NOT A MAN TO MESS WITH - JONATHAN R. DAVIS

12/19/1854 - The chance to strike it rich, obtain wealth beyond anyone's dreams brings a flood of immigrants to California ... miners and entrepreneurs for the most part, but also the sort of outlaw human vampires that feast on those they deem weaker than themselves ... unfortunately for one band of criminal scum, on this day they launch an attack on a South Carolinian gold rush prospector that is also a former honorary captain of the Palmetto Regiment of Volunteers that fought in the recent Mexican-American War ... Jonathan Rutledge Davis.  Move over Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, there is another pioneer warrior worth joining the ranks

Armed Prospector

Born in Monticello, South Carolina on August 5, 1816, Davis grows up learning how to ride, shoot, and use bladed weapons, while his mental acuity is honed and improved with his attendance at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, where he becomes a member of the school's Euphradian Society (a literary society established in 1806, also known as Phi Alpha Epsilon).  Trouble on America's southern border in 1846, at 30 years of age, Davis volunteers to become a member of South Carolina's Palmetto Regiment, 10 companies of men, comprised of members of the U.S. Regular Army and state volunteers answering President James K. Polk's call to arms against Mexico.  Gathered together in Charleston, the men receive training from the cadets of the Military College of South Carolina, now known as The Citadel.  On the day before Christmas, December 24, 1846, the regiment receives its colors, a flag made of blue silk with the Coat of Arms of South Carolina on one side, and a palmetto tree on its other side, with wording that reads, "Presented by the City of Charleston" and the motto "Not for ourselves we conquer, but our country" (at the September of 1847 Battle of Chapultepec, it will become the first American colors to be raised over Mexico City).  Part of Major General Winfield "Old Fuss and Feathers" Scott's army of invasion, Davis is made an honorary captain in the regiment and sees action from the time he lands at the port of Vera Cruz to the army's capture of Mexico City.  Serving with distinction, at the August 20, 1847, Battle of Churubusco (a clash that sees six different men, ranging from Colonel Pierce Mason Butler down to Private Patrick Leonard carry the flag into action), Davis is wounded but survives the war.  Healed and mustered out of South Carolina's service, in 1854, Davis decides to try his hand at gold mining in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California.

President Polk

General Scott

Forward At Churubusco

Gold discovered by John W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill on January 24, 1848, the influx of thousands of men, women, and children results in California, by way of the Compromise of 1850, becoming a free state. the Union's 31st state, on September 9, 1850.  But on the edge of civilization, bad apples, of the human sort, abound.  Using the remoteness of the high peaks of the Sierras for cover, an international gang of fourteen murderous thieves, consisting of two Americans, one Frenchman, two Britons, four Mexicans, and five former Sydney Ducks (a gang of criminal transplants from Sydney, Australia that causes San Francisco to engage in its first bouts of vigilante justice) terrorizes the area.  Leaving no witnesses to their crimes alive, two days before, the bandits robbed and killed six Chinese miners, and the previous day, four American prospectors suffered the same fate (the take in the killings includes $491 in silver and gold coins, four ounces of gold dust, two silver watches and seven gold timepieces).  Set up and ready again for a third day of ambush mayhem and murder, their next targets are a group of three men walking up a rugged mining trail through Rocky Canyon near the Todd Valley on the Middle Fork of California's American River, not far from the growing community of Sacramento ... Doctor Bolivar Sparks, prospector James McDonald, and Captain Jonathan R. Davis.

Marshall

Growing San Francisco - 1851

Middle Fork 

No warning given, the gang rises from its hiding places in the brush along the trail and opens fire on the three prospectors ... McDonald is cit down without even being able to pull his pistol, while Doctor Sparks gets off two crook missing hasty rounds before he too goes to the ground (taken off the mountain, the doctor will die on the 26th of the month, at his home in the town of Coloma).  Focus totally on survival, keeping his calm as the chaos sweeps over him, Davis pulls two, ball-and-cap Colt .45 revolvers and begins whirling about in what the war veteran will describe as a "fever of excitement," firing at one target after another, until bullets expended, seven outlaws lay dead or mortally wounded.  But there are more bad guys attacking and a new band of four killers rushes at Davis with Bowie knives and a cutlass ... a new threat that Davis meets by pulling his own knife and demonstrating his death dealing skills extend beyond pistols.  Stab parried and counter thrust made, Davis kills his first attacker, disarms his second attacker by a blade hit that causes his opponent to drop his weapon and flee, minus the nose on his face and fingers on his hand (bleeding wounds that the badman will eventually die from), then in short order stabs to death two more attackers.  Though they still have a number advantage on Davis, seeing how that advantage hasn't really worked out too well for their criminal confederates, the final three men flee into the wildness, the captain has triumphed over fourteen adversaries, killing or mortally wounding eleven of them in seconds! 

