What was the real name of Jeremy Nobody, who purloined the dead body of musician Gram Parsons and took it to the desert for an ignoble cremation?

Initial news reports made reference to a "ritual" at the cremation site, but Los Angeles Detective Sgt. John Hamilton said later the reports were "completely false."

Within a week police arrested Phil Kaufman, 38, Parsons' road manager, and Michael Martin, 26, reported to have been a roadie with the Byrds during Parsons' one year with the group. They were booked on suspicion of grand theft and released on $1000 bond.

Two days after the cremation, and before the arrests, an anonymous source, in a telephone conversation arranged through a known associate of Parsons, told Rolling Stone:

"It was done by people who really loved him . . . .

"They had this old hearse and they thought they'd wear suits and pretend to be hearse drivers, but that didn't work, so they decided to be off-duty hearse drivers, and they made up this story about how they didn't really want to go get this body when they had a girl all ready someplace to ____ them out of their minds; so they played that out to the guy -'Come on, we gotta get to this girl, we're working overtime, let's get out of here' - like that, so they signed a name, 'Jeremy Nobody,' to the slip and took the body off.

Kaufman was booked at the Venice police station. He said later: “I’m charged with stealing a coffin. One of the cops called it ‘Gram Theft Parsons.’ He said, ‘We had the damndest time trying to figure out what to charge you with . . . .’

Michael Martin, accompanied by his attorney, surrendered the next day, September 27th.