode [ __ ] me up with the scary clown with the cigar. Yes. Yep. [ __ ] that. Oh, so
scary. Uh, so the ride was basically like one of those little like tunnel of love kind of rides at amusement parks,
but where like two people would ride through. It's dark in there. A small car, but this had an emphasis on the
scares instead of the romance. Or maybe both if you're that type of person. I love being scared. Yeah. So that's
pretty romantic to me. There you go. You know, I love that. Yeah. So all morning
prop master Chris Haynes had been loading props from for the scenes through the back entrance of the ride.
And at one point he came across a mannequin and it was hanging from a fake gallows, you know, just one of the
scenes. He had already heard about the mannequin from several other members of the crew because they had spotted it
earlier in the week and commented that it was like kind of bizarre. It had a weird glow-in-the-dark paint job and
they were like it was really light, like weird. It just felt strange when you like moved it out of the way. Some
guessed that it was made of balsa wood. Others were thinking it was just paperiermâché, but Chris was like, "I
don't know about that." Like, I don't think it's either one of those things. And he's like, "This looks like really
real." Which like And he's like, "I don't know if this is just like a really well done mannequin or what." Imagine
having that feeling. Yeah. So, he was terrifying. He was curious. So he approached the mannequin and he grabbed
one of the arms and he pulled it off accidentally, which like if it's a mannequin that can happen. Yeah. Then
Okay. So at first he's like, "Okay, I'm I got to try to put this arm back on." So he just like went to put it back on,
but then he was like, "Wait a second." And he looked inside and typical prop limbs will have like clean cuts, like a
solid crosssection. This though was like dark and textured. He said it um it was quote
almost shredded like beef jerky. No. And in the center there was something that looked like bone. No, I have a beef
jerky stick today. I hate that you just said that to me. [ __ ] that. Hey, so Chris Hayes brought the arm over to one
of the other crew members and asked what he thought it looked like. He was like,
I'm not going to tell you what I think it looks like, but the other Yeah. He was like, "That looks like a human arm."
And he's like, "Definitely one that has seen better days, but it looks like a human arm." So, the two guys approached
what they had thought was a mannequin before, and they leaned in for a closer look. And this mannequin was unclothed
and it but it had been hung like really high up the wall, so it was really hard to see any details from down below. Um,
especially in the dark. But when they got a closer look, they saw that it had male genitalia.
Oh. Cuz it's naked. Nike dick flying. Dick flying. And it was far more detailed than any replica they had ever
seen. Oh, honey. Yeah. They in fact um author Mark Venbolds, which we're gonna um we'll put him in the show notes, he
said this was not anatomically correct. This was anatomical. This was anatomy. The body itself, a completely
desiccated, mummified human body. [ __ ] Which that's a different day at work. Very different. So realizing that they
were now dealing with an actual dead human body, Chris Haynes quietly went to get the offduty cop who was hired by
Universal Studios for the shoot. Assuming that this cop would know what to do in this situation, it's at this
point that the story gets like kind of crazy because as far as Haynes remembers, he informed the officer who
then reported it to the Long Beach police. But rather than take the situation seriously at all, Chris Hayes
remember that remembers that the officers used the situation as an opportunity for a prank. What they
reported the situation to the paramedics as quote I'm not ready. A case of severe
dehydration, which is like really [ __ ] up. What the [ __ ] Can you imagine? No.
your your job is to do something about this. Like it's literally your job. Let's have a law. And you're like, "This
is hilarious that this actual human being has been hung inside of a haunt attraction." Damn. For how who knows how
long. He's mummified. Let's make this an opportunity to have ourselves a little belly laugh. Like people people are
insane. People have always been lawless. Just always that is lawless. Like that's
literally lawless. Damn. I mean, he is dehydrated, but there So, here's the thing. So, there's a lot of like there's
little like urban legendy feels about this part of it because none of the officers who work the case remember that
prank occurring. Yeah, of course they don't. But again, I don't know if they Yeah, that was pretty funny. But whether
they did it or not, there was a 12-hour gap in time between when he reported the
body and the body being removed to the coroner's office. Damn, that's a long time. Yeah. So given that the body was
obviously not that of a, you know, recently dead person, no one was really in a hurry to disrupt the filming
process for the shoot that day. Um, and they didn't want to disrupt the daily operations at the Pike or other
boardwalk businesses. Um, in fact, when the news did finally break in the papers
the next day, even the investigators working the case were pretty happy to just like minimize the whole thing. Oh.
Uh, one of one investigator told reporters, "The owners of the fun house thought it was just a dummy. I can't
myself. Too much like Vincent Price." Now, after being removed from the fun house, this body was delivered
to the office of the medical examiner, Dr. Thomas Naguchi. Um, as LA chief medical examiner at the time, he had
been in that position since the early 1960s. And Dr. Naguchi had conducted autopsies on some of the most
iconic celebrities really in American history. This includes Marilyn Monroe. Oh, I was going to say that name does
sound. Yeah. Um Janice Joplain. Oh, wow. Sharon Tate. Oh, yeah. It earned him a really
um yucky nickname. I would say the coroner to the stars. Okay. I don't know about that. Like, can we just have a
little decorum? Actually, I know about that. I don't like it. Like, I just I know about it and I don't want to know
about it. I wouldn't want to be called that. No. And also, like I don't know. It's just I don't
like it. I don't like it. He's just the chief medical examiner. Can we just call
him that? Like, we don't need to we don't need to do that to like death industry employees. Like, be like the
coroner to the stars. Like, just let him be the corner. That's wild. Um yeah, it's not good. Uh obviously this body
was likely not a celebrity but I will say Dr. Naguchi took the same amount of care with him as he would with any of
