Of all the legends from the days of gunslingers and desperadoes, no one fires
our collective imagination more than Billy the Kid. Now maybe that's because no outline
better blurred the lines between good and bad. He's actually going to jail,
and he's probably going to be hanged, and yet he's laughing about it.
From his point of view, he would have been killed within a matter of
days if he hadn't killed them first. But at the same time, I
think that's not a justification for murder. If the law had not been so
incredibly corrupt, he wouldn't be in this situation. The Kid had learned a
hard truth about the way the world worked in New Mexico. Just a few
years earlier, he'd been a skinny, orphan boy from New York City.
Calling themselves the regulators, they vowed to dispense their own brand of justice.
Now Billy was the most feared man in New Mexico. The people he was
fighting against, even the ones who were on the side of the law,
were brooks. These were not fine, outstanding citizens who were being gunned down.
William Henry McCarty alias William Antram alias Kid Antram, alias William H.
Bonnie alias Billy the Kid. Yeah, I'll make your things. The best
part about researching Billy the Kid is the fact that not even historians can agree
on his early years. So what I had to do was I had to
research all kinds of different shit and I kind of put it all together and
I went by what historians would say the most of So basically, if five
historians said this and three historians said that, I'm going to go with what
the five agreed on. So this is pretty much what I came up with.
And I will tell you right now, after researching Billy the Kid,
I have a whole new respect for this guy, man, I truly do.
Yeah. He was at times a cold blooded murderer, as you're going
to find out, he was a victim of circumstance more often than not.
It's really interesting. So let's go ahead and get rolling here. Now.
He was supposedly born William Henry McCarty junior, and he was born in either
eighteen fifty nine or eighteen sixty one. They believe his birthday is November twenty
third, and they say that he was born in New York. His father
is unknown. His mother was Catherine McCarty who was an Irish immigrant who came
to America during the Great Potato Famine over in Ireland. Now, he did
have a brother who was named Joe. Even history oriens can't agree on when
he was born. His death certificate says he was born in eighteen fifty four,
which would make him older than Billy, But Joe himself and there are
documents that correlate with this, says he was born in eighteen sixty three,
which would make him Billy's younger brother. They can't agree on whether Billy was
born in New York or if he was born in Anderson, Indiana, which
is just kick ass in my book because I'm from Indiana. So the reason
they think he was born in New York is because, ironically enough, in
eighteen sixty one, there is a kid that shows up getting a baptism that
is going by the name Henry McCarty. They're not one hundred percent sure if
this is him, though, because his father is unknown. There's so many
stories about his father. It has suspected that his dad was a guy named
Michael McCarty who had died in the Civil War. That's unconfirmed. Is also
stated that they believe young William McCarty might have been an illegitimate child. And
where this comes from is Catherine, his mother. When historians would try to
talk to her family, her surviving family about her, they literally would change
the subject and would not really acknowledge her. So that would kind of give
the idea that maybe these kids were illegitimate. Now we do not know that.
Even his birthday of November twenty third is not certain. The only person
that said his birthday was on November twenty third was in Pat Garrett's biography of
Billy the Kid, and I believe it was titled The Authentic Life of Billy
the Kid. The thing about it is is his co author on this book
that person's birthday just so happens to be on November twenty third as well,
So they think they really didn't know, and they just kind of inserted that
birthday in there and just everybody accepted it as fact. So we really don't
know. Most historians will say that he was born on November twenty third,
eighteen fifty nine, in New York. Now where Indiana comes into play is
this is the first official record per a census and Anderson, Indiana on June
eighteenth, eighteen sixty eight, there was a census taken, like I said,
and Katherine McCarty does show up, and she states that she has two
boys that go by William, Henry McCarty and Joseph McCarty. While they are
living in Anderson, Indiana, this is where Katherine meets a guy named William
Antrim. She has like a laundry business. She's washing people's clothes, she's
baking stuff. She's pretty much trying to get by any way that she can.
William Antrim not much is known about his past up until he comes into
contact with Catherine. He really doesn't care about the Bays too much. Young
Joseph and William. He really, you know, he just kind of wanted
Catherine. And as we're gonna come to find out, William Antram was probably
not the best husband or father figure that these boys could have had. They
are going through a courtship for a couple of years. On August tenth,
eighteen seventy, they move their little family to Wichita, Kansas. Actually is
right outside of Wichita, Kansas, and Katherine is actually in the papers here.
This is documented. She is a business leader. She opens up her
laundry business again she's doing pretty well for herself. But this is also around
the time that she is diagnosed with consumption, which is also known as tuberculosis
at the time the infection of the lungs, so she needs to move to
a less humid climate. They need to go do somewhere dry and possibly warmer,
So in August of eighteen seventy one they leave for a dryer climate because
of the consumption. The next time we see them pop up is in Denver,
Colorado, in October of eighteen seventy two. Now they really weren't there
too long from what I could find out, because they later end up moving
to Santa Fe. And how we know this is because on March first,
eighteen seventy three, William Antrim and Catherine McCarty are married in Santa Fe where
Little Billy was a witness and he signed the marriage certificate as the witness.
He signed it to little Harry McCarty, which is absolutely adorable. I don't
even know why. But so from here on she's still doing her business.
You know, she's washing clothes, she's baking stuff for people. Now,
right around this time, in April of eighteen seventy three, they move the
Antrim family to Silver City, New Mexico. William wants to start work as
a prospector. There's silver mines popping up everywhere. Everybody's wanting to get their
riches, so they do settle in Silver City. Catherine starts washing clothes,
she starts baking, selling those baked goods, and she even takes on boarders
in her house to make ends meet. William, on the other hand,
is pretty much a piece of shit. He is running around, never really
around. He's always trying to make his riches. He's off in the silver
mines. Whatever little money he does make he spends. He has a gambling
addiction. He's a heavy drinker, and like I said, he really doesn't
care too much. Dude's just not around. But Billy and Joe, on
the other hand, are doing fairly well. Billy is doing good in school.
His personality starts coming out right about now, and from schoolmates that did
go to school with young William McCarty, they said his personality was kick ass.
He just was happy, go lucky, real care free. It is
said that he had like a little bit of protruding buck teeth, but he
was still a ladies man because of that. Personality. Everybody got along with
him really, really well. Another thing that we did find out is that
he's a hell of a dancer because picture this if you can, young Billy.
The kid is a dancer because him and his mom used to go to
town dances. She taught him how to dance. So this kind of helped
his reputation of being a little bit of a ladies man. The girls did
love him, and like I said, everything's going great. You know,
this kind of gets bad around September of eighteen seventy four, after four were
months of bed rest because of her consumption. On September sixteenth, eighteen seventy
four, Catherine dies from her consumption, also known as tuberculosis. William Antrim
was not around when his wife died. He was off doing whatever the hell
he was doing. But before she does die, she arranges for the boys
to be taken in by a neighbor of hers. That right there is just
crazy admirable because this woman's working three different jobs taking care of these two boys,
raising little gentlemen for the most part, and her husband's off whatever.
Her husband doesn't even come back for her funeral, so they get taken in
by this neighbor. What happens is when William Antrum ends up coming back,
he does not want anything to do with these boys. He doesn't want anything
dragging him down. He doesn't want anything to do with them, so he
takes off for Clifton, Arizona and leaves the boys behind. Now, at
this point, this death of his mother just devastated Billy all right, like
this was his rock. This was the one person in his life that was
stationary, that loved him unconditionally, that was always there for him, and
she's gone. He gets pushed off to a neighbor's house and he's not doing
bad, but obviously he's dealing with some shit. He's just a young kid
at this point in time, he's thirteen years old. Now. While he
was living with these neighbors, he does, in early of eighteen seventy five,
get his first arrest, and believe it or not, he gets arrested
for stealing butter from a rancher and trying to sell it to a local merchant.
