Why were post-mortem photos taken of Harvey Logan a.k.a. Kid Curry?

Why were post-mortem photos taken of Harvey Logan a.k.a. Kid Curry?

Juha Nakari
United Kingdom

I went to Wild Bunch historian Dan Buck for this one. He tells me that the post-mortem photos were taken to figure out the identity of a dead bandit who had shot himself to avoid capture after robbing a train near Parachute, Colorado, on June 7, 1904.

You see, people were claiming the man was a number of bandits. Buck says the best evidence, though, suggests the man was Harvey Logan.

Pinkerton Detective Lowell Spence took two of the photos to Knoxville, Tennessee, where Logan had served seven months in jail a year earlier. Several lawmen and attorneys who had known Logan identified the photos as depicting him. The news of Logan’s death, along with four post-mortem photos, ran in the St. Paul, Minnesota, Daily Pioneer Press on July 12.

For many, the photos closed the case, although some outlaw historians today see this as an unsettled matter.