Did Billy the kid survive?

Subject: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST,s.a.
Date: 15 Sep 02 - 09:18 PM

Did Billy the Kid survive the hunt of Garratt, and lived 30-40 years more. Or did Garrett kill him?

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Sorcha
Date: 15 Sep 02 - 09:23 PM

Garrett killed him.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Sep 02 - 09:26 PM

Billy the Kid? I have a picture of him "hanging" in my music room. What a coincidence.

wdyat24

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: greg stephens
Date: 15 Sep 02 - 09:30 PM

Yes, he ended up running a chip shop in Macclesfield. Oh no, sorry, that was Elvis.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Sep 02 - 09:47 PM

Pat Garrett was murdered in 1908, quite a few years after he killed Billy the Kid. A rather silly movie, with Bob Dylan's musical score, and Bob himself standing around in scenes looking moronic, tried to relate Garrett's death to the Kid's, but the murder was unrelated.
Pat Garrett's daughter wrote the song, "O Fair New Mexico," which is the State anthem. Grade school kids are generally made to sing it, but never more than once- it's banal as banal can be.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: khandu
Date: 15 Sep 02 - 09:50 PM

Hey greg, I saw Elvis recently at the Tupelo Elvis Festival. I knew it was him even through his disguise. Pretty good disguise, though. He was dressed as an Elvis impersonator.

khandu

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Sep 02 - 09:56 PM

Whether Garret killed him or he was impersonated by Elvis, Billy the Kid still haunts me everyday from the photograph I obtaind in New Mexico in the late 20th Century.

wdyat24

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Jim Krause
Date: 15 Sep 02 - 10:07 PM

He may have been killed by Pat Garrett, but he lives on in Aaron Copeland's Billy the Kid. Nice orchestral arrangements of some traditional cowboy songs.
Jim

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Sep 02 - 10:35 PM

Jim, I agree. I have the suite conducted by Copeland, Bernstein and Slatkin. I also have the lp soundtrack by Bob Dylan for the movie. A couple of interesting arrangements in it, much better than the cuts actually used in the movie.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Venthony
Date: 15 Sep 02 - 11:42 PM

The definitve biography of "The Kid" to date is probably "Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life" by Robert M. Utley. Amazon.com has it. Your local library can get it.

It's a fun, quick read but somewhat pedantic.

And, yes, Garrett killed him.

Tony

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: C-flat
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 02:46 AM

I know a guy called William Kidd. What were the parents thinking of!

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Benjamin
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 02:58 AM

Many to this day believe the story of "Brushy" Bill Roberts that he was really Billy the Kid and Sheriff Garrett didn't kill him. This site has some information on the evidence which supports that claim.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 09:04 AM

I once read that the well-known photograph of Billy the Kid has always been reproduced the wrong way round, and he wasn't left handed at all. Has anyone any 'proof' for this?

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST,Foe
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 01:43 PM

RE: photo is backwards - I thnink it has to do with an analysis of the rifle he's holding the - where the hammer and stuff is. Or the pistol. Tintypes gave a reverse image photo.

B.the Kid was a psychopathic murderer. Strange how 100 years turns him into a hero on TV and in the movies. In another 100 years there will probably be a TV show "Ted Bundy - Defender of the Weak"

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 01:45 PM

I imagine he's dead by now anyway.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Naemanson
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 02:31 PM

And now for some drift of a toatlly unrelated nature:

WDYAT24! Woody - PM me to get my new phone number and let me know where you are. I still have your Fort St George materials and I have to get them back to you! I couldn't locate your phone number or address in the book.

And now this thread returns to its original subject....

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Naemanson
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 02:32 PM

Alternatively email me at [e-mail].

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 03:09 PM

William Kidd is an old and honorable name. A famous one was Captain Kidd, privateer for the Queen. There is a professor at Cambridge, internationally known for his work on the tectonics and structure of the earth.

