May 10, 2017 • 51 mins
No, that $10 million isn’t the price of an Enzo Ferrari at auction. But it was (almost) the ransom for Enzo Ferrari’s corpse. Join Scott and Ben to learn the common-link between Elvis Presley, Abraham Lincoln, Charlie Chaplin and now, Enzo Ferrari.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Let's go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond
with car stuff from how stuff works dot Com. I
welcomed the car stuff. I'm Scott and then, as always,
we are joined by our super audio producers Dylan Fagan
and Tristan McNeil nicknames to be announced. Yeah, I guess
(00:24):
we'll have some opportunity during this one. I mean usually
some oddball things come up. But you know, we we uh,
we can slot that that that strange odd word that
comes in occasionally as as a nickname later on. Maybe Oh,
here's the deep gut. What's that? Dylan Burke Fagan and
Tristan Hair McNeil. Oh, I like it. I know, perfect
fit for this one. Perfect fit as you'll find out
(00:46):
as we as we combed through this. Now just kind
of a behind the curtains look at what's going on here,
ben Um, this is a new story that's that's happening
right around now. But you know, by the time this
air is, of course, it's gonna be a few weeks on,
so a lot most people will have heard of this
are ready, but it wasn't a widely um publicized story
that we're gonna talked about today. Um, it's it's it's
(01:06):
kind of a well, it's just a very short couple
of paragraphs, but I found it very interesting because of
the subject matter. So, uh, for a couple of reasons,
two reasons. One, it's automotive related, and that's why we
have it here today for our our show. Second is
that it kind of ties in with some of my
other outside of work interests, you know, like a little
true crime bent you know that that that area. And um,
(01:30):
I don't just just the macab I guess maybe, And uh,
and there there's more to this story than just this
short bit that we're gonna talk about early on in
this podcast. And uh, there's a couple of um things
that kind of want to get out of the way. First,
we have a couple of episodes that are UM Ferrari related,
and uh, we haven't yet, and I want to make
(01:52):
sure that we can make this really clear. We have
not yet done an Endzo Ferrari story, which is crazy
think about it. Yeah, we haven't done like the you know,
the the genesis story, the origin story of Ferrari yet,
and we will get to that. That's one of the
things on our list. And we get you know, emails
occasionally about you know, doing something like that. We will,
um it's it's a big one we want to get to.
(02:13):
But but so far we've got maybe four or five
podcasts that do mention ferrari in in some way, and
we've had, you know, the case of the buried Ferrari
Dino from back in July of last year, which was great.
I enjoyed that one. I like that one a lot too.
Is a good story. And uh, then we've got the
Sandra Weston or or Ferrari coffin that we did back
in I think it was back in And then we
(02:33):
also have something about how long does it take to
build a Ferrari because there's some confusion over whether there's
still entirely handbuilt or there's some machines involved, and that
goes back to two thousand and twelve. And then we
also have something about the Ferrari ff because that was
an unusual Ferrari at the time, which was back in
two thousand and eleven. It's a four door ferrari um
you remember I had the shooting brake design. But we've
(02:54):
got a few here and there that kind of touch
on Ferrari, but nothing like what we're gonna talk about
today because this is really unusual. Yes, we also, just
for a side note, we did in the past episode
I cannot recall which one right now, we did talk
about the infamous Ferrari and Lamborghini rivalry. Oh yeah, that's right,
And well there's that. And then we also talked about
(03:15):
the Ford in Ferrari rivaling right uh at m um
Lama right in the nineteen sixties with with Henry Ford
the second So there's the there's that confrontation that went on.
So just uh, that's just a tease, a taste, a
sampling of what you can find. These are all on
our website car stuff show dot com, which is absolutely free.
That's my favorite number. Uh, my favorite number. Who isn't
(03:39):
a fan of Free? Who is not a fan of Free? Uh? So,
what I'd like to do, Scott, just to set the
scene without going too far into a biography of Enzo Ferrari,
is just to give some basic background of his life.
Does that sound good? Yeah, that sounds fine, but understanding
that we're gonna go in depth later, right, Okay, So
(04:00):
this is just the high level, quick and dirty. Who's
this guy? What did he do? Why does he have
that last name? Of why does it matter? All right?
So Enzo Ferrari was born in eighteen in Italy, uh
and he is the founder of the Ferrari Automotive Company. Yeah,
(04:22):
that's right. And he didn't start out the founder of
the automotive company that we think of, you know, the
road cars. He started out as uh, you know racer.
Um and this is when he was about twenty years old.
He wanted he kind of got the bug and he
wanted to do that. I think he came from a
family where the family business was carpentry and the carpentery
business kind of went under sometime after World War One,
(04:43):
and um, um, he decided that, you know, something that
he had had an interest in since he's about ten
years old. I think he went to a Grand Prix
race when he's about ten and kind of caught the bug.
You know, he got the excitement the nineteen o eight
Circuit de Bologna, that's the one yep, and he had
so he had that excitement in him from from that
point on. But when he is about twenty years old,
he decided, I want to really make a go with this.
I want to be um a race car builder. Yes, yeah,
(05:06):
so yeah, that's what he did, built race cars, and
the Ferrari race cars were really the entire reason that
the Ferrari street cars came about in the first place.
He had to he had to build street cars in
order to finance his racing habits. So so he reluctantly
built street cars. And uh, he really at the beginning
just built enough just to keep the race shop going.
(05:28):
And then eventually, you know, that caught on and he
did that, you know, full on. I mean he went,
he went guns blazing into both, you know, like you know,
I'm I'm doing the racing program, I'm also going to
do the street cars. And he's really a larger than
life character. There's so many differing, um anecdotes, some event
stretching into the status of legendary events or encounters within
(05:49):
Zoe Ferrari that we're going to um, we're going to
save for our future episode just on him. But for
a for a little bit of spoiler alert here. Uh,
he was infamous, for instance, for pitting his drivers against
(06:10):
each other and playing psychological mind games with them like this.
This guy did a lot of strange stuff and then eventually,
after creating a world changing automotive company, racing legacy. Uh,
he passed away, and he passed away in nineteen in August,
(06:34):
and after after, you know, his passage, he was mourned
by many people. Life well lived. He was. He was
ninety years old, um, which means that he did survive
to witness the launch of the Ferrari F forty. But
you know what, it wasn't until about two thousand two,
so after his death when the Ferrari Enzo there or
the Enzo Ferrari I should say, came out that the
car that bore his name, right, So it never was
(06:57):
in his lifetime that he was able to see the
car that that was named after him. Well, you know,
to be fair, Scott, that's something that happens more often
than not because it's kind of rare for someone to
have the car burying their full name come out while
they're alive. Yeah, I guess, Well, a full name that's
unusual too, instead of just having the last name of course, Ferrari,
(07:19):
I mean obviously all the way through Chrysler is another
example for yeah, yeah, there's a bunch of those right, so, um,
yet to have the full name on there, that's that's
pretty unusual. I mean, it's a strange occurrence. But again,
two thousand two they built what three nine nine of
these things I think with his name on them, and
they were selling for about looking back, now, this is
what a discount right abound seven hundred thousand, and I
(07:41):
think it was like six hundred and seventy thousand or
something like that, So it seems like it seems like
a bargain compared to some of the numbers we're hearing
on supercars. Now, they built a four hundred um edition
or you know, the four hundredth version of the Enzo
Ferrari and in the final year I believe, and they
donated it to the Vatican and they auctioned that off
I think for um for charity, of course. For I
(08:02):
think it's like one point one million dollars. But here's
where the tie in is, right, I think we know
of a more valuable Enzo Ferrari. Now there's one that
was said to uh it was going to go for
about ten million dollars. Which one is that? That's Enzo himself?
Ben Ah, Wait, Scott, you might be saying to yourself, Wait, Ben,
(08:24):
hold the phone, the buck stops here. What the heck
are you talking about? What in the sand Hill. Well,
we will tell you after a brief word from our sponsor,
and we're back. And ben I had kind of mentioned
(08:45):
that there might be a ten million dollar Enzo Ferrari
out there. Yeah, but sure, it's the play on words,
I guess, but it's it's the man himself. And this
is that really unusual story that came out um at
the end of March. So you know, as a recording,
this is a news story, I guess, um, but there
in the Automotive News and elsewhere you'll find it, you know,
spread from I don't know if it was an AP
(09:06):
story or where it came from our routers or something. Um,
here's the headline, Italian police foil plot to steal Enzo
Ferrari's body. Can you believe that there's gonna be someone
someone now he's gonna steal the body in that that
was buried back in what nine years later? And the
idea was that they were going to ransom the body
(09:28):
back to the family. And I thought, man, that is
really unusual. What a strange target for something like that. Yeah,
what a bizarre plan. So, uh, when Enzo Ferrari passed away,
who was buried in a cemetery in Modena, Italy. These uh,
these investigators who discovered this were on the island of Sardinia. Ah. Yeah,
(09:51):
it was a gang. Right, there's a gang that I
think they're involved in. Um. Oh what is it? Um,
drug trafficking, arms trafficking, arms trafficing. That was one arms
and drug traffic and you're right and uh. And this
led to a number of arrests because you know, they
had infiltrated this group. They were one of the one
of the people. I guess you know that the the
good guys were in on in on it with the
(10:11):
bad guys operation, which is really cool. We hear about
this happening a lot. So uh, you know, the plan
is foiled at the last moment. They let them get
right up to the point of, you know, taking action,
and then then they stopped the whole thing. Um. But
this is this is I thought it was really interesting.
I mean it's it's it's a strange target. I mean,
it's understandable. I guess you know that this is a
head of industry. This is somebody that's you know that
you want to protect the remains, um, you know, keep
(10:33):
the keep the grave sacred. I guess maybe for a
lot of reasons. I mean, just there's a bunch of
reasons why you wouldn't want your loved one dug up
and then ransom back to you. I think anybody can
understand that. But this, this would be something that would
almost be like a UM, well, I guess the whole
nation would would take notice of something like this. It
wouldn't be just one family that's you know, invested in this.
(10:55):
It would be everybody would be, like, you know, kind
of shocked by this news. Um, so as they were
by this news story that came out. And again it's
very very short. Um. There's really not a lot of
the the plot, the details about the plot brother um.
But they do say that you know, again, there have
been a number of Arrestmate. I think it was upwards
of thirty they said maybe thirty four in some accounts.
(11:17):
So again, he's still safe where he was. He's he's
buried in this I guess you'd say buried, but he's
in an above ground family tomb that's in h cemetery.
And Modena Modena and Um, I guess resting peacefully right
now because they were foiled before. But I wonder if
there's gonna be you know, future um fortification to that
(11:39):
that above ground tomb. Right. This is so what's fascinating
in a very uh McCobb way about this investigation is
that these crooks, and they are crooks like his children,
make no mistake. They had apparently drawn up detailed plans
like the kind of stuff you would see in a
(12:01):
heist movie, you know, very Oceans eleven about who's gonna do,
what about how they're going to steal the coffin, hide
it and then they'll contact the family. And they thought, well,
if the family doesn't buy the corpse back, surely the
automaker itself, the Ferrari, the entity, will buy it back. Um.
And they were with ample cash on hand, but with
(12:22):
ample cash on hand of course because million dollars, but
they're planning, they're asking ultimately, they're asking from the company
that builds some of the world's fastest and most expensive vehicles.