Now, because Billy is friends with the sheriff's kid and his name was
Sheriff Whitehill, you know, they ran around together and stuff, all he
gets is a little bit of some verbal discipline, you know, the Sheriff's
is like, hey, you know, this ain't the road you want to
go down. We're not gonna get you in too much trouble. Just get
your shit together, quit steal and stuff. Now, at this point in
time, he is also bouncing around two different houses, different little foster homes.
He has no stationary place to live, so it's not out of the
realm of possibility that he's trying to make a living. He's on his own
at thirteen fourteen years old. So he starts getting into a little bit of
more trouble and on September twenty third, eighteen seventy five, young William Henry
McCarty is arrested again, this time for stealing laundry. Now I have heard
a couple of different variations of this story. Here's the first version of the
story that we have. Billy, the kid, ends up meeting with this
guy named Sombrero Jack. Shit you not, that's the name that this guy
goes by. He's pretty much a local hoodlum whatever. Now, Sombrero Jack
has Billy steal these clothes from a local Chinaman. Now, unfortunately, this
was a different time and the whole thinking process behind this was that if they
stole from this guy, the local authorities probably wouldn't really care too much because
he was a foreigner. Unfortunately, that was the mindset in this time.
It was a different era. You know, if they would have gotten caught,
then Billy wouldn't have really gotten in trouble because he was still just a
young kid. Now, he was supposed to take these clothes, hide him,
and then meet up with Sombrero Jack later and give him the clothes.
And supposedly he had stolen a couple of pistols as well. That is unconfirmed.
I only heard that in a couple places. But the other story that
I heard is that basically Sombrero Jack stole the clothes and he told Billy that
he would give him some clothes if he ended up getting caught, then Billy
would take the fall. Well, Billy's living in a boarding house at this
point in time, and he does end up getting caught, the lady who
was running the house comes in to check on his room, clean his room,
or whatever, finds the clothes, reports it to the local authorities.
The local authority just happens to be Sheriff Whitehill, who had arrested Billy previously,
so he is you familiar with him. He knows Billy. What they
do is he kind of wants to prove a point to Billy, so he
arrests him and he puts him in a jail cell. Now, at this
point in time, they had traveling judges, so Billy could have been sitting
in jail for a few months waiting for a judge to come around, in
which case he probably would have gotten nothing more than probably another warning is slap
on the wrist. Maybe they'd put him to work for a little bit.
But Billy doesn't know this, and he's just a local kid, and the
sheriff knows him. So when they put him in jail, they don't actually
put him in a cell. They just kind of let him roam around in
that area and don't really keep an eye on him. Well, the sheriff
goes out to dinner on September twenty fifth, just a couple of days later,
and when he comes back, Billy's gone. The sheriff is looking,
He's like, how the hell did he get out of here? Well,
what Billy does is he goes up the chimney. You know, they look
up the chimney, and they can see in the soot, they can see,
you know, a little hand and footprints going all the way up the
chimney. Billy climbed his little body all the way up there, got out
the top, jumped off the roof, stole a horse, and took off.
But this also makes Billy a fugitive at the tender age of about sixteen.
So it's a pretty interesting little story right there, because, as you'll
come to find, Billy is kind of the Hoodini of the wild West.
This guy literally escaped so many times and got out of so much shit that
it's honestly amazing. So what Billy does is he ends up going to Clifton,
Arizona to try to track down William Antrum, basically to take him in
to ask him for help, any kind of help that he has. Well,
he does end up finding his stepfather, and you know, he tells
him what happened, and his stepfather pretty much tells him to get out of
there, and I don't want anything to do with you, just to leave.
So Billy literally is on his own, and he's on the run and
unforgiving territory, and he is technically a fugitive So the next time young Billy
turns up is right around April of eighteen seventy six, and he's hanging around
a Camp Grant, Arizona or Fort Grant, however you want to refer to
it as. And he's working at a hotel there, washing dishes and cooking
some food, a little place called the Hotel de Luna. This is where
he meets up with a guy named John Mackie, and Mackie starts getting him
into stealing horses and stealing saddles. And he's not just stealing them from anybody,
he's stealing them from the soldiers who are based at that camp there in
Arizona. This is where Billy starts really getting into some trouble. Now Billy
is a horse thief, a saddle thief. He's stealing from the soldiers based
at this camp there in Arizona. And this is where he starts hanging out
with a little bit of the rougher crowd. He's playing cards, he's gambling,
he's drinking, and mind you, at this point in time, he's
still merely right around sixteen years old. So in March twenty fifth, eighteen
seventy seven, after months of doing this, him and Mackie end up getting
caught. They are confined at Camp Grant. Billy escapes later that night and
again he is on the run. He doesn't go very far, though,
he still hangs out in that area and on August eighteenth of eighteen seventy seven,
this is where Billy officially kills his first man. Now, the circumstances
of this are extremely interesting because around Camp Grant there's a local blacksmith named Frank
k Hill, known as Wendy k Hill. He was known to bully young
Billy the kid quite bad. He would often throw him to the ground.
He would open hand slap him in the face. He would humiliate him in
front of everybody, and Billy just kinda took it until August eighteenth, eighteen
seventy seven, when they were playing cards and Wendy k Hill refers to Billy
as a pimp and a son of a bitch. Well, he's throws Billy
to the ground from what witnesses say, about three times, and he takes
his knees and he pins him on Billy's shoulders while Billy is on the ground,
backface has his back to the ground. He's on the ground he's got
him pinned down, and he's literally just open hand slapping Billy in the face,
just being a total asshole. They're kind of wrestling around a little bit,
and Billy manages to get one of his arms free and manages to grab
a pistol and he takes a shot and hits Ky Hill right in the gut.
Now, Kayhill slumps over. Billy kind of wiggles free. Now he
takes off, gets it onto the nearest horse that he can find, and
starts riding off. And his luck would have it, the horse that he
steals is a racing horse. So Billy is gone into the sunset. Now,
all these witnesses, there were several witnesses to this incident that said this
was a clear cut case of self defense. This guy had it coming.
What was Billy supposed to do? You know what I'm saying. The only
person who did not think it was self defense was the justice of the peace.
Literally, everybody that was a witness, everybody that was asked, everybody
that was there, says it was a clear cut case of self defense.
Billy had no choice. So it doesn't take long for him to get captured
by local soldiers. Now the best part about this is is because, like
I said, Billy is about seventeen eighteen years old at this point in time,
and the soldiers take pity on him because he tells them the story of
what happened. So they let him go. But they tell him when they
let him go, you are a wanted fugitive for murder. Whether it was
in self defense or not. You didn't stick around to find out, you
didn't stick around to go to court, so technically you are a fugitive wanted
for murder. Billy doesn't care. He takes off and he leaves for New
Mexico. Now, while he's on his way to New Mexico, I'm not
one hundred percent sure if it's in New Mexico or on his way there,
he runs in to some Apache American Indians. These Apache take his guns,
they take his horse, and they pretty much leave Billy for dead out in
the middle of the desert. Now, I cannot stress enough for those of
you not familiar with the American Southwest, this is unforgiving territory. If you
do not have food, water, a horse, and a weapon of any
kind, you will for sure die. So Billy's out here wandering around for
a few days, damn near close to death, and he stumbles upon a
shack. I believe the shack is owned by the Joneses, I'm not one
hundred percent sure. Well, this lady, the lady of the house,
takes him in and pretty much nurses him back to health. Now, like
I said, Billy was very very close to death. He was extremely dehydrated
at this point in time, and these apache beat the hell out of this
kid. So he gets a nurse back to health and they give him a
horse and tell him, you know, hey, go ahead, get out
of here, do what you gotta do. And it is at this point
in time that Billy does change his name to William H. Bonnie. So
the next time he shows up is about a month later in eighteen seventy seven.