his pro highprofile uh patients. You know uh according to the information they'd received from
investigating officers, the body on the autopsy table had been found by the funhouse operators many years earlier in
a defunct wax museum. Oh, this wax museum had wrapped it in brown gauze and advertised it as quote the 5,000y old
man. That's something. Yeah. So, the medical examiner quickly was like, "Yeah, he's not 5,000 years old,
everybody. Don't worry." Um, and they said this, the corpse shows signs of post-mortem medical examination and has
been embalmed. So, Dr. Choy, um, another doctor on the case, wrote in his autopsy
report, "The body is completely mummified. The nose and facial features appear to be Caucasian. When he was
alive, they thought he would be roughly 5'8 in tall, uh maybe 150 lbs. And Dr. Choy knew that determining the cause of
death would help him kind of narrow down the potential timeline of when this man
died. Um so during the initial examination, the doctors discovered a small hole in the man's chest. They
thought this was either a chest tube or a bullet wound, which I think are pretty
valid guesses. Um, but when they x-rayed the body, the resulting image was completely white. So, this would
indicate that the body had been packed with radioopaque material, making it impossible to tell anything from X-rays.
When they opened the chest cavity, Dr. Choy discovered the source of the material. After the man was dead,
whoever embaled him had packed the body with arsenic to prevent further decay. Shoot. This was a common practice in
Civil War era America. Oh, really? Yeah. But it it had definitely like fallen out
of, you know, being a common practice by the early 20th century. But that was another thing that helped them date this
because this put this man's death somewhere between the last half of the 19th century and the first few decades
of the 20th. I mean, so we're we're starting to narrow it. It was the arsenic that had prevented the X-ray
machine from showing anything. But now that they were able to open them up, organs exposed, Dr. Choy saw that there
was evidence of hemorrhaging in one lung and a perforation in the other. This was
indicating probably that he was shot in the chest. Oh wow. Um also since there didn't appear to be an exit wound
anywhere, they were thinking we're going to find this bullet in the body. Yeah. So they traced the path of the
perforation from the entrance wound in the chest through the lungs, then through the liver, and Dr. Choy found it
lodged in the man's hipbone. O. Yeah. Like ricocheted. Yeah. The bullet fragment lodged in this hipbone was anti
it was like an antique slug basically. Uh and apparently it was known as a gas check. Um it was this kind of like a
slug was mostly phased out in the earth early 20th century. Uh but gas check ammunition was a nonjacketed bullet that
loaded from a high-pressure rifle or magnum revolver cartridge. Okay. According to the LAPD ballistics expert
Lee Krumman, the bullet was fired from a 3230 caliber rifle, which he said was probably manufactured starting in 1905.
Okay, that meant that however this man, like however this man had died, it happened sometime between 1905 and
probably the start of the World War II, which was 1939, cuz that's when that kind of bullet was phased out. Okay,
this is so interesting to me how they're dating this cuz it's that like they're looking at like the packing material.
Okay, this started in this time and it phased out here. So now we've narrowed it a little. This is real investigative
work. Yeah. Now we find the bullet that was created in this time. It phased out here. We've narrowed it a little more.
It's like this is so cool to fascinating. So they've again significantly narrowed down the window
of time when the death occurred. Dr. Choy was in closer to finding the precise time. now. And it was the next
step in the autopsy that proved most surprising and probably the more illuminating of anything. When Dr. Choy
removed the jaw, mandible, and teeth for analysis by a dental expert, he discovered deep in the back of the mouth
a corroded copper penny dated 1924. What? And several ticket stubs. What? one with an address for the Pike
Amusement Park where the body was discovered and another for Lewis Sunny's Museum of Crime, 524 Main Street, Los
Angeles. Okay. Throughout the 1920s and 30s, it was not uncommon for sideshows and boardwalk businesses, you know,
other amusement park kind of things to display the mummified bodies of supposed Wild West outlaws and other criminals.
What? Yeah. They would just be like, "Come look at the mummy of this crazy outlaw from the Wild West." That's cool
and strange and so interesting. We've always been an interesting species. I can say that. Uh, based on the tickets
found in this mummy's mouth, it appeared like pri that prior to his life in the Laughintheark ride, he was probably part
of one of these outlaw mummy shows. Yeah. So the next day, a statement from the Emmy's office appeared in the
newspapers around the country giving the cause of death, obviously shot in the chest and requesting the public's help
tracking down Lewis Sunny or one of the relatives who might know the origin of the body. Mhm. The story moved super
fast and within a day the Emmy's office received a call from Dave Freriedman, the president of Entertainment Ventures,
which was the parent company of Lewis Sunny's Museum of Crime. Oh, okay. So he exclaimed immediately when he talked to
the Emmy's office, "It's old Elmer." What? So according to Freriedman, the body was Elmer McCertie, a smalltime
bandit who was gunned down by a sheriff's posi after robbing a train in Oklahoma in October 1911. The way he
just knew, he said, "Oh, it's Elma. Oh, that's old Elmo. Oh, that's old." Like, what the [ __ ]
So Freeman claimed that since no one had claimed McCert's body after his death, the enterprising sheriff at the time
sold the embombed body of the outlaw to the operator of a traveling carnival for
display in their sh side. Wow. In 1921, Lewis Sunny, the founder of Entertainment Ventures, quote, obtained
McCert's body in 1921 as security on a $500 loan that was never paid. Instead of $500, you get this guy. For
collateral, you just get this dude. Okay. Like, what the [ __ ] All righty. Bounties were different. Yeah, a little
bit. Since then, Elmer McCert's body was displayed in various sideshow and boardwalk attractions until the practice
of displaying mummified corpses fell a little bit out of favor with the public around the late 1940s, I'd say. All
right. Took us a little bit. All right. Took us a little bit. Um, we said, you know what? This isn't great. I did see