So they probably would have the cash on hand if
they chose to do that. And the strangest thing that
we found in the research, like Scott, as you said,
(12:44):
there's not much official information released. The investigators refused to
disclose many of the facts and typically in a criminal case,
there are there's so little compelling reasons for that. Usually
if investigators are not revealing specific details of the case,
(13:07):
it may be depending on the laws of the country
because litigation is ongoing, which means that there are things
that have to be evaluated in a court of law. Uh.
And then the second reason, which is even a little
bit more disturbing, would be when the investigators suspect that
there are people not yet apprehended. So we see this
(13:30):
a lot, you know in murder cases, most famously in
you know, a serial murder cases where they where law
enforcement doesn't want to disclose uh, specific commonalities between crimes,
or in car theft rings as well. Sure. Yeah, so
(13:52):
there's a good chance there's a very good chance we're
gonna hear more about this soon because you know, that's
the way things happen becase Ben said, they kind of
information will trickle out as more information is available to
the press. Of course, you know, we're gonna hear everything
that they have to say. Um, there just as a
question in my in my mind though, like why why
waiting at why now? Why seen? Why wait twenty nine
(14:13):
years for this to happen? I mean, why didn't this
plan come about early on. You know why didn't have
been in nineteen or nineteen nine, um, because there have
been other plans like this throughout history that have either
played out or or come you know, come close to
be played out, um within a couple of years of
somebody's death. And some interesting characters as we found out. Now,
(14:36):
I've got a couple of those here in front of me,
a few that you know, have been robbed. We're gonna
try to tie a few of them into automotive you
know terms I areed. I guess an automotive world really
and we can do that loosely in some cases, but
others are just interesting. There's there's a bunch of them.
Of course, we're not going to cover all of them.
There have been many celebrities are notable, famous people that
(14:56):
have been stolen from their grave. But there's one in
particular that I think I'm gonna hold back until the
very end, bent it to kind of tease you with
this and say maybe you'll suspect this. I'm not sure,
but there's a there's an automotive related one that I
want you to know about at the very end. Awesome, Yeah,
And this is one that I may not know about.
We talked about this off air, and usually so another
(15:19):
peak behind the curtain, Scott. Usually when you and I
are planning to do an episode, we will we will
sit down here in the studio and more often than not,
one of us will say, I've got something special. I
want to save it for the end, and we always offer,
because we are actually friends off air, we always offer
(15:41):
each other the chance to know what's coming up or
to be surprised and the you know, I don't know
what choices you would make, ladies and gentlemen, but the
choice I've learned that's always the best is if we
choose to surprise each other, just wait till the end.
And that's the way it's worked on this one. So
you don't know anything about this one that's over here
the right and uh, and I'll bring that one up
(16:02):
at the very end, I promise. But um, let's just
go through a few quick ones that are of interest
or you know, and I'll again, I'll try to tie
in some automotive themes to some of these if I
can not. This first one though I can't do it.
This one goes back to November seven of eighteen seventy six,
and this is when a group of four counterfeiters broken
to the oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois to steal
(16:23):
or the intention of stealing Abraham Lincoln's body from his
coffin right, And their plan was that they would hold
his remains for a two hundred thousand dollar ransom in
gold and the freedom of one of their compatriots, a
fellow named Ben Boyd. Yeah, now that's very close to
(16:46):
your name, Ben, No relation, of course not. But um,
the plan was they're gonna take the body and they're
gonna hide it in the sand dunes in northern Indianas
And that's strange, it's a weird twist already, um, But
it was foiled by somebody who was on the inside,
that somebody who infiltrated this crew. And so when they
broke into the cemetery that night, there were Secret Service
agents already on hand who were investigating the counterfeiters at
(17:08):
the time, which is well, of course they were investigating,
and they had they had already infiltrated, infiltrated this group,
but they were specifically in this group of four, which
is just unbelievable. But they were ahead of the games,
so they already knew what was gonna happen. And apparently
there was an early gun shot that went off. Somebody
you know, errantly fired their gun ahead of time. Um
clued them into the fact that somebody's there watching, and
(17:30):
the guys scattered, they left, but they were able to
catch up to him a little bit a few days later,
and you know, the rest were made and all that.
But UM, it led to the family realizing, Okay, there's
a there's a danger here. There's a danger in his
body being stolen and moved and ransomed. So they did this.
This is kind of strange. This is something that maybe
not a lot of people knew about. Um. Instead of
(17:52):
being uh, they kept it right there in the mausoleum
at Oak Ridge, but instead of being in that sarcophagus,
you know, the above grounding, they secretly hid the body
in a shallow grave in the basement of the tomb. So,
I mean, how weird is that there's like a secret
compartment underneath where the body was kept. And it was
kept all the way until about nineteen o one, when
(18:12):
I think his eldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln had his
remains placed inside a steel cage and then lowered ten
feet into the ground and then covered in concrete for safekeeping.
You know, so they're serious about it. I've got a
couple of interesting tidbits about this if if you'd like
to hear. Oh sure, yeah, alright. So the reason they
wanted Ben Boyd freed this counterfeiting crew is because he
(18:36):
was there. He was the good engraver, so he could
make the actual plates. And the way that I heard
the story, and this is this is not as verified
as I would ordinarily like it to be. But the
way I heard the story is that one of the
guys who is planning to participate in this grave robbery
(18:57):
had a little too much to drink and was in
his cups, apparently trying to impress a lady he was quoting,
and then she heard about it, and apparently I guess
the relationship didn't work out, because she's the one who
told them. She read him out. And the only reason
that the Secret Service was there at all is because
(19:19):
very shortly before his death, Abraham Lincoln created the Secret Service,
So in a way, he avenged himself. I didn't even
think about that. And I think, you know what's funny,
I think I read somewhere too, and it might even
be here where. Um, at the time, the Secret Service
was not strictly for a secret service, wasn't what we
think of it is now. Um, he created it to
(19:39):
watch for counterfeiters. That's why. That's why they were on
this counterfeitter game. And the counterfeiters are the one going
after his boy. How strange a coincidence? Right, all this
is it's amazing that it didn't happen, that they didn't
get away with this caper. And yeah, and grave robberies,
as we learned at the course of our research here
happened way way more often than you might think historically. Uh.
(20:04):
We wanted specifically to recommend checking out some of our
Pure podcast on the practice of resurrection men right, our
friends over at stuff you missed in history class. It's
a fantastic show. We've mentioned before as well as I believe,
uh stuff to blow your mind. Mentioned the practice of
body snatchers. Yeah, let's jump forward one hundred years. How
(20:27):
let's go. Let's go so, so one hundred years forward,
we we've got the death of Elvis Presley. Elvis Pressley
is a guy that we have talked about several times
on this podcast he was as a big car guy. Oh,
in a lot of ways, and a lot of ways
he's a big car guy. Especially later in life he's
an even bigger car guy. It's a fat Elvis joke,
(20:49):
a small fan joke, and it's terrible joke. All right.
So we've talked about the Cars of the King in September,
and we also had what Happened to Elvis Presley's hearst,
which you know what, that's one of my favorite episodes
that we've done as far as like stories go. That's
a that's a great story. Yeah, but you know somebody
else who told the story. Of course, I just found
the information because I happened to go buy the lot
(21:12):
where uh they stored this thing. I mean, it's just
a weird coincidence. A lot of that stuff happens around.
It's it's strange how many times that happens to us,
uh in the course of this podcast. But um, so
we're talking about August of nineteen seventy seven, and this
is just two weeks after the King died. And of
course I don't know if everybody knows this or not,
but Elvis Presley had something like a nine hundred pound coffin.
(21:35):
It was. It was a steel and copper, you know,
I had to take a copper decoration on it. But
it was a big steel coffin, very very heavy. Um,
there was a plot again. Two weeks after his death,
he was buried. He wasn't buried on Grace in Graceland.
He was buried in a cemetery just down the road. Um.
I think the place was called Forest Hills Cemetery and
it's right outside of Memphis, and I'm sorry, in suburban Memphis.
(21:58):
And there was this this plan was had by three men,
a guy named Raymond Greene, Eugene Nelson, and then Ronnie Adkins.
And so these guys were caught snooping around Elvis Presley's mausoleum.
And now this is kind of strange that there's really
the plans don't seem to add up here. Now they
say they had a plan to do this and they
were going to ransom the body back. Again. Um, you know,
(22:18):
we'll talk about dollars dollar months in just a minute,
but um, none of this really makes sense after this point.
So it's like these guys had a bad plan to
begin with. So you know, authorities are kind of staking
out the mausoleum because they had heard this is gonna happen. Uh,
they didn't understand how they were going to get through
two concrete slabs and a solid sheet of marble that
covered the coffin. In addition to you know, this thing
(22:39):
weighing nine pounds, as I said before itself, you know,
just the coffin, you know, with the steel in the
air or maybe his iron cara with his iron maybe
it's even iron, but it was very very heavy material.
And oh and oh steel lined and then coffer um
copper plated rather um. So they didn't take into account
that they probably would need a forklift to get this
thing out of the ground, you know, or you know,
(23:01):
to wherever they're going to take it, you'll put it
in a truck or whatever. But the the story that
this Atkins fellow, um, you know Ronny Atkins, he's the
one that they know questioned about this um. The story
that Atkins told them was completely full of holes. They
said that each of those three guys was gonna be
paid dollars by this other criminal mastermind that was behind
the whole thing. Uh, you know, some some unknown figure
(23:23):
that that none of them were naming and the body
was Again there's another ten million dollar ransom. So um,
kind of strange, you know that they that they would
not really have a full set of plans when they
go in there. I don't know if there was alcohol
involved or what, but but these guys didn't have maybe
a full deck when they went there to uh, to
carry out this plan. Surprised. I'm not really surprised. I mean,
(23:47):
and also I guess maybe there's two weeks enough time
to really plan something like that, a caper that big. Yeah,
you know, I've heist. I found I found one story
that was fairly recent, actually is from this year, if
you want to jump ahead even further. Just as a
side note, So in California there was a guy who
(24:10):
accidentally became a body snatcher with no real intent to
do so. I'm so glad you asked Scott. So. In
February of seventeen, authorities in California apprehended a man who
had stolen a van from a mortuary. He just wanted
(24:34):
to do common car theft and then checked out the
checked out the back of the van. Sorry I'm laughing
with like Gallows humor. He checked out the back of
the van and found out that it already had an occupant.
And so apparently for him that was the line. He
(24:55):
was okay with car theft, but he was not okay
with you know, stealing. You don't want to be a
resurrection man. So he returned the van. Uh. And this
is a guy named Bobby Joe Washington. He returned the
van and then stole another vehicle because yeah, yeah, And uh,
(25:24):
the the thing that I the thing that I thought
about this was whether or not this stuff gets reported,
because because I know it's probably a rare thing, but
it reminds me of these other redemptive stories that I've
heard about criminals. For instance, you know when somebody steal
(25:48):
someone's wallet, but then they see like a picture of
someone's grandmother in there, and then the card for the
hospital where she has all these medical expenses, and they return.
