Mummified US man finally given proper burial after 128 years on display

James Murphy, nicknamed Stoneman Willie' because of hard skin from experimental embalming, has been gawked at long enough'

The mummified remains of a petty thief nicknamed Stoneman Willie have been laid to rest in Pennsylvania, concluding a fascinating and somewhat macabre episode stretching back 128 years.

Willie, whose real name was revealed to be James Murphy at his burial in Reading, 60 miles north-west of Philadelphia, on Saturday. He was embalmed shortly after his death in 1895 by a mortician experimenting with new preservation techniques.