This is right around September, and he joins a little gang known as
the Boys, led by Jesse Evans. This gang is also known as the
Jesse Evans Gang. And these dudes are legit. They are a gang of
killers and rustlers. Now Billy, who is no stranger to danger, he
has nothing else to lose. He's a young kid and he literally has to
hold his own He pretty much has to stay claim to a reputation that he
is not one to be messed with. These guys are older, they've been
around. These are some rough guys, okay, And Billy starts riding with
these guys at at the age of seventeen or eighteen. So the next time
he shows up is October of eighteen seventy seven, when the boys ride into
Lincoln County. And it is at this point in time that a man named
Frank Coe actually writes about Billy the Kid. What he writes about is his
ability with pistols. It's really really interesting because he's talking about how Billy can
twirl his pistols while they are cocked one in each hand going the opposite way.
There's lots of stories out there about Old West gunslingers, but this is
the first documented thing that I saw about Billy the Kid that someone actually commented
on his abilities with the pistol and how fast he was and how skilled he
was with him. I'll think about it. Billy didn't have nothing else to
do. He was out here doing his thing, living his life, you
know, and he had a lot of time to get really good with those
pistols. I would like to touch base a little bit on what's going on
at Lincoln County at this point in time. All Right, in the early
eighteen seventies, two guys named Lawrence Murphy and James Dolan opened the only store
in all of Lincoln County. They call it the Murphy and Dolan Merchantile and
Banking. Now what they are doing is they have a shipload of cattle and
a shitload of ranches. And what they do is they get these government contracts.
Now they owned all the cattle, and they owned the only store that
sells meet in all of Lincoln County. Now, to put this into perspective,
Lincoln County at this point in time is the size of Ireland. This
is a huge, massive county. And for them to own the only cattle,
have a government contract, and own the only store that sells their own
meat, they literally have a monopoly going on it. They have bought all
the local politicians, they have bought all the local law enforcement, which is
only one guy. They have one sheriff in this entire county that goes by
the name of Sheriff William Brady. Now what Dolan and Murphy do is they
form this faction and they call it the House now the House, because they
literally are rich and extremely powerful. They control everything in Lincoln County. If
you want to buy something, trade something, sell something in Lincoln County,
you have to go through the House and there's not much of anybody to stop
them. They have everybody in their pocket. So what happens now is in
February of eighteen seventy seven, an Englishman shows up in Lincoln County. Now,
besides the fact that English and the Irish are not exactly friendly in this
county, I'm not sure about the rest of the world, but they do
have their differences. This guy's name is John Tunstall. He's an English banker
and he ended up coming from Victoria, British Columbia, and he wanted to
invest in some cattle. He had some money to invest somewhere, and he
knew there was a lot of money in the cattle trade down in Lincoln County,
around the Pecos Valley area. What he does is he hooks up with
a guy named Alexander McSween. Now McSween was a former lawyer for the House.
I'm not exactly sure why he ended up wanting to leave the House and
go into business with Tunstall, but that is how it happens. Now,
what they do is McSween pretty much hooks him up with this guy named John
Chisholm. Now John Chisholm is a cattle baron. He is literally known as
the King of Pecos Valley because he owns tens upon thousands of heads of cattle.
When he moved cattle from the Pecos Valley, he moved a hundred thousand
head of cattle at a time. This is a lot of money right here.
And what he does is John Chisholm decides that he wants in on this
too because he knows there's a lot of money to be made in Lincoln because
as of right now, there's only one store there which are owned by the
House Murphy and Dolan. Now John Chisholm's wanting to expand, so he thinks
it's a great idea to back McSween Tunstall. Not only does the House have
the sheriff the local politicians in their pocket, they also have the governor of
the territory, guy by the name of Governor Axtel in their pocket as well.
So they literally are doing whatever they want, whenever they want. And
it is said that one of the reasons. A lot of the locals they
hated the House. All the local rounding Lincoln County and in Lincoln County could
not stand the House because it was a monopoly. They literally did whatever they
wanted. Some of the lands in the surrounding areas. The House would write
up fake foreclosure papers, they would act like they weren't getting paid. They
would go foreclose on people's land, take their shit, take their assets.
People hated the House. So when they see this competition opening up, naturally
they start going to that competition. Now, what the House does is they
start putting a lot of political pressure on Tunstall and McSween. They do that
through like bullshit, little court cases and everything like that little political bullshit.
But Tunstall is a smart guy and he literally refuses to give into them.
So at this point they start threatening violence. So this is kind of where
we jump back to the Billy timeline because when they start threatening violence, Tunstall
knows that he needs protection. He has to hire some tough guys from the
area. This guy is way out of his element. The way he did
business was different than Dolan and Murphy. Dolan was known to literally kill anybody
that got in his way. That's not how John Tunstall did shit. That's
not how they did stuff in England at the time. Like I said,
this was the American wild West. There were no rules. Now, while
all this inner fighting in Lincoln County, it's pretty much a merchant war.
It's referred to as account of war, but it is technically a merchant war
because in the fall of eighteen seventy seven, the house is losing a lot
of money. They are almost struggling to stay afloat at this point in time
because of the competition of Tunstall and McSween. We jump back into Billy.
This is October of eighteen seventy seven when Bill and Jesse Evans and the boys
gang ride back into Lincoln County. Now, right around in November of eighteen
seventy seven, the boys are stealing cattle from anybody that they could. They
were stealing cattle from the house side, they were stealing cattle from the Tunstall
side. They were stealing cattle from John Chisholm. They were wrestlers, they
were killers, they were trying to make a living. So Billy gets caught
stealing a couple of horses from John Tunstall. Now it is right directly around
this time, not one hundred percent sure of win, but Billie and Jesse
Evans have a little bit of a falling out. Billy ends up getting caught
stealing those horses from John Tunstall, so he ends up going to jail there
in Lincoln County. Now, while the threats of violence against John Tunstall start
growing and growing, McSween suggests that, hey, you know, maybe you
should hire some tough guys. Maybe you should hire some cowboys to help protect
your ass dude, because these guys are powerful men. They do not care.
They have local law in their pocket. So John Tunstall goes to the
Lincoln County jail and he gets Billy out, and he offers Billy a chance
to work on his ranch. His official title was a cattle guard. He
says, I'll give you a job. You can work the ranch. You
offer me protection basically as a bodyguard, and I will make sure that you
are taken care of. And he gets Billy out of jail. Now,
Billy agrees to this because this is a chance that he has really never been
given before. You got to think of what this kid has been through in
the last two three years. This guy that he has no idea who he
is is literally getting him out of jail after stealing his cattle and his horses
and giving him a job. So Billy wants to go straight. He's like,
yeah, this is a great opportunity for me to have like a real
job and not do stupid shit anymore. So he gets he gets out of
jail. Now John Tunstall gives him a horse and a rifle. There's a
good possibility this is the first gifts that Billy the Kid has ever been given
in his life. He's got to a strange guy who he literally got caught
stealing from, who is giving him a job, and all he's got to
do is offer him a little bit of protection, guards some of his cattle.
So he's just kind of thrown back by it. But because John Tunstall
gave him this opportunity, despite who he was, Billy at this point in
time just has gained so much respect. He respects John Tunstall like no other.
