Legends of the Old West - BILLY THE KID Ep. 10 | “The Legend”

Episode Date: June 16, 2021

The outlaw lifestyle finally catches up with Billy the Kid. A shootout claims the life of one of his oldest friends; he is sentenced to hang for his actions in the Lincoln County War; and he proves one last time that no jail can hold him. But a nighttime rendezvous in Fort Sumner lands him in the crosshairs of sheriff Pat Garrett. Design like a pro with Canva Pro. Get a 45-day extended trial at Canva.me/legends Sign up for HelloFresh today! Use our link and promo code: HelloFresh.com/legends12 Join Black Barrel+ for bingeable seasons with no commercials: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Billy's best friend, Tom O'Folliard, was killed in an ambush on December 19, 1880, at Fort Sumner. Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett had tracked Billy's gang across eastern New Mexico for a month until he laid a trap for the outlaws in their favorite town. Late at night, in the darkness and fog, Billy and five friends took the bait. In the shootout between Billy's gang and Garrett's posse, Tom O'Folliard had been the only casualty.

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business, no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com. From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer. And this is a 10-part series about the most notorious outlaw in the history of the American West, Billy the Kid. This is Episode 10, The Legend. After the shootout at Fort Sumner,

Billy and his four remaining men galloped east to the ranch where they had been hiding before they were lured into the trap. But now they were afraid that the two men who owned the ranch might be working with Pat Garrett, so they spent the night in the hills watching the ranch house. The next day, cold to the bone and covered in snow, they decided the house was safe. They went down and warmed themselves by the fire and ate hot food. And they made a risky choice. They sent one of the two ranch owners back to Sumner to check on Garrett's posse. The man definitely found the posse because he went straight to Pat Garrett. The man told Garrett that the outlaws were at his ranch. Garrett sent him home with a story designed to draw Billy back to Fort Sumner to fall into another trap.

But Billy wouldn't be the victim of the same scheme twice. Instead of heading west toward Fort Sumner, the gang continued east toward Texas. With the outlaws gone, the ranch owner raced back to Sumner. He arrived in the middle of a bitterly cold night. Icicles dangled from his beard. He told Garrett and the posse that the outlaws had fled to the east, and if they were headed east, there was one logical place they would stop, an abandoned house near a place called Stinking Spring.

Garrett and his men mounted up and charged out of Sumner. They had a long ride ahead of them in the dead of night and in the cold and snow, but the snow provided one advantage. When they reached the ranch where the gang had been hiding, they easily picked up the outlaw's tracks in the snow. They followed them by the light of the moon until they closed in on the old rock house just before dawn. Garrett and two other men dismounted and crawled up to within 30 feet of the crude building. The abandoned house was about as simple as a structure could get. It was a rectangular hut made of stones, with no windows and only one opening for a door.

And there was no actual door for the opening. It was just a frame, wide open to the elements. That was it. One way in, one way out. The five outlaws were trapped inside. They just didn't know it yet. Billy, Charlie Beaudry, Dave Rudabaugh, Tom Pickett, and Billy Wilson slept as Pat Garrett positioned his men to cover the door and the three horses tied up outside. The kid's horse was inside, and Dave Rudabaugh's horse had died during the escape from Fort Sumner, so they were one animal short.

But it wouldn't matter. There are many versions of what happened next, but they all end the same way. In contrast to the famous photo of Billy the Kid wearing what looks like a rumpled top hat, he almost always wore a sombrero, and usually dressed in a distinctive Hispanic style. Sometime after daybreak, a figure emerged from the house wearing a sombrero. He was huddled against the cold and carried a sack of grain for the horses.

Garrett may have shouted at him to throw up his hands, and the man may have grabbed his pistols and fired at Garrett, but Garrett's men definitely fired at the man in the sombrero. He was shot multiple times, and as you've already guessed, he was not Billy the Kid. He was Charlie Beaudry. In the classic version of this story that was put forth by Garrett's ghostwriter two years later, Charlie stumbled back into the house. Billy and the others saw he was dying. Billy told Charlie that he could take some of Garrett's men with him before he died. Then he shoved Charlie out the door.