Colt .45 

Davis - True West Illustration

Fight over, ignoring his own wounds (Davis has been grazed twice, and his clothes have been holed over a dozen times, including six bullets through his hat), the captain tears strips from his shirt to try and bind the doctor's wounds, and those of the wounded outlaws.  He finally receives help when three miners, John Webster, Isaac Hart, and P.S. Robertson,  who have witnessed the entire fight from the other side of the canyon arrive on the scene (still in fight mode, Davis will call to them to "Halt" when they arriving, covering them with the fallen McDonald's gun until he knows who the men are).  Three months later, when some begin to doubt the validity of the tales being told about the fight, in the office of Placerville Mountin Democrat newspaper (the story will be told in the California Chronicle of San Francisco and New York City's Knickerbocker Magazine), before a judge and a group of prominent citizens, the men and Davis given written and verbal depositions about the battle (Davis will state, "I did what hundreds of others have dne under similar circumstances, and attach no particular credit to myself for it.").  Story believed, Davis goes on to living a long, peaceful life in California ... in 1855 he is on a coroner's jury in the town of Sonora, in 1865 he is brokering cattle in Napa County, in 1875 Davis is listed as a sixty-year-old miner in Scott Valley, in the 1877 register of citizens, Trinity County lists him as a lawyer, at 64 he is in Weaverville, at 68 he is a member of the populace of Shasta Township, and before his death (date and cause unknown), there are stops in the town of Yount and San Joaquin County (1890)  No known photo of Davis available, the man nevertheless lives on ... his tale is rediscovered in the 1980's by author Bill Secrest Sr., and told again, immortalized by artist Mike Trcic's sculpture of the captain, "One Man With Courage Is A Majority" ... INDEED!

Statue Tribute
        .

MYSTERY MAN MUMMY MCCURDY

12/8/1976 - A source of scares and laughter to local residents, off duty sailors, and tourists for decades (the amusement park begins life in 1902), in December of 1976 the Long Beach Pike's dark ride, "LAFF IN THE DARK," is ticketed for a scene in an episode of the hit TV show, "The Six Million Dollar Man," starring Lee Majors.  Prepping the interior of the ride for filming of the show's "Carnival of Spies" episode, a member of the production staff goes to move a hanging wax mannequin, and is horrified, thinking he has damaged the ride, when the figure's right arm breaks off in his hands ... and even more horrified when he sees bone protruding from the break.  Authorities contacted, the figure is transported to the Los Angeles coroner's office, where the next day, Dr. Joseph Choi, determines it isn't a mannequin at all, but is actually a mummified human corpse weighing 50 pounds covered in layers of wax and glow-in-the dark orange phosphorus paint (inside the figure's mandible are a 1924 penny and ticket stubs to Louis Sonney's Museum of Crime traveling show) ... a mummy bearing a gunshot wound to its chest.  Evidence from the mummy's mouth, combined with arsenic being used in the embalming, a copper bullet casing in the chest, and photographic analysis (by forensic anthropologist Dr. Clyde Smith), along with consultations with historians in Oklahoma soon identify the mystery man, the mummy is that of failed outlaw, Elmer J. McCurdy.       