Billy the Kid generally used the name William Bonney, but it seems to have been something like Cutler originally- too lazy to look it up right now- or see the book by Utley.
The Lincoln County War, by W. A.Keleher, Univ. New Mexico Press, is the most authoritative book, with the legal background to the War which was involved and acrimonious, and excerpts from the pertinent legal and court documents. Unfortunately this book, prized by lawyers and New Mexico buffs alike, is very hard to get and therefore in the $200 dollar range.
Billy seems to have been a semiliterate saddle bum. He worked for one of the contenders; the entrepreneurs involved (one English, killed by a hired gun and saddle bum on the other side) would not stop short of murder and thievery. Would Billie's life have been that of a normal cowhand if he had not been involved in the War? Who knows.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Benjamin
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 06:22 PM

From what I remember in my research, "William Bonney" is the name he was tried under. I never was able to uncover why that name was used. Billy had already be through jail (I think more than once) and had killed before the Lincon County War. The problem in researching the subject is (as you pointed out) that the best books on Billy the Kid and "Brushy" Bill Roberts are now out of print.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: toadfrog
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 06:43 PM

Now, In the Universal History of Infamy Borges says his name was Bill Harrigan. Surely, Borges is the final authority?

"Oh Fair New Mexico" is surely the world's dullest song. The state has a better song:

There is a land of dusty roads,
Rattle snakes and horny toads.
It never rains, it never snows,
New Mexico, we love you so!

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 09:21 PM

Billy was Killed by Garret. AS i remember garrett himself was killed by a disgruntled tenant. Billy was buried next to a couple of cronies from the Lincoln county War days one of them was Tom O' Falliard(sp) As stated above Billy the kid was a psycotic killer who was turned into a hero not for who he was but rather for who he opposed. Kindest regards, Neil

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: JJ
Date: 16 Sep 02 - 11:55 PM

Ah, but was Billy the Kid really from Brooklyn?

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 12:15 AM

From New York, seemingly. I don't know if they have been able to tie down the borough. The record is pretty nebulous.
Toadfrog, go there some winter and try out the ski resort at Taos. Or in the summer and go after the trout. And don't knock the rattlesnakes (rodent control brigade).

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 12:25 AM

A very brief summary on Billy the Kid on the New York State Historical Survey site. He was born the son of William and C. McCarty Bonney. Nov. 23, 1859.
Willian Bonney

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 12:40 AM

Interesting, entertaining, and more or less the "truth."
Billy The Kid

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Hrothgar
Date: 17 Sep 02 - 07:04 AM

If he was from Brooklyn, wouldn't he be Billy da Kid?

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Venthony
Date: 18 Sep 02 - 04:46 AM

Ya know, I've had the thought, he was just a tough kid -- probably kind of a stud -- the sort of youngster who, these days, would be a good tight end, maybe even a quarterback.

Then -- heaven save us all -- he might of gone to law school.

Tony

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST,M Cooney
Date: 24 Sep 02 - 04:04 PM

A few years ago Bill Domler sent me an article or pointed me at a web page (NY Times or New Yorker or some such; I lean toward NY Times) which was a LONG backgrounder on Billy the Kid. The gist was that Garret was hired by English (immigrant) farmers to help break the Irish political machine which ran the whole area, and Billy was in the employ of the machine. Or was it vice-virtue? (What a memory.) Then Garret invented the story to conceal the real reasons for the killing, and to take advantage of the Civilized World's fascination with the Wild West. I'll try to find the article. You could try too.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Sep 02 - 01:25 PM

He's an icon, and icons have a way of surviving for a very long time. On the more prosaic level, yes, Pat Garrett killed him.

- LH

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 02 - 02:08 PM

M. Cooney, haven't seen the article, but some truth there. Most of Billy's killing was connected in some way with the Lincoln County War, its participants, events leading up to it and later consequences. Involved legal and court actions about mis-appropriation and embezzlement of money and property preceeded and continued during the War. These cases were never settled. Clearly the result of entrepreneural buccaneering. The territorial governor, General Lew Wallace (author of Ben Hur) ducked his responsibilities and kept working for a more rewarding posting.
If you are really interested, try to borrow Keleher's "Lincoln County War." It is a detailed account, with quotes from court papers, newspapers (taking sides), officials and participants. Billy's letter to Lew Wallace offers insight into Billy's mind. Psychopathic killer? I can't make up my mind. He had many friends.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST,Just Amy
Date: 25 Sep 02 - 02:22 PM

William Bonney, grandson of Anne Bonney, pirate, who went missing from jail?