Charlie staggered out into the brush, stammered a few words, and then collapsed. In reality, what probably happened was that Charlie went outside that morning to feed the horses. Pat Garrett's men opened fire, Charlie was hit several times, he stumbled toward his attackers mumbling his final words, and then fell dead on the ground. Charlie Beaudry died two days before Christmas, December 23, 1880, outside a dilapidated house near a polluted waterhole. But the siege of the house did not end with his death, at least not immediately. Billy, Dave Rudabaugh, Tom Pickett, and Billy Wilson were still inside.

They were surrounded, and they had only one way out, which put them right in the line of fire of the posse outside. But they still tried to plan an escape. The kid's horse was in the house. He could get on it, lay flat against its back, and make a run for it. But the other three horses were tied up outside. The outlaws had access to the rope that tethered the horses. From inside the house, they tugged on it so they could lead the animals into the building. But Garrett realized the tactic and shot one of the horses. It fell dead in front of the door, and that ended all hope of escape.

They were finally trapped, once and for all. Billy found himself in a stalemate once again, but it didn't last long. himself in a stalemate once again, but it didn't last long. Outside, Pat Garrett's men stoked the cook fires and started roasting meat for breakfast, and that was all it took. Inside the cold, dark rock house, the outlaws smelled the food as the scent drifted through the open frame door. They were ravenous, and with no hope of escape, they agreed to surrender. The outlaws shuffled outside and were quickly taken prisoner. They were put on their horses, and the whole group headed back to the ranch where the gang had hidden the day before. The owner of the ranch went out to Stinking Spring with a wagon and collected Charlie Beaudry's body. The next day, Christmas Eve,

the posse loaded the outlaws into the wagon and rode to Fort Sumner. When they arrived and unloaded Charlie's body, his wife Manuela went crazy with grief, as one witness put it. She kicked and punched Pat Garrett. She hit another man with a branding iron. She lashed out at members of the posse until they finally backed away from her husband's body. Later in the morning, there was another reunion, this one less painful. Billy was allowed to visit his sweetheart, Paulita Maxwell. By all accounts, Billy had sweethearts all over New Mexico, but he may have loved Paulita above all others. Billy and Paulita wanted to be alone,

but there was a problem. Billy was shackled to Dave Rudabaugh. Pat Garrett refused to take the chains off Billy, so poor Dave Rudabaugh had to stand there awkwardly while Billy hugged and kissed Paulita. The reunion was brief. As a deputy U.S. Marshal, Garrett was going to take the prisoners to the Capitol in Santa Fe and put them in jail until the spring court session. Billy was charged with the murders of Buckshot Roberts and Sheriff Brady. Dave Rudabaugh was charged with stealing U.S. mail. Billy Wilson was charged with counterfeiting. So with two more legs of the journey to go, Pat Garrett wanted to get moving.

They arrived in Las Vegas the day after Christmas. Billy and his fellow prisoners were instant celebrities. Crowds rushed into the plaza to see the kid, and he was as jovial as ever. He joked and laughed and chatted with everyone. By contrast, Dave Rudabaugh, who was still chained to Billy, pulled his hat down low and refused to look at anyone or speak to anyone. The posse and the prisoners spent the night in Las Vegas and then boarded a train the next day for Santa Fe.

There was a brief scuffle at the station as the local sheriff wanted to keep the prisoners in town. Dave Rudabaugh was also wanted for murder in Las Vegas, but Pat Garrett and his deputies refused to back down. After several minutes of heated arguing that looked like it might actually escalate into a gunfight, Garrett prevailed and took his prisoners to Santa Fe,

where Billy reached the lowest point of his life. When the train pulled into Santa Fe, Pat Garrett was greeted as a hero. He was the man who finally caught the most notorious outlaw in the territory. Garrett basked in the glory, and for a brief time, his star outshined Billy's. It was December 27, 1880, and Billy was in for the worst time of his life. He spent the next three months locked in jail awaiting the court session in April. It was, by far, his longest stretch in captivity. And during that time, he all but begged Governor Wallace for help.

Billy wrote letter after letter to Wallace. He repeatedly reminded the governor of the deal they'd made back in Lincoln. That was two years ago now. Billy had lived up to his end of the deal, but the governor had not. At one point, Billy hinted that he might resort to blackmail and expose the deal by making his letters public, but nothing worked. Wallace ignored Billy. And by that time, Wallace was much more preoccupied with basking in his own glory. A few years ago, before he was appointed governor of New Mexico Territory, he wrote a novel that enjoyed moderate success. Throughout his time in the Southwest, dealing with corruption and a seemingly endless series

of outlaws like Billy, he had worked on a second novel. He had high hopes for the follow-up. It was published last month, in November 1880, just before Tom O'Folliard had been killed at Fort Sumner. Sales started slow, but now they were picking up, and the book was on its way to becoming the most popular novel in American history up to that time. It surpassed Harriet Beecher Stowe's classic Uncle Tom's Cabin, and its popularity extended well into the 20th century and even into the 21st. In 1959, the book was made into a Hollywood blockbuster movie. It won 11 Academy Awards. In 2016, it was remade, as all box office successes are, but the remake failed miserably.

The book that Governor Lew Wallace wrote and published during the era of Billy the Kid was Ben-Hur. While Billy pleaded with Wallace and Wallace ignored his pleas, Dirty Dave Rudabaugh stood trial for stealing U.S. mail. He was found guilty and sentenced to 99 years in prison. But the sentence was put on hold so he could be taken back to Las Vegas to stand trial for murder. While he waited for his trip, he and the kid and Billy Wilson plotted an escape. They started digging a hole beneath their cell that would allow them to crawl out to freedom. They worked diligently for a month, and they were one day away from making it happen when their plot was discovered by the guards.

The prisoners were split up and heavily chained, and Billy went back to trying to convince the governor to help him. Billy learned he would be transferred at the end of the month. He would be sent down to Mesilla outside Las Cruces for his back-to-back murder trials. And his judge for the trials would be none other than Warren Bristol. Judge Bristol was still in power, despite being an obvious supporter of the corrupt political machine known as the Santa Fe Ring. Bristol had helped Jimmy Dolan engineer the circumstances that led to the murders of John Tunstall and Alex McSween, and then the Lincoln County War. And now, Bristol would preside over Billy's trials.

So Billy begged Governor Wallace for help one final time. He said, Dear Sir, for the last time I ask, will you keep your promise? I start below tomorrow. For the last time, Wallace didn't respond, and Billy went to Mesilla to stand trial for murder. On April 5th, 1881, Billy stood before Judge Bristol to answer for the federal crime of the murder of Buckshot Roberts. Eight more of the old regulators were named in the indictment, but Billy was the only one in court. Charlie Beaudry was dead. Doc Scurlock, Fred Waite, John Middleton, Henry Brown, George Coe, Dirty Steve Stevens, and John Scroggins could not be found. Most had fled the territory altogether.

So Billy stood alone at the bar of justice. He initially pleaded not guilty, but then his lawyer thought of a new tactic. The attorney argued that Blazer's Mill, where Roberts had been killed, was not on the Apache reservation. Therefore, it was not on federal land. Therefore, Billy could not be charged with a federal crime.

And Judge Bristow actually agreed. He dismissed the case. Billy was off the hook for the murder of Buckshot Roberts. The prosecutor was a little upset, but he took a pragmatic view of the situation. He could only hang the kid once. Billy had avoided one murder charge, but he wouldn't avoid the situation. He could only hang the kid once. Billy had avoided one murder charge, but he wouldn't avoid the other. The next day, Billy stood trial for the murder of Sheriff William Brady. The tiny courthouse was packed with spectators, many of whom were from Lincoln County. Jimmy Dolan and his loyal followers were on hand to watch, or to testify.