The Ride

McCurdy

Born in Washington, Maine on January 1, 1880, Elmer is the son of 17-year-old, unmarried Sadie McCurdy (his father is unknown).  To save the mother, child, and family the embarrassment and shame of raising an "illegitimate" child, the boy is adopted by Sadie's brother George and his wife Helen, and grows up believing his mother is his aunt (a scenario that will one day also beget serial killer Ted Bundy).  The truth of Elmer's origins are exposed when George dies of tuberculosis in 1890, truth that suddenly turns McCurdy into a rebellious and unruly youngster that has a drinking problem by the time he is a teenager.  Despite issues with his birth, moving in with his grandfather, Elmer becomes an apprentice plumber and competent worker until he loses his job in 1898, his mother dies of a ruptured ulcer in 1900, and a month later, his grandfather passes away from Bright's disease.  Leaving Maine, McCurdy wanders the East Coast, taking jobs as a lead miner and plumber that he inevitably fails to keep due to his alcoholism.  Eventually he drifts out west, finding plumbing jobs in the Kansas towns of Cherryvale and Iola, and in Webb City, Missouri.  In 1907, he joins the United States Army and is assigned to Fort Leavenworth, where he is made a machine gun operator and trains in the use of nitroglycerin for demolition jobs.  Honorably discharged by the Quartermaster Corps in 1910, having difficulties once more in finding and holding down a job, in St. Joseph, Kansas, with an ex-Army friend, McCurdy decides to go into the burglary business, but is arrested before the pair pull off a single job.  Found in possession of chisels, hacksaws, funnels for nitroglycerin, gunpowder, and money sacks, the men are put on trial, but elude jail time when they claim the items are needed for the foot operated machine gun the pair are trying to invent.  Released by a jury in 1911, McCurdy changes criminal directions and decides he is a train and bank robber ...  occupations at which he proves to be a total failure.

McCurdy

Incorporating his supposed talents with nitroglycerin into his robberies, in March of 1911, trying with three other bandits for a $4,000 payday from the Iron Mountain-Missouri Pacific railroad, Elmer uses too much explosives on the safe of the train and destroys most of the money inside, leaving the outlaws only $450 in silver coins, most of which have been melted together by McCurdy's blast.  In September of 1911, the explosive "expert" and two bandit buddies attack the Citizens Bank of Chautauqua, Kansas, taking two hours to break into the business.  Inside, an inept Elmer this time doesn't use enough explosive on the targeted safe and the outlaws flee with only $150 in coins.  Hiding out in the hayloft of a friend (Charlie Revard) on a ranch outside of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, drunk almost every day, McCurdy is back in action in October, near Okesa, Oklahoma, this time after a $400,000 royalty payment for the Osage Indian Nation carried in the safe of a Katy Train.  A bungled job again, instead of hitting the correct Katy, McCurdy and two confederates hit a passenger train and leave with $46 they steal from a mail clerk, two demijohns of whiskey, an automatic pistol, a coat, and the train conductor's watch (a local newspaper will call the job "one of the smallest in the history of train robbery.").  Returning to his previous hideout after the job, McCurty, now with a $2,000 reward on his head, is unaware that a posse is on his trail (in no small measure due to Elmer drinking the contents of the stolen demijohns).  Tracked to the Oklahoma ranch by bloodhounds, on the morning of October 11, 1911, Sheriffs Bob Fenton, Stringer Fenton, and Dick Wallace surround the hayloft and demand Elmer's surrender.  Drunk, sick with tuberculosis (which he has developed from his mining days) and a mild case of pneumonia and trichinosis, McCurty instead fires on first on Bob Fenton (a single shot that misses), then sends three shots at Stringer Fenton (all misses), before firing at Dick Wallace (again missing).  Battle on, for the next hour the lawman exchange bullets with Elmer, before someone finally gets lucky and stops the badman with a round that finds the outlaw's chest.  Dead at the age of 31, Elmer is brought to Pawhuska, Oklahoma and turned over to undertaker Joseph L. Johnson for embalming and burial ... an end that is actually a beginning for McCurty.

