"Stoneman Willie" was the nickname bestowed long ago on an alleged thief who died in 1895 in jail. When no one claimed the body, he was accidentally mummified by undertakers at the Theo C. Auman Funeral Home. Now, after more than a century living with a macabre mystery, the US town of Reading, Pennsylvania is finally closing the casket on its oddest-ever resident. The mummified man is set to be buried Saturday. Crowds of people have lined up all week to pay their respects, snap photos or gaze with bewildered awe on a scene unlikely to ever be repeated in the United States. "I understand that he is clinically a mummy (...) He's just our friend, Willie," funeral home director Kyle Blankenbiller tells AFP. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES