He Rode with Butch and Sundance: The Story of Harvey "Kid Curry" Logan

29. Kid Curry in His Grave?

297 CHAPTER 29 Kid Curry in His Grave? A great crowd came to vie w Curry’s body when it arrived at Glenwood Springs Thursday evening, June 9, 1904. Several people recognized the dead man, including Globe Express Compan y agent Otto Barton. It was the same man w ho gave his name as J. H. Ross on Tuesday morning, and asked to have his valise sent to Pueb lo.1 After viewing the body, Barton checked his files for a circular he had recently received from Wells Fargo Express Compan y on one Geor ge W. Hendricks (or Kendrick), alias James Keith, George W. Kayser, George Hess, and A. S. Keith. He was wanted for robbing their office at Sparkill, N.Y., and the United States Express Compan y office in Bernardsville, N.J., both inApril 1904. There was a reward of $500 for his capture. Barton , accompanied by a Dr. Hotopp, “examined the body very minutely and found it to tall y to the smallest par ticular with” the description of Hendricks. Although the general physical characteristics really weren’t a close match, and the comparison w as never considered seriously, it is interesting that the tally included a “small scar above right wrist.”2 The significance of this scar will be seen in the subsequent contro versy that occurred over the identification of the bandit’s body. For some reason, researchers have failed to observe the importance of Dr. Hotopp noting this scar in an early examination of the body before serious decomposition began. The Ross identifi cation fell through on June 12 w hen two men, one named J. H. Ross and the other identifi ed as William or Charles Stubbs, reported to the sheriff in Pueblo. They informed him that they had worked as part of the D. & R.G. railroad section gang near the continental divide, and had quit tw o days before the train robber y. 298 Chapter 29 They were able to prove they had been in Pueblo looking for employment the night before the robber y. “When I read ho w I had stood on the summit of a high ridge, ” said Ross, “and , after being str uck through the shoulders with a Krag-Jorgensen bullet, let out a wild de- finance [sic] at the enemy, and sent a ball crashing through my brain, I thought it w as about time to mak e myself known. I didn’t want anybody to try to collect my life insurance, and thought that perhaps my friends might be interested to kno wn that I was really alive. So I suggested to Stubbs that we had better make ourselves known to the proper authorities.”3 Dr. R. R. Macalester , the resident ph ysician of the Glenw ood Hot Springs company and acknowledged as a prominent criminolo gist, examined the body of the unknown suicide bandit. He used techniques that were popular at the time, which included phrenology and palm reading. The Denver Post of July11 printed his findings: It is common to fi nd in criminals the marks of their criminal natures. It sometimes happens that men commit crimes w ho are not criminals by nature, but more often men are criminals because of hereditary tendencies or because of a perverse life. The man killed by the posse, after the train robber y of several weeks ago, can be easil y placed in the latter class, as a man, criminal because of hereditary tendencies, and because of a perverse life. Every line in his f ace indicates a degenerate, and while his head indicates a man of considerab le brain power and intelligence , that intelligence evidently took the form of cunning, if the rest of the lines of his face are to be believed. He was a man of small stature, slimly built, but very muscular . His hands and feet indicate that he ne ver performed much manual labor, in fact, his fingers are thin and flat, seemingly the fingers of a train dispatcher or tele graph operator. But I do not think he spent much time at work of any sort. Kid Curry in His Grave? 299 His head is especiall y good, the forehead is broad and the skull roomy. His nose is good, and the angle of his ja w is strong, indicating a man of considerable will power. His mouth and chin, ho wever, are very weak. His ears...