um a crazy kind of mummified body of a clown um in California at the CIA. Welcome to
the CIA. I don't think the CIA is a thing anymore. Yeah, I remember you telling me about that when I was
probably like nine. That place was crazy. What? It had like the It had all this like cool [ __ ] I I I'm sure people
in California probably know what this place was or is. Wizard of Oz and Pink Floyd. That will do. It played like it
it was just like chaos in there. Like it was just a bunch of cool and random [ __ ]
like very a lot of oddities and [ __ ] and I I loved it and it was playing the Wizard of Oz on all the TVs and playing
Dark Side of the Moon like to to go with it. And the vibe was just right in there. But in a glass case was the
supposed mummified body of a clown and he wanted to be like buried in his clown makeup and [ __ ] It was the most
unsettling thing I've ever seen. I'd bet. But it's like I It's like when it fell out of favor in the 1940s, I'm like
I saw one in like 2005. So actually, I'm like I don't know. Asterric. I saw one in the in the mid the mid early as I
mean I suppose if that's what you want. Yeah. If that's what you want then go for it, man. Yeah. It's up to you. It's
your It's your [ __ ] you know? Go for go crazy. So, according to Freriedman, after being taken out of the show,
McCert's body was moved to a storage facility in Los Angeles. That's sad. It remained in storage until Dan Sunny,
Lewis's son, inherited the company in 1968 and sold his Elmer McCert's body to the Hollywood Wax Museum. Whoa. Who in
turn sold it to the New Pike Amusement Company, where it was on display until it was discovered by the film crew while
shooting an episode of The $6 Million Man. the way this mummy is just traveling. He's been everywhere. Uh, in
the days after that, Dr. Naguchi and his assistant at the medical examiner's office conducted further analysis of the
body to confirm or rule out whether this was in fact Elmer McCertie. Since there
was no DNA testing available at that time, uh the doctor took measurements of the bones and had a sketch artist
recreate a rendering of what this man would have looked like while alive based on a few existing photographs of Elmer
McCertie that were provided by the Oklahoma Historical Society. Actually, uh the doctor and his team were able to
confidently confirm that the amusement park mummy was indeed the corpse of Elmer McCertie. Now, in a press
conference held to announce this in April 1977, Dr. Naguchi stated that once the
appropriate paperwork had been filed, the body would be released to the Oklahoma Historical Society and shipped
to Guthrie, Oklahoma for burial. Okay. Um, the Historical Society spokesperson Fred Olds told reporters, "Elmer will f
finally be buried at an old territorial cemetery with robbers and outlaws. He was sidetracked for a long time, but we
feel like he's part of our history." Oh, so he's just buried among his brethren.
You know, a lot of outlaws. Took me a minute to get here. I also think it's kind of badass that there's just like an
outlaw cemetery in Oklahoma. Like, where's that? I'd like to see it. That'd be fun. Uh, the identification of the
new Pike mummy, that's what it was being called, seemingly brought this mystery to a close, but it did nothing to answer
a lot of the new questions in the minds of people who have read this story. Who the [ __ ] was Elmer McCertie?
everything. How did he meet this kind of end fate? Like how did he end up here? So Elmer McCertie was born January 1st,
1880 in Washington, Maine to he's a Cappy and he was born to um an unwed mother, Sadie McCertie, which of course
in 1880 an unwed mother. Oh my goodness. According to author Mark Zenvold, the identity of McCert's father, he never
got to know that. Um, but it was possibly Sadi's cousin, Charles Davis. Yucka. So, to protect Elmer from the
embarrassment of having been born out of wedlock and potentially to his mom's cousin, uh, Sades brother George and his
wife Helen adopted the boy at an early age and raised him. In 1890, when Elmer was 10 years old, George unfortunately
died of tuberculosis. Not so nice. Um, so Helen and Sadi moved to Banganger, Maine to live with their older brother,
Charles. Uh, it was at this time that Sadi started taking a more active role in caring for Elmer. And not long after,
the two women revealed to him that Sadi was actually his mother. Ooh, it's kind of like uh Ted Bundy. Ted Bundy. It's
very Ted Bundy. Yes. Understandably, this is very traumatic. I can't imagine. Yeah, absolutely.
He had recently lost the man who he thought was his birth mother father his whole life. And now he's finding this
out. Like that's a lot for a kid. Not only is he finding out that this woman is not his mother, but his aunt and that
his mother his his aunt is his mother and that now he actually is realizing he's never even known his father and
won't and that it was his beloved uncle who died. Like yeah, that's just a lot. [ __ ] Um yeah. So according to Spenvol,
those who knew McCertie said this was the point that things turned for him. Understandable. Caused him to become
unruly and rebellious. I too might become unruly and rebellious. So within a few years, while very much still a
child, Elmer started developing a drinking problem. Oh god. That would follow him the rest of his life,
unfortunately. Uh the first signs of like big trouble came when he was arrested at age 15 for starting a bar
fight in near by Belfast, Maine. Posie in a bar. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Why was he in a bar? Why was he in a
bar? So, after this incident, Sadie and Helen decided Elmer needed a stronger masculine influence in his life and he
was sent to live with his grandfather, Harden Mccertie. He did Hardened McCertie actually really did help him.
He helped him find an apprenticeship with a local plumber. This was a lot of structure, a new routine, and it
actually seemed to suit Elmer. Like, he liked this kind of structure. And by the
time he was 18 years old, he had become an expert. Wow. So these were all this was great. It seemed to be working well.
The grandfather was good to him. Got him on the straight and narrow, but it was shortlived because in 1898, just as
McCertie was settling, you know, trying to get out on his own, the American economy took a downturn. It's always
going to do that. One thing about the economy, she always is going to crash out. She's always going to crash out.
You know, recession indicators everywhere. It's always going to happen. So, and it really hit rural areas like
banger and like banger banger banger man. It it hit it particularly hard out in the rural areas. Um so because of
this recession, a lot of businesses are closing. Millions of people are losing their jobs. Thousands left their small