That stuff happens. You know a lot of people are
committing crimes out of necessity and or out of what
they perceived to be necessity and don't think of themselves
(26:11):
as criminals. So I do want to say, don't still cars,
Mr Washington. I think he's probably in jail. Uh, don't
still cars? But good on you for for having a
moral and ethical line, but on you for taking a
stand a little bit of a moral compass there, Ok,
just a little bit, just a little bit. He knows
which way is north maybe speaking of return by the
(26:34):
way the Pressley estate at the very end of this,
you know, after after this attempt was made again just
two weeks after his death. Uh, those bodies, as you know,
ended up at Graceland and that's where you know you
can walk past the graves and see them. Not just him,
it was also his mother. His mother had died many
many years prior to that, um, his beloved mother. I mean,
of course we have you know, his connection with his
(26:56):
mom um, as we've talked about. But now these those graves,
you know, which are gracely and I think they're under
a great, big placuard. There's a big marker there some
kind of don't know if his brass or what it is,
but um, it's monitored, monitored twenty four hours a day
by staff and security. So you know, there's no chance
that anybody's gonna get away with it now or I
say there's no chance, but you never know, you know,
the way these things work out but don't you think,
(27:16):
now this is funny. I never really thought about this because, um,
I just hadn't really given much much thought. Really, Um,
doesn't Elvis seem like the kind of guy that would
have been buried in a pink Cadillac. He seems exactly
like the guy. If I had to make a list,
he would be at the top of that list. Because
we hear about people that are buried in cars. You
know that, well, they're Sandra West Ferrari. You should love
(27:36):
that Ferrari. There are other people that are buried, buried
in UM, buried in cars that are more UM simple.
I guess people are buried in Cadillacs, they're multiple examples,
or just just a beloved old Ford automobile or an
Oldsmobile or whatever it is. You know, they want it,
that's their last request. They want it, and it's usually,
you know, quite an undertaking, I guess to do something
(27:59):
like that. You're coming out. Maybe it's a strong game
in some areas. UM. But yeah, like, there's certain people
that that are buried in cars, and I would think
I would just think that Elvis would be in a
pink Cadillac, that would be his last request. But it
wasn't It wasn't the case. I mean, he had a
relatively simple burial at that at that original place at
Forest Hills. Uh. He never intended to be buried in Graceland,
(28:21):
but he ended up there. Um and there. You know,
it's probably smart that he's there, that he's able to
be watched now, you know by the staff and security
and security cameras. Um. Other people could have benefited from
that as well, I guess, because um, well here's one
that in particular that's as a famous one. I just
want to go through a couple more of these, um,
and I'll go faster through this one. This one does
has no automotive relation at all. Really, it's just a
(28:43):
weird one, just a strange one. But Charlie Chaplin, Yeah, Charlie,
his body was actually stolen this one. Actually, this kind
of worked out for the for the grave robbers. Um.
He died on Christmas Day in nineteen seventy seven. He's
buried right after that, and he had a I think
he had another big coffin, like a three pound oak coffin.
And he's buried in the in the village of uh Coursier, Switzerland.
(29:07):
I hope I'm saying that right, Yeah, Switzerland and um
By in March of nineteen seventy eight. So this is
uh what this is? Well, almost four months later, right
four months later, his grave was disturbed and his body
was stolen, with demand for four hundred thousand pounds um
(29:28):
received by by phone the grave. The grave robbers called
um his widow. His his widow was named Una Una Chaplain, Lady,
Lady Una Chaplin, and she she refused to pay the
sum of money, saying Charlie would have thought it rather ridiculous,
which I think is funny. She kind of snubbed them. Um.
But so in an attempt to because they found out
(29:50):
who these guys were, local police set up, you know,
a false payoff meeting and those they didn't show up
to that for whatever reason they're scared or whatever. But
the police and suspects were both kind of per assistant.
You know, they both tried back and forth with you know,
we're gonna meet up here, we're gonna meet up there,
and you know they would they would duck out of
the meeting, say you know, you know that doesn't work
for us. For whatever reason, they were yeah, there's that's
(30:12):
probably a better way to say it, a shorter way
to say it. But finally they were able to to
resolve this standoff by um monitorable. They monitored two hundred
phone booths at a time, I think at one at
one point to try to catch these guys because the
reason of course payphones to call in back when payphones
were a thing. And uh finally they were able to
trace it back to an originating uh UM phone booth,
(30:35):
and two auto mechanics were arrested. So like, you know what,
it does have a little I guess there it is.
I didn't even remember the auto mechanics angle to this,
so a little bit two auto mechanics were arrested and
they led the police to you know, Charlie's remains, which
were buried in a corn field about ten miles away
from the graveyard. So they had successfully pulled this off
outside of getting the ransom money and that's the tricky part,
(30:55):
right and only a mile away from the Chaplin family home.
Oh that's so really us. So the another somewhat tenuous
connection here between this and our title story is that
the man who was considered the I guess you'd say,
the mastermind of the plan, a fellow named roman Wards,
(31:18):
who was from Poland. He told the investigators that he
was inspired to perpetrate this robbery because of a story
he had read in an Italian newspaper. Right, so maybe
maybe there's a spate of Italian grave robbing crimes, you know,
(31:42):
maybe possibly maybe. I mean, but that was more recent,
I mean March of ninety eight, So um, again, that's
right around the time of Elvis Presley. I mean, that
was the ninety seven caper that was it was foiled
or I keep saying caper, but I mean, I guess
it would be a heist that was foiled. Um. But
one of the last point on this one, on the
Charlie Chaplin thing, they buried him in the same you know,
his coffin was buried in the same plot. However, this
(32:04):
time they surrounded it with thick concrete to prevent anyone
from disturbing the grave from that point forward. So you're
gonna find that's a common theme that once there's this threat,
then there becomes then there comes this fortification of the
of the tomb so that you know, it doesn't happen again.
And we do want to say this episode is not
sponsored by any grave concrete No, definitely not. And you know, Okay,
(32:25):
I think maybe that's maybe enough that I that I
wanted to get to. There's one more quick one that
I kind of want to mention, but really no details
needed here. There's a different sort of grave robbery that happened,
and it's not even really that. It's more like trying
to meet someone's last wishes. And that was Graham Parsons
back in UM nineteen seventy three. There's a really weird
(32:45):
story that goes with the death of Graham Parsons. Now,
he was a he had a really short music career,
but the name is familiar, right, I mean, everybody's probably
heard of Graham Parsons. Um. He's known for his country
and rock music, and he kind of blended the two
genres together, so that, uh, he's like he's kind of
like an early, um, A crossover artist. I guess maybe
(33:06):
that in that way. And um, this happened all the
way back in September of nineteen seventy three, and the
official cause of his death was it was an overdose.
He overdosed on morphine and alcohol. He was mixing the
two and um, they said that you know, the amount
that he consumed would have been lethal to three regular
users of morphine. So he had quite a business system
and it was really not a lot of mystery to
(33:28):
what about what happened to him there. I mean, that's
that's you know, a given that it was, you know,
he over overdosed. There's no um conspiracy behind any of that.
M But his body disappeared from the Los Angeles International
Airport what was being ready to be shipped to Louisiana
for burial. And the reason that it was stolen was
because it was a friend of his and I think
(33:48):
the guy's name was Kaufman, and Kaufman along with someone else,
there's another character involved. Uh, they took it, took him
to a place in the Joshua Tree National Forest or
I'm saying that right the uh yeah, Joshua Tree, the
national monument, which he was enamored with, especially the cap
Rock region of this of this forest or this uh
(34:10):
this this national monument and um, his last whishes wishes
were that he his ashes were to be scattered over
that the region. So this Kaufman guy goes to the airport,
borrows a hearse from somebody I don't know who steals
the body drives all the way out to the Joshua
Tree National Monument. They get out to this this cap
Rock area, they open up the coffin, they pour in
(34:31):
five gallons of gasoline, strike a match and let it burn.
Thinking that they're doing the right thing right there, they're
they're meeting his last wishes because I think his Graham's
stepfather had wanted him brought back to Louisiana for burial,
but not knowing you know, this is a young guy.
He's only twenty three years old at the time, or
twenty six years old at the time. Uh, he had
a lot of musician friends and people that you know,
(34:53):
he had already you know, you know, but he was
he was good buddies with a lot of these people
and told them his last wishes Richards. Yeah, he had
some big players in the in the music industry at
the time, and uh, they understood that his last wishes
were a little bit more you know, unconventional, I guess
than what his his stepfather wanted for him. And so
stepfather wanted to bring him back and have him buried
(35:14):
in you know, the family plots or whatever, Louisiana. And
there was some question about his motivations for that well yeah, yeah,
I mean I think it was inheriting his well the
money from his career at to this point, right, he
did have a recording career. Again it was early on,
but he had some success early on too, so um,
not a lot, but a little bit um. But anyways,
(35:35):
they of course, this is a huge fireball that erupted
from this thing. The authorities came right away and apparently
the two guys that that were that caused this, that
did this, just drove away because the police were kind
of just overwhelmed by what they saw, Like they said,
it was just like grief overtook them. They there's a
burning casket there, and they're also these uh the men
(35:56):
who escaped were probably inebriated, and it's one or another.
They were under the influence of something. But this story
does have a little bit of a silver lining or
happy ending for Parsons. He got his wish and his
buddies who you know, I think we all have friends
(36:18):
who with the best of intentions, are a little bit
knuckle headed, but they have hearts of gold, you know.
So they sound like their motivations were pure. Yeah, I
think I can say that, Yeah, I mean the way
that they went about it maybe was not the best way,
of course. Well no, no, it clearly wasn't and it
wasn't the best plan. Yeah, but at the time, again
(36:39):
there's there weren't there weren't laws against that sort of thing,
which because it wasn't that specific about that, there were
there were not laws on the books, believe it or not,
about stealing a corpse. So these two guys do eventually
get arrested a few days later, and since there's not
a law against stealing a corpse at the time, they
(37:00):
were find what was seven hundred seven fifty bucks for
stealing the coffin, and they weren't they weren't prosecuted for
leaving what was you know, remaining of of grand Parsons
in the desert, which jeez, that's that's an awful thing too.
I mean, what was left of him, I guess was
brought back to Louisiana to be buried, so the stepfather
(37:20):
got his wish in away as well. Yeah, I mean,
in a way, it's a it's a really odd tale.
I mean, look into it if you want. There's there's
more detail there that where I'm sure we're skimming over
but um, again, Graham Parsons, young guy was tragedy. Um
just check it out and you'll you'll see what I mean.
Now again, we're gonna get to one more that is
automotive related. This is a big one here at the end.
(37:40):
And I think before we do that, maybe we should
take a word from our sponsor. And we're back, Scott.
This has been a rollicking and strange episode for car stuff.
I'm I'm enjoying it, and I have to confess. The
(38:05):
entire time we've been doing this, I have been scooting
closer and closer to the edge of my seat, and
I've been playing back in my head the various things
that I ran into. I give up. I have to
ask you what they I admit defeat. I do not
know what this one is. All right, Well, that's good.