The trial took two days, and not surprisingly, the jury returned a unanimous verdict, guilty of murder in the first degree. Judge Bristol sentenced Billy to hang by the neck until dead, and the execution would take place in the county in which he committed the crime. Billy was headed back to Lincoln. At about 10 o'clock at night, four days after Billy was sentenced to die, the local sheriff slammed handcuffs on his wrists, shackles on his ankles, and chained him to the back seat of a wagon. Under the cover of darkness, the sheriff and his new deputies were going to spirit Billy up to

Lincoln. The deputies were heavily armed, and three were Dolan men. The two most prominent were Billy Matthews, the man who had commanded the posse that had killed John Tunstall, and John Kinney, the smuggling kingpin who fought with the Dolan faction during the war. The eight-man crew made the trip to Lincoln without incident. There was even a humorous moment on the road, albeit a darkly humorous moment. When the group stopped at Blazer's Mill for the night, Billy comically reenacted the shootout with Buckshot Roberts to the delight of his heavily armed audience.

The next day, the posse turned Billy over to Lincoln County Sheriff, Pat Garrett. Lincoln County had recently purchased the Big Store, the two-story building that was originally built by Lawrence Murphy as the home of the L.G. Murphy Company. When Murphy passed the company to his protege, Jimmy Dolan, the building became the home of the Dolan Store. The rooms on the first floor had been converted into a courthouse, and the rooms on the second floor acted as the sheriff's office and jail cells. Pat escorted Billy up to the space that had once been Lawrence Murphy's bedroom. It was now Billy's jail cell and was supposed to be his home for the next three weeks until his execution. Billy, a known escape artist, was kept shackled and chained day and night.

Pat Garrett drew a chalk line on the floor of the hallway that divided the second floor in half. He told the two jailhouse guards, if Billy even attempted to cross the line, they should shoot him without hesitation. Despite all these precautions, one week after Billy was thrown in jail, the guards were dead and he was free again. The tradition has been that the two men who guarded Billy in the Lincoln County Jail were a good cop, bad cop team.

One of them was nice to Billy and the other was mean to him. But it probably wasn't as simple as that, at least for one of them. The good cop was Jim Bell. Bell might not have been as outwardly antagonistic as his partner, but he might not have been friendly either. He was good friends with Jimmy Carlisle, the man who had been killed in the Great House shootout. After the gunfight, Carlyle's murder had been blamed almost entirely on Billy,

so it's hard to believe Jim Bell would have been nice to the outlaw. The bad cop was Bob Olinger. Bob hated Billy, and he made no secret of it. Bob was a Seven Rivers rancher who had supported the Dolan faction and fought against Billy and the Regulators in almost every engagement of the Lincoln County War.

Bob had ridden with the posse that had killed the second Regulator captain, Frank McNabb. Bob had personally killed one of Billy's friends. He had ridden with the posse that scoured the countryside looking for the regulators before the battles of Lincoln. And one of Bob's good friends was the deputy who had been killed in Alex McSween's backyard at the end of the five-day battle. McSween himself had been killed right after the deputy, and the two men lay dead on the ground next to each other. So yeah, Bob hated Billy. He took great joy in ramming the barrels of his shotgun into Billy's gut and taunting him whenever he got the chance. For Billy's part, he had a black hatred of Bob that was equal to Bob's hatred of

him. The two men were a combustible pair, and their coexistence exploded one week after Billy's arrival. During that week, the prisoners and the guards had established a routine. There were five other men in jail, and at noon each day, they would be taken across the street to a hotel for lunch. At 5 p.m., they would be taken to the hotel for supper. Billy never left his room. He ate both meals alone under guard. It was suppertime on Thursday, April 28th. Pat Garrett left town the day before,

which meant Bob Olinger and Jim Bell were on their own to watch the prisoners. Bob took the other five prisoners across the street to the hotel. Jim stayed with Billy. There's no conclusive agreement about what happened next, because the only two men who knew for sure were Billy and Jim. But the most commonly repeated story is that Billy asked to use the privy outside. Jim escorted Billy down the stairs and out to the privy. When they returned to the store, Billy walked up the stairs first. Somehow, he freed one of his hands from the cuffs.

