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THE TELLTALE MUMMIES

(ATROPHY MYSTERIES)

Elmer McCurdy and good luck were always strangers; if there ever was a man who could be labeled “Star Crossed”, it was this man. McCurdy was born in 1880 and reared in Bangor, Maine. Lore has it; the unlucky fellow was a product from a union of first cousins.

McCurdy was raised by his aunt and uncle, who he thought were his mother and father. After his uncle’s death it was explained to McCurdy, who was who. Feeling betrayed by his elders, the confused youth was passed onto his mother and then onto other relatives.

By age fifteen McCurdy was a binge drinker and runaway. In 1899, McCurdy’s mother and grandfather died. This tragedy sent the young man into a tailspin; he moved west in 1903 and tried his hand as a plumber and miner. McCurdy meant well, but bad luck dogged him. Historian Drew Gomber labeled McCurdy as, “God’s own idiot.” The euphemism is harsh, but McCurdy’s adult exploits proved he was not the sharpest tool in the shed.

While in Kansas, with a goal of a better life and new horizons, the man from Maine joined the Army (1907-1910). McCurdy hoped to be shipped to the Philippines; he was posted to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. So much for McCurdy’s dreams of “new latitudes and attitudes”. After his discharge McCurdy’s drinking and bad judgment led him into a calamitous life of crime.

McCurdy looked the part of the tough guy, he was wiry and skull-faced. If beady-eyed McCurdy had gotten into Hollywood’s silent picture industry, he would have made a million dollars with his desperado looks. McCurdy demeanor was of a gangster who did not know the meaning of the word, “Fear”. In reality, McCurdy was a bandit who didn’t know the importance of thorough planning.

The former soldier was arrested in St. Joseph, Missouri, on November 20, 1910. Depending on the source, McCurdy had burglary tools on him or he carried stolen machine gun parts in his grip. Upon his release from jail, the dim bulb joined a gang.

On March 23, 1911, bad luck McCurdy participated in his first heist. Near Lenapah, Oklahoma, the cursed man and his fellow bandits robbed the Iron Man Train. McCurdy’s job was to blow open a safe containing $4,000 in silver. McCurdy used too much explosive, the heat from the detonation melted most of the precious metal. McCurdy and the gang were only able to abscond with $450.

With a new gang, McCurdy and his outlaws robbed a bank in Chautauqua, Kansas, on September 21, 1911. The jinxed man from Maine, managed to blow open the first door of the safe. Due to fulmination problems he was not able to open its second door. Around $130 was taken from the unsecured tills inside the bank. Bad luck and the name Elmer McCurdy were synonymous.

On October 4, 1911, McCurdy rode with a new gang. One wonders if he got kicked out at gunpoint from his old gangs? The luckless outlaw and his ring of thieves robbed the M. K. and T. passenger train at 1 AM near Okesas, Oklahoma. Again ill fortune was with the drake from Bangor.

The holdup netted $40, a coat, a watch and two big bottles of whiskey. After the pitiful robbery, McCurdy and the outlaws separated. Was this part of the plan or was McCurdy ditched?

The no-luck bandit found shelter in an out-of-the way barn in the Osage Hills. In the loft, McCurdy got drunk on the impressed whiskey.

A posse, estimated to be fifty men strong, caught up with the drunk McCurdy, who refused to surrender. A one-hour gunfight ensued. McCurdy’s last words were, “You’ll never take me alive.” True to his vow, McCurdy fought the law and lost.

McCurdy’s corpse was taken to the Johnson Funeral Home in Okesaklahoma. The outlaw was embalmed with arsenic so he would not decompose. Due to the distance between Maine and Oklahoma and how McCurdy had lived his life, it was thought it would be a long time before the brigand’s next of kin would arrive from Maine and claim the corpse.

Nobody claimed the ill-fated bank robber. For years the body was kept at the funeral home. One day as the parlor was cleaned, McCurdy’s corpse was moved. It was discovered the preserved bandit could stand up like a mannequin and his arms could hold a rifle. McCurdy’s look, which was a face in need of a shave; the nubs were an eye-catcher.

McCurdy was left standing and a Winchester rifle was positioned in his bent arms. The mummified train robber became a macabre tourist attraction. People would go to the funeral parlor and stare at the thick haired freebooter, brandishing a rifle.

McCurdy’s embalmed face had the visage of a man who wore dirty boots and kicked dogs. His smallish bent shoulders gave him the look of having carried to many shotguns and repeaters. Half a century later, his shrunken corpse had a different look. McCurdy’s countenance was of a man asking a puzzling question.

In 1916, Charles and James Patterson claimed that they were the outlaw’s brothers and imposed McCurdy’s corpse, on the promise that the bushwhacker would be taken to Kansas for burial.

It was a pack of lies; McCurdy was taken from the funeral home and used as a sideshow attraction throughout the Southwest. McCurdy was billed as “The Outlaw Who Went Down – Guns Blazing.” The hapless Yankee was now a mummy on display. Preserved by arsenic, McCurdy began to resemble a slowly decomposing Pharaoh.

Sold and resold, McCurdy went from carnivals to wax museums. Oddly, McCurdy was thought not life-like enough when compared to other wax dummies. At one time McCurdy was billed as the “Thousand Year Old Man”.