towns and villages to find any kind of employment. So not great to be setting out on your own in this situation. No.
So in in Banger Maine, Satie and Helen both lost their jobs and exper you know and this hit Satie really hard. She
always was prone to anxiety. So losing her job in this kind of recession was just not great, right? Uh she developed
an ulcer that she really struggled to keep under control. Yikes. And in 1900 she ended up dying when it unexpectedly
ruptured. Yeah. And a few months later, Harden um Harden McCertie died of Bright's
disease, which was it's like an outdated basically generic term for inflamed kidneys. Oh. essentially. Wow. In the
span of 10 years, Elmer McCertie lost his who he thought was his father, his birthmother, and his grandfather. That's
a lot of thoughts. All of whom had played a very important part in his life up until this point. Like they were all
like positive things in his life. Yeah. And to make matters worse, after working
hard to learn a trade and become an expert plumber, the recession had completely [ __ ] that up. Like he
couldn't get any job. These definitely left him like bitter, frustrated, and he turned to drinking even more. Um, so he
decided there was not a lot left for him in Maine. So he decided to go find something somewhere else. And after
leaving Maine, he kind of drifted around the East Coast states for a few years, hopping train cars from town to town
trying to find work. Occasionally, he could find like temp work as a plumber or handyman, but inevitably his drinking
would get the better of him, and he would end up just getting himself fired. Yeah. In 1903, he found himself in, a
small town in southeast Kansas. And about a decade earlier, a large deposit of natural gas had been found under the
ground there. Oh [ __ ] Which is pretty interesting. and it resulted in like a boom of new industry and a big increase
in the town's once very tiny population. So in response to this whole thing, they're becoming a successful town now.
The town leaders went out of their way to erase any traces of this former like wild west identity. Uh they wanted now
to present Iola as like this upand cominging uh you know hub of inter industry, the future of Kansas. So
within a few years of discovering the resources under the land in Iola, they had transformed this place. I mean they
paved the roads, invested in a telephone system, built accommodations and attractions, an opera house, a local
branch of the YMCA. It was [ __ ] happening town. It's a fun place to go. Um they had a lot to offer someone like
Elmer McCertie who's looking to start over and someone who is a skilled tradesman. It's not like he's walking in
there not knowing how to do anything. Um, so he was psyched about this and honestly the town was excited to have
him, which is interesting. They basically said it. He arrived in town that year and in an announcement of
several newly arrived citizens. That's so fun. The local paper described Elmer as quote, "An industrious young man who
had gained access to the better society circles of who classed among his friends
many of the well-known people of the town." That's fun. Wait, as a society, why do we not announce newcomers in a
paper? That's what I'm saying. Do you remember being in school and they were they were like, "Oh, we have a new kid."
And you were like, "I'm gonna find them and befriend them immediately." I would do that with the newcomers in town.
Yeah. I'd be like, "I will sit with them at lunch." Like, "Let's be friends, newcomers.
Come on." And it gets people excited to be like, "Oh, I'm just Yeah, look at me.
I'm industrious. Welcome to me to your town. I'm new in town. I'm new in town." You get to John Melany it. That would be
so fun. Yeah, I love it. I think we should write to our town. I think it's adorable. Um, unfortunately, this didn't
last very long because wamp wamp because Elmer Elmer struggles to keep good for himself. He's a self-sabotager. It
happens to the best of us. Didn't take long for him to squander the opportunities presented to him by the
people of Biola. Uh not long after he came into town, he did find work as a plumber, but within a couple months, his
alcoholism reared its ugly head and started causing trouble. According to McCert's former employer, William Root,
after a long night of drinking at a local saloon, Elmer claimed that he had killed a man during a bar fight in
another state. Huh. And rumors started swirling. He did confront him about this and was like, "Dude, you kill someone.
Did you like kill someone cuz like you can't work for me?" And he was like, "No, I didn't. I was just like boasting.
I was making something up." But he had to let him go. I was just boasting about murder. You know, like that's that's
bad, too. Uh so McCertie left Kansas in 1905 and hopped a freight car, eventually winding up in Web City,
Missouri. Missouri. Missouri. Web City was also experiencing a boom in industry and population thanks to the discovery
of the world's largest zinc deposit located underneath the town. Uh Elmer got a job with the Davy Mine Company
at a time when safety standards were uh lax uh if if not completely absent like just totally gone. U there were a few
dangerous jobs around but none quite as dangerous as being a [ __ ] minor. Could get the black lung popped. Yeah,
you're gonna uh one could make a decent enough living as a minor cuz like Yeah, because
you die tomorrow. Yeah, it's a trade-off. The trade-offs, not we'll pay you if you show up back from the mine.
You live through it, right? Uh cave-ins were very common, too. Oh, God. McCertie
was on a team of muckers, the men who would collect the loose and chipped pieces of zinc into a cart and haul them
back up to the surface. The salary was about $2 a day. Uh the work would have been very grueling, very backbreaking,
and it would require him to shovel about 60 to 100 tons of ore into the cart by hand. Wow. To make matters worse, the
conditions were uh not ideal. According to Fenbolds, men were crushed by rockfall or blown to bits by overzealous
applications of dynamite a lot. Whoa. Uh also, because hard hats had not been invented yet, head injuries were pretty
common. Stop it. Uh in order to try to stop these, the miners were pretty industrious themselves, they would wad
up newspapers under their hats to like cushion the blow of falling. Smart. Essentially inventing hard hats,
everybody. Uh, so good on them. But there were also other unexpected effects. Um, there was like endless
amounts of zinc dust that was hanging in the air all the time from the drilling and blasting. When breathed in for