He spun around and smashed Jim on the head with the iron shackle. Then he grabbed Jim's gun and shot him on the stairs. Jim staggered down the stairs and outside and fell dead in the yard. Billy found Bob's shotgun. He crouched inside an open window and waited for Bob to come running. Across the street, Bob heard the gunshots and hurried out of the hotel. He assumed Jim had just killed Billy, based on Pat Garrett's instructions about crossing the line of chalk. As Bob ran toward the store, he passed the open window. Billy said,

Billy said, Hello, Bob, and fired both barrels. Almost a quarter pound of lead flew out of the shotgun and ripped through Bob's side, shoulder, and chest. Billy supposedly threw the gun at Bob's dead body, cursing him and screaming that he would never bother Billy again with the weapon. bother Billy again with the weapon. Some of this version comes from Billy himself, as repeated by the citizens of Lincoln who were there at the time. After Billy killed the two deputies, he ran up to the balcony on the second floor and shouted at the people who gathered in the street below. He looked like a small,

skinny politician giving a rambling speech, but one who was now armed with a Winchester rifle and two pistols from Pat Garrett's armory. For almost an hour, he held court in front of the old Murphy store. Billy said he hadn't wanted to kill Jim Bell, but he had no choice. He said he would also leave as soon as he could get the shackles off. At that, an old cook tossed him a prospector's pick. In an interesting coincidence, that cook had worked for John Tunstall three years ago when all the killing started. Billy and the cook knew each other. While Billy worked on his chains, he instructed the old man to bring him a horse.

As soon as Billy was free, he jumped on the horse and galloped out of town, reportedly shouting, Adios, boys, as he raced away. This is where the legend of Billy the Kid really began. After Billy's brazen and bloody escape from Lincoln, newspapers from coast to coast wrote about his daring exploits. Some stories portrayed the Kid as a kind of villainous superhero who was capable of extraordinary feats. Others portrayed him as the devil himself.

The American public didn't care either way. Readers devoured every word. Most of the stories weren't true, of course, but that didn't matter either. Certainly not to Billy. He was back on the run with a price on his head. Governor Wallace reinstated the $500 reward, and Pat Garrett went back on the hunt, just like old times. Billy escaped from jail in Lincoln in April 1881,

a little over two weeks before he was scheduled to hang. For the next two and a half months, he stayed on the run and evaded capture. But he made the same mistake he always made. He stayed in an area where he was comfortable. When Billy fled Lincoln, he went to the hills around Fort Sumner. On one level it made sense. He was beloved by the Hispanic population in the area, and he had no trouble finding places to hide. On another level, it was crazy. It was the

first place Pat Garrett would look, and that's what Garrett did. He wrote letters and sent messages to men he trusted around Fort Sumner, asking if they'd seen Billy. None of them had, but they'd heard rumors. During the two and a half months he was on the run, Billy stayed with friends at camps and ranches around Sumner, and it's hard to believe he didn't sneak into town every now and then to visit his sweetheart, Paulita Maxwell. The story that has persisted throughout the years is that by the summer of 1881, Paulita was pregnant with Billy's child. Maybe that was what kept Billy at Fort Sumner,

even though his friends repeatedly told him to flee to Old Mexico. Whatever the reason, Pat Garrett had a hard time believing Billy would be so foolish as to escape from jail and then run to the one place where everybody knew him. But as more and more reports reached Garrett of that exact scenario, Garrett couldn't ignore them. Pat Garrett rode out of Lincoln alone and picked up two volunteer deputies on his way to Fort Sumner. When they reached the outskirts of town in mid-July, Garrett sent one of the deputies in to reconnoiter the situation. The deputies were completely unknown in Sumner, while Garrett was recognizable to virtually everyone.

