Spooky Week: Elmer McCurdy’s Nine Lives

The Atlas Obscura Podcast

In 1976, a television crew filming an episode of the show “The Six Million Dollar Man” descended on a rundown funhouse in Long Beach, California. While filming, they accidentally broke the arm off a wax dummy. Except...it wasn't a wax dummy. It was a real body. The body of a notorious train robber from the early 1900s, named Elmer McCurdy. Check out the Atlas entry for Elmer McCurdy’s grave.

For more information on Elmer, we recommend Mark Svenvold’s book “Elmer McCurdy: The Misadventures in Life and Afterlife of an American Outlaw.”