Is Billy The Kid Really Dead?
87Billy The Kid
Billy the Kid reportedly killed 21 men, one for every year of his young life.“The Kid” was born William Bonney in New York City in 1859. He fought against rich ranchers in the Lincoln County Cattle War in New Mexico, and was given a death sentence for killing Sheriff William Brady.
Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett was eager to collect the $500 dollar bounty on Billy the Kid. In July of 1881, he tracked down Billy in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, and killed him.
History tells us that Billy was buried the following day in a simple grave. But is Really True??
Some people say that history is wrong,that Billy wasn’t the man in the grave. Sixty-eight years after Billy’s death, a man from Texas, named “Brushy Bill” Roberts, claimed he was Billy the Kid.There is evidence to support his claim…
It all started in 1948, when an attorney named William Morrison was told that Billy the Kid might not have died in 1881. A client said he had actually fought Billy the Kid in the Lincoln County Wars and that the Kid was still alive. Morrison was so intrigued that he decided to do some investigating. He traveled throughout the West talking to other old timers about Billy the Kid, and he discovered that many thought that Billy was still alive. They said he was going by the name of “Brushy” Bill Roberts. Finally, in 1949, Morrison made the trip to Hico, Texas, to confront Brushy Bill in person. He wanted to ask Brushy if the rumors were true. According to William Tunstill, Brushy was at first hesitant:
“We must keep in mind that this man did not seek publicity, he did not seek to come out from seclusion, he was drawn out.”
Brushy Bill finally admitted that he was, in fact, Billy the Kid, and asked Morrison to help him get the official pardon that New Mexico’s governor had promised him back in 1879. But Morrison wanted proof that he was famous outlaw. Brushy Bill showed Morrison his scars, all of which matched the wounds received by the Kid during his time as an outlaw. To further convince him, “Brushy Bill” took William Morrison on a guided tour of some of Billy’s former haunts in LincolnCounty. Morrison died in 1976, but his daughter, Barbara Kuchler, remembered her father’s trip:
“Brushy Bill would give incidents that only someone that was actually involved in the LincolnCounty War would have known. My father was convinced that this man was… Billy the Kid.”
What really happened on the night the Kid was supposedly killed?
According to Brushy Bill, on the night of the shooting, he was with his girlfriend, Celsa, and his partner Billy Barlow, at Jesus Silva’s house. Unknown to the Kid, Garrett and his posse were waiting for him across the yard. When Garrett opened fire, one of the first shots struck Barlow. The shots that followed struck the Kid in the head and shoulder. He passed out from the pain and woke up the following morning under the care of Celsa. She informed him that Barlow had been killed and was being buried in Billy’s place.
According to William Tunstill, Pat Garrett knew he killed the wrong man:
“In a normal procedure, the sheriff would have brought the corpse to a place for anyone to witness. He would have demonstrated his guns, his clothing, his boots, his rifle. Pat Garrett did not follow that procedure. He took every precaution to conceal the identity of the corpse.”
By 1950, William Morrison felt he had enough evidence to request a pardon from Governor Mabry of New Mexico. The Governor agreed ,but the meeting turned into a press circus. Brushy Bill was 90 years old at the time and was confused and scared by the crowd of reporters.
Morrison’s legal arguments and affidavits were not even entered into evidence. Brushy Bill felt he had been humiliated,his pardon was not granted. Shortly after the meeting with Governor Mabry, Brushy Bill suffered a heart attack and died on a street in Hico, Texas.
Was Brushy Bill Roberts the notorious outlaw, Billy the Kid? His friends and neighbors believe so and have even erected a memorial in his honor which reads, “…he spent the last days of his life trying to prove to the world his true identity. We believe his story and pray to God for the forgiveness he solemnly asked for.”
The Kid
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brushy may have been the kid
I don't believe he was Billy the Kid. If you look closely at the pictures of Billy and Brushy Bill, look at the jawline. Billy's jaw almost came to a point, while Brushy Bill's jaw was definately square and much wider than the real Billy the Kid. If Billy the Kid wasn't killed by Pat Garrett, I believe more that John Miller was Billy the Kid rather than Brushy Bill...
Didnt Roberts say he rode with the James Gang as well? How could that be? lets look at facts,look with you eyes and not with the hart.
I do not think Bushy Bill was Billy the Kid for the following reasons:
A. In comparing head shot photos of each when Billy was 21 and Brushy was 27, they look nothing alike.
B. In comparing full length body photos, Billy's feet are much bigger. Feet do not shrink with age.
C. Billy's and Brushy's hand writing are different.
Billy's was better educated and wrote in a more flamboyant cursive style.
