READING (AFP) – After more than a century living with a macabre mystery, the town of Reading, Pennsylvania in the United States (US) closed the casket on its oddest-ever resident – a mummified man who was finally buried.
Crowds of people have lined up in recent days to pay their respects, snap photos or gaze with bewildered awe on a scene unlikely to ever be repeated in the US.
Stoneman Willie was the nickname bestowed long ago on an alleged thief who died in 1895 in jail and was taken to the Theo C Auman Funeral Home when no one claimed the body, before being accidentally mummified by undertakers.
“Fast-forward 128 years and he’s still here,” funeral home director Kyle Blankenbiller told AFP ahead of the burial.
At his interment, a crowd gathered under overcast skies, circling around Willie’s black tombstone at a local cemetery for one final farewell.
The man who became known as Willie gave a false name when he was jailed, but his true identity was tracked down and finally revealed during Saturday’s ceremony, a fitting end to his life – and bizarre afterlife.
He was revealed to have been named James Murphy as his gravestone was unveiled at the climax of funeral events – which also included his remains joining a recent parade commemorating Reading’s 275th anniversary.
Both names are etched on his tombstone, though his real name only in small print at the bottom.
The corpse has been in an open casket for almost his entire stay at the funeral home, until being loaded into a motorcycle-drawn hearse.