It's a really cool thing. It's a really cool thing to get in
depth with. Especially you know, I'm no psychologist, but you got to
put yourself in Billy's shoes right now. Billy is not the only local gun
slinger that Tunstall hires. He hires quite a few other guys as well,
because he knows some shit is about to go down now. At the same
time he's hiring all these gun slingers and guys to protect his cattle, the
House is doing the same thing. Well, what the House does is they
go and hire Jesse Evans and some of the boys gang that Billy used to
ride with to do the same thing. Be little bodyguards, offer protection pretty
much, just go and do the dirty work. So, like I had
mentioned before, Billy literally walked into a really bad situation. But he made
a friend in John Tunstall, somebody who believed in him and gave him a
chance. So he is very, very loyal to the Englishman. By February
of eighteen seventy eight, the House is losing a lot of money to Tunstall
in mcsween's other store that they had opened up. They are hurting really,
really bad. So what they do is they go to the local politicians.
And here's why the House is particularly mad at Alexander McSween at this point in
time, because Alexander McSween is the executor of a will of a deceased member
of the House. Guy by the name of Fritz. Now, Dolan and
Murphy had one hundred thousand dollars life insurance policy on this guy, and McSween
refuses to sign off to pay the house the insurance money. Now, the
House needs this money to stay afloat, so they take it to court,
and of course the court is in the House's pocket, so they side with
the house. McSween still refuses to sign off on this life insurance policy and
award the money to the house because he knows the entire court case was total
bullshit because all these dudes are still paid off. So this is when things
start getting really really hairy. On February eighteenth, eighteen seventy eight, the
kid in, some of the other ranch hands that Tunstall had hired, and
Tunstall himself are herding horses into Lincoln. This is like a whole day long
thing. Some say that there were some wild turkeys around, so Billy and
a couple of ranch hands rode off to go shoot some turkeys, and while
they were off in the distance, they see Dolan and Sheriff Brady's men.
Tunstall, who is a pretty calm and collective guy, and unfortunately he thinks
words can settle disputes in this land, and that cannot be further from the
truth. So what happens is Sheriff Brady's men, because what it was with
Sheriff Brady organized a posse. He was the main organizer to go serve warrants
to collect some of Tunstall's assets since McSween wasn't paying the hundred thousand dollars life
insurance policy. It was basically a bunch of written up, fake bullshit.
It was just a way for the house to get back at Tunstall. Well,
they go off, they go to serve these quote unquote warrants and sees
a bunch of his shit. Well Tunstall starts writing up to him. Brady's
men are quoted as saying wait till he gets a little bit closer. Now.
When Tunstall is riding towards them to try to talk to them, he
is shot one time with a rifle and knocked off his horse. At that
point in time, one of the members of the posse walks up and puts
a single shot in the back at Tunstall's head. Now, Billy and the
rest of the guys see this, and not because Billy's a coward, but
because he does have a little bit of common sense. They take off because
they know there's nothing they can do. Otherwise there's a good chance they're probably
gonna get killed too. It. Now, to add insult to injury,
what they do is they not only shoot Tunstall, but they shoot his horse
too, and they position them like they are taking a nap together, just
as a form of humiliation. They put a gun in Tunstall's hand and they
go back and say, well, he fired on us first. We had
no other choice. And of course it's the law. The Sheriff Brady organized
the posse. He had the law in their pocket. The house controlled everything,
ran everything, so there was literally nothing that these guys could do.
Now, while Tunstall is being buried, a guy named Fred Waite and a
guy named Martinez, they attempt to serve warrants to the men who murdered Tunstall,
but they are pretty quickly disarmed. They got their weapons taken from him,
and Sheriff Brady throws them in jail. Now Martinez is allowed to leave.
Billy and Fred Waite are held prisoner until after Tunstall's funeral. They are
released on February where twenty third, eighteen seventy eight, after spending a couple
days in jail, and it is said at this point, and it's unconfirmed,
but I've read this in more than one place that while standing over the
grave of John Tunstall, Billy the Kid known as William H. Bonnie at
this point in time, swears revenge on every single person that killed his friend.
Tunstall's foreman was a guy named Dick Brewer. Dick Brewer was a very
respected guy in Lincoln County at this point in time, and he was also
respected by Billy. He was a very level headed, smart guy. He
was a leader. He gets appointed constable and they have a good enough argument
to justify being able to serve warrants to have Tunstall's murderers arrested. So what
happens is Billy the Kid and a bunch of other ranch hands are deputized.
And what they do is they call themselves the Regulators, because they are going
to go and they are going to serve out their own brand of justice and
they are going to regulate this shit. Now. Some of the known members
of the Regulators are Billy the Kid, Charlie Bowdrey, Dick Brewer who was
the first leader, guy named Henry Brown, Jose Chavez, Chavez, George
Coe, Frank co who I mentioned earlier, who was one of the people
who came out and mentioned and had written about Billy's ability with the pistols,
another guy named Jim French, and then Doc Skurlocke. Now together these guys
were the ones who formed the Regulators. These are the known members. There
are some that joined up later, specifically a guy named Tom o'folliard who does
play a little bit of a role a little bit later on in the story.
And then you have another guy who joined later on by the name of
McCloskey. So within five days of the Regulators getting deputized on March sixth,
eighteen seventy eight, the Regulators arrest Bill Morton and Frank Baker. Now what
happens is a few days later, the Regulators pretty much come to the understanding
that even if they go and take them to court, there's probably nothing going
to be done about it because these guys are members of the House. They
realized that no punishment is ever going to come of this. Now, it's
often said that Billy was the one who really wanted to just straight up kill
these guys. That's totally unconfirmed. We don't know now. Like I said,
these guys really wanted to just kill Morton and Baker because they were two
of the four man posse that had gunned down Tunstall. Now, it is
said that Billy was the one who was very vocal about just shooting them right
on the spot. Now, Dick Brewer was a very level headed guy.
He is very collective. He's like, no, we're gonna do the right
thing. We're gonna take him in, they're gonna stand trial. Well,
what happens is they get about fifteen miles outside of Lincoln County and some ship
goes down. We don't exactly know what happens, but Bill Morton known as
Buck, and Frank Baker are shot down along with a guy named William McCloskey.
Now William McCloskey was a regulator, but he was also believed to be
a trader because he was very weird about a lot of his actions and the
things that he said. It is said that Billy kind of sniffed him out
a little bit. Those guys never made it back to Lincoln County. They
were shot dead. Now, even though the regulators did have warrants, they
really didn't treat him as much as warrants as they did straight up hunting licenses.
It is said that they had a kill list, that they had a
list of men that they were gonna kill that were responsible for the death of
John Tunstall, which you can take that is, you know, one way
or the other, but that is what is stated. On April first,
eighteen seventy eight, some of the members of the Regulators, who were Frank
McNabb, Jim French, Fred Waite, John Middleton, Henry Brown, and
of course Billy the Kid, they're in Lincoln and they see Sheriff Brady and
his deputies, and one of his main deputies was George Hyman. Now they
see him, and they don't see Billy and the rest of the Regulators.
So what they do is the Regulators are hanging out at John Tunstall's store and
they see the sheriff and his posse's little posse and some of his deputies like
start, you know, coming down the street or whatever. So they go
hide in the alley beside Tunstall's store, and as Sheriff Brady and the rest
of the group of his men are walking by, they unload a hail storm
of bullets on him. They shot Hyman dead right there. Several other men
were shot. Sheriff Brady himself was shot eleven times, but he did not
die. He groaned a little bit on the ground and went to sit up,
and he said, oh, he's like I've been shot. And as
soon as he moved and said he'd been shot, they unloaded another hailstorm of
bullets on this dude. They said, probably about a dozen more rounds hit
Sheriff Brady, and the Regulators know that they're more than likely their deputization has
run its course. Now, just three days later, on April fourth,
eighteen seventy eight, the Regulators end up finding another guy who was part of
that little posse, guy by the name of Buckshot Roberts, and they run
into him at a place called Blazer's Mill. Now, this huge gunfight ensues.
