00:00:07
Hey
00:00:08
weirdos. I'm Elena. And I'm Ash. And
00:00:14
this is M O
00:00:18
R B I D. M to the O to the RM. Wait,
00:00:24
hold on.
00:00:26
[Music]
00:00:41
M. We need to keep that to the RBI.
00:00:45
Morbid. We need to clip that [ __ ] right
00:00:47
out. Hold that up. M to the O to the R.
00:00:53
Like, whoa, we had another M. They said
00:00:55
Morbid. Morbid. It's more
00:01:00
I was thinking D to the E to the L I C I
00:01:03
O U S and I was that's my inspiration.
00:01:06
So I was like M to the O to the R to the
00:01:09
B to the R to the D. Oh my god. Spelling
00:01:12
Mid.
00:01:17
Sometimes you're just a crazy [ __ ]
00:01:22
Sometimes you are. Sometimes you're just
00:01:24
an illiterate [ __ ] And this is one of
00:01:27
those times, you know, I just I don't
00:01:29
really know what happened. Okay. You
00:01:31
know, it it kind of fits with this wild
00:01:34
tale that I'm about to tell. Does it? Um
00:01:36
just the the kookiness of it all, the
00:01:38
misspelling of it all. The misspelling
00:01:40
of it all, you know. So, this is Take
00:01:43
the [ __ ] off.
00:01:51
That was such a good
00:02:02
reaction. I've had like a sunglasses
00:02:05
headband all day. Do you guys ever just
00:02:06
like do that? You put your sunglasses on
00:02:09
and then you go inside and you put them
00:02:11
on your head and you never take them
00:02:12
off. Yeah. I just remembered I had mine
00:02:15
on my head so I just put them off. She
00:02:16
just slowly put them on. I was ready for
00:02:18
you to tell me a cool case. a cool case.
00:02:21
She said, "Take those the [ __ ] off.
00:02:25
Get those the [ __ ] off. Those the [ __ ]
00:02:28
off." That was so funny.
00:02:31
That was very
00:02:33
Yeah, it was very ocoded. It really was.
00:02:36
I don't know why we're like super goofed
00:02:38
today. Oh, it's just It's the end of the
00:02:40
week, you know? Yeah, it's the end of so
00:02:43
many things and the beginning of other
00:02:44
things. We finally got some good news.
00:02:47
Yeah, we got good news. So maybe we're
00:02:49
just feeling a little silly, goofy. Good
00:02:51
news. Good news. Good news. That's all
00:02:52
they want to hear. Yeah. Shout out to
00:02:55
Mac. And we're gonna talk about Elmer
00:02:58
McCertie, the outlaw mummy. Okay. Uh who
00:03:02
doesn't want to talk about an outlaw
00:03:04
mummy? Yeah. Sign me the [ __ ] up. You
00:03:05
know, let's go, girls. Uh this is a
00:03:08
crazy one. It's a wild one. He was like
00:03:12
a really bad criminal. And I mean bad in
00:03:14
the way that like he wasn't good at
00:03:16
being a criminal. Oh, okay. He wanted to
00:03:18
be, but he was not. That's kind of fun.
00:03:20
Uh, so that gets silly. He was bad at
00:03:23
being a criminal. He was very bad at
00:03:24
being bad. Uh, so on the morning of
00:03:27
December, this and here's the thing.
00:03:28
We're going to start in the end of the
00:03:31
story and go back because the end is
00:03:35
really the like, wait, what? Excuse me.
00:03:37
I love starting at the end sometimes.
00:03:39
Don't we all? We haven't done that in a
00:03:40
while. We haven't. So on the morning of
00:03:43
December 8th, 1976, the my half
00:03:46
birthday. There you go. Even the year.
00:03:48
Yes. You know, uh, the crew of the $6
00:03:51
million man, which was a popular science
00:03:54
fiction series starring Lee Majors,
00:03:56
begin setting up for a day shoot at the
00:03:58
Pike, which was, and Blanch just chimed
00:04:01
in. She was like, "Love that place." She
00:04:03
said, "Great flick." Uh, it was a family
00:04:06
amusement area along the boardwalk in
00:04:08
Long Beach, California. The segment was
00:04:11
going to be called the Carnival of
00:04:12
Spies,
00:04:14
and it was supposed to take place inside
00:04:16
one of the park's funhouse fright
00:04:18
attractions, which was called Laugh in
00:04:20
the Dark. Well, in the Dark, which also
00:04:22
reminds me of the Are You Afraid of the
00:04:24
Dark episode, which also that episode
00:04:27
[ __ ] me up with the scary clown with
00:04:29
the cigar. Yes. Yep. [ __ ] that. Oh, so
00:04:32
scary. Uh, so the ride was basically
00:04:34
like one of those little like tunnel of
00:04:36
love kind of rides at amusement parks,
00:04:38
but where like two people would ride
00:04:40
through. It's dark in there. A small
00:04:43
car, but this had an emphasis on the
00:04:45
scares instead of the romance. Or maybe
00:04:48
both if you're that type of person. I
00:04:50
love being scared. Yeah. So that's
00:04:52
pretty romantic to me. There you go. You
00:04:53
know, I love that. Yeah. So all morning
00:04:56
prop master Chris Haynes had been
00:04:58
loading props from for the scenes
00:04:59
through the back entrance of the ride.
00:05:01
And at one point he came across a
00:05:03
mannequin and it was hanging from a fake
00:05:06
gallows, you know, just one of the
00:05:07
scenes. He had already heard about the
00:05:09
mannequin from several other members of
00:05:11
the crew because they had spotted it
00:05:13
earlier in the week and commented that
00:05:15
it was like kind of bizarre. It had a
00:05:17
weird glow-in-the-dark paint job and
00:05:20
they were like it was really light, like
00:05:22
weird. It just felt strange when you
00:05:24
like moved it out of the way. Some
00:05:26
guessed that it was made of balsa wood.
00:05:28
Others were thinking it was just
00:05:30
paperiermâché, but Chris was like, "I
00:05:33
don't know about that." Like, I don't
00:05:35
think it's either one of those things.
00:05:36
And he's like, "This looks like really
00:05:39
real." Which like And he's like, "I
00:05:42
don't know if this is just like a really
00:05:44
well done mannequin or what." Imagine
00:05:46
having that feeling. Yeah. So, he was
00:05:48
terrifying. He was curious. So he
00:05:50
approached the mannequin and he grabbed
00:05:51
one of the arms and he pulled it off
00:05:54
accidentally, which like if it's a
00:05:55
mannequin that can happen. Yeah. Then
00:05:57
Okay. So at first he's like, "Okay, I'm
00:05:59
I got to try to put this arm back on."
00:06:00
So he just like went to put it back on,
00:06:01
but then he was like, "Wait a second."
00:06:03
And he looked inside and typical prop
00:06:06
limbs will have like clean cuts, like a
00:06:08
solid
00:06:10
crosssection. This though was like dark
00:06:13
and textured. He said it um it was quote
00:06:16
almost shredded like beef jerky. No. And
00:06:19
in the center there was something that
00:06:20
looked like bone. No, I have a beef
00:06:23
jerky stick today. I hate that you just
00:06:25
said that to me. [ __ ] that. Hey, so
00:06:27
Chris Hayes brought the arm over to one
00:06:29
of the other crew members and asked what
00:06:31
he thought it looked like. He was like,
00:06:32
I'm not going to tell you what I think
00:06:34
it looks like, but the other Yeah. He
00:06:37
was like, "That looks like a human arm."
00:06:39
And he's like, "Definitely one that has
00:06:41
seen better days, but it looks like a
00:06:42
human arm." So, the two guys approached
00:06:46
what they had thought was a mannequin
00:06:48
before, and they leaned in for a closer
00:06:50
look. And this mannequin was unclothed
00:06:53
and it but it had been hung like really
00:06:55
high up the wall, so it was really hard
00:06:57
to see any details from down below. Um,
00:07:01
especially in the dark. But when they
00:07:02
got a closer look, they saw that it had
00:07:04
male genitalia.
00:07:07
Oh. Cuz it's naked. Nike dick flying.