extended periods of time, zinc caused silicosis or minors consumption. It's a scarring of the lung tissue that would
eventually lead to death. Ooh, that's horrible. Yeah. And after less than two years in the mines, Elmer McCertie had
developed a terrible cough. He was short of breath a lot. He constantly struggled
with lung irritations. They were pretty debilitating and it would stop him from doing his job eventually. So that really
wasn't his fault. Yeah. No, not at all. So he couldn't earn a living in the mines anymore. Um and he was having
trouble. He went right back to like alcohol and but his savings were dwindling. So he joined the US Army in
November 1907 and he was assigned to company E3 infantry stationed at Fort Levvenworth in Kansas. Mhm. So on his
enlistment papers, he his previous occupation was listed as minor, not plumber. And he had way more experience
as a plumber and he was much more skilled as a plumber. Maybe because of that, he was assigned to a program that
trained soldiers in demolition. Oh. Specifically with various forms of explosives. Fun. Uh in addition to his
training with explosives, he served as a machine gun detachment person and generally flew under the ring. I don't
know what they're called. Artillerymen. Yeah, sure. Uh, and flew under the radar
pretty much for three years. And in the spring of 1910, he was given an honorable discharge after his initial
term. And he chose not to renew his contract. And he was like, you know what? I have some other ways that I can
make a living. Like, that was nice. Fun little thing I did for three years. So, he left the military and he was going to
look for a new job, but there was still that whole recession thing. So competition was pretty stiff still.
After about two weeks of unemployment, he sent a telegram to his army buddy. Walter I think it's Chopeller. Fun
Chopelry. Chopely. Um and he asked him to get a few days of leave to help him with a job. Okay. So Walter managed to
get a week-l long pass from the base and joined McCertie in St. Joseph, Kansas. On the night of November 19th, 1910,
Elmer McCertie and Walter were walking down the main street in St. Joseph, Kansas, when they were stopped by three
special officers for Burlington train line. At the time, it was pretty common practice in many towns for officers to
stop unfamiliar men who they suspected of being like drifters or or some nefarious kind of, you know, suspects of
something. Mhm. So, they stopped them and they questioned them. And then the officers noticed the large heavy bag
that Elmer was carrying. The officers insisted he open it and they looked in and found that the bag contained a force
screw, a a door jimmy, assorted drills and hacksaws, chisels, a nitroglycerine funnel, gunpowder, and a gunpowder
funnel. Just your typical what's in my bag. Yeah, what's in my bag? Get ready with me. Uh these were all tools that
were commonly used by burglars and bank robbers at the time. Yeah. So Elmer and Walter couldn't super explain why they
were carrying such hefty quantities of burglar tools. I just love screwdrivers. But they were like, "Nfarious? We are
not." But they were like, "Okay, cool. What are you?" And they were like, "Not sure. Not nefarious. Can't explain it,
but we aren't nefarious. We are unnefarious." But the officers could see right through that [ __ ] And in the
affidavit filed for their arrest, the officers asserted that the men were in possession of quote mechanical devices
adapted, designed, and commonly used for breaking into vaults and safes. Oh no. Just 2 weeks out of the army, and Elmer
has already been arrested. I'm only 2 weeks. Uh worse than that, he was facing felony charges that carried a sentence
of between 2 and 10 years in prison. Yikes. broke and unable to find either a lawyer or a decent explanation for why
he was carrying burglar equipment. Uh he concocted a new plan. On November 23rd,
the day of his court date, Elmer wore his US Army uniform and headed into court. No. So Elmer explained that no,
he was not carrying the tools of a common burglar. What was he carrying? Like come on. He said they were parts to
an invention that he and Walter were trying to patent. a machine gun tripod that allowed the user to fire the gun
with his foot. Innovative. Elmer went as far as to ask for a continuence so he could subpoena his
commanding officer, Captain Charles Murphy, who he claimed would testify to the veracity of these claims. Uh, you're
not in the army anymore. Yeah. Um, so everyone in the court was like, "That's [ __ ]
Like I am sure of that. Um, and unfortunately I think he like overplayed No, I know he overplayed his hand here
because he actually subpoenaed Captain Charles Murphy. Oh. Um, and I don't think he thought this would go further
than that. I thought he would just be like, you know, kind of like he won't love and they would be fine. But to
Elmer McCertie's surprise, when the arraignment resumed a few days later, Captain Murphy appeared in court and he
explained those bits of metal would have absolutely no use in any machine gun of
mine. Yikes. In response, Elmer McCertie jumped up from his seat and lunged at Captain Murphy and had to be restrained
by the officers in the court. Elmer. This outburst with the fact that Elmer was clearly lying about the tripod
machine gun that you could use with your foot was sufficient enough evidence for
the judge to return an indictment and a trial was scheduled for January 1911. Understandable. Like his ejection from
Iola Society a few years earlier, the arrest and indictment in St. Joseph was definitely another turning point for
Elmer McCertie. It was yet another experience that made him just think, you know what, I don't belong in polite
society. I belong amongst the criminals. The criminals. As Elmer sat in jail awaiting his trial, he started making
friends with the other inmates cuz he's Elmer. You know, you got to talk to you.
You got to do something. Talk to including a man named Walter Jarrett. At the time of Elmer's Elmer's arrest,
Jarrett was serving a short prison sentence for a petty burglary conviction, but he also had some
experience robbing banks and had served longer sentences in the past. So, he was
like not to brag. Kind of a career criminal. Like many men his age, Jarrett Jarrett had grown up idolizing the
outlaws of the Old West. you know, Jesse James, the Dalton brothers, men who had
like bucked modern society standards and made a living, you know, just robbing, shooting, and being violent,
riding horses. Exactly. And once he was grown, Walter Jarrett was determined to be just like his childhood heroes, which
landed him in jail a lot. So it was Jared who convinced Elmer McCertie that if he was able to get out of his current
