A body will be exhumed to test claims it is really Jesse James. A court-ordered exhumation at a Texas cemetery was conducted today at the urging of those who believe legendary outlaw Jesse James pulled off his greatest feat by faking his own death in Missouri and living to a ripe old age of 104.
Historians try to solve the mystery of where the outlaw is buried.
Bud Hardcastle, a Purcell, Okla., used car salesman and amateur historian, said he hopes the excavation and subsequent DNA testing by a University of California at Davis anthropologist will prove that J. Frank Dalton was really James. Hood County Judge Linda Steen earlier this year ordered the exhumation of the man known as Dalton, who was buried in Granbury on Aug. 15, 1951. It is the belief of family members I represent and Mr. Hardcastle that Jesse James is buried here. Elizabeth Gilliam Beckett, who operates the Jesse James Museum in Kearney, Mo., said the men identified as family members are not direct descendants of James. She insisted James is buried in Missouri, not Texas.