That's good. I kept a secret all the way at
the end. Now, I wonder if anybody else is gonna
(38:26):
guess this. But we started out with Enzo, right, yes,
all right, and you know, likely there's gonna be some
fortification to his his toomb, you know, to make sure
that that doesn't happen, because someone's now got it in
their head that they can go and do that. So
likely there's gonna be there's somebody, you know, monitoring that
grave or or doing something that to that grave. We've
talked about who was Abraham Lincoln Elvis Presley, who of
(38:46):
course is a big car guy. We thought he would
be buried in a in a Cadillac. He was not.
Um Charlie Chaplin who it turns out there to auto
mechanics that that were involved in the theft of his body.
The actual theft of his body that worked out for them, Uh,
Grant Parsons. You know, he was carted across the desert
and the stolen hearst so that's kind of entry or
not stolen, a borrowed Hurst. I guess. I don't know
(39:07):
if that's true or not. Maybe maybe it was stolen.
Who knows. Um. So this last one, this involves a
character that we talked about many times on this podcast. Ben,
and I'll see if you can just guess maybe who
it is now that I've given you that little clue.
It's not Henry Ford. It is Henry Ford. Henry Ford. However,
no one stole Henry Ford's body. I want to get
(39:28):
that out right out front. But but he was prepared
for this, and I'll tell you how. He has something
called a mort safe that is built over the top
of his grave. Now, this is something that I guess,
I mean, knowing this this character, knowing Henry Ford, he
probably was thinking that he, you know, somebody was going
to take his body for scientific purposes or something like that.
(39:50):
I mean, I would guess that that was his intention.
I don't think that he would ever think that, you know,
his body would be ransomed off to his family or
anything like that. But he has something called him mort
safe built over his tomb. Now, if you want to
look at it, I mean, it's easy enough. You know,
word search to do and you can search Henry Ford
grave or you know, something like that, and you'll see
this thing. I'm gonna show you a photo of it. Ben.
It looks like an ornate fence. Maybe that his gate
(40:14):
of some kind, maybe an ornate gate. It looks it
looks in some ways like them the metal grates that
storefronts will pull over or pull down to the ground
when they're closed. Yeah. Now, but but it's horizontal across
the ground. It's across the ground really low over this,
you know, enormous grave marker. You know, the the the
the sarcophagus, I guess you'd call it. That has you know,
(40:36):
the engravings on it, and there's a stone bed beneath
it as well. But it's a very decorative thing, right,
And the idea behind this is it's a it's a
it's an iron gate really that's lane flat just above
the ground maybe looks to me to be about a
foot or foot and a half off the ground. And
then on the sides of this thing there are bars
metal bars, you know, big iron bars that are driven
down into the ground next to the sarcophagus, so that, um,
(41:00):
anybody we're trying to dig around this thing would encounter
those bars. They would have to still go through those bars,
and it just becomes this really complex thing to get to,
to get at, I should say. So he and his
wife are buried underneath this really decorate. It's actually, I mean,
in a way, it's beautiful. It's very nice. Um this
gate that is, you know, it still gives you a
view of the of the coffin, but um one is obstructed,
(41:23):
I guess. But so isn't it interesting though that he
would think he would think ahead of time. I don't
because I don't know if it would be his family
that would think of this. It seems like something that
Henry would direct himself. That was all that was all heavy.
Doesn't it seem like that. I mean, so again, this
is for both he and his wife. And this is uh,
this is right in Detroit. It's somewhere they say that
it's it's wedged between a four lane busy boulevard and
(41:46):
a small church. I never went to it when I
lived there. I never went to go. I went to
see this page. But you know, I mean there's a
lot of um heads of industry that are buried in
Michigan in the you know, I want to say, I
DeLorean is buried there. Um in Detroit, that detroittery Um.
I believe that Preston Tucker is buried there. Um. You know,
(42:08):
in various places, you know, different different cemeteries, because there's
some big ones there. Um. But of course Henry Ford
is buried there. There's other heads of industry that are
um that are buried there as well. I know a
lot of in Chicago too, But um, it's fine. It's interesting.
This is when you can go and visit. You can
go see and it's a small cemetery. I guess it
has about They say that it has about fifty or
sixty graves, and most of them have the name Ford
(42:29):
on them. It's a family cemetery. Most of them have
the name Ford on them. But the great Yeah, well,
exactly right. And again this uh, this more safe thing
is an interesting idea. It was it was invented in
Scotland like two hundred years before he ever died, so
it's something that had been around. He had apparently known
about them, you know, and he requested one. But I
(42:50):
found it fascinating that he preemptively did this, you know too.
He knew that there was gonna be something with it,
like somebody with you to try to you know, there
there'd be some mischief involved guests after his death, Scott.
I have so many different tangents and directions and and
and side tracks that I want to explore because this
this inspires me to investigate. You know. One thing that
(43:14):
I would say about the context in which Henry Ford
grew up. The world into which he was born was
a world that that's still a part of the world,
at least in the US, that still had this social
fear of being buried mistakenly being buried alive. And you
(43:34):
can look back through uh you can look back through
patent applications and see a wealth of different different coffin
designs that had stuff like a bell at the that
went through the coffin and through the ground to the surface.
So if you woke up after you know, you had
a fit of tuberculosis or something, you could ring the bell,
(43:56):
so you wouldn't be buried alive, know, to come back
and dig you up a meat lee. So there had
to be somebody, you know, they're at the cemetery listening
for the bells, right exactly, man. And I've heard of
some that had you know, breathing tubes of course, you
know what were some of the other really weird ones.
I think the one one in a periscope, Yeah, so
that you know, they could they could look and see
if anybody was nearby to alert them. Uh. Strange strange design.
(44:17):
And and the second thing that this immediately inspires me
to think of is Okay, so we we owe everyone
a little bit of an explanation, Uh, including our super producers.
Uh sorry, guys. We gave you the nicknames Burke and Hair, respectively,
because Burke and hair are two of the most well
(44:39):
known resurrection men who actually crossed the line into murder.
And you know what, I'm glad that you're bringing up
resurrection men because I wonder I wonder if Henry Ford,
you know, because of the the time that he lived,
I wonder if he was concerned with maybe not so
much somebody ransom in the body back as he was
(45:00):
with um, you know, somebody maybe taking his body for
medical science, you know, like you know, the idea that
because he had kind of that that strange um connection
with you know, his early early days, his early like um,
you know, um, I want to say, like nineteenth century
UM ideals. I guess maybe is the way that he
lived his whole life. Really, you know, that's that's not
(45:22):
a that's not a crazy guest. Well maybe, I mean,
I just wonder if it was, you know, instead of
you know what we think of is, you know, like, well,
somebody's gonna take my body and ransom back for ten
million dollars um. Maybe he was just thinking that, you know,
somebody's gonna use it for medical purposes and he didn't
want that. Well, this is are disturbed in any way? Really, Yeah,
this is a brief a brief foray into some of
(45:44):
the darker history of American medicine. But a lot of
times for people have heard of resurrection men we associate
we tend to associate it with Europe, particularly the United Kingdom,
where at the time in England, UH medical academies lack
(46:04):
of a better term, where at a loss because the
laws were in conflict. One could dissect a body, but
it was illegal to procure a body, right. But what
a lot of people don't know is that this was
this happened in the US as well, and perhaps more
recently than many people would think. There was a fellow
named Charles Nolton who was imprisoned in Massachusetts for illegal
(46:29):
dissection UH in eighteen twenty four. And Henry Ford, as
we recalled, was born in eighteen sixty three. In eighteen
seventy eight, UH, the body of a guy named William
Henry Harrison was snatched for a medical college in Ohio,
and that that we only really know of that one
(46:51):
because he was the son of an Ohio congressman. So
it makes you wonder how many stories Henry might have
heard in his early years, especially as you said, in
the nineteenth century that's the thing. He probably grew up
with these stories in the newspapers, you know that the
graves have been disturbed for whatever reason, and uh, and
probably just stuck in his head and that's why he
did this. But it's an interesting idea, you know that
(47:13):
that you'd preemptively do this to your own grave. You
know that you would you would think like, I'm gonna
protect myself even after Um, you know, it's a strange thought,
it really is. So many like so many body parts
of celebrities and famous historical figures end up being uh,
misplaced or stolen because they function almost like relics or something.
(47:36):
I want to say, you know what, I don't have
anything in front of me right now. There's something strange
with Casey Kayson as well. Really I think there was
a story behind that too. So yeah, this happens often.
You know, celebrities and and people that are you know,
somehow famous you know, um, whether they're singers or entertainers, actors, whatever, um,
you know, they tend to be the targets of this.
And and the ferraris one because there was a you
(47:58):
know a lot of family money there, a lot of
company any money there. Uh, you know, a couple of
two possible targets for for the ransom there in that case. Um,
just it seems like, uh, you know again, after the fact,
a lot of people you know, kind of wisen up
to the idea that, yeah, this is something that's valuable.
I guess the remains of my loved one are valuable.
I need to protect them in in an extraordinary way. Um.
(48:20):
And I think that's what's gonna happen with with the
Enzo Ferrari tomb. And we'll see, we'll see if it
becomes more of a fortified structure than what it is now.
I would guess that it would be you know, sometimes
in the next month or so, we might even hear
about it or see it, you know. Um. But I
thought it was just an interesting tie in. I guess
maybe to what we do here. It kind of give
us a chance to talk about something a little bit different.
(48:40):
I know, we we kind of touched on some of
the stuff in the um the autonomous cars and the
organ donation, so it's a little bit of an overlap there.
But um, some fascinating tales to be told here. And
I would bet that there are other automotive giants that
have taken steps like Henry Ford to h to fortify
their grave in some way that you know they didn't
you know, um come under attack by grave robbers, right,
(49:03):
And the of the thing we that we do need
to say is, of course our thoughts are with the
Ferrari family in a state, because that's such a a
bizarre and abominable thing to even contemplate. So I wonder
who's left. Who's left? I wonder who's left in the
(49:24):
Ferrari family. That's a good question. I don't know. I
haven't looked into it, the surviving members. So who's there
to say we need to do this unless it's the
company itself, you know that says, hey, we gotta protect
our features grave. Yeah, which very well may be the case.
We know this episode may have been a little bit morbid,
but we hope that you found it as fascinating. Is
(49:45):
that a fair word, Scott, As fascinating as we found it,
And as always, we would like to hear some of
your stories about the the bizarre twists and turns of
automotive legends. I would I know I've recommended it in
the past, but we do find very weird law and
(50:07):
order esque plot twist to so many stories of of
automotive greats um In particular, I would like to recommend
our U Haul episode, which takes an unexpected turn. Now,
I won't spoil it for you if you haven't heard
it yet, other than to say give it a listen
when you're in the mood for you know, well, how
(50:30):
did I say earlier? A law something, law and ordery. Yeah,
it just takes an incredible twist. Yes, yeah, Shamalan asked
for sure. So in the meantime, if you would like
to check out any of the episodes that we recommended
at the top of the show, you can visit us
at Car Stuff Show dot com. And if you would
like to recommend a topic for a future episode, or
(50:52):
check out some of our some of our stories that
for one reason or another may not make it to air,
you can find us at Our Stuff hs W on
both Facebook and Twitter. And if you're saying, well Scott, well, Ben,
I do want to see this stuff, and I do
have some great ideas that I think my fellow listeners
should hear. But I'm not one for all that social
(51:14):
media brew haha, rigor morole malarkey, it's all a fried
Bologney sandwich to me, then we completely get it. You
can write to us directly. We are car stuff and
how stuff Works dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, This is how stuff Works dot com.
