Post by DEMIGODDESS on Oct 11, 2006 11:51:58 GMT -5
Interesting.
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Urban Legend: The "hanging man" in a funhouse turns out to be the corpse of an outlaw. This one is supposedly true.
The Story: In December of 1976, a Universal Studios camera crew arrived at the Nu-Pike Amusement Park in Long Beach, California, to film an episode of the television action show, the Six Million Dollar Man. In preparing the set in a corner of the funhouse, a worker moved the "hanging man," causing one of this prop's arms to come off. Inside it was human bone. This was no mere prop; this was a dead guy!
The body was that of Elmer McCurdy, a young man who in 1911 had robbed a train of $46 and two jugs of whiskey in Oklahoma. He announced to the posse in pursuit of him that he would not be taken alive and the posse obliged by killing him in a shoot-out.
McCurdy's body became a sideshow attraction right after his embalming. It is claimed that the local undertaker though he had done such a wonderful job at restoring McCurdy that he let the towns folk see him for a nickel a piece. The nickels were dropped into the corpse's open mouth , later collected by the undertaker.
No one ever showed up to claim McCurdy's body, so, legend has it that undertaker kept him around to collect nickels for a few years after the embalming. Carnival promoters wanted to buy the stiff, but the undertaker turned them down. He didn't want to lose his most steady form of income.
In 1915 two men showed up, claiming that McCurdy was their long lost brother. They took McCurdy away, supposedly to give him a decent burial in the family plot. In actuality, the long lost McCurdy "brothers" were carnival promoters. It was a scam to get the body that they had wanted for years. They exhibited McCurdy throughout Texas under the same title that the undertaker had given him -- "The Bandit Who Wouldn't Give Up."
It seems that McCurdy's body popped up everywhere after that, in places such as an amusement park near Mount Rushmore, lying in an open casket in a Los Angeles wax museum, and in a few low-budget films. Before the Six Million Dollar Man crew discovered this prop to be a corpse, McCurdy had been hanging in a Long Beach funhouse for four years.
In April 1977, the much-traveled Elmer McCurdy was laid to final rest in Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie, Oklahoma. To make sure the corpse would not make its way back to the entertainment world, the state medical examiner ordered two cubic yards of cement poured over the coffin before the grave was closed. McCurdy hasn't been seen hanging around amusement parks since.
Whether all this is true or not, we don't know. Was there ever an amusement park in Long Beach, California called the Nu-Pike Amusement Park? This tale is just one of those that we'll never know the truth of.
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I've heard about it previously and that it was truth. Very interesting if you ask me. Heh, Thought I'd share it.
I'm going to stick this next true story here since we are on the topic of bodies, and this I thought was a very nice story, we hardly ever hear or read about people doing kind things like this:
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Morticians Brave Fire To Save Bodies
INDIANAPOLIS -- Saying they wanted to spare families even more pain, two Indianapolis morticians went back inside their burning funeral home to try to save bodies.
The pair rolled out caskets containing bodies as firefighters aimed their hoses at flames at the rear of the funeral home. They managed to retrieve three bodies before the flames became too intense for them to go inside.
After the fired died down they returned for the seven remaining bodies. None was damaged.
Neighbors stepped in to help the owner and families, whose loved ones' remains were inside the building.
"You had neighbors who came out to help the families, the owner and firefighters with all the comfort that we needed," said Indianapolis fire Capt. Gregg Harris.
The owner of the funeral home, which had become a symbol of neighborhood revitalization on Indianapolis' east side, said he plans to rebuild after Saturday's fire.
The two-alarm fire caused the roof to collapse.
Damage to the funeral home was estimated at $500,000. No one was injured.
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Urban Legend: The "hanging man" in a funhouse turns out to be the corpse of an outlaw. This one is supposedly true.
The Story: In December of 1976, a Universal Studios camera crew arrived at the Nu-Pike Amusement Park in Long Beach, California, to film an episode of the television action show, the Six Million Dollar Man. In preparing the set in a corner of the funhouse, a worker moved the "hanging man," causing one of this prop's arms to come off. Inside it was human bone. This was no mere prop; this was a dead guy!
The body was that of Elmer McCurdy, a young man who in 1911 had robbed a train of $46 and two jugs of whiskey in Oklahoma. He announced to the posse in pursuit of him that he would not be taken alive and the posse obliged by killing him in a shoot-out.
McCurdy's body became a sideshow attraction right after his embalming. It is claimed that the local undertaker though he had done such a wonderful job at restoring McCurdy that he let the towns folk see him for a nickel a piece. The nickels were dropped into the corpse's open mouth , later collected by the undertaker.
No one ever showed up to claim McCurdy's body, so, legend has it that undertaker kept him around to collect nickels for a few years after the embalming. Carnival promoters wanted to buy the stiff, but the undertaker turned them down. He didn't want to lose his most steady form of income.
In 1915 two men showed up, claiming that McCurdy was their long lost brother. They took McCurdy away, supposedly to give him a decent burial in the family plot. In actuality, the long lost McCurdy "brothers" were carnival promoters. It was a scam to get the body that they had wanted for years. They exhibited McCurdy throughout Texas under the same title that the undertaker had given him -- "The Bandit Who Wouldn't Give Up."
It seems that McCurdy's body popped up everywhere after that, in places such as an amusement park near Mount Rushmore, lying in an open casket in a Los Angeles wax museum, and in a few low-budget films. Before the Six Million Dollar Man crew discovered this prop to be a corpse, McCurdy had been hanging in a Long Beach funhouse for four years.
In April 1977, the much-traveled Elmer McCurdy was laid to final rest in Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie, Oklahoma. To make sure the corpse would not make its way back to the entertainment world, the state medical examiner ordered two cubic yards of cement poured over the coffin before the grave was closed. McCurdy hasn't been seen hanging around amusement parks since.
Whether all this is true or not, we don't know. Was there ever an amusement park in Long Beach, California called the Nu-Pike Amusement Park? This tale is just one of those that we'll never know the truth of.
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I've heard about it previously and that it was truth. Very interesting if you ask me. Heh, Thought I'd share it.
I'm going to stick this next true story here since we are on the topic of bodies, and this I thought was a very nice story, we hardly ever hear or read about people doing kind things like this:
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Morticians Brave Fire To Save Bodies
INDIANAPOLIS -- Saying they wanted to spare families even more pain, two Indianapolis morticians went back inside their burning funeral home to try to save bodies.
The pair rolled out caskets containing bodies as firefighters aimed their hoses at flames at the rear of the funeral home. They managed to retrieve three bodies before the flames became too intense for them to go inside.
After the fired died down they returned for the seven remaining bodies. None was damaged.
Neighbors stepped in to help the owner and families, whose loved ones' remains were inside the building.
"You had neighbors who came out to help the families, the owner and firefighters with all the comfort that we needed," said Indianapolis fire Capt. Gregg Harris.
The owner of the funeral home, which had become a symbol of neighborhood revitalization on Indianapolis' east side, said he plans to rebuild after Saturday's fire.
The two-alarm fire caused the roof to collapse.
Damage to the funeral home was estimated at $500,000. No one was injured.
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