Dick Brewer, the leader of the Regulators, and a man that Billy
respected so much, is shot right between the eyes and killed along with Buckshot
Roberts, who also died. Now, Frank co one of the regulators,
had his trigger finger shot off, and John Middleton, also a member of
the Regulators, was wounded in that gunfight. And ironically enough, Dick Brewer
and Buckshot Roberts were buried side by side, which is weird, but that's
how it went down. A couple weeks later, on April eighteenth, eighteen
seventy eight, Billy the Kid, John Middleton, and another guy named Henry
Brown of the Regulators are indicted for the murder of Sheriff Brady. Now this
makes them wanted men like no other. Now, these guys are seriously wanted
at this point in time. And in the next month May of eighteen seventy
eight, Governor Axtel pretty much tells everyone to disarm and stop because shit is
getting way out of hand, all right. Word has gotten to the President
of the United States about the Lincoln County War that is going on right now.
So Axtel, who is under the thumb of the house, nobody takes
him seriously, Nobody listens to him. The fighting ensues. So on July
fourth, eighteen seventy eight, the regulators go to hide it Chisholm's Ranch.
John Chisholm, who if you remember earlier, he was a backer of McSween
and Tunstall, so he was a friend to them. He offered them a
place to hide out, gave him a little bit of protection. So they
hide out there for a couple of weeks until ship dies down a little bit.
On July fifteenth, eighteen seventy eight, they ride back into Lincoln.
Now what happens next is some pretty messed up stuff. Now this is referred
to as the five Day Battle for three days and nights straight. What happens
is is they are at Alexander mcsween's home in Lincoln. This is him,
and there's some of the regulators. They are found out to be there.
What's suspected is that somehow they got coaxed into going there, that it was
some kind of a trap. Now what happens is the new sheriff, Sheriff
Pippen, shows up and surrounds the house. But he is not alone.
He shows up with the United States Cavalry led by Colonel Dudley. This is
no bullshit. They have this entire house surrounded. You got McSween, You
have mcsween's wife, Susan, and you have their two kids in the house
along with some of the regulators. And what the cavalry and the sheriff do
is they set the house on fire to smoke them out. Now this fire
is burning very very slowly doesn't get torched right away. Well, this is
towards the end of the standoff, and on July nineteenth, just four days
after the initial gunfight started, and on a side and hope this is really
really cool. Susan McSween did survive this, and she probably survived this because
of Billy himself. She goes on to talk later years about Billy's personality and
says, he's literally one of the sweetest guys she had ever met. She's
like the way he was portrayed in later books and by a lot of historians
wasn't right. She's like, he was one of the nicest, most honest,
loyal guys you could ever meet. But she goes on to tell a
story that she had a grand piano in the house and Billy knew that she
loved this piano. So as the house is burning down room by room,
Billy and a couple other regulators kept moving this piano from room to room so
that it would not get damaged by the fire, which I thought was a
really really cool story. And I'm going to take that as fact because that
is something that Susan McSween did say, Like I had said on on the
fourth day of this standoff, on July nineteenth, eighteen seventy eight, it
all comes to a head. They need to get out of this house bad.
But above all else, Billy is very vocal on the fact that Susan
and the kids need to get out of this house. They do not need
to be in here. He doesn't care about himself. During the standoff,
Alex McSween, Francisco Zamora, and Harvey Morris are all killed on the Regulator's
side. Now on the Dolan side, a guy named Robert Beckwith is killed.
And what ends up happening how Billy gets away is he calls for four
volunteers. And I'm gonna tell you right now, anybody that says Billy the
kid was a coward has no idea what they were talking about. This dude
had balls of steel. He straight up as for four volunteers with him to
be decoys so that Susan McSween and the kids can get out of this house.
And I shit you not. While this house is burning to the ground,
surrounded by US cavalry and a shitload of Sheriff's deputies, they've come out
the back door firing, and what they walk into is a hailstorm of bullets.
There were three people on the regulator side that did lose their life,
alex McSween being one of them. How Billy got out of this alive is
beyond me. It's nothing short of amazing. But Billy did get out,
Susan mcsweene and the kids did end up living as well. Now Billy does
end up escaping. He goes down the riverbed up the other side and is
pretty much gone. Now, to put this into perspective for you, Alexander
McSween when he came out of that house was shot more than a hundred times.
Just to put that into perspective, he was riddled with more than a
hundred rounds. Billy and the other four decoys, Billy especially was not even
grazed. Now, Billy does decide to get out of Dodge for a while.
He goes to Texas where he's stolen some horses, and they are,
you know, selling him to some dudes in Texas. Not much as really
going on. On September fourth of eighteen seventy eight, Governor Axtel is removed
from office and replaced by a guy named Lou Wallace. Now, a little
history lesson for you. Governor Lou Wallace was an Indiana guy. He was
a pretty shrewd guy. Lou Wallace takes control of Lincoln County and that entire
territory at this point in time. From this point on, the House also
knows, oh shit, we don't have this dude paid off or anything.
So maybe, you know, we need to start thinking a little bit of
shit. So while he gets appointed new governor right around the end of September
in eighteen seventy eight, it is said on a side note that another gang
referred to as the Wrestlers come through Lincoln County and they're led by a man
named John Selman. Now what they start doing is stealing livestock robbery. They
kill any man or boy who gets in their way, along with raping women.
Now in early October, Billy is still in Texas selling some horses that
he had previously stolen. But he decides in about November to come back to
Lincoln. Now, on November thirteenth, eighteen seventy eight, Governor Wallace issues
a proclamation of amnesty for all parties involved in the Lincoln County War. Now
what this means is that any person that had not formally been indicted on charges
could come forward and be issued a pardon as long as all of the fighting
stopped. Because of the murder of Sheriff Brady, Billy is exempt from this
and he knows that. So the kid ends up returning to Lincoln County in
early December of eighteen seventy eight. He's tired of running, he's tired of
the bullshit. Even though he's good at living on the lamb, he kind
of wants to make peace. So what he does is he writes a letter
to his old gang buddy Jesse Evans, and he kind of wants a truce.
He writes a truce and they accept the offer. So on February eighteenth
of eighteen seventy nine, the kid meets up with Evans in Lincoln and they
literally write up a contract for a truce. Now this is literally Dolan is
involved in this as well. Peace treaty ends up getting formed like they literally
lined up on each wall of the street, came together, shook hands,
put their guns away, and a truce was formed. This truth does not
last very long because they're in a bar drinking later that night. Along with
this truce is Susan mcsween's attorney, a guy by the name of Houston Chapman.
They're all drinking, having a good time in the saloon and Jesse Evans
and some of the other boys are harassing Houston Chapman, the attorney, And
what happens is James Dolan ends up shooting him and killing him right there on
the spot. Now, after this, Billy is like, you know what
this like, There's no way we're gonna end up being able to form any
kind of true side of this, So he gets out of dodge. Now.