00:07:11
Dick flying. And it was far more
00:07:13
detailed than any replica they had ever
00:07:15
seen. Oh, honey. Yeah. They in fact um
00:07:18
author Mark Venbolds, which we're gonna
00:07:21
um we'll put him in the show notes, he
00:07:25
said this was not anatomically correct.
00:07:27
This was anatomical. This was anatomy.
00:07:30
The body itself, a completely
00:07:32
desiccated, mummified human body. [ __ ]
00:07:35
Which that's a different day at work.
00:07:38
Very different. So realizing that they
00:07:39
were now dealing with an actual dead
00:07:41
human body, Chris Haynes quietly went to
00:07:43
get the offduty cop who was hired by
00:07:45
Universal Studios for the shoot.
00:07:47
Assuming that this cop would know what
00:07:49
to do in this situation, it's at this
00:07:52
point that the story gets like kind of
00:07:54
crazy because as far as Haynes
00:07:56
remembers, he informed the officer who
00:07:59
then reported it to the Long Beach
00:08:01
police. But rather than take the
00:08:02
situation seriously at all, Chris Hayes
00:08:05
remember that remembers that the
00:08:07
officers used the situation as an
00:08:09
opportunity for a prank. What they
00:08:12
reported the situation to the paramedics
00:08:14
as
00:08:17
quote I'm not ready. A case of severe
00:08:23
dehydration, which is like really [ __ ]
00:08:26
up. What the [ __ ] Can you imagine? No.
00:08:30
your your job is to do something about
00:08:34
this. Like it's literally your job.
00:08:36
Let's have a law. And you're like, "This
00:08:37
is hilarious that this actual human
00:08:40
being has been hung inside of a haunt
00:08:42
attraction." Damn. For how who knows how
00:08:45
long. He's mummified. Let's make this an
00:08:47
opportunity to have ourselves a little
00:08:49
belly laugh. Like people people are
00:08:51
insane. People have always been lawless.
00:08:55
Just always that is lawless. Like that's
00:08:57
literally lawless. Damn. I mean, he is
00:09:00
dehydrated, but there So, here's the
00:09:02
thing. So, there's a lot of like there's
00:09:04
little like urban legendy feels about
00:09:07
this part of it because none of the
00:09:09
officers who work the case remember that
00:09:11
prank occurring. Yeah, of course they
00:09:12
don't. But again, I don't know if they
00:09:15
Yeah, that was pretty funny. But whether
00:09:16
they did it or not, there was a 12-hour
00:09:19
gap in time between when he reported the
00:09:22
body and the body being removed to the
00:09:24
coroner's office. Damn, that's a long
00:09:26
time. Yeah. So given that the body was
00:09:28
obviously not that of a, you know,
00:09:30
recently dead person, no one was really
00:09:33
in a hurry to disrupt the filming
00:09:35
process for the shoot that day. Um, and
00:09:38
they didn't want to disrupt the daily
00:09:39
operations at the Pike or other
00:09:41
boardwalk businesses. Um, in fact, when
00:09:44
the news did finally break in the papers
00:09:45
the next day, even the investigators
00:09:48
working the case were pretty happy to
00:09:50
just like minimize the whole thing. Oh.
00:09:53
Uh, one of one investigator told
00:09:55
reporters, "The owners of the fun house
00:09:57
thought it was just a dummy. I can't
00:09:59
myself. Too much like Vincent
00:10:02
Price." Now, after being removed from
00:10:05
the fun house, this body was delivered
00:10:07
to the office of the medical examiner,
00:10:08
Dr. Thomas Naguchi. Um, as LA chief
00:10:13
medical examiner at the time, he had
00:10:15
been in that position since the early
00:10:17
1960s. And Dr. Naguchi had conducted
00:10:20
autopsies on some of the most
00:10:23
iconic celebrities really in American
00:10:26
history. This includes Marilyn Monroe.
00:10:28
Oh, I was going to say that name does
00:10:30
sound. Yeah. Um Janice Joplain. Oh, wow.
00:10:33
Sharon Tate. Oh, yeah. It earned him a
00:10:36
really
00:10:37
um yucky nickname. I would say the
00:10:41
coroner to the stars. Okay. I don't know
00:10:44
about that. Like, can we just have a
00:10:46
little decorum? Actually, I know about
00:10:48
that. I don't like it. Like, I just I
00:10:50
know about it and I don't want to know
00:10:51
about it. I wouldn't want to be called
00:10:53
that. No. And also,
00:10:56
like I don't know. It's just I don't
00:10:58
like it. I don't like it. He's just the
00:11:00
chief medical examiner. Can we just call
00:11:01
him that? Like, we don't need to we
00:11:03
don't need to do that to like death
00:11:05
industry employees. Like, be like the
00:11:07
coroner to the stars. Like, just let him
00:11:10
be the corner. That's wild. Um yeah,
00:11:12
it's not good. Uh obviously this body
00:11:15
was likely not a celebrity but I will
00:11:17
say Dr. Naguchi took the same amount of
00:11:20
care with him as he would with any of
00:11:21
his pro highprofile
00:11:24
uh patients. You know uh according to
00:11:27
the information they'd received from
00:11:29
investigating officers, the body on the
00:11:31
autopsy table had been found by the
00:11:34
funhouse operators many years earlier in
00:11:37
a defunct wax museum. Oh, this wax
00:11:40
museum had wrapped it in brown gauze and
00:11:42
advertised it as quote the 5,000y old
00:11:45
man. That's something. Yeah. So, the
00:11:47
medical examiner quickly was like,
00:11:49
"Yeah, he's not 5,000 years old,
00:11:51
everybody. Don't worry." Um, and they
00:11:53
said this, the corpse shows signs of
00:11:54
post-mortem medical examination and has
00:11:57
been embalmed. So, Dr. Choy, um, another
00:12:01
doctor on the case, wrote in his autopsy
00:12:03
report, "The body is completely
00:12:05
mummified. The nose and facial features
00:12:07
appear to be Caucasian. When he was
00:12:09
alive, they thought he would be roughly
00:12:11
5'8 in tall, uh maybe 150 lbs. And Dr.
00:12:15
Choy knew that determining the cause of
00:12:17
death would help him kind of narrow down
00:12:20
the potential timeline of when this man
00:12:22
died. Um so during the initial
00:12:24
examination, the doctors discovered a
00:12:27
small hole in the man's chest. They
00:12:29
thought this was either a chest tube or
00:12:31
a bullet wound, which I think are pretty
00:12:33
valid guesses. Um, but when they x-rayed
00:12:36
the body, the resulting image was
00:12:38
completely white. So, this would
00:12:40
indicate that the body had been packed
00:12:42
with radioopaque material, making it
00:12:44
impossible to tell anything from X-rays.
00:12:47
When they opened the chest cavity, Dr.
00:12:49
Choy discovered the source of the
00:12:51
material. After the man was dead,
00:12:53
whoever embaled him had packed the body
00:12:55
with arsenic to prevent further decay.
00:12:58
Shoot. This was a common practice in
00:13:00
Civil War era America. Oh, really? Yeah.
00:13:03
But it it had definitely like fallen out
00:13:05
of, you know, being a common practice by
00:13:07
the early 20th century. But that was
00:13:09
another thing that helped them date this
00:13:11
because this put this man's death
00:13:12
somewhere between the last half of the
00:13:14
19th century and the first few decades
00:13:17
of the 20th. I mean, so we're we're
00:13:19
starting to narrow it. It was the
00:13:21
arsenic that had prevented the X-ray
00:13:23
machine from showing anything. But now
00:13:25
that they were able to open them up,
00:13:27
organs exposed, Dr. Choy saw that there
00:13:30
was evidence of hemorrhaging in one lung
00:13:32
and a perforation in the other. This was
00:13:35
indicating probably that he was shot in
00:13:37
the chest. Oh wow. Um also since there
00:13:40
didn't appear to be an exit wound
00:13:41
anywhere, they were thinking we're going
00:13:43
to find this bullet in the body. Yeah.
00:13:45
So they traced the path of the
00:13:47
perforation from the entrance wound in
00:13:49
the chest through the lungs, then
00:13:51
through the liver, and Dr. Choy found it
00:13:54
lodged in the man's hipbone. O. Yeah.
00:13:56
Like ricocheted. Yeah. The bullet
00:13:58
fragment lodged in this hipbone was anti
00:14:01
it was like an antique slug basically.
00:14:04
Uh and apparently it was known as a gas
00:14:06
check. Um it was this kind of like a
00:14:10
slug was mostly phased out in the earth
00:14:12
early 20th century. Uh but gas check
00:14:14
ammunition was a nonjacketed bullet that
00:14:17
loaded from a high-pressure rifle or
00:14:19
magnum revolver cartridge. Okay.
00:14:21
According to the LAPD ballistics expert
00:14:24
Lee Krumman, the bullet was fired from a
00:14:26
3230 caliber rifle, which he said was
00:14:30
probably manufactured starting in 1905.
00:14:33
Okay, that meant that however this man,
00:14:37
like however this man had died, it
00:14:39
happened sometime between 1905 and
00:14:42
probably the start of the World War II,
00:14:44
which was 1939, cuz that's when that
00:14:47
kind of bullet was phased out. Okay,
00:14:49
this is so interesting to me how they're
00:14:52
dating this cuz it's that like they're
00:14:54
looking at like the packing material.
00:14:56
Okay, this started in this time and it
00:14:58
phased out here. So now we've narrowed
00:14:59
it a little. This is real investigative
00:15:01
work. Yeah. Now we find the bullet that
00:15:03
was created in this time. It phased out
00:15:05
here. We've narrowed it a little more.
00:15:07
It's like this is so cool to
00:15:09
fascinating. So they've again
00:15:11
significantly narrowed down the window
00:15:12
of time when the death occurred. Dr.
00:15:14
Choy was in closer to finding the
00:15:16
precise time. now. And it was the next
00:15:19
step in the autopsy that proved most
00:15:22
surprising and probably the more
00:15:23
illuminating of anything. When Dr. Choy
00:15:26
removed the jaw, mandible, and teeth for
00:15:28
analysis by a dental expert, he
00:15:30
discovered deep in the back of the mouth
00:15:33
a corroded copper penny dated 1924.
00:15:36
What? And several ticket stubs. What?
00:15:40
one with an address for the Pike
00:15:42
Amusement Park where the body was
00:15:43
discovered and another for Lewis Sunny's
00:15:47
Museum of Crime, 524 Main Street, Los
00:15:50
Angeles. Okay. Throughout the 1920s and
00:15:53
30s, it was not uncommon for sideshows
00:15:56
and boardwalk businesses, you know,
00:15:58
other amusement park kind of things to
00:16:01
display the mummified bodies of supposed
00:16:04
Wild West outlaws and other criminals.
00:16:07
What? Yeah. They would just be like,
00:16:09
"Come look at the mummy of this crazy
00:16:11
outlaw from the Wild West." That's cool
00:16:14
and strange and so interesting. We've
00:16:17
always been an interesting species. I
00:16:19
can say that. Uh, based on the tickets
00:16:21
found in this mummy's mouth, it appeared
00:16:23
like pri that prior to his life in the
00:16:26
Laughintheark ride, he was probably part
00:16:28
of one of these outlaw mummy shows.
00:16:31
Yeah. So the next day, a statement from
00:16:33
the Emmy's office appeared in the
00:16:35
newspapers around the country giving the
00:16:37
cause of death, obviously shot in the
00:16:39
chest and requesting the public's help
00:16:41
tracking down Lewis Sunny or one of the
00:16:44
relatives who might know the origin of
00:16:45
the body. Mhm. The story moved super
00:16:48
fast and within a day the Emmy's office
00:16:50
received a call from Dave Freriedman,
00:16:53
the president of Entertainment Ventures,
00:16:55
which was the parent company of Lewis
00:16:57
Sunny's Museum of Crime. Oh, okay. So he
00:17:00
exclaimed immediately when he talked to
00:17:02
the Emmy's office, "It's old Elmer."
00:17:05
What? So according to Freriedman, the
00:17:07
body was Elmer McCertie, a smalltime
00:17:10
bandit who was gunned down by a
00:17:12
sheriff's posi after robbing a train in
00:17:14
Oklahoma in October 1911. The way he
00:17:16
just knew, he said, "Oh, it's Elma. Oh,
00:17:18
that's old Elmo. Oh, that's old." Like,
00:17:20
what the [ __ ]
00:17:22
So Freeman claimed that since no one had
00:17:24
claimed McCert's body after his death,
00:17:27
the enterprising sheriff at the time
00:17:29
sold the embombed body of the outlaw to
00:17:31
the operator of a traveling carnival for
00:17:33
display in their sh side. Wow. In 1921,
00:17:36
Lewis Sunny, the founder of
00:17:38
Entertainment Ventures, quote, obtained
00:17:40
McCert's body in 1921 as security on a
00:17:44
$500 loan that was never paid. Instead
00:17:47
of $500, you get this guy. For
00:17:49
collateral, you just get this dude.
00:17:52
Okay. Like, what the [ __ ] All righty.
00:17:55
Bounties were different. Yeah, a little
00:17:57
bit. Since then, Elmer McCert's body was
00:18:00
displayed in various sideshow and
00:18:01
boardwalk attractions until the practice
00:18:03
of displaying mummified corpses fell a
00:18:06
little bit out of favor with the public
00:18:08
around the late 1940s, I'd say. All
00:18:10
right. Took us a little bit. All right.
00:18:12
Took us a little bit. Um, we said, you
00:18:15
know what? This isn't great. I did see
00:18:17
um a crazy kind of mummified body of a
00:18:19
clown
00:18:21
um in California at the CIA. Welcome to
00:18:24
the CIA. I don't think the CIA is a
00:18:28
thing anymore. Yeah, I remember you
00:18:29
telling me about that when I was
00:18:30
probably like nine. That place was
00:18:33
crazy. What? It had like the It had all
00:18:37
this like cool [ __ ] I I I'm sure people
00:18:39
in California probably know what this
00:18:41
place was or is. Wizard of Oz and Pink
00:18:43
Floyd. That will do. It played like it
00:18:45
it was just like chaos in there. Like it
00:18:47
was just a bunch of cool and random [ __ ]
00:18:49
like very a lot of oddities and [ __ ] and
00:18:52
I I loved it and it was playing the
00:18:54
Wizard of Oz on all the TVs and playing
00:18:58
Dark Side of the Moon like to to go with
00:19:01
it. And the vibe was just right in
00:19:04
there. But in a glass case was the
00:19:07
supposed mummified body of a clown and
00:19:10
he wanted to be like buried in his clown
00:19:12
makeup and [ __ ] It was the most
00:19:14
unsettling thing I've ever seen. I'd
00:19:16
bet. But it's like I It's like when it
00:19:18
fell out of favor in the 1940s, I'm like
00:19:20
I saw one in like 2005. So actually, I'm
00:19:24
like I don't know. Asterric. I saw one
00:19:27
in the in the mid the mid early as I
00:19:30
mean I suppose if that's what you want.
00:19:31
Yeah. If that's what you want then go
00:19:34
for it, man. Yeah. It's up to you. It's
00:19:35
your It's your [ __ ] you know? Go for go
00:19:38
crazy. So, according to Freriedman,
00:19:40
after being taken out of the show,
00:19:42
McCert's body was moved to a storage
00:19:44
facility in Los Angeles. That's sad. It
00:19:46
remained in storage until Dan Sunny,
00:19:49
Lewis's son, inherited the company in
00:19:51
1968 and sold his Elmer McCert's body to
00:19:55
the Hollywood Wax Museum. Whoa. Who in
00:19:58
turn sold it to the New Pike Amusement
00:20:01
Company, where it was on display until
00:20:03
it was discovered by the film crew while
00:20:05
shooting an episode of The $6 Million
00:20:07
Man. the way this mummy is just
00:20:09
traveling. He's been everywhere. Uh, in
00:20:11
the days after that, Dr. Naguchi and his
00:20:14
assistant at the medical examiner's
00:20:15
office conducted further analysis of the
00:20:18
body to confirm or rule out whether this
00:20:20
was in fact Elmer McCertie. Since there
00:20:23
was no DNA testing available at that
00:20:24
time, uh the doctor took measurements of
00:20:27
the bones and had a sketch artist
00:20:29
recreate a rendering of what this man
00:20:30
would have looked like while alive based
00:20:33
on a few existing photographs of Elmer
00:20:35
McCertie that were provided by the
00:20:37
Oklahoma Historical Society. Actually,
00:20:40
uh the doctor and his team were able to
00:20:42
confidently confirm that the amusement
00:20:43
park mummy was indeed the corpse of
00:20:46
Elmer McCertie. Now, in a press
00:20:48
conference held to announce this in
00:20:50
April
00:20:51
1977, Dr. Naguchi stated that once the
00:20:54
appropriate paperwork had been filed,
00:20:56
the body would be released to the
00:20:57
Oklahoma Historical Society and shipped
00:21:00
to Guthrie, Oklahoma for burial. Okay.