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 08:59 PM

Exhumations! DNA! Legal fights!

Did Billy the Kid escape to Texas, where he is buried in Hico, TX?
Tom Sullivan, Lincoln Co. top lawman, is seeking a court order to obtain DNA from Bonney's mother, and an exhumation order for the body of the man known as Bill Roberts who died at the age of 90, in Texas. A grave site in New Mexico, where Billy is supposed to be buried, may also be opened.
Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico supports plans to exhume the grave (in Silver City, NM) of Catherine Antrim, Billy's mother, for DNA comparison with remains of Bill Roberts.
A group of old west preservationists is fighting the plans.
There are disputes about what happened to Billy's body, and as to the location of his mother's grave.

Governor Richardson is also backing an inquiry into the life of Billy and a search for more evidence about his Lincoln County jail break.

"Read all about it" in the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper. Santa Fe New Mexican

Enter Billy the Kid in the blank for "Search the News" and Enter the dates June 01, 2003 to July 16, 2003 and you will find the articles pertaining to the story.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST,Vince
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 03:46 AM

Ask John Howarth (nacoocaracha!)

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 01:59 AM

Legend in Santa Fe is that Billy the Kid killed his first man in Santa Fe. When he and his mother came to New Mexico, briefly she had a laundry or bakery (stories differ) on the little street off San Francisco Street now known as Burro Alley. A man attacked Billy's mother in the shop and Billy killed him with a knife.
All that is known for sure is that they did stay in Santa Fe a while before moving on.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 12:05 PM

>When the Kid got word of the killing of Tunstall, he said "He was the only man that ever treated me kindly, like I was free born and white". Billy then said in a rage "I'll get every son of a bitch who helped kill John if it's the last thing I ever do".<

Does that suggest that he was part black?

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 01:01 PM

No, it doesn't. It does suggest that ill-treatment was routinely accorded to blacks in his environment.

A

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Kim C
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 01:30 PM

Or Mexicans.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 01:43 PM

Guest JJT- where did you get that quote? Sounds like someone's pulp novel lingo. It was certainly never pronounced by Billy.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 02:23 PM

The quote is in the link by Guest, 17 Sept. 02. Billy was loyal to Tunstall, but there is no contemporary reference to the statement that I can find. Quotes, unless in Court papers, are mostly someone's interpretatin of what could have been said and that fits the story.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: The Walrus
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 03:11 PM

Did Billy the kid survive?

I hope not - they buried him.

Walrus

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 04:42 PM

Other than the fact that there is a song about "Billy the Kid," (not referenced in this thread) shouldn't this be in the BS section?

The link to "Brushy Bill Roberts" is an interesting one and opens the door for some doubt as to whether Billy really was killed by Pat Garrett. Also an interesting reference in the Proof section that Billy "was a good dancer and singer." Wonder what songs he did ?

At least two other American outlaws have had this survival legend attached to them: Jesse James and Butch Cassidy (sp?). Are there any other real persons believed to have outlived their supposed deaths? (Other than Elvis!!)

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 05:02 PM

There is evidence that Joan of Arc was never burned at the stake and lived to be old and, well, old.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Kenny B (inactive)
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 06:37 PM

This is how Ramblin Jack Elliot tells it :-


ME AND BILLY THE KID
Pat Green

[G]Yeah, me and Billy the Kid we ain't never got along
Didn't like the way he cocked his hat and he wore his gun all wrong
We [C] had the same girlfriend and he never forgot it
She [G] had a cute little Chihuahua but one day he up and shot it
He [D] rode the hard country down the New Mexico line
He [G] had a silver pocket watch that he never did wind
He [D] crippled a guitar player for playin his favourite song
Yeah [G] me and Billy the kid we ain't never get along