About a month later, on March thirteenth, eighteen seventy nine, the
Kid ends up writing in one of his first letters to Governor lou Wallace,
and he states that he'll be willing to surrender and testify against Chapman's killers and
Tunstall's killers for a pardon. Now, by doing this, he totally breaks
the truce that was formed by Evans and Dolan and the regulators. And by
breaking this truce this is punishable by death. Now, the Governor on March
fifteenth, eighteen seventy nine, just two days later, writes Billy the Kid
back, telling them that he would like to meet with him to discuss the
terms. And it's really cool because at the end of this letter, Governor
Wallace says, and I quote, if you can trust Jesse Evans, you
can trust me. So another couple days later, on March seventeenth, eighteen
seventy nine, the kid and the governor meet and an arrangement is made.
And what it is is Governor Lou Wallace wants to take him in for a
fake arrest. Now while this is going on, he would come in,
he would testify in court against Dolan, Jesse Evans, and Colonel Dudley,
and he would be pardoned. Now, like I said, Arnold Dudley was
a cavalry officer who was involved in killing a couple of innocent people, the
main one being Alex McSween. And obviously we know of Dolan and we do
know of Jesse Evans. So what happens a few days later on March twenty
first, what's supposed to happen is they are going to be quote unquote fake
arrested and they are going to go into voluntary confinement. And this is kind
of for their own protection. Now, Billy knows that if something went wrong,
he was pretty much writing his own death worrd at this point in time,
because he is testifying against these guys, he's breaking the truth. I
mean seriously, like, these guys are not people to turn your back on.
You cannot trust him whatsoever. So on March twenty first, Billy the
Kid and one of the regulators, Tom o'folliard, are arrested and brought to
Lincoln. On April fourteenth, just about three weeks later, on eighteen seventy
nine, the Kid testifies in court against Chapman's murderers, which would have been
Dolan and Jesse Evans. And then just another two weeks later, on May
twenty eighth of the same year, the Kid goes on to testify against Colonel
Dudley for his involvement in the siege of the McSween home. Now, as
you can imagine, these guys were not found guilty. Absolutely none of them
were found guilty. Because even though Governor lou Wallace is not on the take
of the house, the judge and the politicians still are. So these guys
are found innocent. It was either innocent or a mistrial I cannot remember specifically.
So Billy never really gets his pardon. What happens is the judge in
the case ignores the governor's pardon and keeps Billy can find. Now he's sitting
in jail voluntarily for three months, Billy keeps writing him letters, you know,
saying, Hey, you know, we need to talk about the pardon.
I feel like i'm you know, you're pretty much screwing me over to
put it into context, you know, on June seventeenth, eighteen seventy nine,
Billy simply got up and walked out of jail and wrote off and by
October of eighteen seventy nine he goes back to doing what he does best,
living on the lamb and rustling, and the kid lives pretty quietly for the
next couple of months until January tenth of eighteen eighty a drunk guy in Fort
Sumner because this is where Billy's at. The people of Fort Sumner offered Billy
a lot of protection. They hid him whenever he needed it because these were
his people. Billy spoke fluent Spanish, and at this point in time,
he also had himself a little girlfriend by the name of Paulina Maxwell. And
these people around Fort Sumner loved him. He was pretty much their hero.
And the reason that he was their hero is because he was a one man
army against an entire corrupt political situation that we're screwing all of these people over.
They loved him, They gave him whatever he wanted, They offered him
protection when they needed it. So this was his safe place. So on
January tenth, eighteen eighty, there's some drunk guy hanging out Fort Sumner named
Joe Grant. Now Joe Grant is supposedly a bounty hunter and he is on
the hunt for Billy the kid. Well, Billy knows this all right,
now, he doesn't know what Billy looks like or anything like that. The
way the story goes is that Billy just kind of asks him to see his
gun, and what he does is he takes his gun and kind of moves
the chamber. Because what you did with a six shooter is you've kept one
chamber empty. That way your pistol would misfire. You know, these weren't
the greatest weapons on earth, even though they were seriously reliable. Well,
what Billy does is he adjust sit to where that empty chamber is the next
one out. He pretty much just to starts a fight with old Joe Grant
here Now, when Billy turns his back, he hears the gun go click,
and at that point in time, Billy turns around, puts his pistol
under Joe Grant's chin, and pulls the trigger three times. How much of
that is truth, We're not too sure. I've heard anywhere from one time
he shot him to three times. But Billy did definitely kill that dude.
And he goes back to doing the same ship that he's always been doing.
You know, he's just hanging out for almost a year there in Fort Sumter.
On October sixth, in eighteen eighty, the kid is really getting tired
of living outside the law. He's tired of dodging laws, tired of being
on the lamb. And he writes to a guy named Ira Leonard, who
is a lawyer, and he's saying that he wants to try straightening things out
again with Governor Wallace. Now. He agrees to meet him in White Oaks
within a week. Unfortunately, it takes Billy six weeks to get there,
so Ira Leonard tells him to screw off. The deal is off. Now.
About a month later, on November second, eighteen eighty, Governor Lew
Wallace gets a hold of a guy named Pat Garrett. Pat Garrett is officially
elected sheriff of Lincoln County. And how this happens is Billy is running around
Fort Sumner. If you remember John Chisholm, Billy starts stealing his cattle.
I'm not exactly sure why, because he had a lot of it. There
is probably hard to keep track of. But Billy starts stealing John Chisholm's cattle.
Now, John Chisholm was supposed to be a friend. So Chisholm is
like, listen, this little asshole needs to be dealt with. So what
Chisholm does is he backs Pat Garrett as sheriff. And with backing like that,
you can almost guarantee that Pat Garrett was not going to lose that election.
Now, the stipulation was is that Pat Garrett's first order of business had
to be to eliminate the man known as Billy the kid. You know that
was supposed to be his main order of business. Now, before we go
any further, I do have to take a break. I gotta play a
couple commercials here real quick. I gotta go grab another beer. So you
guys sit tight for about roughly a minute to a minute and a half.
Go refill your drinks. I'll be right back, all right. So to
give you guys a little bit of history on Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett.
Yes, there was a previous friendship there. The extent of it is
not really too well known, but they did ride together and they were friends.
But the extent of their relationship is in Lincoln County. Pat Garrett was
a bartender at a saloon that Billy the Kid used to frequent all the time.
Now, they ended up hanging out for about a year. They were
supposedly really good friends. They actually gave each other nicknames. Pat Garrett was
known as Big Casino. Billy the Kid was known as the Little Casino.
And the reason they got these nicknames is because Pat Garrett was a linky ass
six foot four dude. Billy the Kid full grown, was about five foot
seven, no more than one hundred and forty pounds, soaking wet. So
they gave each other those nicknames. Another set of nicknames. After Pat Garrett
became sheriff, Pat Garrett used to refer to him as a little asshole.
Billy the Kid used to call him the old woman. So while Billy is
in white Oaks. Like I said, he shows up six weeks late for
his meet up with the lawyer Ira Leonard. While he's there, Apostle,
he finds out that he's there, and they surround him at this place called
a Great House Ranch. Now, during this little standoff, a guy named
James Carlyle, who was a deputy, is said to have been killed by
his own men. Now, Billy did get blamed for this murder, and
a lot of the people involved on Billy's side do say Billy didn't do this.
This guy was not killed by him. A lot of the posse after
James Carlyle did die pretty much disbanded, they took off, which would honestly
lead you to believe that it is a good possibility that that he was killed
by his own men. Now, later on, Billy would go on to
say, quote, there's more about the killing than people known, which means
there's a lot of shit going on to where you know, you guys just
don't understand what exactly happened. And that's true. Nobody knows. Now.