00:21:03
Um, the Historical Society spokesperson
00:21:05
Fred Olds told reporters, "Elmer will f
00:21:08
finally be buried at an old territorial
00:21:10
cemetery with robbers and outlaws. He
00:21:13
was sidetracked for a long time, but we
00:21:14
feel like he's part of our history." Oh,
00:21:16
so he's just buried among his brethren.
00:21:18
You know, a lot of outlaws. Took me a
00:21:20
minute to get here. I also think it's
00:21:22
kind of badass that there's just like an
00:21:24
outlaw cemetery in Oklahoma. Like,
00:21:27
where's that? I'd like to see it. That'd
00:21:29
be fun. Uh, the identification of the
00:21:31
new Pike mummy, that's what it was being
00:21:33
called, seemingly brought this mystery
00:21:35
to a close, but it did nothing to answer
00:21:38
a lot of the new questions in the minds
00:21:40
of people who have read this story. Who
00:21:42
the [ __ ] was Elmer McCertie?
00:21:44
everything. How did he meet this kind of
00:21:48
end fate? Like how did he end up here?
00:21:51
So Elmer McCertie was born January 1st,
00:21:54
1880 in Washington, Maine to he's a
00:21:58
Cappy and he was born to um an unwed
00:22:01
mother, Sadie McCertie, which of course
00:22:03
in 1880 an unwed mother. Oh my goodness.
00:22:07
According to author Mark Zenvold, the
00:22:09
identity of McCert's father, he never
00:22:11
got to know that. Um, but it was
00:22:14
possibly Sadi's cousin, Charles Davis.
00:22:17
Yucka. So, to protect Elmer from the
00:22:19
embarrassment of having been born out of
00:22:21
wedlock and potentially to his mom's
00:22:24
cousin, uh, Sades brother George and his
00:22:27
wife Helen adopted the boy at an early
00:22:29
age and raised him. In 1890, when Elmer
00:22:33
was 10 years old, George unfortunately
00:22:35
died of tuberculosis. Not so nice. Um,
00:22:37
so Helen and Sadi moved to Banganger,
00:22:40
Maine to live with their older brother,
00:22:42
Charles. Uh, it was at this time that
00:22:45
Sadi started taking a more active role
00:22:47
in caring for Elmer. And not long after,
00:22:50
the two women revealed to him that Sadi
00:22:52
was actually his mother. Ooh, it's kind
00:22:54
of like uh Ted Bundy. Ted Bundy. It's
00:22:56
very Ted Bundy. Yes. Understandably,
00:22:59
this is very traumatic. I can't imagine.
00:23:01
Yeah, absolutely.
00:23:02
He had recently lost the man who he
00:23:04
thought was his birth mother father his
00:23:06
whole life. And now he's finding this
00:23:08
out. Like that's a lot for a kid. Not
00:23:10
only is he finding out that this woman
00:23:11
is not his mother, but his aunt and that
00:23:14
his mother his his aunt is his mother
00:23:16
and that now he actually is realizing
00:23:18
he's never even known his father and
00:23:20
won't and that it was his beloved uncle
00:23:22
who died. Like yeah, that's just a lot.
00:23:25
[ __ ] Um yeah. So according to Spenvol,
00:23:28
those who knew McCertie said this was
00:23:30
the point that things turned for him.
00:23:33
Understandable. Caused him to become
00:23:34
unruly and rebellious. I too might
00:23:37
become unruly and rebellious. So within
00:23:39
a few years, while very much still a
00:23:41
child, Elmer started developing a
00:23:43
drinking problem. Oh god. That would
00:23:45
follow him the rest of his life,
00:23:46
unfortunately. Uh the first signs of
00:23:48
like big trouble came when he was
00:23:50
arrested at age 15 for starting a bar
00:23:52
fight in near by Belfast, Maine. Posie
00:23:55
in a bar. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
00:23:58
Why was he in a bar? Why was he in a
00:23:59
bar? So, after this incident, Sadie and
00:24:01
Helen decided Elmer needed a stronger
00:24:03
masculine influence in his life and he
00:24:06
was sent to live with his grandfather,
00:24:07
Harden Mccertie. He did Hardened
00:24:10
McCertie actually really did help him.
00:24:12
He helped him find an apprenticeship
00:24:14
with a local plumber. This was a lot of
00:24:16
structure, a new routine, and it
00:24:18
actually seemed to suit Elmer. Like, he
00:24:21
liked this kind of structure. And by the
00:24:23
time he was 18 years old, he had become
00:24:25
an expert. Wow. So these were all this
00:24:27
was great. It seemed to be working well.
00:24:29
The grandfather was good to him. Got him
00:24:31
on the straight and narrow, but it was
00:24:33
shortlived because in 1898, just as
00:24:36
McCertie was settling, you know, trying
00:24:37
to get out on his own, the American
00:24:40
economy took a downturn. It's always
00:24:42
going to do that. One thing about the
00:24:43
economy, she always is going to crash
00:24:45
out. She's always going to crash out.
00:24:46
You know, recession indicators
00:24:48
everywhere. It's always going to happen.
00:24:49
So, and it really hit rural areas like
00:24:52
banger and like banger banger banger
00:24:55
man. It it hit it particularly hard out
00:24:58
in the rural areas. Um so because of
00:25:01
this recession, a lot of businesses are
00:25:03
closing. Millions of people are losing
00:25:05
their jobs. Thousands left their small
00:25:08
towns and villages to find any kind of
00:25:10
employment. So not great to be setting
00:25:12
out on your own in this situation. No.
00:25:14
So in in Banger Maine, Satie and Helen
00:25:17
both lost their jobs and exper you know
00:25:20
and this hit Satie really hard. She
00:25:22
always was prone to anxiety. So losing
00:25:25
her job in this kind of recession was
00:25:27
just not great, right? Uh she developed
00:25:29
an ulcer that she really struggled to
00:25:31
keep under control. Yikes. And in 1900
00:25:34
she ended up dying when it unexpectedly
00:25:36
ruptured.
00:25:38
Yeah. And a few months later, Harden um
00:25:42
Harden McCertie died of Bright's
00:25:44
disease, which was it's like an outdated
00:25:46
basically generic term for inflamed
00:25:48
kidneys. Oh. essentially. Wow. In the
00:25:51
span of 10 years, Elmer McCertie lost
00:25:53
his who he thought was his father, his
00:25:56
birthmother, and his grandfather. That's
00:25:58
a lot of thoughts. All of whom had
00:25:59
played a very important part in his life
00:26:01
up until this point. Like they were all
00:26:02
like positive things in his life. Yeah.
00:26:05
And to make matters worse, after working
00:26:07
hard to learn a trade and become an
00:26:09
expert plumber, the recession had
00:26:11
completely [ __ ] that up. Like he
00:26:13
couldn't get any job. These definitely
00:26:16
left him like bitter, frustrated, and he
00:26:19
turned to drinking even more. Um, so he
00:26:22
decided there was not a lot left for him
00:26:24
in Maine. So he decided to go find
00:26:26
something somewhere else. And after
00:26:28
leaving Maine, he kind of drifted around
00:26:30
the East Coast states for a few years,
00:26:32
hopping train cars from town to town
00:26:34
trying to find work. Occasionally, he
00:26:36
could find like temp work as a plumber
00:26:38
or handyman, but inevitably his drinking
00:26:40
would get the better of him, and he
00:26:42
would end up just getting himself fired.
