![]() After the coroner determined that the mannequin was, in fact, a human, the park’s owners quickly identified him as the mummified outlaw Elmer McCurdy. Word soon got out about the fun-house mummy, about whom so little was known that the autopsy took on the character of an archaeological dig. When he grabbed the mannequin’s arm, it broke off … revealing a bone inside. From Elmer McCurdy:The body was listed as 'the Decedent,' in official coroners parlance Dead Body Case 7614812. While preparing the set, a crewman decided to move a mannequin that hung from the gallows in a corner. In 1976, they allowed a film crew to shoot an upcoming episode of the popular TV show Six Million Dollar Man in one of the park’s thrill rides called Laff in the Dark, where goblins, skeletons, and demons leapt up to scare folks in wildly jolting cars that ran along a track. The decaying park’s desperate owners did everything they could to stay alive. Crowds were dwindling, urban blight was encroaching, and maintenance declined. But by the mid-1970s, The Pike was on the decline. ![]() In time, Elmer ended up on permanent display on the midway at The Pike Amusement Park in Long Beach, California. His preserved remains criss-crossed America from the 1920s into the 1960s as “The Bandit Who Wouldn’t Give Up.” He was photographed at an amusement park near Mount Rushmore, scared people in haunted houses, lay in an open casket in a Los Angeles wax museum, and even “performed” as a prop in a few low-budget movies. Then one day, a couple of Elmer’s outlaw cohorts claimed his body-and promptly sold it to the carnival and sideshow circuit. As long as curious folks kept paying their nickels, he kept showing Elmer’s body, re-embalming it as necessary over the next few years. The Pawhuska, Oklahoma, undertaker who prepared Elmer’s bullet-riddled corpse for burial saw a chance to make a little extra cash by charging a nickel to anyone who wanted to see the outlaw’s embalmed corpse. ![]() Elmer McCurdy as displayed at an Oklahoma funeral home
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