The Legend of Dead Darrius: The True Story of Birmingham Alabama's Urban Legend--Mummified Stuffed Boy

Dead Darrius was said to be a stuffed boy whose mummified body sat on a porch in Birmingham, Alabama, between the 1950s and 1960s. Since I was a child, I have always loved a good story—not storybook stories—but real stories, the kind you hear from listening to grown folks talk on the front porch. When someone tells a good one, I immediately know if it's something I want to sink my teeth into. The Legend of Dead Darrius was that kind of story.

The boy who sat on the front porch was known as Dead Darrius (Credit: File Photo Traciy Curry-Reyes)

Ivy Brook Walker found the photo on Twitter

It was around midnight on January 8, 2019, when my daughter, Ivy Brook Walker, entered my room to show me a tweet and a creepy photo of a boy they called Dead Darrius. The tweet urged Birminghamians to ask their parents about the story. Ivy asked me if I'd heard of it.

I hadn't. But the photo intrigued me.
I got right up and scoured the Internet for hours trying to find information about this boy they called Dead Darrius. Several stories floated around Twitter, with each commenter telling what they'd heard over the years.

One interesting story was that someone possibly murdered the little boy, and that his mother was so upset she had his remains mummified and displayed them on the porch, instead of burying him. The most popular version was that Darius was killed after a car struck him while riding his bike.

The sight of Dead Darrius frightened all the neighbors. I mean, what was it exactly?
Most of the school kids were scared to walk past him on their way to school, and the adults drove by in their cars and pointed with expressions of confusion and mild horror.

As I examined the picture, mummified remains didn't come to mind. I wanted to investigate the story because stories of preserving a person's dead body and putting it on display are well-documented, especially in places like Puerto Rico and Mexico.

What was bizarre was that it happened in Birmingham, Alabama, in an African American neighborhood.

That's not common at all.
As I gazed into the eyes of this odd photo, my mind tingled with ideas of how I would begin my investigation. A good place to start was Twitter.

And what do you know?

There was a clue!

I zeroed in on a commenter named Nicole from the site Glowing.com, who said over the years she'd heard Dead Darrius’ real name could have been Timothy Tuckett or Timmy Tackett.

Nicole's post 

Ancestry.com is a Gold Mine

Plugging that information into Ancestry.com produced another great lead. The house sits at the corner of 4th Place North and 11th Court North in Birmingham's Enon Ridge community, but the house number was not clear on Google Maps.

To start, I scoured the pages of the R. l. Polk Birmingham City Directory for the Tackett or Tuckett family. The city directories hold the addresses of every resident and business in the area. Several of these books are online, and they go back decades. City directories are a wonderful tool to conduct research and find people from the past.

Wow!

The city directory at Ancestry.com gave me an address: 1122 11th Court North. The owners of the home were listed as Jesse and Ethel Taggart.

Now, according to Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org, Jesse and Ethel Taggart don't have children.

I went to Enon Ridge, Alabama, and canvassed the neighborhood. Finally, I met a person who told me I needed to talk to a man who probably knew the family. His name was Mr. Cleophus Riles Jr., and he was a prominent member of the Enon Ridge community.

I couldn't find the names Timothy Tucket or Timmy Tacket, but as I searched further, I was in shock when I located a Taggart Family.

This was not a coincidence. I knew that had to be the family.

Traciy Curry-Reyes and Cleophus Riles Jr. (2019)

Mr. Cleophus Riles invited us in right away. We sat around his living room table as he talked. Mr. Riles told me he remembered the Taggarts and even showed me Dr. Ernest Taggart’s house, which was still across the street.

Enon Ridge, Alabama: Cleophus Riles said Dead Darrius was just a statue and that in the 50s and 60s, Dr. Ernest Taggart’s home was a glorious one, where they held swanky parties.
He explained that Dr. Ernest Taggart was a prestigious African American dentist, and his wife, Essie Taggart, was the secretary-treasurer at Miles College in Fairfield, Alabama.

Dr. Taggart died in 1968, and the statue, which had been inside the house, was moved to the home of his brother, Jesse Taggart, who lived a couple of streets over. That must have been the first time anyone glimpsed the statue.

I think the rumors started then.

I went to both Dr. Ernest Taggart’s former home and Jessie Taggart’s former home, but there was no answer. A teacher at Wilkerson school told me the kids have talked about Dead Darrius for 30 years. She said the doll boy sat on the property well into the 1990s. Then, it disappeared mysteriously, and the boy's mother, too.

Jessie and Ethel Taggart lived at 1122 4th Pl North in Birmingham, Alabama. Ethel Taggart was a cook or a nurse for several doctors. And Jessie L. Taggart (Jesse Taggart) worked at Acipco. The home was built in 1950 and renovated in 1961. Public records show Ethel Taggart died in 1989. Her husband Jesse died in 1996. 

I wasn’t sure if there were living relatives, so the search for Dead Darrius was at a dead end.

Lee Taggart of Bessemer, Alabama

The youngsters in Enon Ridge (Birmingham, Alabama) used to peek through the gates of the Taggarts' home to see what was going on. There were lots of well-dressed black people visiting the couple. And on a Friday or Saturday night, you could see Doctor Ernest and Essie Taggart heading to the cozy Afro Club high atop Enon Ridge.

Public databases offer a wealth of information. To finish my research, I needed to make contact with someone in the family who might still be alive. The public database pointed me to a man named Lee Taggart in Bessemer, Alabama.

He was the great-nephew of both Dr. Ernest Taggart and Jesse Taggart. My excitement grew as Lee Taggart agreed to tell me what he knew. I was told the house was green, but since so many said it was the pink house, I needed to confirm. Lee Taggart said it was the green house. 

Lee Taggart was surprised to see the picture circulating online. He’d never heard of Dead Darrius. But he remembered the growing scandal surrounding the boy on the porch. 

Lee Taggart with girlfriend Renda (2018)

Lee’s girlfriend said she remembered that Mrs. Taggart changed the statue’s clothes every summer and winter.

Lee Taggart laughed and said the old black and white photo looked nothing like the real doll.

“Aw...That don’t even come close.() If you look at his eyes, his eyes looked sky blue. And they looked real. Liked they’d be looking at you.”

Dead Darrius Urban Legend Busted

The Dead Darrius stuffed boy caused traffic jams as people tried to get a closer look. The traffic was so bad that the police had no choice but to launch an official investigation to see if the allegations had legs. Birmingham police investigators found nothing. It was only a statue. But the rumors about this family hounded them for decades.

On a side note, an important question has to be asked. How reliable are passed-down stories?

Genealogists at ancestry.com and familysearch.org will find this intriguing. As a researcher who relies on oral stories and public records, I wonder if the stories our ancestors passed down to us are factual.

Sure, there is some element of truth to some stories. But did the events happen exactly as stated? I mean, look...a whole community of people believed the story of Dead Darrius for more than five decades. This makes me question everything.

In the end, I located the statue (some people don't believe it is the original one). In any event, it was just a rumor. The story of Dead Darrius is just a deep south urban myth.

                 Watch Dead Darrius Here