00:26:44
Yeah. In 1903, he found himself in, a
00:26:47
small town in southeast Kansas. And
00:26:50
about a decade earlier, a large deposit
00:26:52
of natural gas had been found under the
00:26:54
ground there. Oh [ __ ] Which is pretty
00:26:56
interesting. and it resulted in like a
00:26:58
boom of new industry and a big increase
00:27:01
in the town's once very tiny population.
00:27:04
So in response to this whole thing,
00:27:06
they're becoming a successful town now.
00:27:08
The town leaders went out of their way
00:27:09
to erase any traces of this former like
00:27:12
wild west identity. Uh they wanted now
00:27:15
to present Iola as like this upand
00:27:17
cominging uh you know hub of inter
00:27:19
industry, the future of Kansas. So
00:27:22
within a few years of discovering the
00:27:24
resources under the land in Iola, they
00:27:27
had transformed this place. I mean they
00:27:29
paved the roads, invested in a telephone
00:27:31
system, built accommodations and
00:27:33
attractions, an opera house, a local
00:27:36
branch of the YMCA. It was [ __ ]
00:27:39
happening town. It's a fun place to go.
00:27:41
Um they had a lot to offer someone like
00:27:43
Elmer McCertie who's looking to start
00:27:45
over and someone who is a skilled
00:27:48
tradesman. It's not like he's walking in
00:27:49
there not knowing how to do anything.
00:27:51
Um, so he was psyched about this and
00:27:54
honestly the town was excited to have
00:27:56
him, which is interesting. They
00:27:58
basically said it. He arrived in town
00:28:00
that year and in an announcement of
00:28:02
several newly arrived citizens. That's
00:28:04
so fun. The local paper described Elmer
00:28:07
as quote, "An industrious young man who
00:28:09
had gained access to the better society
00:28:11
circles of who classed among his friends
00:28:15
many of the well-known people of the
00:28:16
town." That's fun. Wait, as a society,
00:28:20
why do we not announce newcomers in a
00:28:22
paper? That's what I'm saying. Do you
00:28:24
remember being in school and they were
00:28:25
they were like, "Oh, we have a new kid."
00:28:27
And you were like, "I'm gonna find them
00:28:28
and befriend them immediately." I would
00:28:30
do that with the newcomers in town.
00:28:32
Yeah. I'd be like, "I will sit with them
00:28:34
at lunch." Like, "Let's be friends,
00:28:35
newcomers.
00:28:37
Come on." And it gets people excited to
00:28:39
be like, "Oh, I'm just Yeah, look at me.
00:28:40
I'm industrious. Welcome to me to your
00:28:43
town. I'm new in town. I'm new in town."
00:28:46
You get to John Melany it. That would be
00:28:48
so fun. Yeah, I love it. I think we
00:28:50
should write to our town. I think it's
00:28:52
adorable. Um, unfortunately, this didn't
00:28:55
last very long because wamp wamp because
00:28:57
Elmer Elmer struggles to keep good for
00:29:00
himself. He's a self-sabotager. It
00:29:02
happens to the best of us. Didn't take
00:29:04
long for him to squander the
00:29:05
opportunities presented to him by the
00:29:07
people of Biola. Uh not long after he
00:29:09
came into town, he did find work as a
00:29:11
plumber, but within a couple months, his
00:29:13
alcoholism reared its ugly head and
00:29:15
started causing trouble. According to
00:29:17
McCert's former employer, William Root,
00:29:20
after a long night of drinking at a
00:29:22
local saloon, Elmer claimed that he had
00:29:24
killed a man during a bar fight in
00:29:26
another state. Huh. And rumors started
00:29:29
swirling. He did confront him about this
00:29:32
and was like, "Dude, you kill someone.
00:29:34
Did you like kill someone cuz like you
00:29:36
can't work for me?" And he was like,
00:29:37
"No, I didn't. I was just like boasting.
00:29:39
I was making something up." But he had
00:29:41
to let him go. I was just boasting about
00:29:43
murder. You know, like that's that's
00:29:46
bad, too. Uh so McCertie left Kansas in
00:29:50
1905 and hopped a freight car,
00:29:52
eventually winding up in Web City,
00:29:54
Missouri. Missouri. Missouri. Web City
00:29:57
was also experiencing a boom in industry
00:29:59
and population thanks to the discovery
00:30:01
of the world's largest zinc deposit
00:30:03
located underneath the town. Uh Elmer
00:30:06
got a job with the Davy Mine Company
00:30:09
at a time when safety standards were uh
00:30:12
lax uh if if not completely absent like
00:30:16
just totally gone. U there were a few
00:30:19
dangerous jobs around but none quite as
00:30:22
dangerous as being a [ __ ] minor.
00:30:24
Could get the black lung popped. Yeah,
00:30:26
you're
00:30:27
gonna uh one could make a decent enough
00:30:30
living as a minor cuz like Yeah, because
00:30:32
you die tomorrow. Yeah, it's a
00:30:34
trade-off. The trade-offs, not we'll pay
00:30:37
you if you show up back from the mine.
00:30:39
You live through it, right? Uh cave-ins
00:30:42
were very common, too. Oh, God. McCertie
00:30:44
was on a team of muckers, the men who
00:30:46
would collect the loose and chipped
00:30:48
pieces of zinc into a cart and haul them
00:30:50
back up to the surface. The salary was
00:30:52
about $2 a day. Uh the work would have
00:30:55
been very grueling, very backbreaking,
00:30:57
and it would require him to shovel about
00:30:59
60 to 100 tons of ore into the cart by
00:31:02
hand. Wow. To make matters worse, the
00:31:04
conditions were uh not ideal. According
00:31:07
to Fenbolds, men were crushed by
00:31:09
rockfall or blown to bits by overzealous
00:31:12
applications of dynamite a lot. Whoa. Uh
00:31:15
also, because hard hats had not been
00:31:17
invented yet, head injuries were pretty
00:31:20
common. Stop it. Uh in order to try to
00:31:22
stop these, the miners were pretty
00:31:24
industrious themselves, they would wad
00:31:26
up newspapers under their hats to like
00:31:28
cushion the blow of falling. Smart.
00:31:30
Essentially inventing hard hats,
00:31:32
everybody. Uh, so good on them. But
00:31:35
there were also other unexpected
00:31:36
effects. Um, there was like endless
00:31:38
amounts of zinc dust that was hanging in
00:31:40
the air all the time from the drilling
00:31:42
and blasting. When breathed in for
00:31:44
extended periods of time, zinc caused
00:31:46
silicosis or minors consumption. It's a
00:31:50
scarring of the lung tissue that would
00:31:51
eventually lead to death. Ooh, that's
00:31:53
horrible. Yeah. And after less than two
00:31:55
years in the mines, Elmer McCertie had
00:31:57
developed a terrible cough. He was short
00:31:59
of breath a lot. He constantly struggled
00:32:01
with lung irritations. They were pretty
00:32:04
debilitating and it would stop him from
00:32:06
doing his job eventually. So that really
00:32:08
wasn't his fault. Yeah. No, not at all.
00:32:09
So he couldn't earn a living in the
00:32:11
mines anymore. Um and he was having
00:32:13
trouble. He went right back to like
00:32:15
alcohol and but his savings were
00:32:17
dwindling. So he joined the US Army in
00:32:20
November 1907 and he was assigned to
00:32:23
company E3 infantry stationed at Fort
00:32:26
Levvenworth in Kansas. Mhm. So on his
00:32:30
enlistment papers, he his previous
00:32:32
occupation was listed as minor, not
00:32:35
plumber. And he had way more experience
00:32:37
as a plumber and he was much more
00:32:39
skilled as a plumber. Maybe because of
00:32:42
that, he was assigned to a program that
00:32:44
trained soldiers in demolition. Oh.
00:32:46
Specifically with various forms of
00:32:48
explosives. Fun. Uh in addition to his
00:32:51
training with explosives, he served as a
00:32:53
machine gun detachment person and
00:32:55
generally flew under the ring. I don't
00:32:57
know what they're called. Artillerymen.