Unfortunately for the lawmen, the deputy didn't learn anything on his scout. The townsfolk were tight-lipped about Billy the Kid. But Garrett knew about Billy's relationship with Paulita Maxwell, and he'd heard the gossip that she was pregnant. If that was true, the child could have been Billy's, which was why he took such a big risk in staying in the area, and why he would certainly come calling at some point. Garrett decided he needed to talk to Pete Maxwell, the patriarch of the Maxwell clan that owned Fort Sumner and the older brother of Paulita. Garrett and his two deputies rode toward Fort Sumner in the moonlight of July 14, 1881. They stationed their horses at a camp outside town

and moved the rest of the way on foot. When they reached the edge of the Maxwell home, they hid in a peach orchard and watched the house. After a couple hours of silent boredom, they prepared to leave without meeting Pete Maxwell. But then they heard muffled voices in the orchard in front of them. They stayed still and watched. They saw a man who wore a wide-brimmed hat, possibly a sombrero, and a dark vest and pants. He was too far away to recognize.

When the man went inside one of the houses in the complex, the three lawmen quickly moved closer to the Maxwell home. Garrett knew the location of Pete Maxwell's bedroom. He left the two deputies outside near the porch while he crept inside the house. As soon as Garrett disappeared inside, the deputies spotted someone about a hundred yards away. He was a slight figure, and he walked swiftly toward them. He was barefooted and did not have a hat on, so the deputies couldn't tell if he was the same man they'd seen earlier. The deputies sat frozen as the man approached. He hadn't seen them.

They were partially hidden from view by the porch. But when he was almost close enough to touch them, he spotted one of the deputies. The man was Billy. He drew his gun in a flash and jumped onto the porch. He called out in Spanish, ¿Quién es? Who is it? At the same time, he moved backward across the porch toward the door to the house.

The same door Pat Garrett had just used moments before. In the bedroom, Pete Maxwell was about to get the shock of a lifetime. Garrett snuck up to his bed and roused him from sleep. Garrett quickly asked him if Billy was at Fort Sumner. Before Pete could answer, and probably before he was even fully awake, a dark shape appeared in the doorway. The man was backlit by candlelight, so his features were in silhouette. He spoke urgently in Spanish,

Pete, who are those men outside? Pete Maxwell whispered to Garrett, it's him. Garrett pulled his gun and fired at Billy in the doorway. Then he dove to the side to avoid return fire. He snapped off another shot at Billy. It hit the washstand and ricocheted back into the room. It splintered the headboard above Pete Maxwell. Pete leapt up from the bed and raced for the door. Garrett scrambled to his feet and charged after Pete, knowing his deputies

would come running at the sound of gunfire. They all met in the hallway, just in time for Garrett to keep his men from shooting Pete Maxwell. Pete hurried away from his room as one of the deputies asked, what the hell just happened? Pat Garrett said, it was the kid. He thought he got him. One of the deputies retorted, saying it couldn't have been Billy. He would never come back here. One of the deputies retorted, saying it couldn't have been Billy. He would never come back here. But Garrett said he was sure it was the kid. He knew the outlaw's voice too well.

By now, the whole community was stirring. Candles flickered to life as people rushed to the Maxwell house. Pete returned with a candle and re-entered his bedroom. When he waved the light around the space, he saw a body on the floor, unmoving. Pat walked back in, and the two men examined the body. There was a gunshot wound in the chest, just above the heart. The young man would have died almost instantly. It was July 14th, 1881, and Billy the Kid was dead. Henry Antrim,

who was probably born Henry McCarty, and who chose the alias William H. Bonney before he was dubbed Billy the Kid, was buried in the old military cemetery at Fort Sumner. He was laid to rest near the north wall next to the graves of his pals, Charlie Beaudry and Tom O'Folliard. Only a rough wooden cross marked the spot. Before the town of Fort Sumner could recover from the shock, word of the event raced across the country.

Newspaper headlines shouted the breaking news. The notorious outlaw Billy the Kid was dead. The St. Louis Globe Democrat called him a boy devil and said he was destined for a, bloody and daredevilish immortality. The Epitaph newspaper in Tombstone, Arizona ran a wide column right down the center of the front page that was basically a press release from Pat Garrett. Of course, the good people of Tombstone didn't know that their own town would dominate the news just two months from now, when a certain gunfight near a certain corral made headlines across the globe.