predicament, you know, the two men Jarrett and he they could exper, you know, they could maybe like do something
together. Like he's like, I can rob banks. Like I've done that. He said he's like you, Elmer McCertie, we could do a
really good collab here because I hear I think you can explode things. Yeah. He said post for post like you went you
went you went in the army and you learned how to blow stuff up. That's pretty good for a bank robbery. Yeah. Uh
so they were like, "Let's do this." First, Elmer needed he was like, "You know what? First, deal with the charges
against you and then we'll we'll talk. We'll go from there." So on January 30th, 1911, Elmer McCert's case went
before a jury in what everyone assumed was going to be a pretty [ __ ] short trial. Uh but within the first day, it
seemed like things might actually be working in Elmer's favor. The prosecutor was only able to find one person who
would testify against his machine gun defense. But when that witness was shown the tools McCertie was arrested with, he
couldn't identify them as being the tools of a burglar or a bank robber either. All right. Like basically like I
can't say they are and I can't say they aren't. He said they're just tools. Also, Elmer was able to find US Army
officials who were willing to testify that Mccertie quote was the best damned soldier in the whole damned army. Wow.
Yeah. What a compliment. In the end, it all came down to a matter of reasonable doubt. And it's I mean nobody knows if
the jury actually believed the tripod machine gun claim. Uh but the prosecution was unable to prove that the
tools were like a bank heist toolkit. Yeah. And he was acquitted of the charges. Okay. Elmer. Yeah. Following
the acquid, Elmer was free to go and immediately fought um sought out Walter Jarrett to begin their life of crime.
Let's go. Yeah. And by then Jared had already talked up Elmer to his brothers, particularly his experience in uh
exploding things, you know. You know, in the spring, the gang broke into a general store in Oklahoma and stole the
ammunition and tools they needed for their first big job, which was robbing the St. Louis Iron Mountain train. Oh.
On a routine mail run in April, the gang caused a disturbance on the tracks, which forced the train to come to a
stop. Once the train was stopped, the gang opened fire, showering the express car in a hail of bullets. As the
passengers of the train panicked, the Jarrett brothers entered the engine car and held the engineer at gunpoint. In
the meantime, Elmer entered the express car to blow the safe up. That's where there would have been this large sum of
money. Unfortunately, Elmer turned out to be, you know, less of an expert than they were expecting cuz remember, he
went into the army with with lots of experience in plumbing. Plumbing, you know, like he could plum. Yeah. He
wasn't that great with explosives. They just were like, "Sure, let's have you blow [ __ ] up." Okay. So, he was not
great. And uh the men returned to the train car to find that the explosives have been unsuccessful in opening the
safe, but determined cuz Elmer, we will find out, is nothing, if not determined.
Okay. He tried again, but he was still unable to blow it up. Likely because he had no idea what he was doing. Yes. For
more than two hours, the train sat motionless on the track as the inept robbers repeatedly tried and failed to
blow the safe open. Two hours. Meanwhile, the passengers are sitting there just just watching these bumbling
idiots try to open this safe. Two hours is a long time. Finally, after an unreasonable long period of time, Elmer
was able to get the door to the safe open. I think I could have done it faster. Exactly. But by that time, he'd
blown an enormous hole in the side of one of the train cars. What? And destroyed the interior of another. And
then when they entered the car to grab the $4,000 in silver coins that was awaiting them inside the safe. And was
that blown up, too? They discovered that the explosives had been so hot that it fused all the coins into a single shiny
mass of silver. Oh, and that single shiny blob of silver was stuck to the inside of the walls and floor of the
safe. It's a real bang up job. The men tried tried desperately to pry this loose. And when then they saw the lights
of an approaching car, so they just had to run and they just stole some of the passengers watches on the way out.
I love that they were like, "Well, we got to do something. Give me a watch. I need something. I would honestly be like
you you need it more than I do. I'd be like, you know what? You want my earrings, too? I feel like you really
you tried your best, you know. Wow. Wow. Wow. First you do not succeed for two hours.
So following that robbery, if you could call it that, Elma McCertie and Wal Walter Jarrett were immediately
identified as the suspects and a $1,000 reward was offered for the capture of either of them. All the mistakes were
laid at their feet and like they were like there and honestly it was laid mostly at their supposed explosives
expert and the gang made no secret that they were pissed. Not long after the failed heist, a knife fight broke out
between McCertie and Jarrett. Elmer got a deep cut on his arm and Walter's face was slashed. The resentment ended up
ruining the relationship between the gang and McCertie and they went their separate ways. After just a few months,
though, Jarrett's gang was all rounded up and prosecuted for their crimes, and Elmer was remaining at large cuz they
cut him loose on the run. Yeah. as a criminal now on the run, Elmer passed himself off as several different aliases
like Charles Davis, Frank Curtis. Um, and that's the one he used in September 1911. No longer in the company of Harden
Bandits, he was definitely still determined to make his name as an outlaw. He wasn't ready to quit, you
know. And by late September, he'd hooked up with a new criminal outfit and formulated a new plan to get rich. Let's
go. On the night of October 6th, 1911, McCertie and his new gang stopped Katy train number 929 near
Oesca, a small town in northeast Oklahoma. The gang had heard a rumor that the train was carrying
$400,000. Um, and it was supposed to be delivered to um Oage Reservation in exchange for oil and they set their
sights on that money. It's a lot of money. Now, determined to make up for the last failure, Elmer volunteered to
take point. He was like, I want to make up for this. Yeah. And after stopping the train on the tracks, Elmer set about
decoupling the engine and the express cars from the other cars so that he could ride the train further down the
tracks and make off with the money. Okay. At first, things were going great. The train stopped. They were able to get