00:33:00
Yeah, sure. Uh, and flew under the radar
00:33:02
pretty much for three years. And in the
00:33:05
spring of 1910, he was given an
00:33:06
honorable discharge after his initial
00:33:09
term. And he chose not to renew his
00:33:11
contract. And he was like, you know
00:33:13
what? I have some other ways that I can
00:33:15
make a living. Like, that was nice. Fun
00:33:17
little thing I did for three years. So,
00:33:19
he left the military and he was going to
00:33:22
look for a new job, but there was still
00:33:23
that whole recession thing. So
00:33:25
competition was pretty stiff still.
00:33:27
After about two weeks of unemployment,
00:33:29
he sent a telegram to his army buddy.
00:33:32
Walter I think it's Chopeller. Fun
00:33:36
Chopelry. Chopely. Um and he asked him
00:33:39
to get a few days of leave to help him
00:33:41
with a job. Okay. So Walter managed to
00:33:44
get a week-l long pass from the base and
00:33:45
joined McCertie in St. Joseph, Kansas.
00:33:48
On the night of November 19th, 1910,
00:33:51
Elmer McCertie and Walter were walking
00:33:53
down the main street in St. Joseph,
00:33:55
Kansas, when they were stopped by three
00:33:57
special officers for Burlington train
00:33:59
line. At the time, it was pretty common
00:34:02
practice in many towns for officers to
00:34:04
stop unfamiliar men who they suspected
00:34:06
of being like drifters or or some
00:34:09
nefarious kind of, you know, suspects of
00:34:12
something. Mhm. So, they stopped them
00:34:13
and they questioned them. And then the
00:34:15
officers noticed the large heavy bag
00:34:17
that Elmer was carrying. The officers
00:34:20
insisted he open it and they looked in
00:34:22
and found that the bag contained a force
00:34:24
screw, a a door jimmy, assorted drills
00:34:27
and hacksaws, chisels, a nitroglycerine
00:34:31
funnel, gunpowder, and a gunpowder
00:34:33
funnel. Just your typical what's in my
00:34:35
bag. Yeah, what's in my bag? Get ready
00:34:37
with me. Uh these were all tools that
00:34:39
were commonly used by burglars and bank
00:34:42
robbers at the time. Yeah. So Elmer and
00:34:44
Walter couldn't super explain why they
00:34:47
were carrying such hefty quantities of
00:34:50
burglar tools. I just love screwdrivers.
00:34:52
But they were like, "Nfarious? We are
00:34:54
not." But they were like, "Okay, cool.
00:34:56
What are you?" And they were like, "Not
00:34:57
sure. Not nefarious. Can't explain it,
00:34:59
but we aren't nefarious. We are
00:35:00
unnefarious." But the officers could see
00:35:02
right through that [ __ ] And in the
00:35:04
affidavit filed for their arrest, the
00:35:06
officers asserted that the men were in
00:35:08
possession of quote mechanical devices
00:35:10
adapted, designed, and commonly used for
00:35:12
breaking into vaults and safes. Oh no.
00:35:14
Just 2 weeks out of the army, and Elmer
00:35:17
has already been arrested. I'm only 2
00:35:19
weeks. Uh worse than that, he was facing
00:35:21
felony charges that carried a sentence
00:35:23
of between 2 and 10 years in prison.
00:35:25
Yikes. broke and unable to find either a
00:35:27
lawyer or a decent explanation for why
00:35:29
he was carrying burglar equipment. Uh he
00:35:32
concocted a new plan. On November 23rd,
00:35:35
the day of his court date, Elmer wore
00:35:37
his US Army uniform and headed into
00:35:40
court. No. So Elmer explained that no,
00:35:43
he was not carrying the tools of a
00:35:46
common burglar. What was he carrying?
00:35:48
Like come on. He said they were parts to
00:35:51
an invention that he and Walter were
00:35:53
trying to patent. a machine gun tripod
00:35:56
that allowed the user to fire the gun
00:35:58
with his
00:36:00
foot. Innovative.
00:36:03
Elmer went as far as to ask for a
00:36:05
continuence so he could subpoena his
00:36:08
commanding officer, Captain Charles
00:36:11
Murphy, who he claimed would testify to
00:36:13
the veracity of these claims. Uh, you're
00:36:16
not in the army anymore. Yeah. Um, so
00:36:19
everyone in the court was like, "That's
00:36:22
[ __ ]
00:36:24
Like I am sure of that. Um, and
00:36:28
unfortunately I think he like overplayed
00:36:31
No, I know he overplayed his hand here
00:36:33
because he actually subpoenaed Captain
00:36:36
Charles Murphy. Oh. Um, and I don't
00:36:39
think he thought this would go further
00:36:41
than that. I thought he would just be
00:36:42
like, you know, kind of like he won't
00:36:44
love and they would be fine. But to
00:36:47
Elmer McCertie's surprise, when the
00:36:49
arraignment resumed a few days later,
00:36:52
Captain Murphy appeared in court and he
00:36:54
explained those bits of metal would have
00:36:56
absolutely no use in any machine gun of
00:36:59
mine. Yikes. In response, Elmer McCertie
00:37:02
jumped up from his seat and lunged at
00:37:04
Captain Murphy and had to be restrained
00:37:06
by the officers in the court. Elmer.
00:37:09
This outburst with the fact that Elmer
00:37:12
was clearly lying about the tripod
00:37:13
machine gun that you could use with your
00:37:15
foot was sufficient enough evidence for
00:37:17
the judge to return an indictment and a
00:37:19
trial was scheduled for January 1911.
00:37:22
Understandable. Like his ejection from
00:37:24
Iola Society a few years earlier, the
00:37:27
arrest and indictment in St. Joseph was
00:37:29
definitely another turning point for
00:37:31
Elmer McCertie. It was yet another
00:37:34
experience that made him just think, you
00:37:36
know what, I don't belong in polite
00:37:38
society. I belong amongst the criminals.
00:37:41
The criminals. As Elmer sat in jail
00:37:43
awaiting his trial, he started making
00:37:45
friends with the other inmates cuz he's
00:37:46
Elmer. You know, you got to talk to you.
00:37:49
You got to do something. Talk to
00:37:52
including a man named Walter Jarrett. At
00:37:55
the time of Elmer's Elmer's arrest,
00:37:57
Jarrett was serving a short prison
00:37:59
sentence for a petty burglary
00:38:00
conviction, but he also had some
00:38:02
experience robbing banks and had served
00:38:04
longer sentences in the past. So, he was
00:38:06
like not to brag. Kind of a career
00:38:09
criminal. Like many men his age, Jarrett
00:38:12
Jarrett had grown up idolizing the
00:38:14
outlaws of the Old West. you know, Jesse
00:38:16
James, the Dalton brothers, men who had
00:38:18
like bucked modern society standards and
00:38:21
made a living, you know, just robbing,
00:38:24
shooting, and being violent,
00:38:27
riding horses. Exactly. And once he was
00:38:29
grown, Walter Jarrett was determined to
00:38:32
be just like his childhood heroes, which
00:38:35
landed him in jail a lot. So it was
00:38:38
Jared who convinced Elmer McCertie that
00:38:40
if he was able to get out of his current
00:38:42
predicament, you know, the two men
00:38:44
Jarrett and he they could exper, you
00:38:46
know, they could maybe like do something
00:38:48
together. Like he's like, I can rob
00:38:50
banks. Like I've done that. He said he's
00:38:52
like you, Elmer McCertie, we could do a
00:38:55
really good collab here because I hear I
00:38:57
think you can explode things. Yeah. He
00:38:59
said post for post like you went you
00:39:01
went you went in the army and you
00:39:04
learned how to blow stuff up. That's
00:39:06
pretty good for a bank robbery. Yeah. Uh
00:39:08
so they were like, "Let's do this."
00:39:10
First, Elmer needed he was like, "You
00:39:11
know what? First, deal with the charges
00:39:13
against you and then we'll we'll talk.
00:39:14
We'll go from there." So on January
00:39:16
30th, 1911, Elmer McCert's case went
00:39:19
before a jury in what everyone assumed
00:39:21
was going to be a pretty [ __ ] short
00:39:22
trial. Uh but within the first day, it
00:39:25
seemed like things might actually be
00:39:27
working in Elmer's favor. The prosecutor
00:39:30
was only able to find one person who
00:39:32
would testify against his machine gun
00:39:34
defense. But when that witness was shown
00:39:37
the tools McCertie was arrested with, he
00:39:39
couldn't identify them as being the
00:39:41
tools of a burglar or a bank robber
00:39:43
either. All right. Like basically like I
00:39:45
can't say they are and I can't say they
00:39:47
aren't. He said they're just tools.