McCurty

Embalmed, shaved, dressed in a suit and ready for burial, instead of going into the ground, when no one claims the body and Johnson finds himself unpaid for his services, the undertaker decides to make some money by displaying the body in his funeral home holding a rifle (it costs a nickel to look at the corpse).  Billed as "The Bandit Who Wouldn't Give Up" (the failed desperado over the years will also be called "The Oklahoma Outlaw," "The Mystery Man of Many Aliases," and "The Embalmed Bandit"), the money making cadaver eventually gets the attention of various carnival operators that seek to buy the body, but Johnson refuses to sell.  In 1916 however, he releases the body to McCurty's long lost brothers, Aver and Wayne for transportation to San Francisco and burial there, two gentlemen that prove to actually be con artists James and Charles Patterson.  Beginning an odyssey that will have the corpse visit more of America than most living people do, instead of going to San Francisco, Elmer is routed to Arkansas City, Kansas where it becomes a featured attraction of the Pattersons' traveling carnival (the Great Patterson Carnival Show) until 1922.  Sold to Louis Sonney in 1922, Elmer next goes on display as part of another traveling show, this time one called the "Museum of Crime,' featuring wax dummies of famous outlaws like Bill Doolin and Jesse James.  In 1928, McCurty becomes part of the official sideshow that accompanies that year's inaugural Trans-American Footrace (199 runners that leave the Legion Ascot Speedway in Los Angeles on March 4, 1928 at 3:30 in the afternoon, bound for Madison Square Garden in New York City ... a destination only 55 runners will reach).  Acquired by director Dwain Esper, Elmer next surfaces in movie lobbies showing Esper's exploitation film, "Narcotic," as an example of what a "dead dope fiend" looks like (by this time the body is mummified).  Still belonging to Louis Sonney, when the carnival promoter dies in 1949, the body goes into storage in a Los Angeles warehouse.  The year 1964 sees the body lent to director David F. Friedman and McCurty makes a brief, uncredited appearance the movie maker's 1967 film, "She Freak."  In 1968, Sooney's son Dan sells the body and other carnival artifacts for $10,000 to Sapuran "Spoony" Singh Sundher of the Hollywood Wax Museum, who in turn, sends Elmer off to be exhibited by two Canadian men at a show at Mount Rushmore.  At the national memorial, in an unexpected windstorm, McCurty loses the tips of his ears along with his fingers and toes.  Returned to Singh, the body is deemed now to be "too gruesome" for exhibition, and is soon sold to Ed Liersch, a part owner of the Long Beach Pike.  Covered in wax and paint, name for the moment forgotten, Elmer is shocking "LAFF IN THE DARK" riders by 1976.   

Elmer

Singh And Wax Marilyn

Identified, several local funeral homes offer to bury McCurty free of charge, but officials decide to wait to see if any living relatives will put in a claim for the corpse.  None do, but when Fred Olds, representing the Indian Territory Posse of Oklahoma Westerns puts in a claim. the outlaw is released by Dr. Thomas Noguchi, the head of the Los Angeles Coroner's Department, to the state.  On April 22, 1997, a funeral procession takes McCurty to the Boot Hill section of Gutherie, Oklahoma's Summit View Cemetery, where the fallen outlaw is interred next to outlaw Bill Doolin's grave before roughly 300 witnesses.  And to make sure he stays there and goes on no more journeys, Elmer has two feet of concrete poured over his casket.  Life rotten and dead travails pretty crummy too, hopefully Elmer is now finally resting in peace.

Noguchi

Tombstone

BISBEE GETS BLOODY

12/8/1883 - The tragedy that will become known as the "Bisbee Massacre" has its beginnings in December of 1844 in Ohio, when John and Sarah Heath welcome a baby boy into their family, John T. Heath.  An extremely shady customer as an adult, not much is known about the upbringing of Heath, beyond that at an early age, seeking better opportunities for themselves, he and his family move to Louisiana, then on to Terrell, Texas.  In Texas, Heath will gradually become involved in rustling and thievery, while also becoming married twice ... in October of 1867, Heath takes Mary Ann Redman as his bride (it is unknown what becomes of the young woman), and in 1869, he marries Virginia Tennessee "Jennie" Ferrell (the couple will have three children, Myrtle, Kittie, and John ... a family that does not dissuade Heath from continuing to wander west, or associating with bad apples).  By the early 1880s, Heath is in Arizona, doing a little lawman work as a deputy sheriff in Cochise County, then running a saloon in the town of Clifton (where he will become quite friendly with the outlaw crowd that patronizes his establishment), before moving to the mining town of Bisbee to open up a saloon and dancehall (and to put some distance between himself and charges of cattle rustling, burglary, running a house of prostitution, and robbery).

Clifton, Arizona

Hanging out with the area's lowlifes again, Heath soon comes up with a plan for him and his friends (cowboy outlaws Daniel W. "Big Dan" Dowd, Omer W. "Red" Sample, Daniel "York" Kelly, William E. "Billy" Delaney, and James "Tex" Howard) to gain a little easy cash at the expense of Bisbee; since the mining camp does not yet have an established bank, the payroll for the nearby Copper Queen Mine (discovered by Fort Bowie cavalry patrol chasing Apaches through the area's Mule Mountains, the men never see any money from the high grade copper mine because George Warren, the man that is suppose to file their claim while they are in the field gets drunk  in is delivered to the Goldwater & Castaneda Mercantile store, only a hop, skip, and a jump down the street from the businessman's bar (in partnership with Nathan Waite, who is not a part of the robbery).  Seven thousand dollars just waiting to be grabbed (worth about $188,000 today), after finalizing their plans in November at a meeting about ten miles outside of town at the Buckles' ranch, on the evening December 8, 1883, the day of the next regularly scheduled payroll receipt, the outlaws make their play.