This happened on November twenty seventh of eighteen eighty, all right about three weeks
after Pat Garrett gets elected Sheriff. Now, on December twelfth, eighteen eighty,
the kid rights Governor Wallace again. This time he's pleading for his innocence
and concerning the death of Deputy Carlyle and some of his rustling activities in the
territory. Because Billy is really kept pretty quiet up until this point, you
know, and Governor Wallace pretty much ignores him, he does not write him
back. So on December fourteenth, eighteen eighty, Sheriff Garrett finds out that
Billy the Kid more than likely is in back in Fort Sumner, and he
forms a posse and they start to hunt for Billy the Kid. Now,
around December fourteenth, eighteen eighty, Pat Garrett and a posse began the official
hunt for Billy the Kid. He hears word that he might be in Fort
Sumner and he's like, well, shit, I know people there. My
wife is from Fort Sumner, so we should have no problem tracking him down.
And the very next day, Governor lou Wallace puts out a five hundred
dollar reward for the kids. Capture a little bit of background on Pat Garrett,
you know a lot of his history aside, Pat Garrett is a pretty
bad compulsive gambler. He's always losing money, he's always in debt. So
he sees his five hundred bucks and he's all about it. So on December
nineteenth, eighteen eighty, they're in Fort Sumner and Pat Garrett and his men
are stationed out there. Okay, now just imagine this picture of this for
one minute. It's a full moon outside, it's dark out, there's about
three inches of crisp snow on the ground, and you see this gang down
the side of this hill, single file. And Pat Garrett's like, I
know this is the kid. I know he's got to be leading these guys.
So he's sick. First posse to start shooting, and they start shooting.
The only person that gets hit is a guy named Tomo Folliard, who
is a member of the Regulators. Now they pretty much see the extent of
the damage if Tomo Folliard and they keep going, they pretty much leave him
for dead. Now the other Regulators escape. Pat Garrett and his posse are
like, shit, you know, we didn't kill him. We killed the
wrong guy. Now. A few days later, about four days later,
on December twenty third, eighteen eighty, they end up tracking Billy the kid
and his gang to this tiny little rock hut basically right around a place called
Stinking Springs. Now what happens here is Pat Garrett is like, listen,
wet up. The first time we shot the wrong guy. I know Billy,
the kid, I know what he looks like, I know what he
wears. You wait for my signal so we don't make another mistake. And
what happens is Charlie Bowdre comes out the front. Billy had a very specific
hat that he used to war. He used to wore this um like smaller
size some brero with like a green band around the head part of it.
Well, it just so happens that Charlie Bowdre was wearing the same type of
hat. And he comes out and they think it's the kid. So Pat
Garrett gives the order to fire. He gives a signal, and they shoot
Charlie Bowdre down. Now this is after a little bit of a standoff.
They had a standoff for probably a good day. And the whole time,
Billy's just taunting Pat Garrett. I'm not even gonna bullshit you. He knows
that if he walks out of there, he's either getting killed or he's getting
taken back to Lincoln charged with murder and gonna be hanged, But he's sitting
there fucking around with Pat Garrett just blowing him shit. After the death of
Charlie Bowdre, which really affected Billy the Kid because think about it this way,
the only people in Billy the Kid's life that ever showed him respect,
where ever cared about him for that matter, where his mother, John Tunstall,
Dick Brewer, McSween, Charlie Bowdrey, and Tomo Filliard. They've all
been killed. Billy has pretty much nothing, so after a little while,
he does end up surrendering. Now, in between this time of Christmas of
eighteen eighty and at about March twenty eighth of eighteen eighty one, Billy the
Kid is being transported for trial, and this whole time he's writing letters to
Governor Lew Wallace again, and at one point he even threatens to expose the
letters that Governor Lew Wallace had written him two years earlier about the pardon that
he was promised that he was never given. Billy is really really frustrated at
this point in time, because he he could trust this guy. He literally
promised him a pardon if he testified against all these people and he did not
follow through with it, Billy put his life on the line. And I
know some of you are sitting there like, the dude's a stone cold killer,
you know what. Yeah, he is. But when you're promised a
pardon to testify against people that will literally shoot you in the face as soon
as you walk out of the courtroom, that's kind of not right, you
know what I mean. That's not how the government when they offer you a
pardon, is not supposed to work that way. Now, what happens is
he knows that he's running out of time and he's on thin ice. So
on March thirtieth and eighteen eighty one, the kids first trial for killing Buckshot
Roberts goes ahead and commences. About seven days later, the case is dismissed
due to a technicality. Now two days after that, on April eighth,
eighteen eighty one, the kids se trial commences for the killing of Sheriff Brady.
The very next day, on April ninth, eighteen eighty one, the
kid has found guilty of first degree murder and his sentence to death by hanging.
Now, think about this for a second. Out of all the people
involved and the Lincoln County War, the one guy on the losing side who
was involved in every single little gunfight is the only person to have ever been
convicted of any crimes involved in the Lincoln County Wars. Everybody else that were
actually tried in a court of law, we're all acquitted or pardoned. Does
that seem fair to you, because it honestly does not seem very fair to
me. During the Lincoln County War, roughly seventy five to eighty people died,
and Billy the Kid was the only person who was convicted and given a
sentence. That right there is pretty fed up if you ask me. Now,
Billy the Kid is sentenced to hang on May thirteenth, between the hours
of nine am and three pm. Now he is sentenced on April thirteenth of
eighteen eighty one, so he knows he's roughly got about a month to live.
Now. On April twenty first of eighteen eighty one, the Kid arrives
back in Lincoln and is jailed in the local courthouse. Now, while he's
there, he's jailed by two local deputies, one of which being J.
W. Bell and the other one being a guy named Bob Ollinger. Now,
the whole time Billy is in jail, he's waiting to be hanged.
Pat Garrett is pretty much out of town at this point in time. He
is the only sheriff in the county, so he's out doing other shit.
He's collecting taxes and he's also collecting wood to build the gallows for Billy the
kid his at one point in time. Friend. So what happens is while
he's in jail, the whole time, this guy, Bob Ollinger, just
keeps harassing the shit out of him. While he's confined, Bob Ollinger keeps
telling him, Hey, I got this brand new shotgun. He's sitting there
cleaning this shotgun, just looking at Billy the Kid, literally begging him to
try to escape. He's like, please, please escape. I got this
brand new shotgun. I want to use it on you. He's like,
I want to kill you so bad. And Billy the Kid literally is just
not even really phased by it for some odd reason. And Billy the Kid's
brain if he's pretty much gotten out of any situation imaginable. He's escaped from
jail numerous times. He's walked away from gunfights, unscathed. So he's always
an optimist. He's always got it in the back of his mind, like
I will get out of this, I will away. So what happens is
Bob Ollinger puts his shotgun in the arsenal and he takes a couple other prisoners
over across the street to the restaurant to get some dinner for the night.
Now this is about right around six pm, I believe. So he's gone
and J. W. Bell is a younger deputy and he's tasked with guarding
Billy the kid. Now, the next events are not exactly known. There's
two different stories, one of which being Billy asks to go to the bathroom,
which would be outside in the outhouse. Now, one story goes is
that a local sympathizer because these people still did not like the house at all,
hit a gun in the outhouse for him to break out a jail with.
And while he was in the outhouse, he managed to get one of
his shackles off his hands. Now, historically, you know what you see
in the movie Young Guns is pretty fin right. He had big risks and
very small girly hands. So this dude was able to slip out of shackles
fairly easily, all right. So while he's in the outhouse, somebody either
planted the gun, we don't know, but we do know that he manages
to get one of his hands out of the shackles. Now, the other
part of the story is is that he does go to the outhouse, gets
his hand out of the shackles. But while he gets back into the jail,
the other half of the story is that he literally takes JW. Bell's
gun out of his holster and uses it on him. Now, JW.
Bell is shot through the chest and the hole goes right through him into the
wall. There is also another part of the story that says Billy kind of
fired like a like a warning shot to JW. Bell and the bullet ricochet
and hit him in the chest. Personally, that one is not very believable.