the cars unhooked, moving again, no problem. But when the gang went to the express car to collect their loot, they
discovered that Elmer had uncoupled the wrong car, and they'd left the car with the
safe miles behind them. Oh no. So instead of getting $400,000, the car they'd stolen only had
about $45 inside. They were pretty pissed. Yeah. Deeply disappointed. He is a bad criminal. The
gang split up and went their separate ways, but not before Elmer stole the conductor's watch and a bottle of
whiskey. I love that they all lit, in that moment, they were pissed. They were disappointed. And then they all just
went, "Fuck y'all." And they all just went different ways. And Elmer stole whiskey and a watch and was like,
"Peace." Yeah. So now separated from the gang and he's walking on his own now. Just left that whole shenanigans on a
sad boy walk. Oh, true sad boy walk. Elmer fled into the Oage Hills, but the law the law wasn't far behind. The long
arm of the law. The longest arm of the law. The area where McCertie had fled proved far more difficult to traverse
than he'd expected. Uh not only was he completely unfamiliar with this region, but uh it was dense with thicket and
ravines and uh he was also drinking whiskey the whole time. So he was sloppy drunk or [ __ ] Yeah. Um Yeah. And he
wasted. He's not only moving slowly, but he's doing absolutely nothing to cover up his tracks as he goes cuz he's just
lit and he's probably not being quiet. Yeah. In fact, at one point, he dropped the completely dropped the whole empty
whiskey bottle on the ground, which gave the blood hounds that were following him
an opportunity to renew their scent. Oh no. In short time, the sheriff's posy caught up with Elmer at a farm along the
Big Cany River where he was hiding out in a barn. It was nighttime by them, and when they approached the barn, they
found him sleeping in a large pile of hay. He just passed right out. I mean, yeah, you would after a bottle of
whiskey. So, they were worried about losing him in the darkness if they had like just jumped on him. So, they just
waited there until daylight to make the arrest. And at about 7 a.m. the next morning, they're like, "Yeah, he's not
going anywhere." Three deputies approached the barn door making noise. So, they woke him up from his sleep. And
when Elmer looked through the hole, he saw them and he didn't hesitate. He just opened fire on them. Oh, [ __ ] Yeah. Uh
Bob Fenton later said he took a shot at me first, then he took a shot at Stringer. After that, he took three
shots at Wallace before we opened fire. My god. Elmer McCertie had proven a poor
explosives expert, and as it turns out, he wasn't that great with a rifle either. All five shots McCertie took at
the men standing less than 10 ft away from him missed. Elmer. The deputies retreated somewhat, and for about an
hour, the group traded gunfire until finally one of the shots found its target, hitting Elmer in the chest. And
it sent the bullet obviously ricocheting into his hip where it would later be discovered decades later by the Los
Angeles County Medical Examiner. Yes. So the Posi collected Elmer's body and brought it back to Pahusa with them.
That is a fun town. Where they handed it over to the owner of Johnson's, the local funeral parlor. Knowing that no
one was going to come claim the body, the undertaker saw an opportunity to make some money. So he treated the body
with an aridic compound, creating the situation that would allow the body to be mummified over time. And after that,
Elmer was stored in the back room of Johnson's, where the proprietor charged a nickel for people to come look at him
as he was build as the bandit who wouldn't give up. What? You know, that's so nice. They were like, he tried tried
tried again. You know what he did? He was a little he was a little bandit who could. He was toot toot who really
couldn't. Uh, you pay a nickel, you can see the bandit that wouldn't give up. Dang. To the Undertaker's surprise, 5
years later, a man came into the funeral parlor saying he was McCert's long-lost
brother. What? And he tearfully begged the Undertaker to give Elmer's body back to him so he could give him a proper
burial. That's fake as [ __ ] Not wanting to run a foul of the law, the Undertaker
was like, "Absolutely, you can have the body. Take your brother." It was only later that he learned that this long-
lost brother was in fact the owner of the traveling carnival who tricked him into handing over his his sideshow star
trickery. And so it was that Elmer McCertie entered the carnival and sideshow circuit getting passed from one
traveling show to another until he finally ended up hanging in the laugh ride at the Pike in Long Beach. Cirly
pop. That was a tale. For the most of his life, he had tried and failed to make a name for himself. First as an
upstanding member of society, then as a hardened bandit and train robber. But it
was in his death that he finally achieved the notoriety that he felt he deserved. Yeah. Once all the paperwork
had been signed and filed after he was discovered, Elmer McCert's body was released to the Oklahoma Historical
Society and the Indian territory posy of westerners. That's the like name of it.
Yes. And in April 1977, Elmer McCertie was finally laid to rest at Boot Hill Cemetery in Guthri, Oklahoma, 66 years
after a bullet fired from the Oage County Sheriff's Deputy ended his life. Wow. And that is the tale of Elmer
McCernie, the outlaw mummy sister. Sister, what what a journey we just took together. I think that story slaps. That
is a slap of a story. Wild tale. I think it's Elmer is a character. Yeah, I think so. I feel bad
for his beginnings because I think it really colored the rest of his his life and it looked like he got, you know, you
feel you're like you got he he got into the cups and it took him away from have being an upstanding member of society.
Yeah. And he just couldn't catch a break. Yeah. Don't be dragging. He just wasn't good. And he wasn't even good at
being bad. That's the thing. I don't think he was meant to be a bad guy. Destined to be good. Yeah, he was
destined to just like be Elmer, you know. Yeah, just be a cool plumber. But it's sad what happened to him after. Oh,
it is sad. And it's really wild that that was able to happen for so long. Sure is. So, what a world. Yeah, that's
the tale. Well, crazy tale. But that being said, we hope you keep listening. And you should because that's a crazy
tale. There's more where that came from. And we hope you keep it weird. Not so weird as Elma. That's
Elma. That's Elma. Come on. Don't keep it so weird as Elma. Elma. That's crazy. That guy's a freaking crazy guy.
A freaking crazy guy. [Music] [Music]

