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FRESNO, Calif. (KGPE) – What was billed arsenic a death-defying escape, a Halloween nighttime spectacle, saw fashionable magician "Amazing Joe" buried live wrong a homemade casket.
"Amazing Joe" was wrapped successful chains and placed successful a casket astatine Blackbeard’s successful Fresno connected the nighttime of Halloween 1990. He had ungraded and cement poured connected apical and helium was expected to find a mode out. But the 32-year-old magician ne'er emerged, dying successful beforehand of his household and hundreds of strangers who gathered to ticker was expected to beryllium a death-defying escape.
Magician "Amazing Joe"Now, arsenic the 35th day approaches, his son, Joe Burrus, is hoping his father’s last enactment volition beryllium remembered forever.
"He would travel to schoolhouse and bash magic tricks and magic shows astatine schools and worldly similar that. So, a batch of kids were like, 'Oh, man, your dad's cool,'" Burrus said.
A chill dada with a craving for danger, a request for speed, and a imagination of becoming famous.
"He utilized to archer maine each the time, helium goes, you're going to spot my name, you know, successful the lights. You're going to spot my sanction connected signs," Burrus said.
The imagination was Las Vegas. The starting point: Salem, Oregon. In December 1989, Joe buried himself successful dirt, bound by chains wrong a woody coffin. He escaped and that enactment him connected the map.
The flight gave him the courageousness to spell bigger the adjacent twelvemonth connected Halloween nighttime successful Fresno.
"It was a precise acold night. Everybody had connected blankets and coats," Burrus said.
It was an flight enactment truthful unsafe that it had ne'er been tried before.
"I was conscionable an excited kid. I mean, I had seen my dada bash magic astir my full full life, truthful I had nary uncertainty that helium was going to bash this," Burrus said.
There was nary trial run, and the plexiglass casket was already cracked, patched with glue from a hardware store. Six feet deep, covered with dirt, and topped disconnected with heavy, bedewed cement.
And it wasn't conscionable Halloween.
The stunt was besides tied to the 65th day of Houdini’s decease and served arsenic a fundraiser for an addiction betterment halfway celebrating Joe’s ain sobriety.
"Had helium made it that night, helium would person been precisely wherever helium wanted to be," Burrus said. "He would person been Criss Angel, helium would person been David Copperfield, helium would person been David Blaine."
Before the act, Burrus's parent urged Joe to spot his dad, but helium didn’t privation to fuss him portion helium was preparing for the biggest nighttime of his career.
The casket being lowered into the ground."I'll spot him later, I'll hold till helium comes out, you know, hug him, past archer him I loved him...I had that 1 accidental to hug him oregon privation him luck oregon whatever, and I decided to wait," Burrus said.
The determination that inactive haunts him today.
In beforehand of his sons, 13-year-old Joe Jr. and 10-year-old Josh, Joe Burrus died nether the value of the ungraded and cement. The infinitesimal was caught connected video by Joe Jr.'s grandpa.
"It collapsed. It sank. And I was conscionable like, 'This isn't going to beryllium good,'" Burrus said. "I took off. I went to spell locomotion implicit to the h2o slides. I sat there, cried, prayed."
When asked who broke the quality that his dada had died, helium said helium saw it connected TV.
"The news. We got home, and it was the apical communicative connected each the quality channels, and that's wherever we heard, you know, that a section magician passed away," Burrus said.
For the past 15 years, Burrus has been trying to rise capable wealth to wage for either a plaque oregon a seat astatine Blackbeard's truthful his begetter volition ne'er beryllium forgotten.
"All helium wanted was to beryllium celebrated and, you know, that's wherever helium died. A batch of radical know. I conscionable privation thing that, you know, tin be, of him retired determination forever," Burrus said.
Now, Fresno magicians are stepping successful to help.
"I privation to assistance retired due to the fact that there's lone 1 mode I tin assistance out, and I tin execute magic," Myles Mattox said. "That's what I do, I'm a magician."
Together, they are readying a tribute amusement to rise the $1,000 to $5,000 Burrus needs. Mattox is assured that with a small spark, helium tin get the wealth raised. By his broadside is magician Tim Mannix, who says Joe Burrus is idiosyncratic who should beryllium honored.
“It keeps getting told due to the fact that it’s like, I don’t know, it’s conscionable intriguing and unusual, it’s everything that it is, you know? And yet it’s present portion of Fresno history," Mannix said. "I deliberation it should beryllium memorialized. I deliberation determination should beryllium a plaque saying, you know, a antheral gave his life, you know, trying really to effort a celebrated allusion.”
"It would beryllium a extremity that would yet beryllium met. So, it's thing that decidedly means a batch to maine that idiosyncratic inactive to this time cares capable to beryllium like, 'Yeah, I volition bash what I tin bash to help.' So, it's decidedly overmuch appreciated," Burrus said.
If you would similar to marque a donation to assistance Joe Burrus scope his goal, click here.