John Heath At Right

Bisbee, Arizona.

Tying their horses near the Copper Queen Mine smelter on Main Street, the five men make their way to the Goldwater & Castaneda store, and then depending on accounts, three or two of the men go inside to loot the safe the payroll is in, while the rest of the gang remains outside to prevent trouble (for some reason, Howard does not wear a mask like the rest of the gang), but instead of preventing it, they cause it.  Stepping out of the Bon Ton Saloon next door, assayer J, C. Tappenier confronts the bandits, and is shot a killed by a Winchester bullet to the head when he refuses to go back inside.  Hearing the shot, Cochise County Deputy Sheriff D. Tom Smith, having dinner across the street at the Bisbee House with his wife, runs out into the street to see what is going on and is also killed when he identifies himself to the outlaws as a lawman.  That shot in turn brings pregnant Annie Roberts out of the Bisbee House Restaurant she owns with her husband, and she is killed by bullet that shatters her spine.  Standing near his wagon, local freighter John A. Nolly becomes the fourth citizen to die when he is hit in the chest by a rifle slug (in the Main Street gunplay, another local known as Indian Joe is wounded in the leg).  Meanwhile, inside the store, its owner, with a pistol in his face, is persuaded to the open the safe, and the bandits are horrified to discover the payroll has not yet been delivered.  Robbing customers of any money on their persons, and taking a gold watch and some cash from the safe (estimates of their take vary from $800 all the way up to $3,000), the five outlaws race to their horses, mount, and shooting at anything that moves, ride out of town (chased by the bullets of Deputy Sheriff William Daniels), and at a place called Soldier's Hole east of Bisbee, divide up the booty before going their separate ways.  In all, the robbery and killings take about five minutes.

The Riders Enter Town - True West Illustration

Copper Queen Mine Postcard

The Letson Loft Hotel - Where Once
The Goldwater & Castaneda Store
Stood

Citizens outraged at the mayhem, with the Copper Queen Mine offering a reward of $2,000 for the bandits, two posses quickly light out after the men (one will pass the stagecoach bringing the late payroll into town), with a deputized Heath participating in a group that loses the bandits trail in the wilderness outside of the town of Tombstone.  Maskless Howard giving the game away, the outlaws are identified, and all being friends with Heath, the saloon owner is soon arrested and under questioning, spills the beans as to everyone's identities and that he had planned the job (but had nothing to do with the killings).  Hunt on, the first outlaw captured is Kelly, apprehended in Deming, New Mexico when he foolishly gifts his prostitute girlfriend with the stolen gold watch, unaware that in his love is now the girlfriend of another man who turns the bandit in.  The next outlaws to find themselves behind bars are Howard and Sample, who make the mistake of returning to their Clifton haunts, where they are betrayed by a bartender buddy named Walter Bush.  Two culprits left to go, Deputy Sheriff Daniels travels into Mexico when word reaches him that the final two desperadoes are hiding out south of the border (survived by his wife and five children, the intrepid lawman will be killed in an Apache ambush near Bisbee on June, 9, 1885).  Dowd is captured by Daniels in Los Corralitos, Sonora, and then, with the help of Deputy Sheriff Robert Hatch, Delaney is taken into custody in the town of Minas Prietas (after reward money is paid to the local authorities who have the murderer behind bars for getting into a brawl with a local mining foreman).

William Daniels

Culprits all caught, justice for the accused is sought in two separate Tombstone trials.  Confession recanted, on February 12, 1884, Heath goes on trial, and after Sgt. L. D. Lawrence of the 3rd Cavalry testifies to hearing the businessman brag about the robbery while the men were cellmates (Lawrence had been indicted for killing two men during a saloon brawl in Wilcox, Arizona, denying he has made a deal with local prosecutor, Marcus Aurelius Smith, who will eventually serve eight terms as a territorial delegate to the U.S. Congress and becomes one of the first two senators to represent Arizona when it officially becomes a state in 1912 ... no deal wink-wink, the killer will nonetheless receive a sentence of only two years behind bars for his part in the bar mayhem), and in a compromise decision, is found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced to life behind bars at the Yuma Territorial Prison by Judge Judge Daniel Pinney.  The other trial begins on February 17, 1884, and with witness identifications, the gold watch evidence, and other links to the robbery and murders, all five men are found guilty of first-degree murder after three days of testimony, and each outlaw is sentenced to be hung by the neck until they are very dead (on hearing the verdict, Kelly will tell his fellow defendants, "Well boys, hemp seems to be trumps.").

