Death on Display

Some Halloween props can look silly, plastic-y, and goofy- while some others can look unsettlingly realistic. Of course, creepy Halloween décor doesn't actually include dead bodies on display- most of the time.

In 1976, the the TV show Six Million Dollar Man was set to shoot at Pike Amusement park on a ride that was themed around all sorts of ghosts and ghouls with fittingly spooky props to boot. To prepare for the shoot, an employee was rearranging a few of the props and grabbed ahold of a mannequins arm- only for the arm to fall right off. Seemed harmless enough- until upon inspection, it was revealed that this was no dummy arm; this arm was made up of layers of desiccated flesh and bone, the arm of a real human corpse.

Where had this body come from?

In 1911, an outlaw named Elmer McCurdy robbed a train near Okesa, Oklahoma. He and his unfortunate gang happened to rob the wrong train, and ended up with a measly sum far less than they'd imagined they'd collect when going in on the job; he'd made off with two jugs of whiskey and $46 dollars. He and his gang fled the law all the way to a barnyard near the Kansas border- he'd never be taken alive! Of course, he was killed shortly in the ensuing gun fight after the police caught up with him. His body was taken to a funeral home in Pawhuska, but given no one came to claim him, his body was left sitting embalmed for near six months.

It wasn't uncommon to have peculiar corpses displayed as a curiosity back in those days, thus, the unclaimed corpse was a ripe opportunity for an enterprising undertaker. Elmer was unusually well preserved for how long he'd been sitting out, thus the undertaker dressed him up with his rifle and made the outlaw into a macabre exhibit that people could view after they paid the undertaker's fee- a nickel, pressed into Elmer's mouth.

Eventually, some other resourceful gentlemen caught onto the lucrative scheme that was the display of Elmer McCurdy. Two men turned up to the mortuary, claiming to be long lost relatives of Elmer's who wished to take the body as to finally lay their poor brother to rest. It's not much of a surprise to say that the pair were in fact carnival-men, and it was only a few weeks before McCurdy emerged as the main attraction of a traveling carnival.

For around 60 years, McCurdy made his way through carnivals, wax museums, and haunted houses till he ended up at The Pike in Long Beach. He had long since lost the story of his outlaw past, and had become nothing more than what was assumed to be a simple spooky decoration. However, being embalmed, stuffed full of bullets, nickels, and carnival ticks- Elmer didn't make for your usual Halloween prop. It was only after the film-crew in 1976 tore the poor fellow's arm off that he was discovered to be a real person- and was identified by police as Elmer McCurdy.

The outlaw was finally laid to rest in Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie, Oklahoma. Elmer's long, strange journey all around the United States had finally come to a close.

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Slate's article on Elmer

Elmer McCurdy, Traveling Corpse