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Did you know that outlaw Jesse James's body was preserved on ice and people were able to look at his corpse before it was buried? A famous photo has made the rounds over the years showing the true, historical Jesse James body on ice, surrounded by a marshal and two deputies from St. Joseph, Missouri. There's nothing to debunk about this image - it's 100% what it seems like.
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When he was just 34, Jesse James was shot in the back
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by someone he thought was a friend. You'd think that would be the end of the famed outlaw's story
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but the weirdest chapter was yet to come. So today, we're going to take a look at how the corpse of Jesse James wound up on display
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and briefly became a lucrative tourist attraction. And maybe it wasn't even his corpse at all
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Born in 1847, Jesse James remains one of the Old West's most famous outlaws
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In 1863, when he was a teenager, Union soldiers besieged his family's farm in Missouri
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which prompted revenge-seeking James and his brother, Frank James, to join a group of Confederate guerrilla soldiers
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Once the war ended, James and his brother assembled a gang with four brothers from the Younger family
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and became known as the James Younger Gang. Although lacking in razzle-dazzle
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authorities likely appreciated the gang's straightforward name, as it immediately let them know exactly who was involved. Angered by what they perceived to be anti-Southern laws
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following the Civil War, they fought back the only way they knew how, by robbing banks
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trains, and stagecoaches owned and operated by Northern companies. Although James and his gang
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were sometimes depicted as Robin Hood-type heroes. In reality, James, his brother Frank
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and their fellow criminals were anything but. They killed anyone who got in their way
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And there's no evidence that they ever shared the proceeds of their heists with anyone but themselves
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Why would they? That's a bad business model. The James Younger Gang is credited with a crime spree
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during which its members robbed nearly two dozen banks and trains, reportedly pocketing $200,000
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Adjusted for inflation, that's somewhere in the neighborhood of $5 million, or roughly what Shia LaBeouf was paid for the second Transformers
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movie. It's hard to tell which is the bigger crime. And while you would think the bandits
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would be hated for their crimes, fellow Missourians supported the James Younger gang for their loyalty
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to the Confederacy. However, public support has its limits. Things would begin to change after the
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gang robbed a bank in Gallatin, Missouri on December 7, 1869. For whatever reason, Jesse
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James got it in his head that one of the bankers had killed Bloody Bill Anderson, a leader of the
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Confederate guerrilla group Quantrill's Raiders. So James shot the banker in the heart. The public
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was appalled by the cold-blooded killing. The gang's reputation took a massive hit, and the
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support they'd previously enjoyed quickly evaporated. Newspapers called for justice, authorities went on a manhunt for the gang, and a hefty reward was offered for James's capture
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For anyone who has seen the 2007 movie, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
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starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, this next part is going to sound familiar
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Because exactly like in the movie James was killed by Robert Ford a member of the James Younger gang Why would he turn on his famous boss Well Ford had a few thousand reasons for doing what he did First there was a
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bounty on Jesse's head, the equivalent of about $270,000 today. That's not quite as large as the
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gang's train robbing hall, but it's a big enough nest egg to hang up your bandit mask and retire
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to a comparatively comfortable life. But also, Ford wanted to be famous. He always dreamed of
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being a person of note like Jesse, and he figured being the man who took down the notorious outlaw
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would do the trick. So Ford and his brother, Charlie, went to James' house on April 3rd
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1882, under the guise of seeking his help in the planning of a bank heist. About the same time
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however, James learned that his cousin, Wood Hite, had been killed, and he believed fellow
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gang member Dick Little, who was one of Ford's friends, was the killer. James was wrong on that
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one, though. In fact, it was Ford himself who had killed Wood. Jesse grew suspicious when neither
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Ford nor Charlie mentioned anything about his cousin's death, but he kept his suspicions to
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himself. Not that bringing it up would have helped much. James wasn't wearing his guns. He had taken
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them off so as not to be spotted by passerbys. Apparently, he was posing with his pistols in all
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of his wanted posters. James' unarmed state was a rare opportunity for the Ford brothers
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and they took full advantage. When James stood up to wipe down a dusty picture on the wall in his
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living room, Robert Ford shot him in the back of the head. Even though James was widely regarded
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as a dangerous criminal, shooting him in the back while he was unarmed earned Robert Ford
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his cowardly reputation. Weird History viewers may recall the story of how President Abraham
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Lincoln's assassination created the billion-dollar funeral industry. Following his death in 1865
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Lincoln's body went on tour around the country and was met by massive crowds. The Lincoln Farewell
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Tour may have sparked the public's interest in extremely boring and slightly macabre ways to
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spend an afternoon, because following Jesse James's death in 1882, his corpse was preserved on ice
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and put on display. During the 1800s, ice caskets were common, as the process of embalming hadn't
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yet been perfected. The only way to keep a body from getting too ripe was to stuff it in a cooler
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like a six-pack of Milwaukee's best. The ice casket included a window on top that enabled people to
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view the deceased person's face without having to open the coffin, because cracking that lid to
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gawk would be in bad taste. An infamous photo shows Jesse in his ice coffin under the guard of
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St. Joseph City Marshal Enos Craig and two deputies. It's unclear how long James's body
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was on display, though it is known it was transported from St. Joseph, Missouri, to James's
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birthplace in Kearney, Missouri, for a burial, a distance of about 54 miles. After James died