But for the moment, the killing of Billy the Kid was all anyone could talk about. And the man who did it. Pat Garrett was now the nation's hero. The man who single-handedly brought down the most infamous criminal in America. Pat Garrett was famous worldwide, but his fame did not lead to a rich and comfortable life in a position of power and status.

It didn't take long before people began to whisper that his actions might not have been so heroic after all. There were rumors that he shot Billy in the back while the outlaw was unarmed. Or at least he should have given Billy a fair chance to defend himself. Garrett made a deal with Ash Upson, the man who had been the postmaster at Roswell when the Regulators stopped by with their first prisoners, Buck Morton and Frank Baker. Upson had mailed their final letters, right before both men were killed by Billy and the Posse. Ash Upson was the ghostwriter of Pat Garrett's book, The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid.

They rushed the book into print, and it was published in February or March of 1882, about seven months after Billy was killed. It was an outright failure. Garrett bounced from job to job for the next few years. Most of the jobs were in law enforcement, but none worked out long term. And during that time, he grew bitter and frustrated as he watched Billy evolve from a hated criminal to a folk hero. Over the years, Pat Garrett's image went in the other direction, and he suffered a similar fate as Billy. He was shot and killed on a lonely trail outside Las Cruces, New Mexico, February 29, 1908. As you've just heard in this series, and probably more than a few people have noted, there are many, many characters in this story. I won't go through them all in a long epilogue.

Their histories are readily available in numerous places if you're interested in reading them. Just quickly, the Regulators scattered after the Lincoln County War, as you heard. Some lived quietly in places like Texas and Colorado. Some experienced real success, and others faltered. some experienced real success and others faltered. Of the Tunstall McSween faction, Susan McSween was the greatest success story. After her husband Alex was killed, she went on to become a cattle queen and probably the most powerful woman in the southwestern United States. The arch villain, Jimmy Dolan, lived out the rest of his life in southeastern New Mexico. He was a territorial official and worked for the land office and formed a company with

the former district attorney who had supported him during the Lincoln County War. He was more or less successful, and of course, he was never punished for any of the events of the war. He was more or less successful, and of course, he was never punished for any of the events of the war. And finally, no story of Billy the Kid would be complete without mentioning Brushy Bill Roberts. In 1949, a man living in Hico, Texas claimed to be Billy the Kid. He convinced several people that he was the infamous outlaw because he seemed to have very detailed knowledge of Billy the Kid. He convinced several people that he was the infamous outlaw because he seemed to have very detailed knowledge of Billy's history. But ultimately, it was concluded that Brushy Bill's story was riddled with so many inconsistencies, it couldn't be true.

There are still believers, but more than likely, Billy was buried in the old Fort Sumner Cemetery in the summer of 1881. Sadly, that cemetery is gone now. It was washed away in a flood, so the actual grave sites of Billy the Kid, Charlie Beaudry, and Tom O'Folliard have been lost to history. You can visit a small cemetery outside Fort Sumner today, but Billy's headstone is just a memorial. It doesn't hurt, though, to stand in that spot and try to imagine the regulators thundering over the ground as they rode across the hills, and posses chasing them from one place to another, and gunfights all over the countryside.

It almost doesn't seem real, but it was. Thanks for listening to the saga of Billy the Kid here on Legends of the Old West. We'll be back in a couple weeks with new episodes. Stay tuned to our social media accounts for updates. Research assistance for this season was provided by Aaron Aylsworth. Original music by Rob Valliere. Editing and sound design by Dave Harrison. I'm your writer and host, Chris Wimmer.

If you enjoyed this show, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. Please visit our website, Black Barrel Media, for more details and join us on social media. We're Black Barrel Media on Facebook and Instagram and Be Barrel Media on Twitter. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week. Shop with Rakuten and you'll get it. What's it? It's the best deal. The highest cash back. The most savings on your shopping.

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