It is one of the other stories out there. The local people hear
the gunshot, and the first thing that they think is that Bell shot the
kid. While Bob Ollinger is coming across the street from the restaurant, JW.
Bell is stumbling out the front door of the courthouse and he falls face
down dead right there on the street. Now, there was a witness at
the scene, guy by the last name of Goss. Now what he says
is that Bob Ollinger comes walking across the street after he shot Bell. Billy
the Kid goes and he gets that shotgun from the arsenal that Bob Bollinger was
taunting him with, and he sits on the second story where his cell is
and just crouches down below the window. And as Bob Islinger's walking across the
street, he sees JW. Bell fall flat face in the middle of the
street dead. Now, this guy Goss goes on to say, and he
was a witness. Bob Islinger's like, what the hell happened? You know,
did Bell shoot the kid? This other guy comes forward and says,
no, he shot Bill. He shot shot the deputy. Right about then
Bob Ollinger sees Billy the Kid pop up from the second story window. He
hangs the shotgun out the window, looks at Bob, points that double barrel
shotgun right at him and says hello, Bob. And at that point Bob
says, well, shitty just killed me too. Billy the Kid pulls the
trigger puts eighteen buckshot in Bob Ollinger's chest and face. He falls flat dead
about this point in time, obviously, the people in town are shit in
their pants, are like, what in the hell's going on? Billy the
Kid's about to go free. Billy the Kid steps out onto the second floor
balcony outside the courthouse and he proceeds to address the people standing out there and
he explains, Hey, I had to do this. You guys don't understand
that I was ust to pardon that was never given to me. I'm not
supposed to be in this situation. I was never supposed to be put on
trial. So as long as you guys just let me do my thing and
let me go, we will not have any problems. But I do need
a horse. So he has one of the local guys get him a horse,
and while he's doing that, he packs up two pistols, a Winchester
rifle, and a shitload of ammo. Now he tells the guy who he
got the horse from. He literally tells him I will make sure this horse
makes it back here. He's like, I only need to borrow this.
I'm not going to steal it. And ironically enough, a couple of days
later, that horse does show back up in Lincoln County with a rope,
the rope still around its neck. It's not really known whether Billy the kids
sent it back or if he fell off the horse and then the horse came
back. But that's just a little side fact right there. There's no turning
back for Billy. There's a cool little story, you know, that one
of the local guys goes to reach for his pistol while Billy's up there on
his balcony, and his wife looks at him and he's like, no,
dude, no, that's Billy the kid. You're not getting shot down.
Get your damn hand off your six shooter. So they let him ride off,
and at this point in time, there's no turning back for Billy.
He is just shot two cops and he is on the run. Now at
this point, everybody thinks Billy's got to be heading to Mexico. He has
at least a day or two heads start on Pat Garrett. So Pat Garrett
really doesn't proceed to look for him, because anybody in their right mind knows
Billy's not gonna stick around. He's going to Mexico and you're never gonna see
him again, because don't ever forget Billy spoke fluent Spanish. He was protected
by the Mexicans, by the Hispanics down there because he was revered as a
hero. He could have gotten away so easily, but he didn't. He
goes right back to Fort Sumner. He ends up going north. There are
a couple suggestions of why he did not go to Mexico, but one of
them is because of Paul to Maxwell, Billy the kid was supposedly pretty madly
in love with this woman. And let's be real, Billy is twenty one
years old at this point in time. He's still a kid. But instead
of going to Mexico, he goes back to Fort Sumner. So on April
twenty eighth, eighteen eighty one, Billy escapes. There's a lot of rumors
about Billy being in Fort Sumner. Pat Garrett keeps hearing these rumors, but
he's not really paying any attention to him until a lot of people start blowing
him a bunch of shit, saying, oh, man, you know,
you know, we all know where he is. He's back at Fort Sumner.
There's reports of him being around there. We have people saying that he's
there, you know, and they start telling Pat Garrett that, oh,
you must be scared of him. That's why you're not going to get him,
because you must be scared of Billy the Kid. So Pat Garrett does
end up going to Fort Sumner with a few deputies to look for Billy the
Kid, and on July fourteenth, eighteen eighty one, one night, Billy
the Kid is in Fort Sumner. Now Pat Garrett gets there before him.
He meets up with a guy named Pete Maxwell, who is the older brother
of Paul. To Maxwell, Pete is pretty much offering him a lot of
information. Now, what it said is Billy comes into town and he's pretty
much looking for some food. He had been out on the trail for a
couple of days at this point, from what I understand, and he's looking
for some food and somebody directs him over to Pete Maxwell's house, saying,
oh, he just kills some cattle. He's got some of beef hanging up.
You know, you can go over there and get some fresh meat.
So Billy the Kid goes over there. Now he goes over to Pete's house
and he notices that it's all dark inside Pete Maxwell's house. Now Pat Garrett
and Pete Maxwell are in his bedroom, are in Pete Maxwell's bedroom. Pat
Garrett and Pete Maxwell are in Pete's bedroom talking about Billy the Kid where he's
been when he's coming back, and they hear it. They hear a voice
going Guiness, Guinness because Billy shows up at this door and he can't tell
who's inside it, and all Pete Maxwell and Pat Garrett can sees a silhouette
of a man pretty much shrouded by the moonlight that should be known, and
even Pat Garrett says that in his book that they could not see exactly who
it was because all they saw was a silhouette. Well, Pat Garrett is
sitting kind of on his holster, pulls out his gun. Fires one round,
hits Billy right above the heart. Second round he fires, Missus goes
into the wall. Billy the Kid drops dead right there where he stood.
It is still debated to this day whether or not Billy the Kid actually had
a weapon in his hand. Some say that he did have his pistol out.
Others say that it was a knife in his hand because Billy walked up
to this door not wanting to shoot a friend, So a lot of people
say that he actually did holster his pistol and had a knife in his hand
instead, because he didn't know who was in this room. Now, obviously,
about a year later, Pat Garrett co authors a book called The Authentic
Life of Billy the Kid. Now, if you think about this for a
second, how would you like it if your murderer got to write your biography.
They could literally say whatever they wanted to about you, stretch the truth,
make themselves look a lot better. Now, this is pretty much where
the story of William H. Bonnie ends, in the legend of Billy the
Kid begins. Now, you'll hear a lot of people say, well,
there's a lot of rumors flying around that maybe Billy the Kid wasn't shot that
night, Maybe it was somebody else. Maybe it was Billy's good friend,
guy named Billy Barlow, who looked exactly like him. A lot of the
locals said that Billy's body had a darker complexion than what he had actually looked
like, suggesting that maybe it was a local from that area he was shot
and not Billy. Because there's a lot of speculation out there that says that
was not Billy the Kid that died that night, And as a matter of
fact, the first deputy of Pat Garrett's that ran up and saw the body
and says, you shot Billy the kid. You shot Billy the kid.
After he runs up to the body, he says, that's not Billy the
kid. You shot the wrong guy. Now, this deputy ended up writing
some memoirs not too long after that about his life, and he would claim
that Pat Garrett shot the wrong guy until the day he died. Is there
motivation for Pat Garrett to claim that he shot Billy the kid, collect reward
money and tell Billy to get the scout of town if you even talked to
Billy. Yeah, there is a lot of motivation there. Pat Garrett wasn't
dead up to his eyeballs. He was a compulsive gambler. That five hundred
dollars reward and sales from a book would have gone a long way for Pat
Garrett. M hm hm planet. I haven't a minute minute of mantle Planet.
I have a minute and minute a minute of