00:39:48
Also, Elmer was able to find US Army
00:39:51
officials who were willing to testify
00:39:53
that Mccertie quote was the best damned
00:39:55
soldier in the whole damned army. Wow.
00:39:58
Yeah. What a compliment. In the end, it
00:40:00
all came down to a matter of reasonable
00:40:01
doubt. And it's I mean nobody knows if
00:40:04
the jury actually believed the tripod
00:40:05
machine gun claim. Uh but the
00:40:08
prosecution was unable to prove that the
00:40:09
tools were like a bank heist toolkit.
00:40:12
Yeah. And he was acquitted of the
00:40:14
charges. Okay. Elmer. Yeah. Following
00:40:17
the acquid, Elmer was free to go and
00:40:19
immediately fought um sought out Walter
00:40:21
Jarrett to begin their life of crime.
00:40:23
Let's go. Yeah. And by then Jared had
00:40:25
already talked up Elmer to his brothers,
00:40:28
particularly his experience in uh
00:40:30
exploding things, you know. You know, in
00:40:32
the spring, the gang broke into a
00:40:34
general store in Oklahoma and stole the
00:40:36
ammunition and tools they needed for
00:40:37
their first big job, which was robbing
00:40:39
the St. Louis Iron Mountain train. Oh.
00:40:43
On a routine mail run in April, the gang
00:40:46
caused a disturbance on the tracks,
00:40:47
which forced the train to come to a
00:40:49
stop. Once the train was stopped, the
00:40:52
gang opened fire, showering the express
00:40:54
car in a hail of bullets. As the
00:40:56
passengers of the train panicked, the
00:40:58
Jarrett brothers entered the engine car
00:41:00
and held the engineer at gunpoint. In
00:41:03
the meantime, Elmer entered the express
00:41:05
car to blow the safe up. That's where
00:41:08
there would have been this large sum of
00:41:09
money. Unfortunately, Elmer turned out
00:41:13
to be, you know, less of an expert than
00:41:15
they were expecting cuz remember, he
00:41:17
went into the army with with lots of
00:41:20
experience in plumbing. Plumbing, you
00:41:21
know, like he could plum. Yeah. He
00:41:24
wasn't that great with explosives. They
00:41:26
just were like, "Sure, let's have you
00:41:27
blow [ __ ] up." Okay. So, he was not
00:41:30
great. And uh the men returned to the
00:41:33
train car to find that the explosives
00:41:35
have been unsuccessful in opening the
00:41:36
safe, but determined cuz Elmer, we will
00:41:40
find out, is nothing, if not determined.
00:41:42
Okay. He tried again, but he was still
00:41:44
unable to blow it up. Likely because he
00:41:47
had no idea what he was doing. Yes. For
00:41:49
more than two hours, the train sat
00:41:52
motionless on the track as the inept
00:41:54
robbers repeatedly tried and failed to
00:41:57
blow the safe open. Two hours.
00:41:59
Meanwhile, the passengers are sitting
00:42:00
there just just watching these bumbling
00:42:03
idiots try to open this safe. Two hours
00:42:05
is a long time. Finally, after an
00:42:07
unreasonable long period of time, Elmer
00:42:10
was able to get the door to the safe
00:42:12
open. I think I could have done it
00:42:14
faster. Exactly. But by that time, he'd
00:42:16
blown an enormous hole in the side of
00:42:18
one of the train cars. What? And
00:42:20
destroyed the interior of another. And
00:42:23
then when they entered the car to grab
00:42:25
the $4,000 in silver coins that was
00:42:28
awaiting them inside the safe. And was
00:42:29
that blown up, too? They discovered that
00:42:31
the explosives had been so hot that it
00:42:33
fused all the coins into a single shiny
00:42:36
mass of silver. Oh, and that single
00:42:39
shiny blob of silver was stuck to the
00:42:42
inside of the walls and floor of the
00:42:44
safe. It's a real bang up job. The men
00:42:46
tried tried desperately to pry this
00:42:49
loose. And when then they saw the lights
00:42:51
of an approaching car, so they just had
00:42:54
to run and they just stole some of the
00:42:58
passengers watches on the way out.
00:43:03
I love that they were like, "Well, we
00:43:05
got to do something. Give me a watch. I
00:43:07
need something. I would honestly be like
00:43:09
you you need it more than I do. I'd be
00:43:12
like, you know what? You want my
00:43:13
earrings, too? I feel like you really
00:43:15
you tried your best, you know. Wow. Wow.
00:43:19
Wow. First you do not succeed for two
00:43:23
hours.
00:43:24
So following that robbery, if you could
00:43:27
call it that, Elma McCertie and Wal
00:43:30
Walter Jarrett were immediately
00:43:32
identified as the suspects and a $1,000
00:43:34
reward was offered for the capture of
00:43:36
either of them. All the mistakes were
00:43:38
laid at their feet and like they were
00:43:40
like there and honestly it was laid
00:43:42
mostly at their supposed explosives
00:43:44
expert and the gang made no secret that
00:43:47
they were pissed. Not long after the
00:43:49
failed heist, a knife fight broke out
00:43:51
between McCertie and Jarrett. Elmer got
00:43:54
a deep cut on his arm and Walter's face
00:43:56
was slashed. The resentment ended up
00:43:58
ruining the relationship between the
00:44:00
gang and McCertie and they went their
00:44:02
separate ways. After just a few months,
00:44:04
though, Jarrett's gang was all rounded
00:44:07
up and prosecuted for their crimes, and
00:44:09
Elmer was remaining at large cuz they
00:44:11
cut him loose on the run. Yeah. as a
00:44:14
criminal now on the run, Elmer passed
00:44:16
himself off as several different aliases
00:44:18
like Charles Davis, Frank Curtis. Um,
00:44:22
and that's the one he used in September
00:44:24
1911. No longer in the company of Harden
00:44:26
Bandits, he was definitely still
00:44:28
determined to make his name as an
00:44:30
outlaw. He wasn't ready to quit, you
00:44:32
know. And by late September, he'd hooked
00:44:34
up with a new criminal outfit and
00:44:36
formulated a new plan to get rich. Let's
00:44:38
go. On the night of October 6th, 1911,
00:44:41
McCertie and his new gang stopped Katy
00:44:43
train number 929 near
00:44:45
Oesca, a small town in northeast
00:44:47
Oklahoma. The gang had heard a rumor
00:44:50
that the train was carrying
00:44:52
$400,000. Um, and it was supposed to be
00:44:54
delivered to um Oage Reservation in
00:44:57
exchange for oil and they set their
00:44:59
sights on that money. It's a lot of
00:45:00
money. Now, determined to make up for
00:45:02
the last failure, Elmer volunteered to
00:45:04
take point. He was like, I want to make
00:45:06
up for this. Yeah. And after stopping
00:45:08
the train on the tracks, Elmer set about
00:45:11
decoupling the engine and the express
00:45:13
cars from the other cars so that he
00:45:15
could ride the train further down the
00:45:16
tracks and make off with the money.
00:45:18
Okay. At first, things were going great.
00:45:20
The train stopped. They were able to get
00:45:22
the cars unhooked, moving again, no
00:45:24
problem. But when the gang went to the
00:45:26
express car to collect their loot, they
00:45:29
discovered that Elmer had uncoupled the
00:45:31
wrong
00:45:32
car, and they'd left the car with the
00:45:34
safe miles behind them. Oh no. So
00:45:38
instead of getting
00:45:40
$400,000, the car they'd stolen only had
00:45:43
about $45 inside.
00:45:46
They were pretty pissed. Yeah. Deeply
00:45:48
disappointed. He is a bad criminal. The
00:45:50
gang split up and went their separate
00:45:51
ways, but not before Elmer stole the
00:45:53
conductor's watch and a bottle of
00:45:55
whiskey.
