The Pact: Stealing Gram Parson's Body
An inspiring true story of how one man broke all the rules to honor a promise to his dead friend.
When Phil Kaufman opened the casket and saw his friend’s naked body covered only in tape from the autopsy incisions, he couldn’t help but make a joke about the dead man’s little penis. In Kaufman’s defense, he was really drunk, and it had been quite a day.
Kaufman’s accomplice Michael Martin felt weird about opening the casket. Still, he had been on board to help steal the body and go along for the nearly three-hour ride from LAX to Joshua Tree National Park to help Kaufman fulfil his pact with their recently deceased buddy. Martin knew the goal was to burn the body, but he wasn’t ready to have to look at it. Kaufman, though, wanted a proper goodbye.
For the last time, he asked his dead friend, “What’s that on your chest?” Not waiting for a reply, he did the thing where the person looks down and you flick your wrist and tweak their nose with a finger. Gotcha! It was something they did sometimes. It seemed appropriate. Then, Kaufman poured five gallons of high test gasoline into the coffin and threw a match inside.
In his book, “Road Mangler Deluxe,” Kaufman describes the moment in graphic detail: “It went whoosh and a big ball of flame went up. We watched the body burn. It was bubbling. You could see it was Gram and then as the body burned very quickly, you could see it melting.”
This was the culmination of the pact. However, when the story hit the papers in September, 1973, it was reported that police were not clear on why Kaufman and Martin would do such a thing. They speculated it was some kind of ritual or a way to hide evidence, which is fair, because why would anyone steal a body and take it to the desert and light it on fire? One motive police likely didn’t consider was the simplest one. They were goddamned true blue friends—that’s why.
In the moments after the body was engulfed in flames, Kaufman knew his job of looking after Gram Parsons, something he’d done for years, was done. He described the scene as going from macabre to a version of beautiful: “His ashes were actually going up into the air, into the desert night,” Kaufman wrote. “The moon was shining, the stars were shining, and Gram’s wish was coming true. His ashes were going into the desert.”
The story of how Phil Kaufman stole Gram Parsons’ body and drove it to Joshua Tree National Park and burned it is legendary. A disturbing prospect, sure, but this unlikely story isn’t just about nonconformists doing crazy hippie shit. It’s a tale of a man of his word—a man who had the sand to follow through against the odds. That he pulled it off proves that if you just try your best, sometimes you can achieve things that seem impossible. As we’ll see, the key is to stick to your goals, take action, bend people to your will, and be lucky. Also, you must be bold.
That said, this is not a story about Gram Parsons, his influential music, his wealthy family, his disdain for his “alligator shoe and pinky ring” stepfather, or any of his back story. However, to understand how Kaufman and Gram got to death pact status, a little on how Kaufman became the most reliable man in rock ‘n’ roll is in order.
By the time Kaufman became what Mick Jagger referred to as the Rolling Stones’ “Executive Nanny” in 1968, he’d already served in the Air Force during the Korean War and spent a couple of years in prison for smuggling marijuana. He’d had a series of odd jobs, some involving the film industry in LA, and was fresh out of prison when he was serendipitously offered $100 a week to feed and water the Stones while they were recording in the city. He got them to the studio on time and even set them up with fresh fruit during sessions. Kaufman—nearly a decade older than the guys in band—was the kind of grown-up that young rock outfits of the ‘60s needed; he knew how to get shit done, take care of logistics, procure things, and not hassle them about their extracurriculars. Though he partied, he was paid to be the responsible one. It was working out for everyone.
The Stones were hanging around Gram Parsons at that time, and that’s how Kaufman met the man he would eventually immolate in the desert.
At first, Kaufman didn’t like Parsons, thinking he was an arrogant rich kid. Parsons came from old family money on his mom’s side. Over time, it turned out Parsons wasn’t so bad after all. When the Stones went back to the U.K., Kaufman stayed in the U.S. and that’s when Parsons asked him to manage his new band, the Flying Burrito Brothers. Kaufman was in.