Both men were exactly the same size and had the same narrow shoulders and so I think it reasonable to assume that many
people may have mistaken Bushy for Billy. Bushy, being a lonely old man and looking for attention, played this to his advantage. It got him respect, noterity, money, friends and women (women fall for any slick lie) and he did this so long that he may have actually started to believe his own lie.
I'm not an expert, but then who really is? My gut feeling says Brushy was a liar. Just my opinion having studied the Billy the Kid saga for 10 years.
I have being studying Billy the kid for the last 2 years and I have compiled a significant amount of information. A lot of the information we read about billy the kid is infect true but it is not explained properly. We learn that through time in history information is lost and too replace this missing information some historians fill in these gaps with miss leading information.
These are the facts we need to look at we can not prove that brushy Bill Roberts was or was not Billy the kid
1. Pictures can indicate only a minute amount of information for instance, there was a reference made about the structure of Billy the kids Jaw line a picture at 21 will be different to a picture at 27 years of age as bone does not stop developing till you are 25.
2. the scars on brushy bill are said to be the same on Billy the kids body proof, one mans word this is not enough
3. Brushy bill fights for a pardon Billy the kid was promised in 1878 why. Not for women(he was 90 years of age) money, maybe, but who would pay him he was giving his story away for free so he couldn’t get money from that, maybe it was attention an old man with little time left and lonely just wanted someone to talk to.
There are 2 ways of finding out the real truth
Investigate brushy bill Roberts not Billy the kid after doing this then compeer the information you get from bushy bill Roberts to Billy the kid
Dig up the bodies of Roberts, Catharine (bills mother) and the body that lies in Billy the kids grave and compeer d. n. a. , I know this seem a bit unorthodox but if there is truth to be got believe me this is the only way you will get
i think he was telling the truth because if the shooter claimed that he shot the wrong man then he probally really is alive . also who would lie about being billy the kid i mean who would want to get targeted because every body wanted to kill billy the kid so why would he want to die i beleive thst billy the kid lived.
I'm billy the kid =/
The truth is we will never know. If Bushy Bill was or was not the Kid... they will never find out it as been to long.. an the just dont want you to know.. cause if the truth came out that would proved they lied about the story that Garrett told... so i just go on what i feel in my heart..I thing Bushy Bill was Billy the Kid!!!!!
maybe ,maybe bill robrets was billy the kid, but we must sometimes look deep into what is fact and what which is sometimes hard to determan which, sometimes we just have to have faith in storys we hear and let the legends of a misdescibed outlaw live on.
"Billy the Kid" is the subject of my research paper for my senior college west class. He was born Henry McCarty not William Bonney and the William Tunstill you refer to.. I can't find any mention of him. Maybe you're thinking of John Tunstall? Anyways without knowing where you got this information and seeing how some of it is most definitely wrong...I have to say I don't think that "Brushy" Bill was "Billy the Kid".
Whether Bushy Bill was Billy the Kid, or not, is not the question to me! Why didn't Pat Garrett bring back some kid of proof the man he shot was Billy the Kid? I guess I always thought he could have took the body to the nearest town and had it photographed, or something! It seemed that other famous outlaws were at least photographed after being killed for proof of their death but, nothing to prove his death was ever brought forward. Maybe Pat Garrett really did kill the wrong man!
Brushy wasn't Billy the kid, That doesn't mean that Pat Garrett didn't shoot the wrong man though....
Interesting story! Thanks!
Fact is, he could very well have been the kid. The government or the law have never been noted for telling everyone the truth. They lie all the time. They may want to keep it this way because if they admit it, then they were wrong, and we all know they hate being wrong. especially in the socialist communist standards they want to impose on us today. John dillenger also had blue eyes but the man they shot as him had brown. eye color doesnt change either, so it would appear he got away as well. Whos kidding who.
If you'd like to view an in depth study of Brushy and learn why I believe beyond the shadow of a doubt he was Billy, visit the website. The apparent jawline difference means nothing. It is a comparison of teenage Billy with 90 year old Brushy with no teeth in his mouth. Everyone's face widens as they get older. Brushy knew things he absolutely could not have known unless he was there. Research the facts and you'll see why I am so convinced.
My great grandmother's brother was the real Billy the Kid. It has been a family secret until my grandmother passed away. We have a picture of him when he was about 12 years old sitting on a stoop in Brooklyn, NY where he and our family lived. He was not killed by Pat Garret. Pat Garrett was his friend. He came secretly back to Brooklyn and eventually died in a bar room brawl over a prostitute.
i WANT TO PLAY HIS CHARACTER IN A MOVIE!
