Joseph “The Amazing Joe” Burrus was a magician from Fresno, California, who dreamed of becoming as famous as Harry Houdini

 Joseph “The Amazing Joe” Burrus was a magician from Fresno, California, who dreamed of becoming as famous as Harry Houdini, his idol. Burrus specialized in escape acts, and he was determined to one day surpass Houdini’s legendary feats. In 1983, Burrus performed smaller escape shows around central California, but by 1990, he planned his most ambitious stunt yet — one he hoped would make him world-famous.

“I consider myself a master of illusion and escape artist. I believe I’m the next Houdini and greater,” Burrus told The Fresno Bee in 1990 before the stunt. “To me, that’s what an escape artist is: to put myself in an impossible situation and get out of it.”

According to his mother, Bette Burrus, her son had been diagnosed with dyslexia and struggled with drug and alcohol abuse. He supported himself as a tree trimmer for years before deciding that he had grown too old for that work. Magic was his new life. When Burrus became interested in the art of illusion, he stopped drinking, his family said.

On Halloween night, 1990, at the Blackbeard’s Family Fun Center in Fresno, Burrus staged a performance he called his “ultimate escape.” The plan was to be buried alive in a transparent coffin, chained and handcuffed, and then covered first with dirt, and then with cement — all while he attempted to escape.

He told the crowd, estimated at around 150 people, that he had practiced this before — though in reality, he had only done the dirt portion, never with cement on top. Burrus was lowered into a plastic coffin, which was then placed into a 7-foot-deep grave. Workers began to shovel in dirt and then poured wet cement over the top. The audience watched as Burrus waved from the coffin before being completely covered.

Moments later, the unthinkable happened — the cement collapsed the thin plastic coffin. The weight was simply too great. The box caved in, burying Burrus alive under thousands of pounds of dirt and concrete. Rescue crews rushed to dig him out, but it took nearly 30 minutes to reach him. When they did, Burrus was dead — suffocated and crushed before he ever had a chance to escape. He was just 32 years old.