00:45:56
I love that they all lit, in that
00:45:58
moment, they were pissed. They were
00:46:00
disappointed. And then they all just
00:46:01
went, "Fuck y'all." And they all just
00:46:03
went different ways. And Elmer stole
00:46:05
whiskey and a watch and was like,
00:46:06
"Peace." Yeah. So now separated from the
00:46:09
gang and he's walking on his own now.
00:46:11
Just left that whole shenanigans on a
00:46:14
sad boy walk. Oh, true sad boy walk.
00:46:16
Elmer fled into the Oage Hills, but the
00:46:19
law the law wasn't far behind. The long
00:46:21
arm of the law. The longest arm of the
00:46:23
law. The area where McCertie had fled
00:46:26
proved far more difficult to traverse
00:46:28
than he'd expected. Uh not only was he
00:46:31
completely unfamiliar with this region,
00:46:33
but uh it was dense with thicket and
00:46:35
ravines and uh he was also drinking
00:46:37
whiskey the whole time. So he was sloppy
00:46:40
drunk or [ __ ] Yeah. Um Yeah. And he
00:46:44
wasted. He's not only moving slowly, but
00:46:46
he's doing absolutely nothing to cover
00:46:48
up his tracks as he goes cuz he's just
00:46:50
lit and he's probably not being quiet.
00:46:52
Yeah. In fact, at one point, he dropped
00:46:54
the completely dropped the whole empty
00:46:57
whiskey bottle on the ground, which gave
00:46:58
the blood hounds that were following him
00:47:00
an opportunity to renew their scent. Oh
00:47:03
no. In short time, the sheriff's posy
00:47:05
caught up with Elmer at a farm along the
00:47:07
Big Cany River where he was hiding out
00:47:09
in a barn. It was nighttime by them, and
00:47:12
when they approached the barn, they
00:47:13
found him sleeping in a large pile of
00:47:15
hay. He just passed right out. I mean,
00:47:17
yeah, you would after a bottle of
00:47:19
whiskey. So, they were worried about
00:47:20
losing him in the darkness if they had
00:47:22
like just jumped on him. So, they just
00:47:24
waited there until daylight to make the
00:47:26
arrest. And at about 7 a.m. the next
00:47:28
morning, they're like, "Yeah, he's not
00:47:29
going anywhere." Three deputies
00:47:31
approached the barn door making noise.
00:47:33
So, they woke him up from his sleep. And
00:47:35
when Elmer looked through the hole, he
00:47:37
saw them and he didn't hesitate. He just
00:47:39
opened fire on them. Oh, [ __ ] Yeah. Uh
00:47:42
Bob Fenton later said he took a shot at
00:47:44
me first, then he took a shot at
00:47:46
Stringer. After that, he took three
00:47:48
shots at Wallace before we opened fire.
00:47:50
My god. Elmer McCertie had proven a poor
00:47:52
explosives expert, and as it turns out,
00:47:54
he wasn't that great with a rifle
00:47:56
either. All five shots McCertie took at
00:47:58
the men standing less than 10 ft away
00:48:00
from him missed. Elmer. The deputies
00:48:04
retreated somewhat, and for about an
00:48:05
hour, the group traded gunfire until
00:48:07
finally one of the shots found its
00:48:09
target, hitting Elmer in the chest. And
00:48:12
it sent the bullet obviously ricocheting
00:48:14
into his hip where it would later be
00:48:15
discovered decades later by the Los
00:48:17
Angeles County Medical Examiner. Yes. So
00:48:20
the Posi collected Elmer's body and
00:48:22
brought it back to Pahusa with them.
00:48:24
That is a fun town. Where they handed it
00:48:27
over to the owner of Johnson's, the
00:48:28
local funeral parlor. Knowing that no
00:48:31
one was going to come claim the body,
00:48:32
the undertaker saw an opportunity to
00:48:34
make some money. So he treated the body
00:48:36
with an aridic compound, creating the
00:48:39
situation that would allow the body to
00:48:40
be mummified over time. And after that,
00:48:43
Elmer was stored in the back room of
00:48:45
Johnson's, where the proprietor charged
00:48:47
a nickel for people to come look at him
00:48:50
as he was build as the bandit who
00:48:52
wouldn't give up. What? You know, that's
00:48:55
so nice. They were like, he tried tried
00:48:57
tried again. You know what he did? He
00:48:58
was a little he was a little bandit who
00:49:00
could. He was toot toot who really
00:49:02
couldn't. Uh, you pay a nickel, you can
00:49:05
see the bandit that wouldn't give up.
00:49:06
Dang. To the Undertaker's surprise, 5
00:49:09
years later, a man came into the funeral
00:49:11
parlor saying he was McCert's long-lost
00:49:13
brother. What? And he tearfully begged
00:49:15
the Undertaker to give Elmer's body back
00:49:17
to him so he could give him a proper
00:49:19
burial. That's fake as [ __ ] Not wanting
00:49:21
to run a foul of the law, the Undertaker
00:49:23
was like, "Absolutely, you can have the
00:49:24
body. Take your brother." It was only
00:49:26
later that he learned that this long-
00:49:27
lost brother was in fact the owner of
00:49:30
the traveling carnival who tricked him
00:49:32
into handing over his his sideshow star
00:49:34
trickery. And so it was that Elmer
00:49:36
McCertie entered the carnival and
00:49:38
sideshow circuit getting passed from one
00:49:41
traveling show to another until he
00:49:42
finally ended up hanging in the laugh
00:49:45
ride at the Pike in Long Beach. Cirly
00:49:48
pop. That was a tale. For the most of
00:49:50
his life, he had tried and failed to
00:49:53
make a name for himself. First as an
00:49:55
upstanding member of society, then as a
00:49:57
hardened bandit and train robber. But it
00:50:00
was in his death that he finally
00:50:01
achieved the notoriety that he felt he
00:50:03
deserved. Yeah. Once all the paperwork
00:50:05
had been signed and filed after he was
00:50:07
discovered, Elmer McCert's body was
00:50:09
released to the Oklahoma Historical
00:50:11
Society and the Indian territory posy of
00:50:15
westerners. That's the like name of it.
00:50:16
Yes. And in April 1977, Elmer McCertie
00:50:19
was finally laid to rest at Boot Hill
00:50:21
Cemetery in Guthri, Oklahoma, 66 years
00:50:25
after a bullet fired from the Oage
00:50:27
County Sheriff's Deputy ended his
00:50:29
life. Wow. And that is the tale of Elmer
00:50:33
McCernie, the outlaw mummy sister.
00:50:36
Sister, what what a journey we just took
00:50:38
together. I think that story slaps. That
00:50:42
is a slap of a story.
00:50:45
Wild tale. I think it's Elmer is a
00:50:48
character. Yeah, I think so. I feel bad
00:50:53
for his beginnings because I think it
00:50:54
really colored the rest of his his life
00:50:57
and it looked like he got, you know, you
00:50:59
feel you're like you got he he got into
00:51:01
the cups and it took him away from have
00:51:04
being an upstanding member of society.
00:51:07
Yeah. And he just couldn't catch a
00:51:08
break. Yeah. Don't be dragging. He just
00:51:10
wasn't good. And he wasn't even good at
00:51:11
being bad. That's the thing. I don't
00:51:13
think he was meant to be a bad guy.
00:51:14
Destined to be good. Yeah, he was
00:51:16
destined to just like be Elmer, you
00:51:17
know. Yeah, just be a cool plumber. But
00:51:20
it's sad what happened to him after. Oh,
00:51:22
it is sad. And it's really wild that
00:51:24
that was able to happen for so long.
00:51:26
Sure is. So, what a world. Yeah, that's
00:51:28
the tale. Well, crazy tale. But that
00:51:31
being said, we hope you keep listening.
00:51:33
And you should because that's a crazy
00:51:34
tale. There's more where that came from.
00:51:36
And we hope you keep it
00:51:39
weird. Not so weird as Elma. That's
00:51:42
Elma. That's Elma. Come on. Don't keep
00:51:45
it so weird as Elma. Elma. That's crazy.
00:51:48
That guy's a freaking crazy guy.
00:51:53
A freaking crazy guy.
00:51:59
[Music]
00:52:19
[Music]