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but before his body was collected, crowds allegedly swarmed the house in which he was
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murdered for a glimpse of the slain outlaw and continued to do so after his corpse was carted away The Funeral Museum in St Joseph Missouri displays the wicker casket that transported James to the Heaton Bowman Smith Funeral Home The museum also features his ice casket which is pretty chill
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Following James's assassination, his widow, Zerelda, was faced with raising their young children by herself
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In order to support the family, she sold some of her and Jesse's belongings
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including the family dog. Zerelda also charged curious members of the public 10 cents
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to visit their rented home in St. Joseph, Missouri. And while you'd think people would be respectful of a widowed single mother
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reduced to giving tours of her husband's murder scene for mere fractions of a dollar
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they absolutely weren't. In fact, people stole what they could, including chunks of the fence, house, and surrounding buildings
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Presumably, the thieves would then flip these keepsakes on the 19th century equivalent of eBay
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otherwise known as the back of a horse cart. Not to be outdone, the house's owner, Henrietta Saltzman
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transformed the place into a tourist attraction, but took some creative license in her decorating
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The newly renovated house included over 50 bullet holes, despite the fact that James had only been
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shot once, and the bullet remained lodged in his brain until it was removed during an autopsy
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Despite its less than total authenticity, Saltzman reportedly made $1,500 from her scheme
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Meanwhile, Robert Ford and his brother Charlie didn't make out quite as lucratively as they had
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plan. They didn't try to hide the fact that they had killed Jesse James. In fact, they immediately
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surrendered to authorities after the killing in order to claim the reward for his capture
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But instead of being hailed as heroes and handed an oversized check for $10,000
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they were arrested and tried for murder. Over the course of a single day, they were convicted
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sentenced to hang, then pardoned by Missouri Governor Thomas T. Crittenden and awarded a
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partial payment of the reward money. Given how quickly he pardoned them, some believe Crittenden
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and the Fords were in cahoots, and that the governor had been given advanced knowledge of
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their plans to kill James, rather than bring him in alive. The implication that a sitting governor
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had conspired with outlaws to carry out an extrajudicial killing was a bit of a scandal
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though in the end, Crittenden's career was mostly unaffected. Even though he'd been pardoned for killing Woodhite and Jesse James
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Ford received only a small fraction of the $10,000 reward and was publicly looked down upon for murdering James
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Strapped for cash and with few employment options available to them thanks to their dubious past
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Robert and his brother Charlie thought they could make money reenacting the shooting of James
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as a live theater performance. It's unclear why they thought this would be a good idea
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In addition to earning him the reputation of a coward, Ford's ambush of James wasn't especially clever
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Regardless of how you feel about Jesse James, shooting him once in the back while he dusts a crooked picture
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doesn't make for a particularly exciting reenactment. That's barely enough for a TikTok video
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Done Somewhat predictably audiences were unkind to the brothers and booed them during their macabre performances Charlie struggled following Jesse death
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battling health problems and morphine addiction. He was also scared Jesse's brother, Frank James
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would track them down to avenge Jesse's death. Frank never came for Charlie, but he didn't have to
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Charlie committed suicide on May 4, 1884. Robert Ford met his maker a few years later
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in a silver town called Creed, Colorado. Ford had opened up a saloon and dance hall called Ford's Exposition, which was destroyed in a fire
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To keep his business going until the hall could be rebuilt, Ford ran a temporary tent saloon
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For reasons unknown, a man named Edward O'Kelly entered that tent on June 8, 1892
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carrying a shotgun. He called to Robert Ford, saying, Hello, Bob. When Ford turned around, O'Kelly fired, ending the man who killed Jesse James
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At least O'Kelly waited for him to turn. Ford was initially buried in Creed
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but his body was later reburied in Richmond, Missouri. As for Jesse, his exploits made him nationally famous
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Tales of his life were retold, albeit in a highly exaggerated fashion, in popular dime novels
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some of which were published within his own lifetime. Jesse James' stories were so popular, in fact
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famous novelists kept inventing new adventures for him long after he was gone
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He was also the subject of dozens of movie serials and films throughout the 20th century and into the 21st
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But surprisingly, the tall tales in some of those films and novels
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weren't the most outlandish stories spun about his life. Jesse James' great-grandson, Jesse James IV
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believed the infamous outlaw faked his death and lived a very long life in anonymity
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According to his grandson, Jesse changed his name to J. Frank Dalton
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and used a number of other aliases to keep his true identity a secret
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Jesse James IV told reporters in 1995 that Dalton supported himself by working on railroads
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in mines, and at cattle ranches. And unlike James, Dalton died in 1951 and was buried in Granbury, Texas
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Dalton's headstone claimed he was Jesse Woodson James, listing his date of death as August
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15, 1951, supposedly killed in 1882. If Dalton was, in fact, Jesse James, it would mean the notorious outlaw reached the ripe
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bold age of 107, outliving the Wild West itself by several decades
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Anyone can write anything on a tombstone. But the possibility of James faking his death was too tantalizing a mystery to ignore
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So in 1995, Jesse James' officially recognized remains were exhumed, and their DNA was compared
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to that of his living relatives. Though the study wasn't 100% conclusive, it seems Jesse James did, in fact, meet his
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end at the hands of the cowardly Robert Ford over what turned out to be a few hundred dollars of
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reward money and a poorly received reenactment show. That is how I kill Jesse James