(51:34):
Let us know what you think. Send an email to
podcast that How Stuff Works dot com. M
Let's go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond
with car stuff from how stuff works dot Com. I
welcomed the car stuff. I'm Scott and then, as always,
we are joined by our super audio producers Dylan Fagan
and Tristan McNeil nicknames to be announced. Yeah, I guess
(00:24):
we'll have some opportunity during this one. I mean usually
some oddball things come up. But you know, we we uh,
we can slot that that that strange odd word that
comes in occasionally as as a nickname later on. Maybe Oh,
here's the deep gut. What's that? Dylan Burke Fagan and
Tristan Hair McNeil. Oh, I like it. I know, perfect
fit for this one. Perfect fit as you'll find out
(00:46):
as we as we combed through this. Now just kind
of a behind the curtains look at what's going on here,
ben Um, this is a new story that's that's happening
right around now. But you know, by the time this
air is, of course, it's gonna be a few weeks on,
so a lot most people will have heard of this
are ready, but it wasn't a widely um publicized story
that we're gonna talked about today. Um, it's it's it's
(01:06):
kind of a well, it's just a very short couple
of paragraphs, but I found it very interesting because of
the subject matter. So, uh, for a couple of reasons,
two reasons. One, it's automotive related, and that's why we
have it here today for our our show. Second is
that it kind of ties in with some of my
other outside of work interests, you know, like a little
true crime bent you know that that that area. And um,
(01:30):
I don't just just the macab I guess maybe, And uh,
and there there's more to this story than just this
short bit that we're gonna talk about early on in
this podcast. And uh, there's a couple of um things
that kind of want to get out of the way. First,
we have a couple of episodes that are UM Ferrari related,
and uh, we haven't yet, and I want to make
(01:52):
sure that we can make this really clear. We have
not yet done an Endzo Ferrari story, which is crazy
think about it. Yeah, we haven't done like the you know,
the the genesis story, the origin story of Ferrari yet,
and we will get to that. That's one of the
things on our list. And we get you know, emails
occasionally about you know, doing something like that. We will,
um it's it's a big one we want to get to.
(02:13):
But but so far we've got maybe four or five
podcasts that do mention ferrari in in some way, and
we've had, you know, the case of the buried Ferrari
Dino from back in July of last year, which was great.
I enjoyed that one. I like that one a lot too.
Is a good story. And uh, then we've got the
Sandra Weston or or Ferrari coffin that we did back
in I think it was back in And then we
(02:33):
also have something about how long does it take to
build a Ferrari because there's some confusion over whether there's
still entirely handbuilt or there's some machines involved, and that
goes back to two thousand and twelve. And then we
also have something about the Ferrari ff because that was
an unusual Ferrari at the time, which was back in
two thousand and eleven. It's a four door ferrari um
you remember I had the shooting brake design. But we've
(02:54):
got a few here and there that kind of touch
on Ferrari, but nothing like what we're gonna talk about
today because this is really unusual. Yes, we also, just
for a side note, we did in the past episode
I cannot recall which one right now, we did talk
about the infamous Ferrari and Lamborghini rivalry. Oh yeah, that's right,
And well there's that. And then we also talked about
(03:15):
the Ford in Ferrari rivaling right uh at m um
Lama right in the nineteen sixties with with Henry Ford
the second So there's the there's that confrontation that went on.
So just uh, that's just a tease, a taste, a
sampling of what you can find. These are all on
our website car stuff show dot com, which is absolutely free.
That's my favorite number. Uh, my favorite number. Who isn't
(03:39):
a fan of Free? Who is not a fan of Free? Uh? So,
what I'd like to do, Scott, just to set the
scene without going too far into a biography of Enzo Ferrari,
is just to give some basic background of his life.
Does that sound good? Yeah, that sounds fine, but understanding
that we're gonna go in depth later, right, Okay, So
(04:00):
this is just the high level, quick and dirty. Who's
this guy? What did he do? Why does he have
that last name? Of why does it matter? All right?
So Enzo Ferrari was born in eighteen in Italy, uh
and he is the founder of the Ferrari Automotive Company. Yeah,
(04:22):
that's right. And he didn't start out the founder of
the automotive company that we think of, you know, the
road cars. He started out as uh, you know racer.
Um and this is when he was about twenty years old.
He wanted he kind of got the bug and he
wanted to do that. I think he came from a
family where the family business was carpentry and the carpentery
business kind of went under sometime after World War One,
(04:43):
and um, um, he decided that, you know, something that
he had had an interest in since he's about ten
years old. I think he went to a Grand Prix
race when he's about ten and kind of caught the bug.
You know, he got the excitement the nineteen o eight
Circuit de Bologna, that's the one yep, and he had
so he had that excitement in him from from that
point on. But when he is about twenty years old,
he decided, I want to really make a go with this.
I want to be um a race car builder. Yes, yeah,
(05:06):
so yeah, that's what he did, built race cars, and
the Ferrari race cars were really the entire reason that
the Ferrari street cars came about in the first place.
He had to he had to build street cars in
order to finance his racing habits. So so he reluctantly
built street cars. And uh, he really at the beginning
just built enough just to keep the race shop going.
(05:28):
And then eventually, you know, that caught on and he
did that, you know, full on. I mean he went,
he went guns blazing into both, you know, like you know,
I'm I'm doing the racing program, I'm also going to
do the street cars. And he's really a larger than
life character. There's so many differing, um anecdotes, some event
stretching into the status of legendary events or encounters within
(05:49):
Zoe Ferrari that we're going to um, we're going to
save for our future episode just on him. But for
a for a little bit of spoiler alert here. Uh,
he was infamous, for instance, for pitting his drivers against
(06:10):
each other and playing psychological mind games with them like this.
This guy did a lot of strange stuff and then eventually,
after creating a world changing automotive company, racing legacy. Uh,
he passed away, and he passed away in nineteen in August,
(06:34):
and after after, you know, his passage, he was mourned
by many people. Life well lived. He was. He was
ninety years old, um, which means that he did survive
to witness the launch of the Ferrari F forty. But
you know what, it wasn't until about two thousand two,
so after his death when the Ferrari Enzo there or
the Enzo Ferrari I should say, came out that the
car that bore his name, right, So it never was
(06:57):
in his lifetime that he was able to see the
car that that was named after him. Well, you know,
to be fair, Scott, that's something that happens more often
than not because it's kind of rare for someone to
have the car burying their full name come out while
they're alive. Yeah, I guess, Well, a full name that's
unusual too, instead of just having the last name of course, Ferrari,
(07:19):
I mean obviously all the way through Chrysler is another
example for yeah, yeah, there's a bunch of those right, so, um,
yet to have the full name on there, that's that's
pretty unusual. I mean, it's a strange occurrence. But again,
two thousand two they built what three nine nine of
these things I think with his name on them, and
they were selling for about looking back, now, this is
what a discount right abound seven hundred thousand, and I
(07:41):
think it was like six hundred and seventy thousand or
something like that, So it seems like it seems like
a bargain compared to some of the numbers we're hearing
on supercars. Now, they built a four hundred um edition
or you know, the four hundredth version of the Enzo
Ferrari and in the final year I believe, and they
donated it to the Vatican and they auctioned that off
I think for um for charity, of course. For I
(08:02):
think it's like one point one million dollars. But here's
where the tie in is, right, I think we know
of a more valuable Enzo Ferrari. Now there's one that
was said to uh it was going to go for
about ten million dollars. Which one is that? That's Enzo himself?
Ben Ah, Wait, Scott, you might be saying to yourself, Wait, Ben,
(08:24):
hold the phone, the buck stops here. What the heck
are you talking about? What in the sand Hill. Well,
we will tell you after a brief word from our sponsor,
and we're back. And ben I had kind of mentioned
(08:45):
that there might be a ten million dollar Enzo Ferrari
out there. Yeah, but sure, it's the play on words,
I guess, but it's it's the man himself. And this
is that really unusual story that came out um at
the end of March. So you know, as a recording,
this is a news story, I guess, um, but there
in the Automotive News and elsewhere you'll find it, you know,
spread from I don't know if it was an AP
(09:06):
story or where it came from our routers or something. Um,
here's the headline, Italian police foil plot to steal Enzo
Ferrari's body. Can you believe that there's gonna be someone
someone now he's gonna steal the body in that that
was buried back in what nine years later? And the
idea was that they were going to ransom the body
(09:28):
back to the family. And I thought, man, that is
really unusual. What a strange target for something like that. Yeah,
what a bizarre plan. So, uh, when Enzo Ferrari passed away,
who was buried in a cemetery in Modena, Italy. These uh,
these investigators who discovered this were on the island of Sardinia. Ah. Yeah,
(09:51):
it was a gang. Right, there's a gang that I
think they're involved in. Um. Oh what is it? Um,
drug trafficking, arms trafficking, arms trafficing. That was one arms
and drug traffic and you're right and uh. And this
led to a number of arrests because you know, they
had infiltrated this group. They were one of the one
of the people. I guess you know that the the
good guys were in on in on it with the
(10:11):
bad guys operation, which is really cool. We hear about
this happening a lot. So uh, you know, the plan
is foiled at the last moment. They let them get
right up to the point of, you know, taking action,
and then then they stopped the whole thing. Um. But
this is this is I thought it was really interesting.
I mean it's it's it's a strange target. I mean,
it's understandable. I guess you know that this is a
head of industry. This is somebody that's you know that
you want to protect the remains, um, you know, keep
(10:33):
the keep the grave sacred. I guess maybe for a
lot of reasons. I mean, just there's a bunch of
reasons why you wouldn't want your loved one dug up
and then ransom back to you. I think anybody can
understand that. But this, this would be something that would
almost be like a UM, well, I guess the whole
nation would would take notice of something like this. It
wouldn't be just one family that's you know, invested in this.
(10:55):
It would be everybody would be, like, you know, kind
of shocked by this news. Um, so as they were
by this news story that came out. And again it's
very very short. Um. There's really not a lot of
the the plot, the details about the plot brother um.
But they do say that you know, again, there have
been a number of Arrestmate. I think it was upwards
of thirty they said maybe thirty four in some accounts.
(11:17):
So again, he's still safe where he was. He's he's
buried in this I guess you'd say buried, but he's
in an above ground family tomb that's in h cemetery.
And Modena Modena and Um, I guess resting peacefully right
now because they were foiled before. But I wonder if
there's gonna be you know, future um fortification to that
(11:39):
that above ground tomb. Right. This is so what's fascinating
in a very uh McCobb way about this investigation is
that these crooks, and they are crooks like his children,
make no mistake. They had apparently drawn up detailed plans
like the kind of stuff you would see in a
(12:01):
heist movie, you know, very Oceans eleven about who's gonna do,
what about how they're going to steal the coffin, hide
it and then they'll contact the family. And they thought, well,
if the family doesn't buy the corpse back, surely the
automaker itself, the Ferrari, the entity, will buy it back. Um.
And they were with ample cash on hand, but with
(12:22):
ample cash on hand of course because million dollars, but
they're planning, they're asking ultimately, they're asking from the company
that builds some of the world's fastest and most expensive vehicles.