I first heard about Brushy when I was a kid back in the '70s. I thought his story was a buncha bull back then, and continued to think it until about a week ago. A week back, I'd been reading about the Lincoln County war, and out of sheer boredom basically, decided to take the Kid's famous picture and Brushy's from his thirties, into my paint shop and compare them for myself. No one was more shocked than I was when they lined up. I found a full body of an older Brushy, flipped it, and overlaid it with Billy's. Same thing. Like a glove. Now I don't know what to think. It doesn't prove he was Billy, but it just seems weird to me the way their photos lined up. I also think it's compelling that apparently it was the Kid's old enemy Jesse Evans that turned Morrison onto Brushy. Kinda humorous. Of course, Evans would know where the Kid was...at all times. Also, in regards to Jesse James, he reportedly tried to recruit the Kid for his new gang after the Northfield raid. They're supposed to have met in Las Vegas, New Mexico and talked about it, but reportedly the kid turned him down, so there's your Billy the Kid, Jesse James connection.
Brush bill was deffenly bill the kid
Just do a DNA..on Billy The Kids body and his mothers...bottom line that will settle the score if Brushy Bill was the "Real Billy The Kid "
i think pat garrett killed billy the kid
There are a lot of problems w/ the billy the kid story. The biggest in my opinion is the 1880 census. It has 25 y.o. William Bonney from MO. and parents born in MO. living w/Charlie Bowdre and 21 y.o. William H Mcarty, parents both born in Ireland living next door to brother Joe Mcarty.
Why did the kid ask for a pardon for Willian Bonney if his real name was Mcarty?
John Miller is a better match than Brushey. He fits the profile much better. Billy was apprenticed as a cook and worked as one prior to his first killing. John Miller worked as a cook while healing from his chest wound.John Miller only told close friends his real identity and took secret to grave. John Miller resembled billy photo. His wife resembled photo of billys spanish girlfriend Celsa G. John Miller exhibited Billy the kids good and bad qualities and was expert horseman and gun handler.
all this being said Pat Garret most likely got lucky in a dark room on July 14th 1881
Should also have included that Celsa G was Pat Garrets wifes sister. Pat and Billy had to know each other very well.
My great uncle Will Martin knew the kid and he thought Brushy was the kid from what i was told .The insurance sales man brought Brushy Bill to my great uncles house and m great uncle knew and thought brushy Bill was indeed Billy The kid.Uncle Will did ask the kid what Miss Mcsween did when they were held up in the Mcsween store playing the piano .In the 1980s the store was dug into were it burned and piano keys were found
I would be interested in hearing more of your great uncle's opinion. The question indicates that he needed more than Brushey's appearance to identify him. I have met former high school friends that have changed so much that I couldn't recognize them, but once we started talking the years were stripped away and the old friend was as I remembered him. I have read that in the late 1930's two men who buried Billy swore that it was Billy they buried. Why would they need to continue the cover up? Admitting the possibility of escape would not reveal any other information about someone who would be presumed dead by other means. If they were afraid of ridicule, they could just refuse to commit.
I had been wondering about the ability of someone surviving the chest wound described by witnesses and traveling to Las Vegas N.M. two weeks after the shooting, as attributed to John Miller. I then happened to run into our local encon officer. He was talking about a recent deer hunting accident where a hunter had been shot in the chest to the left and slightly above the heart. The bullet went straight thru without hitting any bone ,vital organs or major blood vessels.
hmmm. this article looks mighty familiar. I just saw the exact same thing at unsolved mysteries...at unsolved dot com wow. it's the strangest thing;)
If so many of you really think that Pat Garret would actually kill not only his brother in law but some one he rode with for many years for money alone knowing that his wife could leave him for such a thing and she did because he supposedly did kill Billy. The true question is whether Brushy Bill was Billy or if the true identity of Billy belonged to someone else. To answer a previous question on why someone would continue to cover up the supposed death of Billy, simple. They kept their story the same because they knew if they changed their story it would prove them to be accomplices in the crime in turn resulting in punishment for them not just ridicule. I have found evidence that these same two people from the 30's stories were exactly identical, and proof be to those who search for it, that the only time two different people tell the exact same story is when they have been coached to tell that story. Find what evidence you may to disregard Brushy Bill's claim of being the real Billy, but do not make it an issue that Billy really died in 1881 because the proof is in the pictures and the scars!!! Pull DNA if you like and you will find the same result.
from what i hear there is proof that john miller is the real billy the kid they took a blood sample from the bench they laid billy the kid on and a sample of dna from john miller.they can't publish the info cause of a court dispute but they said that the test results would piss off the historians and rewrite history
wannabwestern Level 3 Commenter 2 years ago
This is a fascinating story! I'm happy to be your new fan!