In early December 1976, a film crew was shooting an episode of a popular television show at The Pike, a boardwalk amusement park in Long Beach, California. In order to prepare for the scene, the prop master moved what he believed to be a wax mannequin hanging from funhouse gallows; however, when he grabbed the mannequin by the arm, the limb broke off, revealing human bone and muscle tissue.

After removing the body to the coroner’s office to be autopsied, it was revealed that what had long thought to have been a wax museum dummy was in fact the body of a man who’d died from a gunshot wound more than six decades before his body was discovered in Long Beach. After some basic detective work, investigators learned that the mummified corpse was that of Elmer McCurdy, an early twentieth-century bank robber who was shot and killed by a sheriff’s posse in Oklahoma in 1911.

Removing the body from the funhouse and identifying the body allowed authorities to arrange for a proper burial, but it did little to answer the question on the minds of so many: How did the mummified body of a long-dead outlaw end up on display in a wax museum funhouse?

Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!

References Cohen, Jerry. 1976. "Mummy identified as bandit slain in 1911." Los Angeles Times, December 11: 1.

Harvey, Steve. 1979. "Bungler Elmer McCurdy... RIP... gets more attention in death than in life." Los Angeles Times, December 31: 21.

Himmel, Nieson. 1976. "'Dummy' found to be a corpse." Los Angeles Times, December 9: 3.

Los Angeles Times. 1976. "Mummy was Oklahoma bandit killed in 1912." Los Angeles Times, December 10: 8.

Reuters. 1977. "'Wax model' identified as Oklahoma bandit." New York Times, April 15: 14.

Smith, Robert Barr. 1999. "Western Lore." Wild West.

Svenvold, Mark. 2002. Elmer McCurdy: The Misadventures in Life and Afterlife of an American Outlaw. New York, NY: Harper.

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Brief Summary

Elmer McCertie, an outlaw mummy, had a bizarre life marked by failed crimes and a strange posthumous legacy.

Key points

A Shocking Discovery. A crew member finds what he thinks is a mannequin, but it's a mummified body.
The Outlaw Mummy. Elmer McCertie, a small-time bandit, was discovered mummified in an amusement park.
Elmer's Troubled Childhood. Elmer McCertie's early life was marked by trauma and loss, leading to rebellion.
The Downward Spiral. After losing his family, Elmer's life spiraled into alcoholism and trouble with the law.
Arrested for Burglary Tools. Just two weeks after leaving the army, Elmer was arrested for carrying burglary tools.
A Desperate Defense. Elmer concocts a wild story to explain his possession of burglary tools in court.

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