So they probably would have the cash on hand if
they chose to do that. And the strangest thing that
we found in the research, like Scott, as you said,
(12:44):
there's not much official information released. The investigators refused to
disclose many of the facts and typically in a criminal case,
there are there's so little compelling reasons for that. Usually
if investigators are not revealing specific details of the case,
(13:07):
it may be depending on the laws of the country
because litigation is ongoing, which means that there are things
that have to be evaluated in a court of law. Uh.
And then the second reason, which is even a little
bit more disturbing, would be when the investigators suspect that
there are people not yet apprehended. So we see this
(13:30):
a lot, you know in murder cases, most famously in
you know, a serial murder cases where they where law
enforcement doesn't want to disclose uh, specific commonalities between crimes,
or in car theft rings as well. Sure. Yeah, so
(13:52):
there's a good chance there's a very good chance we're
gonna hear more about this soon because you know, that's
the way things happen becase Ben said, they kind of
information will trickle out as more information is available to
the press. Of course, you know, we're gonna hear everything
that they have to say. Um, there just as a
question in my in my mind though, like why why
waiting at why now? Why seen? Why wait twenty nine
(14:13):
years for this to happen? I mean, why didn't this
plan come about early on. You know why didn't have
been in nineteen or nineteen nine, um, because there have
been other plans like this throughout history that have either
played out or or come you know, come close to
be played out, um within a couple of years of
somebody's death. And some interesting characters as we found out. Now,
(14:36):
I've got a couple of those here in front of me,
a few that you know, have been robbed. We're gonna
try to tie a few of them into automotive you
know terms I areed. I guess an automotive world really
and we can do that loosely in some cases, but
others are just interesting. There's there's a bunch of them.
Of course, we're not going to cover all of them.
There have been many celebrities are notable, famous people that
(14:56):
have been stolen from their grave. But there's one in
particular that I think I'm gonna hold back until the
very end, bent it to kind of tease you with
this and say maybe you'll suspect this. I'm not sure,
but there's a there's an automotive related one that I
want you to know about at the very end. Awesome, Yeah,
And this is one that I may not know about.
We talked about this off air, and usually so another
(15:19):
peak behind the curtain, Scott. Usually when you and I
are planning to do an episode, we will we will
sit down here in the studio and more often than not,
one of us will say, I've got something special. I
want to save it for the end, and we always offer,
because we are actually friends off air, we always offer
(15:41):
each other the chance to know what's coming up or
to be surprised and the you know, I don't know
what choices you would make, ladies and gentlemen, but the
choice I've learned that's always the best is if we
choose to surprise each other, just wait till the end.
And that's the way it's worked on this one. So
you don't know anything about this one that's over here
the right and uh, and I'll bring that one up
(16:02):
at the very end, I promise. But um, let's just
go through a few quick ones that are of interest
or you know, and I'll again, I'll try to tie
in some automotive themes to some of these if I
can not. This first one though I can't do it.
This one goes back to November seven of eighteen seventy six,
and this is when a group of four counterfeiters broken
to the oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois to steal
(16:23):
or the intention of stealing Abraham Lincoln's body from his
coffin right, And their plan was that they would hold
his remains for a two hundred thousand dollar ransom in
gold and the freedom of one of their compatriots, a
fellow named Ben Boyd. Yeah, now that's very close to
(16:46):
your name, Ben, No relation, of course not. But um,
the plan was they're gonna take the body and they're
gonna hide it in the sand dunes in northern Indianas
And that's strange, it's a weird twist already, um, But
it was foiled by somebody who was on the inside,
that somebody who infiltrated this crew. And so when they
broke into the cemetery that night, there were Secret Service
agents already on hand who were investigating the counterfeiters at
(17:08):
the time, which is well, of course they were investigating,
and they had they had already infiltrated, infiltrated this group,
but they were specifically in this group of four, which
is just unbelievable. But they were ahead of the games,
so they already knew what was gonna happen. And apparently
there was an early gun shot that went off. Somebody
you know, errantly fired their gun ahead of time. Um
clued them into the fact that somebody's there watching, and
(17:30):
the guys scattered, they left, but they were able to
catch up to him a little bit a few days later,
and you know, the rest were made and all that.
But UM, it led to the family realizing, Okay, there's
a there's a danger here. There's a danger in his
body being stolen and moved and ransomed. So they did this.
This is kind of strange. This is something that maybe
not a lot of people knew about. Um. Instead of
(17:52):
being uh, they kept it right there in the mausoleum
at Oak Ridge, but instead of being in that sarcophagus,
you know, the above grounding, they secretly hid the body
in a shallow grave in the basement of the tomb. So,
I mean, how weird is that there's like a secret
compartment underneath where the body was kept. And it was
kept all the way until about nineteen o one, when
(18:12):
I think his eldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln had his
remains placed inside a steel cage and then lowered ten
feet into the ground and then covered in concrete for safekeeping.
You know, so they're serious about it. I've got a
couple of interesting tidbits about this if if you'd like
to hear. Oh sure, yeah, alright. So the reason they
wanted Ben Boyd freed this counterfeiting crew is because he
(18:36):
was there. He was the good engraver, so he could
make the actual plates. And the way that I heard
the story, and this is this is not as verified
as I would ordinarily like it to be. But the
way I heard the story is that one of the
guys who is planning to participate in this grave robbery
(18:57):
had a little too much to drink and was in
his cups, apparently trying to impress a lady he was quoting,
and then she heard about it, and apparently I guess
the relationship didn't work out, because she's the one who
told them. She read him out. And the only reason
that the Secret Service was there at all is because
(19:19):
very shortly before his death, Abraham Lincoln created the Secret Service,
So in a way, he avenged himself. I didn't even
think about that. And I think, you know what's funny,
I think I read somewhere too, and it might even
be here where. Um, at the time, the Secret Service
was not strictly for a secret service, wasn't what we
think of it is now. Um, he created it to
(19:39):
watch for counterfeiters. That's why. That's why they were on
this counterfeitter game. And the counterfeiters are the one going
after his boy. How strange a coincidence? Right, all this
is it's amazing that it didn't happen, that they didn't
get away with this caper. And yeah, and grave robberies,
as we learned at the course of our research here
happened way way more often than you might think historically. Uh.
(20:04):
We wanted specifically to recommend checking out some of our
Pure podcast on the practice of resurrection men right, our
friends over at stuff you missed in history class. It's
a fantastic show. We've mentioned before as well as I believe,
uh stuff to blow your mind. Mentioned the practice of
body snatchers. Yeah, let's jump forward one hundred years. How
(20:27):
let's go. Let's go so, so one hundred years forward,
we we've got the death of Elvis Presley. Elvis Pressley
is a guy that we have talked about several times
on this podcast he was as a big car guy. Oh,
in a lot of ways, and a lot of ways
he's a big car guy. Especially later in life he's
an even bigger car guy. It's a fat Elvis joke,
(20:49):
a small fan joke, and it's terrible joke. All right.
So we've talked about the Cars of the King in September,
and we also had what Happened to Elvis Presley's hearst,
which you know what, that's one of my favorite episodes
that we've done as far as like stories go. That's
a that's a great story. Yeah, but you know somebody
else who told the story. Of course, I just found
the information because I happened to go buy the lot
(21:12):
where uh they stored this thing. I mean, it's just
a weird coincidence. A lot of that stuff happens around.
It's it's strange how many times that happens to us,
uh in the course of this podcast. But um, so
we're talking about August of nineteen seventy seven, and this
is just two weeks after the King died. And of
course I don't know if everybody knows this or not,
but Elvis Presley had something like a nine hundred pound coffin.
(21:35):
It was. It was a steel and copper, you know,
I had to take a copper decoration on it. But
it was a big steel coffin, very very heavy. Um,
there was a plot again. Two weeks after his death,
he was buried. He wasn't buried on Grace in Graceland.
He was buried in a cemetery just down the road. Um.
I think the place was called Forest Hills Cemetery and
it's right outside of Memphis, and I'm sorry, in suburban Memphis.
(21:58):
And there was this this plan was had by three men,
a guy named Raymond Greene, Eugene Nelson, and then Ronnie Adkins.
And so these guys were caught snooping around Elvis Presley's mausoleum.
And now this is kind of strange that there's really
the plans don't seem to add up here. Now they
say they had a plan to do this and they
were going to ransom the body back. Again. Um, you know,
(22:18):
we'll talk about dollars dollar months in just a minute,
but um, none of this really makes sense after this point.
So it's like these guys had a bad plan to
begin with. So you know, authorities are kind of staking
out the mausoleum because they had heard this is gonna happen. Uh,
they didn't understand how they were going to get through
two concrete slabs and a solid sheet of marble that
covered the coffin. In addition to you know, this thing
(22:39):
weighing nine pounds, as I said before itself, you know,
just the coffin, you know, with the steel in the
air or maybe his iron cara with his iron maybe
it's even iron, but it was very very heavy material.
And oh and oh steel lined and then coffer um
copper plated rather um. So they didn't take into account
that they probably would need a forklift to get this
thing out of the ground, you know, or you know,
(23:01):
to wherever they're going to take it, you'll put it
in a truck or whatever. But the the story that
this Atkins fellow, um, you know Ronny Atkins, he's the
one that they know questioned about this um. The story
that Atkins told them was completely full of holes. They
said that each of those three guys was gonna be
paid dollars by this other criminal mastermind that was behind
the whole thing. Uh, you know, some some unknown figure
(23:23):
that that none of them were naming and the body
was Again there's another ten million dollar ransom. So um,
kind of strange, you know that they that they would
not really have a full set of plans when they
go in there. I don't know if there was alcohol
involved or what, but but these guys didn't have maybe
a full deck when they went there to uh, to
carry out this plan. Surprised. I'm not really surprised. I mean,
(23:47):
and also I guess maybe there's two weeks enough time
to really plan something like that, a caper that big. Yeah,
you know, I've heist. I found I found one story
that was fairly recent, actually is from this year, if
you want to jump ahead even further. Just as a
side note, So in California there was a guy who
(24:10):
accidentally became a body snatcher with no real intent to
do so. I'm so glad you asked Scott. So. In
February of seventeen, authorities in California apprehended a man who
had stolen a van from a mortuary. He just wanted
(24:34):
to do common car theft and then checked out the
checked out the back of the van. Sorry I'm laughing
with like Gallows humor. He checked out the back of
the van and found out that it already had an occupant.
And so apparently for him that was the line. He
(24:55):
was okay with car theft, but he was not okay
with you know, stealing. You don't want to be a
resurrection man. So he returned the van. Uh. And this
is a guy named Bobby Joe Washington. He returned the
van and then stole another vehicle because yeah, yeah, And uh,
(25:24):
the the thing that I the thing that I thought
about this was whether or not this stuff gets reported,
because because I know it's probably a rare thing, but
it reminds me of these other redemptive stories that I've
heard about criminals. For instance, you know when somebody steal
(25:48):
someone's wallet, but then they see like a picture of
someone's grandmother in there, and then the card for the
hospital where she has all these medical expenses, and they return.
