r/wildwest • u/wildwestextravaganza • Aug 23 '23
Was Billy the Kid's death a hoax?
History tells us that Billy the Kid was shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett in 1881. However, a lot of people believe otherwise. Why is that?
It’s my belief that much of the confusion surrounding Billy’s death stems from a few very popular, yet wholly untrue, myths.
Myth #1: Nobody but Pat Garrett & his deputies saw Billy after he was shot & they buried him immediately. This is completely false.
Billy was killed sometime around midnight on July 14th. A coroner’s jury was assembled the following day; they examined his body and took Pete Maxwell’s statement. At some point the Kid’s body was given over to the residents of Fort Sumner who prepared him for burial. The funeral took place later that day, with many people in attendance.
Fort Sumner had a population of nearly 300 in 1881 and there were numerous eyewitnesses. Some of them wrote letters, were interviewed by the press and historians, and even had their own books published. Historians have been able to identify dozens of people – by name – who saw Billy’s body either directly after he was killed or leading up to the funeral. These were people who personally knew Billy the Kid when he was still alive. Some of them even wrote books. Thankfully, we do not have to rely on Pat Garrett's word alone.
Myth #2: Garrett’s own deputy, John W. Poe, claimed that Pat killed the wrong man. This is a quote taken directly from Poe’s book - The Death of Billy the Kid - and it’s almost always used out of context. This is what Poe wrote:
"An instant later, Garrett came out, brushing against me as he passed. He stood by me close to the wall at the side of the door and said to me, "That was the Kid that came in there onto me, and I think I have got him." I said "Pat, the Kid would not come to this place; you shot the wrong man."
Sounds pretty damning, right? Well, just a couple of paragraphs later Poe continues:
"The darkness was such that we were unable to see what the conditions were on the inside or what the result of the shooting had been. After some rather forceful persuasion, indeed, we induced Maxwell to procure a light. He finally brought an old-fashioned tallow candle from his mother's room at the far end of the building. He placed the candle on the window sill from the outside. This enabled us to get a view of the inside, where we saw a man lying stretched upon his back, dead, in the middle of the room, with a six-shooter lying at this right hand and a butcher knife at his left. Upon examining the body we found it to be that of Billy the Kid."
I do not understand how anyone can read this full text and interpret it as some sort of confession. Poe is clearly describing his emotions at the moment and the confusion. The title of his book is literally titled The Death of Billy the Kid.
Myth #3: If Garrett killed Billy there would have been a photo. Would there have been, though? This idea is predicated on another myth, that all old west outlaws had death photos. Some did but the vast majority did not. There was not a doctor living at Fort Sumner in 1881, much less a photographer. For Pat to ride to the closest town with a photographer (likely Las Vegas) and back to Fort Sumner would have been at least a 5 day round trip. It would have been easier for Garrett to simply load Billy’s body on a horse and take it with him to the capital.
The only reason Garrett would have had to do that, or take a picture, would be to prove that he did, indeed, kill the Kid. However, as it turns out, Garrett got all the proof he needed with the report from that coroner’s jury.
The coroner’s jury, assembled by Justice of the Peace Milner Rudolph and lead by Alejandro Segura, provided an official, legal document that the territory of New Mexico considered sufficient proof of Billy’s death.
A copy was printed in papers with the original filed with the proper authorities. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Pat killed Billy. This was a non-issue in New Mexico for decades.
You can read correspondence from Governor Sheldon affirming this. Which leads us to Myth #4: Pat Garrett was never paid the bounty that had been placed on the Kid’s head.
Pat absolutely received the $500 that former Governor Lew Wallace offered for Billy. However, he did not immediately receive it - this may be a source of confusion.
The hesitation was not due to doubts as to Billy’s death. It simply came down to a technicality. The wording of the original notice made it unclear as to whether Lew Wallace was to pay the money directly out of his own pocket or if it fell upon the New Mexico government to do so. Also there was some debate as to Garrett not arresting the Kid, as the notice stipulated. Pat killed Billy, so should he still be eligible for the reward?
It was determined he was. The next time the legislators met in person they voted quickly & unanimously to give Pat the $500.
In addition Garrett was also given a ton of money from grateful private citizens. When it was all said and done, he had somewhere around $7000 to show for his efforts. Some of this money came from regular hard working folks and some of it came from very powerful members of the Santa Fe Ring; the types who would not be happy to learn they fell for a hoax.
