The mummified remains of Elmer McCurdy, an unlucky and rather unsuccessful Oklahoma outlaw, were discovered in 1976 in the back room of a defunct carnival show in Long Beach, California. The unfortunate corpse was at first believed to be a stuffed dummy - until his left arm dropped off.

After recovering from the shock, the gentleman who discovered Elmer suspected this was not a stuffed dummy at all, but a mummified human corpse. After the remains were examined by an expert, the truth was revealed... after sixty-six years.

Elmer McCurdy was born to a fifteen-year-old girl and an unknown father. A second cousin was suspected, but never acknowledged his paternity. Elmer was raised by his mother's brother's wife, who was then known as his mother, and his real mother was known as his "aunt."

When Elmer turned fifteen, he was told the truth - that his aunt was his real mother and his mother was his aunt. This turned Elmer mean, and he turned to a life of crime, killing several men before he reached the age of twenty.

In one of his escapades, it was his task to calculate the amount of nitroglycerin needed to blow up a metal safe on a train. Elmer used too much nitroglycerin, and the resulting explosion blew the safe door through the wall and melted the silver, rendering it useless to him. He only managed to pry up four hundred dollars' worth.

In another attempt to rob a train, poor Elmer mistakenly boarded the wrong train and came away with only $46 in cash and two bottles of whiskey.

Elmer fled the scene, consoling himself with the whiskey. Later, weary, feeling ill and somewhat inebriated, he spent the night in a farmer's barn. Shorty after Elmer settled in for the evening, Oklahoma law officials arrived on the scene. Elmer opened fire first, the officers said, and, after some time, a young officer was sent to ask Elmer to surrender. Elmer told him they could all go to Hell, and he continued firing. By daybreak, the firing had ceased. When a timid officer cautiously peeked inside the barn, he saw Elmer McCurdy lying dead.

Many years later, forensic evidence discovered by renowned medical detective and forensic scientist Thomas T. Noguchi revealed that Elmer was shot while lying down and had been dying from pneumonia. He also discovered, in Elmer's mouth, a new looking 1924 penny and a ticket from the Museum of Crime in Los Angeles.

Elmer McCurdy's body had been collected by an undertaker from Pawhuska, Oklahoma on Oct. 7, 1911. Elmer was thirty-one years of age when he was shot and killed by the Sheriff's posse in the Osage Hills.

The undertaker from Pawhuska found and removed a .32 caliber bullet from Elmer's body. Later, fearing that no one would come to claim the body very soon, he embalmed Elmer's body with arsenic to help preserve it.

Later studies revealed that the amount of arsenic used in preserving Elmer's body was seven hundred times more than that of any elements used in the entire Egyptian mummification process.

When, after several months passed and no one came for Elmer, his rigid body was removed from the marble slab to stand perfectly upright in the corner. The undertaker dressed Elmer in the clothes he'd worn in his last gunfight.

There in the corner Elmer remained for five years, grinning and earning the undertaker a nickel a view, until two men arrived to remove his body. They claimed to be relatives, but were, in fact, carnival owners who intended to display Elmer in their shows.

Over the next several years, Elmer traveled far and wide as the main attraction in a variety of sideshows. He was sometimes billed as the "Thousand year old man." Eventually his body was coated with wax to help preserve it. At one time, Elmer even shared the spotlight with the wax figure of another famous Oklahoma Outlaw, Bill Doolin.

On December 7, 1976, a Television studio bought Elmer's abode, The Nu-Pike Amusement Park in Long Beach, California. They wanted to use it in an episode of "The Six Million-Dollar Man." It was then that Elmer McCurdy's whereabouts was discovered

Elmer was buried, sixty-six years after his death, in Summit View Cemetery, in Guthrie, Oklahoma beside the outlaw, Bill Doolin, with whom he'd briefly shared the limelight. Summit View Cemetery is Oklahoma's only "Boot Hill."

A poet wrote these words in Elmer's memory.

Rest in Peace dear Elmer, beneath this Okie sky,
Where many an outlaw slumbers and politicians lie.

Copyright © 2002 Lou Harper
All rights reserved

      Lou Harper started writing in 1996. Since that time, she has been published five times in Capper's Magazine, and has won or placed in state-wide contests for both poetry and prose, including a recent first and second in poetry for a Massachusetts society annual event.
      Mrs. Harper currently serves as third-term president of the Southern Oklahoma Writer's Guild and as the first-term poetry editor for this magazine. Please visit her website and leave a message in her guest book. She likes that! You can also tell her that you enjoyed her essay on Kudzu Monthly by leaving a nice comment below.
       You can find Lou Harper's short fiction and and poetry, including her recent books "Poetry Collection" and "Oklahoma Poetry," at her website,  luharper.homestead.com