Smith

Yuma Territorial Prison

Following both trials intently, the citizens of Bisbbee are extremely disturbed at the thought of the mastermind of the crimes not sharing the gunmen's fate (even though he has been sentenced to life in a prison known as "The Hellhole Of The West"), and between 50 and 150 ride north to Tombstone on February 22, 1885 to make their feelings known to the convicted killer.  Thinking a local Chinese chef is knocking on the door of the county jail in the town's courthouse to deliver its inmates breakfast, a group of seven men from the lynch mob break in, take control of the Sheriff and the guards (with pistols placed in their faces ... all are unwilling to sacrifice their lives by protecting the killer), and then march Heath out of his cell (while leaving the outlaws sentenced to die in their cells).  Marched down Toughnut Street, the mob stops shortly afterwards at the corner of Toughnut and First streets where a tall telegraph pole awaits.  Rope hoisted up and over a crossbeam on the pole, Heath provides his own blindfold in the form of a handkerchief from his pocket, asks the mob not to shoot up his body after he is dead, and then is strung up, slowly strangling to death.  Done, a placard is placed below the body that reads, "JOHN HEITH Was hanged to this pole by the CITIZENS OF COCHISE COUNTY for participating in the Bisbee massacre as a proved accessory AT 8:00 A.M., FEBRUARY 22, 1884 (Washington's Birthday) ADVANCE ARIZONA,  Then there will be picture taking by local photographer C. S. Fly (the same Fly that takes classic photos of a captured Geronimo and the victims of the O.K. Corral gunfight), and a sarcastic grand journey looking into the affair (a story that makes the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune) will state that Heath's death comes from "... emphysema of the lung - a disease common in high altitudes - which might have been caused by strangulation, self-inflected or otherwise" (according to County Coroner Dr. George E. Goodfellow).  Though a tombstone stands for him in Tombstone's Boot Hill, Heath is actually sent back to Terrell, Texas and buried by his family in an unmarked grave.

Heath Lynching

Tombstone

Heath's confederates get a little longer to live, but not much.  Big stuff for Tombstone, everyone scheduled to go at the same time, a special gallows is built to accommodate the party of five, Cochise County Sheriff Jerome L. Ward sends out special invitations to the leaving, and a local businessman builds a grandstand outside the jail walls where the hanging can be witnessed with the purchase of a $1.50 ticket (the Tombstone Epitaph will state that more than 1,000 people attend the hanging) ... a grandstand that a local philanthropist, Nellie Cashman and her cohorts try to chop down the day before the hanging (quite the brawl, seven people are injured in the fracas with one breaking a leg and another an arm).  Shaved and dressed in matching black suits, allowed to wear their cowboy hats to the gallows, protesting their innocence, the men walk to the gibbet, ask that their bodies be delivered to the local Roman Catholic priest, Father Gallagher (they have all converted to the religion during their tenure in the Tombstone jail), then have their hats taken off and replaced by black hoods.  Nooses adjusted around their necks, with Kelly uttering "Let her go," the five men are hung on March 28, 1884 at 1:18 in the afternoon.  Four dead instantly, but Dowd's body is seen to jerk and twitch for several minutes as he strangles to death.  Allowed to dangle for almost thirty minutes, the outlaws are officially declared dead at 1:45, cut down, and then given to Father Gallagher as requested.  Placed in a group grave at the city's Boot Hill, the grave site will be guarded for two weeks by two miners (at the behest of the still upset Nellie Cashman) when rumors abound in town that a medical school seeks to exhume the corpses for research.  And a good thing too ... in the death the outlaws become a photograph site for the thousands of tourists that visit the infamous cemetery yearly. 

Ellen "Nellie" Cashman

Boot Hill

December 8, 1883 ... murderous gunfire disrupts the streets of Bisbee, Arizona