In 1976, McCurdy was on display in a Long Beach, California funhouse, called “Laff In The Dark”, at 210 A, West Pike Avenue. Luckless McCurdy had been painted orange and hung by his neck with a rope. Due to shrinkage, the once fearsome man now looked like a small fiberglass dummy as he dangled next to a cargo net.

On December 7, 1976, “The Six Million Dollar Man” television series was shooting an episode entitled, “Carnival of Spies” at the funhouse. McCurdy was part of a background scene, when it was decided by the crew to move the orange dummy to a new location. McCurdy’s arm was manhandled and the limb fell off.

As the set dressers tried to glue the appendage back onto what they thought was a dummy, it was discovered the mannequin’s arm was made up of dried flesh and bone. The constabulary was summoned and they had no idea who the human dummy was or how he had died.

The corpse was examined and an autopsy was performed. As McCurdy was worked on, it was discovered that a.32 caliber bullet had entered the corpse’s hip and lodged itself in the pelvis. Another round, which was determined to be the “kill shot,” was found in McCurdy’s chest. It was noted that the orange mummy had been badly sowed together after its arsenic embalming.

The funhouse body contained two more surprises. Deep in the shrunken mummy’s mouth were a 1924-penny and an old ticket stub.

McCurdy was finally identified. The luckless outlaw was shipped back to Oklahoma and buried with great fan fair, by cowboy garbed grave workers.

McCurdy’s was laid to rest in the Boot Hill section of the Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie, Oklahoma, on April 22, 1977. For over sixty years, McCurdy’s mummy did not rest in peace! Next to McCurdy’s plot, lies outlaw Bill Doolin’s grave.

To deter high school prankster from digging up the mummy, concrete was poured over the no luck outlaw’s gravesite. One wonders how many other wax museums or funhouses contain mummies, not dummies?

A different kind of mummy was found in 1932 Wyoming. Its lore is more sinister than bad luck McCurdy’s.

Shoshone, Crow, and Comanche legends, tell of evil dwarves, the Nimerigar or Nunnupi, which had immense strength and warred on mankind. It did not matter what sex or age their human quarry was. With glee these fast creatures would kill their prey with poisonous arrows and then eat the corpse. The tan or gray cannibals, lived in the mountains of Wyoming and Idaho. Other tales have the warrior imps dwelling in the basins of the Bighorn and Wild River areas.

Academia considered the stories of ugly man hunting dwarves, to be modern campfire tales. UFO-ologists thought the legends were how Indians conveyed their encounters with alien beings called “Grays”. According to UFO-ologists, the Grays are emotionless, smallish dark creatures, which abduct humans for medical experiments.

In 1932, sixty miles southwest of Casper, Wyoming, lore became fact. Gold prospectors Cecil Main and Frank Carr; dynamited a bluff in the San Pedro Mountains as they searched for mineral veins. The blast uncovered a hidden cave entrance. Main and Carr curiously entered into the excavation. Before them in a fifteen-by-four foot cave was a seated, mummified, tan dwarf. The carcass had a very evil face and a flattened head. The cross-legged find was taken from the cave and sent to medical laboratories for examination.

The remains were estimated to be anywhere from fourteen to nineteen inches tall. The creature looked like a big nosed man with heavy eyelids. Debunkers ridiculed the relic and judged the discovery to be a mummified fetus.

That was an impossible explanation. The specimen had a full set of canine like teeth and the bones of an adult human. The sinister looking carrion was X- rayed. It was determined the hominid’s flat upper cranium was the result of a vicious blow. Trauma of incredible force, from a blunt object had flattened the creature’s human-like skull.

Further examinations revealed the creature had a broken clavicle and a damaged spine. It was estimated, “The Thing From The Cave”, had died around the age of sixty-five. A goo or brain tissue was found on the top of the dwarf’s crushed head.

Who or what was this humanoid? Where did it come from? Why was the small man killed and then propped up in a sealed cave? What could account for its mummification? The evil-looking being was nicknamed, “The Prairie Mountain Mummy”.

The Wyoming corpse was shown in sideshows throughout the USA. Many people who viewed the grim creature would have to turn away. The humanoid’s continence was of disdain; its cruel face struck fear into the hearts of the curious.

Incredibly in 1950, the small mummy was stolen. Today there is a large reward offered for the eerie corpse. When found, it is hoped the atrophied body will be tested by state-of-the-art technology. The inquest would verify what kind of creature is the evil-looking imp?

Many anthropologists claim the small man was a freak of nature. Through an act of mercy the dwarf was liquidated by a fellow Indian with a blow to the head. Bibliomaniacs attest that northern plains Indians dispatched their lame and practiced infanticide to keep tribes strong.

A broken spine and clavicle, plus a smashed skull is not mercy killing. The mummy’s wounds makes one think it was killed in combat, by blows from a club. Why would the vile-looking biped be put into a sealed cave. What is the significance of that? Indians of Wyoming did not bury their dead in caves.

How could a long-dead creature still have goo like blood atop its crushed head? Could this creature be half human and half alien. Or was it a hoax? Was the imp a genetic human misfit? Was the dwarf a life form from another planet? Lets hope the stolen, “What Is It”, has not been destroyed. Reader, are you not curious what a DNA test would reveal concerning this Wyoming manthing? (3)