That stuff happens. You know a lot of people are
committing crimes out of necessity and or out of what
they perceived to be necessity and don't think of themselves
(26:11):
as criminals. So I do want to say, don't still cars,
Mr Washington. I think he's probably in jail. Uh, don't
still cars? But good on you for for having a
moral and ethical line, but on you for taking a
stand a little bit of a moral compass there, Ok,
just a little bit, just a little bit. He knows
which way is north maybe speaking of return by the
(26:34):
way the Pressley estate at the very end of this,
you know, after after this attempt was made again just
two weeks after his death. Uh, those bodies, as you know,
ended up at Graceland and that's where you know you
can walk past the graves and see them. Not just him,
it was also his mother. His mother had died many
many years prior to that, um, his beloved mother. I mean,
of course we have you know, his connection with his
(26:56):
mom um, as we've talked about. But now these those graves,
you know, which are gracely and I think they're under
a great, big placuard. There's a big marker there some
kind of don't know if his brass or what it is,
but um, it's monitored, monitored twenty four hours a day
by staff and security. So you know, there's no chance
that anybody's gonna get away with it now or I
say there's no chance, but you never know, you know,
the way these things work out but don't you think,
(27:16):
now this is funny. I never really thought about this because, um,
I just hadn't really given much much thought. Really, Um,
doesn't Elvis seem like the kind of guy that would
have been buried in a pink Cadillac. He seems exactly
like the guy. If I had to make a list,
he would be at the top of that list. Because
we hear about people that are buried in cars. You
know that, well, they're Sandra West Ferrari. You should love
(27:36):
that Ferrari. There are other people that are buried, buried
in UM, buried in cars that are more UM simple.
I guess people are buried in Cadillacs, they're multiple examples,
or just just a beloved old Ford automobile or an
Oldsmobile or whatever it is. You know, they want it,
that's their last request. They want it, and it's usually,
you know, quite an undertaking, I guess to do something
(27:59):
like that. You're coming out. Maybe it's a strong game
in some areas. UM. But yeah, like, there's certain people
that that are buried in cars, and I would think
I would just think that Elvis would be in a
pink Cadillac, that would be his last request. But it
wasn't It wasn't the case. I mean, he had a
relatively simple burial at that at that original place at
Forest Hills. Uh. He never intended to be buried in Graceland,
(28:21):
but he ended up there. Um and there. You know,
it's probably smart that he's there, that he's able to
be watched now, you know by the staff and security
and security cameras. Um. Other people could have benefited from
that as well, I guess, because um, well here's one
that in particular that's as a famous one. I just
want to go through a couple more of these, um,
and I'll go faster through this one. This one does
has no automotive relation at all. Really, it's just a
(28:43):
weird one, just a strange one. But Charlie Chaplin, Yeah, Charlie,
his body was actually stolen this one. Actually, this kind
of worked out for the for the grave robbers. Um.
He died on Christmas Day in nineteen seventy seven. He's
buried right after that, and he had a I think
he had another big coffin, like a three pound oak coffin.
And he's buried in the in the village of uh Coursier, Switzerland.
(29:07):
I hope I'm saying that right, Yeah, Switzerland and um
By in March of nineteen seventy eight. So this is
uh what this is? Well, almost four months later, right
four months later, his grave was disturbed and his body
was stolen, with demand for four hundred thousand pounds um
(29:28):
received by by phone the grave. The grave robbers called
um his widow. His his widow was named Una Una Chaplain, Lady,
Lady Una Chaplin, and she she refused to pay the
sum of money, saying Charlie would have thought it rather ridiculous,
which I think is funny. She kind of snubbed them. Um.
But so in an attempt to because they found out
(29:50):
who these guys were, local police set up, you know,
a false payoff meeting and those they didn't show up
to that for whatever reason they're scared or whatever. But
the police and suspects were both kind of per assistant.
You know, they both tried back and forth with you know,
we're gonna meet up here, we're gonna meet up there,
and you know they would they would duck out of
the meeting, say you know, you know that doesn't work
for us. For whatever reason, they were yeah, there's that's
(30:12):
probably a better way to say it, a shorter way
to say it. But finally they were able to to
resolve this standoff by um monitorable. They monitored two hundred
phone booths at a time, I think at one at
one point to try to catch these guys because the
reason of course payphones to call in back when payphones
were a thing. And uh finally they were able to
trace it back to an originating uh UM phone booth,
(30:35):
and two auto mechanics were arrested. So like, you know what,
it does have a little I guess there it is.
I didn't even remember the auto mechanics angle to this,
so a little bit two auto mechanics were arrested and
they led the police to you know, Charlie's remains, which
were buried in a corn field about ten miles away
from the graveyard. So they had successfully pulled this off
outside of getting the ransom money and that's the tricky part,
(30:55):
right and only a mile away from the Chaplin family home.
Oh that's so really us. So the another somewhat tenuous
connection here between this and our title story is that
the man who was considered the I guess you'd say,
the mastermind of the plan, a fellow named roman Wards,
(31:18):
who was from Poland. He told the investigators that he
was inspired to perpetrate this robbery because of a story
he had read in an Italian newspaper. Right, so maybe
maybe there's a spate of Italian grave robbing crimes, you know,
(31:42):
maybe possibly maybe. I mean, but that was more recent,
I mean March of ninety eight, So um, again, that's
right around the time of Elvis Presley. I mean, that
was the ninety seven caper that was it was foiled
or I keep saying caper, but I mean, I guess
it would be a heist that was foiled. Um. But
one of the last point on this one, on the
Charlie Chaplin thing, they buried him in the same you know,
his coffin was buried in the same plot. However, this
(32:04):
time they surrounded it with thick concrete to prevent anyone
from disturbing the grave from that point forward. So you're
gonna find that's a common theme that once there's this threat,
then there becomes then there comes this fortification of the
of the tomb so that you know, it doesn't happen again.
And we do want to say this episode is not
sponsored by any grave concrete No, definitely not. And you know, Okay,
(32:25):
I think maybe that's maybe enough that I that I
wanted to get to. There's one more quick one that
I kind of want to mention, but really no details
needed here. There's a different sort of grave robbery that happened,
and it's not even really that. It's more like trying
to meet someone's last wishes. And that was Graham Parsons
back in UM nineteen seventy three. There's a really weird
(32:45):
story that goes with the death of Graham Parsons. Now,
he was a he had a really short music career,
but the name is familiar, right, I mean, everybody's probably
heard of Graham Parsons. Um. He's known for his country
and rock music, and he kind of blended the two
genres together, so that, uh, he's like he's kind of
like an early, um, A crossover artist. I guess maybe
(33:06):
that in that way. And um, this happened all the
way back in September of nineteen seventy three, and the
official cause of his death was it was an overdose.
He overdosed on morphine and alcohol. He was mixing the
two and um, they said that you know, the amount
that he consumed would have been lethal to three regular
users of morphine. So he had quite a business system
and it was really not a lot of mystery to
(33:28):
what about what happened to him there. I mean, that's
that's you know, a given that it was, you know,
he over overdosed. There's no um conspiracy behind any of that.
M But his body disappeared from the Los Angeles International
Airport what was being ready to be shipped to Louisiana
for burial. And the reason that it was stolen was
because it was a friend of his and I think
(33:48):
the guy's name was Kaufman, and Kaufman along with someone else,
there's another character involved. Uh, they took it, took him
to a place in the Joshua Tree National Forest or
I'm saying that right the uh yeah, Joshua Tree, the
national monument, which he was enamored with, especially the cap
Rock region of this of this forest or this uh
(34:10):
this this national monument and um, his last whishes wishes
were that he his ashes were to be scattered over
that the region. So this Kaufman guy goes to the airport,
borrows a hearse from somebody I don't know who steals
the body drives all the way out to the Joshua
Tree National Monument. They get out to this this cap
Rock area, they open up the coffin, they pour in
(34:31):
five gallons of gasoline, strike a match and let it burn.
Thinking that they're doing the right thing right there, they're
they're meeting his last wishes because I think his Graham's
stepfather had wanted him brought back to Louisiana for burial,
but not knowing you know, this is a young guy.
He's only twenty three years old at the time, or
twenty six years old at the time. Uh, he had
a lot of musician friends and people that you know,
(34:53):
he had already you know, you know, but he was
he was good buddies with a lot of these people
and told them his last wishes Richards. Yeah, he had
some big players in the in the music industry at
the time, and uh, they understood that his last wishes
were a little bit more you know, unconventional, I guess
than what his his stepfather wanted for him. And so
stepfather wanted to bring him back and have him buried
(35:14):
in you know, the family plots or whatever, Louisiana. And
there was some question about his motivations for that well yeah, yeah,
I mean I think it was inheriting his well the
money from his career at to this point, right, he
did have a recording career. Again it was early on,
but he had some success early on too, so um,
not a lot, but a little bit um. But anyways,
(35:35):
they of course, this is a huge fireball that erupted
from this thing. The authorities came right away and apparently
the two guys that that were that caused this, that
did this, just drove away because the police were kind
of just overwhelmed by what they saw, Like they said,
it was just like grief overtook them. They there's a
burning casket there, and they're also these uh the men
(35:56):
who escaped were probably inebriated, and it's one or another.
They were under the influence of something. But this story
does have a little bit of a silver lining or
happy ending for Parsons. He got his wish and his
buddies who you know, I think we all have friends
(36:18):
who with the best of intentions, are a little bit
knuckle headed, but they have hearts of gold, you know.
So they sound like their motivations were pure. Yeah, I
think I can say that, Yeah, I mean the way
that they went about it maybe was not the best way,
of course. Well no, no, it clearly wasn't and it
wasn't the best plan. Yeah, but at the time, again
(36:39):
there's there weren't there weren't laws against that sort of thing,
which because it wasn't that specific about that, there were
there were not laws on the books, believe it or not,
about stealing a corpse. So these two guys do eventually
get arrested a few days later, and since there's not
a law against stealing a corpse at the time, they
(37:00):
were find what was seven hundred seven fifty bucks for
stealing the coffin, and they weren't they weren't prosecuted for
leaving what was you know, remaining of of grand Parsons
in the desert, which jeez, that's that's an awful thing too.
I mean, what was left of him, I guess was
brought back to Louisiana to be buried, so the stepfather
(37:20):
got his wish in away as well. Yeah, I mean,
in a way, it's a it's a really odd tale.
I mean, look into it if you want. There's there's
more detail there that where I'm sure we're skimming over
but um, again, Graham Parsons, young guy was tragedy. Um
just check it out and you'll you'll see what I mean.
Now again, we're gonna get to one more that is
automotive related. This is a big one here at the end.
(37:40):
And I think before we do that, maybe we should
take a word from our sponsor. And we're back, Scott.
This has been a rollicking and strange episode for car stuff.
I'm I'm enjoying it, and I have to confess. The
(38:05):
entire time we've been doing this, I have been scooting
closer and closer to the edge of my seat, and
I've been playing back in my head the various things
that I ran into. I give up. I have to
ask you what they I admit defeat. I do not
know what this one is. All right, Well, that's good.
That's good. I kept a secret all the way at
the end. Now, I wonder if anybody else is gonna
(38:26):
guess this. But we started out with Enzo, right, yes,
all right, and you know, likely there's gonna be some
fortification to his his toomb, you know, to make sure
that that doesn't happen, because someone's now got it in
their head that they can go and do that. So
likely there's gonna be there's somebody, you know, monitoring that
grave or or doing something that to that grave. We've
talked about who was Abraham Lincoln Elvis Presley, who of
(38:46):
course is a big car guy. We thought he would
be buried in a in a Cadillac. He was not.