By the time early autumn of 1973 rolled around, the FBB had broken up and Parsons had just finished recording his second solo album. He was also pretty deep in addiction and was staying in a room in Kaufman’s house. Kaufman says in his book that he regularly threw out the copious drugs Parsons was buying, with Parsons so out of it, he wasn’t sure if he’d done them or lost them. Regardless, he could always get more.
To celebrate the completion of Parsons’ last record, “Grievous Angel,” Parsons, his girlfriend, the aforementioned Michael Martin, and his lady Dale McElroy went out to a motel near Joshua Tree to hang out and celebrate. Parsons ended up overdosing on morphine and alcohol and dying on September 19, 1973, at 26 years old. When Kaufman, who was back in LA, found out, he was kicking himself for not being there to babysit. But he knew there was still one thing he could do—honor the pact.
In July of that year, Parsons and Kaufman attended the church-laden, somber affair of their friend Clarence White’s funeral. The guitarist was only 29 and was hit by a drunk driver. The depressing event led to the men making a death pact. Kaufman wrote:
”We had told Gram we wouldn’t let him have one of those long, family-and-friend funerals. Gram and I had gotten very drunk at Clarence White’s funeral and made a pact whereby the survivor would take the other guy’s body out to Joshua Tree, have a few drinks and burn it.”
Kaufman’s girlfriend heard them make the pact, so when Parsons died just about two months later, she told Kaufman he needed to do it. This is the kind of support we need from our partners when faced with stealing our friend’s body. She sounds like a good one. Kaufman agreed that he had to at least try, and he even knew where to get a hearse—his friend Dale McElroy happened to own one that she used for camping, as one does.
The hearse, of course, was paramount, which exemplifies the importance of having a network of people you can call on. Michael Martin also agreed to help. While most of us wouldn’t know where to begin to acquire a corpse, Kaufman, then 38, was a man used to getting things done. He knew enough to call the funeral home and ask about the plans for the body. He found out when it was slated to go to the airport to be flown back to New Orleans for a family service. He also knew that there was a special hangar for dead bodies, and he called the Continental Mortuary Service at LAX to get more information so he could intercept the body. That part you just gotta chalk up to life experience. Also working in Kaufman’s favor was the era. Being the early 1970s, they pretty much let anyone do anything at airports, so he drove the hearse right up to the corpse hangar.
Both already half in the bag and wearing cowboy hats and boots, Levi’s, and jackets that said “Sin City,” Kaufman and Martin looked the part of hearse drivers, I guess. Or maybe they just looked like people you didn’t want to tangle with. Kaufman did the talking and told the guy in charge of signing out bodies that the family changed their minds about where they wanted Parsons flown to and they were there to take the body to a different airport. They were in a hurry, he said, because they “had some little gals lined up who were achin’ for their bacon so be a bro and let us get this body where it needs to go so we can go get laid.” I’m paraphrasing, but no one could argue with that.
Kaufman signed for Parsons’ body as “Jeremy Nobody” and a cop pulled up, blocking them just before they were about to go. Instead of thinking anything was awry, the officer simply moved the car to let them out when asked, and didn’t question it when Martin drunkenly tapped the hearse into the hangar wall trying to get out of there. Airport cops in the ‘70s seem chill. In some of Kaufman’s retellings he says the cop even helped them load the casket into the hearse. Who knows?
What we do know is true is that Kaufman used his resources and followed his instincts and just kept seeing what would happen. He was willing to risk it, and that, my friends, is how you succeed.
When they drove away from the airport, Kaufman said, “We got you, buddy.”
They actually fucking did it. A little ingenuity, determination, and a few well-told lies were all it took to make good on a drunken death pact. In the end, Kaufman was convicted of stealing a coffin, but there was no charge for stealing or burning Gram Parsons’ corpse as it had “no intrinsic value.”
All quotes and most info taken from Phil Kaufman’s 1993 memoir, “Road Mangler Deluxe”.
Your telling (or retelling) is beautiful and lively. So weird how much stricter things have gotten over the years. Thanks for writing!
I love this!