Yeah me and Billy the Kid we never got along
Didn't like the way he buckled his belt and he wore his gun all wrong
He was bad to the bone all hopped up on speed
I would've left if it wasn't for that senorita
He gave her silver and he paid her hotel bill
But it was me she loved and she said she always will
I'd always go see her when Billy was gone
No me and Billy the kid never got along

Me and Billy the kid we never got along
I didn't like the way he tied he shoes and he wore his gun all wrong
One day I said to Billy, I got this foolproof scheme
We'll rob the Wells Fargo, it's bustin' at the seams
I admit that I framed him but I don't feel bad
Cause the way I was livin was drivin me mad
Billy went for his gun but his gun was on wrong
No me and Billy the kid never got along

No me and Billy the Kid never got along
I sure like the way he swayed in the wind
When I played his favorite song
Now my baby sings harmony to la cucaracha
We wind our pocket watches and pet her new Chihuahua
We moved into a hotel got a room with a shower
I lay and listen to that watch tick hour after hour
Outside I hear the wind going on so strong
Yeah me and Billy the Kid we never got along

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST,Vince
Date: 18 Jul 03 - 03:50 AM

And John Howarth! (with some howling help from 'enery)

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 18 Jul 03 - 05:20 PM

Lancashire Billy, Vince?

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 19 Jul 03 - 12:44 AM

Is this the same Billy the Kid who is pictured in Herbert Asbury's book "Gangs Of New York"? Or was the NYC gangster a different Billy the kid?

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 19 Jul 03 - 12:52 AM

Billy The Kid Bonney left NY at age 9 or 10 for the West with his mother. Not the same.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: ooh-aah
Date: 19 Jul 03 - 03:30 AM

Who cares?

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Jun 13 - 12:21 PM

Billy the Kid survival inquiries are alive and well, and are costing Lincoln County taxpayers nearly $200,000 so far.

$125,000 has been awarded to De Baca County News and Gale Cooper, who sued Lincoln County for records of a DNA analysis of blood left on a carpenter's bench where the Kid's body purportedly was placed after he was shot by the notorious sheriff, Pat Garrett. The suit also had requested the DNA report of two others who had claimed to be William Bonney. Courts ruled that Lincoln County improperly withheld records.

$70,000 had previously been paid to four other law firms previously involved in the case.

The DNA investigation was into whether Garrett shot somebody else, whose body was buried in Fort Sumner, while Billy escaped to Texas and lived out his days as Brusby Bill Roberts.

The Lincoln County sheriff's office has opened an investigation into the escae of Billy from the Lincoln County jail, hoping to determine whether he had an accomplice.

Albuquerque Journal, June 11, 2013. "Billy the Kid's records case costs taxpayers nearly $200K." www.abqjournal.com
Also Santa fe New Mexican, online news, Wed. June 13, 2013.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Jun 13 - 02:22 PM

Since several people saw the body and identified it as that of "Billy the Kid" (Henry McCarty, William Bonney) it's quite likely that Billy the Kid really is buried in Billy the Kid's grave.

HOWEVER -- there were several people in Ye Olde Weste who were nicknamed "Billy the Kid" both before and after the one Pat Garrett shot. Pat Garrett was shot while taking a piss along the side of a road, probably by Jim "Deacon Jim" Miller -- another of the psycho killers.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Jun 13 - 02:24 PM

Oh yeah. He probably went by "Billy" because "Hank the Kid" or "Henry the Kid" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Jun 13 - 03:13 PM

I hope he survived. I think we might have had similar ideas about the nature of folkmusic.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Jun 13 - 03:11 PM

I've been shot in old Fort sumner
That really is abit of bumner
said , Billy the Kid
as the dust he bit.
but never mind-
he was a shit.

Subject: RE: Did Billy the kid survive?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Jun 13 - 07:40 PM

Billy is perhaps the most misrepresented person in western history.

See thread 99554, Pardon for Billy the Kid.

The most authoritative chronicle is contained in the book by Wm. A. Keleher, "Violence in Lincoln County, 1869-1881," New Mexico University Press.

Pardon for Billy the Kid