A prop at a carnival was discovered not to be made of the usual combination of paper mache and carni spit, but human skin and bone. All the little kiddies at the haunted house had been poking and giggling at a real, mummified dead body.

Back in 1976, a camera crew filming an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man began to set up in the haunted house at the Nu-Pike Amusement Park in Long Beach.  As they were moving aside a “hanging man” prop, they accidentally knocked off its arm and discovered human bones inside.

The body was actually that of criminal mastermind Elmer McCurdy, who was killed in a shoot-out after robbing a train in 1911.  McCurdy was embalmed by the local undertaker, and apparently the guy was so darn pleased with his work that he propped up the corpse in the funeral home as evidence of his skills. People were charged 5 cents to see the corpse, which they paid by dropping a nickel in the cadaver’s mouth.

McCurdy's brothers showed up to claim him. Of course, these guys weren’t his brothers at all, but  carnival promoters. From that point on, McCurdy's mummy went on a morbid  tour all around America, popping up at carnivals all over the country before finally coming to rest in Long Beach.

McCurdy is now buried in Oklahoma. Because McCurdy apparently had the most entertaining corpse in history, they prevented anyone else from taking him on tour by dumping concrete on top of the casket.