Um Charlie Chaplin who it turns out there to auto
mechanics that that were involved in the theft of his body.
The actual theft of his body that worked out for them, Uh,
Grant Parsons. You know, he was carted across the desert
and the stolen hearst so that's kind of entry or
not stolen, a borrowed Hurst. I guess. I don't know
(39:07):
if that's true or not. Maybe maybe it was stolen.
Who knows. Um. So this last one, this involves a
character that we talked about many times on this podcast. Ben,
and I'll see if you can just guess maybe who
it is now that I've given you that little clue.
It's not Henry Ford. It is Henry Ford. Henry Ford. However,
no one stole Henry Ford's body. I want to get
(39:28):
that out right out front. But but he was prepared
for this, and I'll tell you how. He has something
called a mort safe that is built over the top
of his grave. Now, this is something that I guess,
I mean, knowing this this character, knowing Henry Ford, he
probably was thinking that he, you know, somebody was going
to take his body for scientific purposes or something like that.
(39:50):
I mean, I would guess that that was his intention.
I don't think that he would ever think that, you know,
his body would be ransomed off to his family or
anything like that. But he has something called him mort
safe built over his tomb. Now, if you want to
look at it, I mean, it's easy enough. You know,
word search to do and you can search Henry Ford
grave or you know, something like that, and you'll see
this thing. I'm gonna show you a photo of it. Ben.
It looks like an ornate fence. Maybe that his gate
(40:14):
of some kind, maybe an ornate gate. It looks it
looks in some ways like them the metal grates that
storefronts will pull over or pull down to the ground
when they're closed. Yeah. Now, but but it's horizontal across
the ground. It's across the ground really low over this,
you know, enormous grave marker. You know, the the the
the sarcophagus, I guess you'd call it. That has you know,
(40:36):
the engravings on it, and there's a stone bed beneath
it as well. But it's a very decorative thing, right,
And the idea behind this is it's a it's a
it's an iron gate really that's lane flat just above
the ground maybe looks to me to be about a
foot or foot and a half off the ground. And
then on the sides of this thing there are bars
metal bars, you know, big iron bars that are driven
down into the ground next to the sarcophagus, so that, um,
(41:00):
anybody we're trying to dig around this thing would encounter
those bars. They would have to still go through those bars,
and it just becomes this really complex thing to get to,
to get at, I should say. So he and his
wife are buried underneath this really decorate. It's actually, I mean,
in a way, it's beautiful. It's very nice. Um this
gate that is, you know, it still gives you a
view of the of the coffin, but um one is obstructed,
(41:23):
I guess. But so isn't it interesting though that he
would think he would think ahead of time. I don't
because I don't know if it would be his family
that would think of this. It seems like something that
Henry would direct himself. That was all that was all heavy.
Doesn't it seem like that. I mean, so again, this
is for both he and his wife. And this is uh,
this is right in Detroit. It's somewhere they say that
it's it's wedged between a four lane busy boulevard and
(41:46):
a small church. I never went to it when I
lived there. I never went to go. I went to
see this page. But you know, I mean there's a
lot of um heads of industry that are buried in
Michigan in the you know, I want to say, I
DeLorean is buried there. Um in Detroit, that detroittery Um.
I believe that Preston Tucker is buried there. Um. You know,
(42:08):
in various places, you know, different different cemeteries, because there's
some big ones there. Um. But of course Henry Ford
is buried there. There's other heads of industry that are
um that are buried there as well. I know a
lot of in Chicago too, But um, it's fine. It's interesting.
This is when you can go and visit. You can
go see and it's a small cemetery. I guess it
has about They say that it has about fifty or
sixty graves, and most of them have the name Ford
(42:29):
on them. It's a family cemetery. Most of them have
the name Ford on them. But the great Yeah, well,
exactly right. And again this uh, this more safe thing
is an interesting idea. It was it was invented in
Scotland like two hundred years before he ever died, so
it's something that had been around. He had apparently known
about them, you know, and he requested one. But I
(42:50):
found it fascinating that he preemptively did this, you know too.
He knew that there was gonna be something with it,
like somebody with you to try to you know, there
there'd be some mischief involved guests after his death, Scott.
I have so many different tangents and directions and and
and side tracks that I want to explore because this
this inspires me to investigate. You know. One thing that
(43:14):
I would say about the context in which Henry Ford
grew up. The world into which he was born was
a world that that's still a part of the world,
at least in the US, that still had this social
fear of being buried mistakenly being buried alive. And you
(43:34):
can look back through uh you can look back through
patent applications and see a wealth of different different coffin
designs that had stuff like a bell at the that
went through the coffin and through the ground to the surface.
So if you woke up after you know, you had
a fit of tuberculosis or something, you could ring the bell,
(43:56):
so you wouldn't be buried alive, know, to come back
and dig you up a meat lee. So there had
to be somebody, you know, they're at the cemetery listening
for the bells, right exactly, man. And I've heard of
some that had you know, breathing tubes of course, you
know what were some of the other really weird ones.
I think the one one in a periscope, Yeah, so
that you know, they could they could look and see
if anybody was nearby to alert them. Uh. Strange strange design.
(44:17):
And and the second thing that this immediately inspires me
to think of is Okay, so we we owe everyone
a little bit of an explanation, Uh, including our super producers.
Uh sorry, guys. We gave you the nicknames Burke and Hair, respectively,
because Burke and hair are two of the most well
(44:39):
known resurrection men who actually crossed the line into murder.
And you know what, I'm glad that you're bringing up
resurrection men because I wonder I wonder if Henry Ford,
you know, because of the the time that he lived,
I wonder if he was concerned with maybe not so
much somebody ransom in the body back as he was
(45:00):
with um, you know, somebody maybe taking his body for
medical science, you know, like you know, the idea that
because he had kind of that that strange um connection
with you know, his early early days, his early like um,
you know, um, I want to say, like nineteenth century
UM ideals. I guess maybe is the way that he
lived his whole life. Really, you know, that's that's not
(45:22):
a that's not a crazy guest. Well maybe, I mean,
I just wonder if it was, you know, instead of
you know what we think of is, you know, like, well,
somebody's gonna take my body and ransom back for ten
million dollars um. Maybe he was just thinking that, you know,
somebody's gonna use it for medical purposes and he didn't
want that. Well, this is are disturbed in any way? Really, Yeah,
this is a brief a brief foray into some of
(45:44):
the darker history of American medicine. But a lot of
times for people have heard of resurrection men we associate
we tend to associate it with Europe, particularly the United Kingdom,
where at the time in England, UH medical academies lack
(46:04):
of a better term, where at a loss because the
laws were in conflict. One could dissect a body, but
it was illegal to procure a body, right. But what
a lot of people don't know is that this was
this happened in the US as well, and perhaps more
recently than many people would think. There was a fellow
named Charles Nolton who was imprisoned in Massachusetts for illegal
(46:29):
dissection UH in eighteen twenty four. And Henry Ford, as
we recalled, was born in eighteen sixty three. In eighteen
seventy eight, UH, the body of a guy named William
Henry Harrison was snatched for a medical college in Ohio,
and that that we only really know of that one
(46:51):
because he was the son of an Ohio congressman. So
it makes you wonder how many stories Henry might have
heard in his early years, especially as you said, in
the nineteenth century that's the thing. He probably grew up
with these stories in the newspapers, you know that the
graves have been disturbed for whatever reason, and uh, and
probably just stuck in his head and that's why he
did this. But it's an interesting idea, you know that
(47:13):
that you'd preemptively do this to your own grave. You
know that you would you would think like, I'm gonna
protect myself even after Um, you know, it's a strange thought,
it really is. So many like so many body parts
of celebrities and famous historical figures end up being uh,
misplaced or stolen because they function almost like relics or something.
(47:36):
I want to say, you know what, I don't have
anything in front of me right now. There's something strange
with Casey Kayson as well. Really I think there was
a story behind that too. So yeah, this happens often.
You know, celebrities and and people that are you know,
somehow famous you know, um, whether they're singers or entertainers, actors, whatever, um,
you know, they tend to be the targets of this.
And and the ferraris one because there was a you
(47:58):
know a lot of family money there, a lot of
company any money there. Uh, you know, a couple of
two possible targets for for the ransom there in that case. Um,
just it seems like, uh, you know again, after the fact,
a lot of people you know, kind of wisen up
to the idea that, yeah, this is something that's valuable.
I guess the remains of my loved one are valuable.
I need to protect them in in an extraordinary way. Um.
(48:20):
And I think that's what's gonna happen with with the
Enzo Ferrari tomb. And we'll see, we'll see if it
becomes more of a fortified structure than what it is now.
I would guess that it would be you know, sometimes
in the next month or so, we might even hear
about it or see it, you know. Um. But I
thought it was just an interesting tie in. I guess
maybe to what we do here. It kind of give
us a chance to talk about something a little bit different.
(48:40):
I know, we we kind of touched on some of
the stuff in the um the autonomous cars and the
organ donation, so it's a little bit of an overlap there.
But um, some fascinating tales to be told here. And
I would bet that there are other automotive giants that
have taken steps like Henry Ford to h to fortify
their grave in some way that you know they didn't
you know, um come under attack by grave robbers, right,
(49:03):
And the of the thing we that we do need
to say is, of course our thoughts are with the
Ferrari family in a state, because that's such a a
bizarre and abominable thing to even contemplate. So I wonder
who's left. Who's left? I wonder who's left in the
(49:24):
Ferrari family. That's a good question. I don't know. I
haven't looked into it, the surviving members. So who's there
to say we need to do this unless it's the
company itself, you know that says, hey, we gotta protect
our features grave. Yeah, which very well may be the case.
We know this episode may have been a little bit morbid,
but we hope that you found it as fascinating. Is
(49:45):
that a fair word, Scott, As fascinating as we found it,
And as always, we would like to hear some of
your stories about the the bizarre twists and turns of
automotive legends. I would I know I've recommended it in
the past, but we do find very weird law and
(50:07):
order esque plot twist to so many stories of of
automotive greats um In particular, I would like to recommend
our U Haul episode, which takes an unexpected turn. Now,
I won't spoil it for you if you haven't heard
it yet, other than to say give it a listen
when you're in the mood for you know, well, how
(50:30):
did I say earlier? A law something, law and ordery. Yeah,
it just takes an incredible twist. Yes, yeah, Shamalan asked
for sure. So in the meantime, if you would like
to check out any of the episodes that we recommended
at the top of the show, you can visit us
at Car Stuff Show dot com. And if you would
like to recommend a topic for a future episode, or
(50:52):
check out some of our some of our stories that
for one reason or another may not make it to air,
you can find us at Our Stuff hs W on
both Facebook and Twitter. And if you're saying, well Scott, well, Ben,
I do want to see this stuff, and I do
have some great ideas that I think my fellow listeners
should hear. But I'm not one for all that social
(51:14):
media brew haha, rigor morole malarkey, it's all a fried
Bologney sandwich to me, then we completely get it. You
can write to us directly. We are car stuff and
how stuff Works dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, This is how stuff Works dot com.
(51:34):
Let us know what you think. Send an email to
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