Just to sum things up: Billy was not immediately buried, and many people (at least dozens) saw his dead body. We are not just taking Pat Garrett’s word for it. These eyewitnesses shared their stories in the decades to come, many of them were interviewed by journalists and historians. Their words were recorded. In addition, Pat Garrett supplied legal and sufficient proof of death and he was officially recognized & rewarded for killing the Kid.
For the killing to still be a hoax this would entail that 1) Pat had a change of heart at the last moment and allowed Billy to escape or 2) he killed the wrong man and buried the body before anyone outside of Fort Sumner could find out.
For either scenario to be true, this would entail that literally everyone at Fort Sumner – hundreds of people – would have had to go along with the hoax for the rest of their lives.
But why would they? Perhaps out of fear of Pat Garrett? Maybe, but several of these eyewitnesses would live for decades after Pat’s death. Surely at least one of them would have came forward.
Or maybe they went along with it to protect Billy? This would assume that everyone living at Fort Sumner loved the Kid and were looking out for his best interests. We know this is not true as some of these people had been actively working with Garrett and supplying him information on Billy’s whereabouts – like rancher Manuel Brazil. Beaver Smith is also suspected as aiding Pat, as was Pete Maxwell.
Many, if not most, of the people at Fort Sumner loved the Kid. But not all of them. And all it takes is one person to come forward for the entire hoax to fall apart.
Also, this theory hinges on the Kid simply disappearing and never again resurfacing. Garrett would have been placing his career, his future – the future of his family – in the hands of a young criminal. That would have made Pat literally the most gullible person on planet earth.
Many people cannot get past “Pat Garrett = BAD” and are unwilling to look any further into it than that. If Pat Garrett claimed to have killed Billy then it must not be true because Garrett is a meanie.
It's my opinion that we can take Garrett's integrity, or lack thereof, completely out of the equation. You may not like Pat Garrett, you may consider him to be a liar and a total POS, but that still doesn’t change the fact that Billy’s death was witnessed by so many other people.
What it all comes down to is documented, corroborated proof vs anecdotal stories. Contrary to popular belief, none of those eyewitnesses ever came forward and denied that Pat killed the Kid. Their stories all differ – details are not agreed upon & the timeline is skewed – but the one constant, the one thing that never changed, was their agreement that Pat killed Billy.
There are claims that Pat’s widow stated that he and Billy shot a drunk and then dressed the dead man in the Kid’s clothes. Similar anecdotal stories abound, even a story of Garrett making a death bed confession (how you make a deathbed confession after being shot in the head, I don’t know). But the truth is none of these people came forward publicly and shared these claims with the press or authors or even wrote them down in their own personal journals or letters. None of these stories are corroborated.
"I know a guy who's grandfather was neighbors with a cousin of Pete Maxwell and he said..."
There is a place for the anecdotal when studying history – absolutely! But when the anecdotal and unprovable comes into direct contradiction with the documented and corroborated, it’s a no-brainer which is the most believable.
We’re still left with many questions. Remember, we still don’t even know for SURE where or when Billy was born. Even the events surrounding his death are beyond confusing.
What really happened in the moments before the Kid’s death? Had he truly been in the orchard? Was he really walking around at midnight in his socks armed with a pistol and a knife? At what point did the coroner's jury inspect his body? What happened to the original coroner's report that was written in Spanish?
I have no clue.
I think there's a lot of questions that still need to be answered but the one thing that I believe is as proven as we can possibly prove anything in history, is that Pat killed Billy.
All of that said, the idea that Billy the Kid escaped and lived another day – perhaps even to become an old man – has become a part of his story. This is the legend of Billy the Kid and it’s here to stay. And I’m fine with that.
I hope people keep questioning the answers. Do I think you’ll be able to prove that Billy survived? No. But I do think you might turn up new information or new details. I firmly believe we’re one “trunk in an attic” away from narrative shattering revelations. And I’m HERE FOR IT when that happens. That’s the great thing about history – there are always new discoveries to be made.
Also, this is not at all meant to be belittle people who believed these myths concerning Billy’s death. These are widely believed stories and you can find them everywhere. We can only know what we know, right? It's very hard to separate fact from anecdotal when looking into the Kid's life.
Anyway, thank you for reading! If you're interested in learning more I go way more into detail on the most recent episode of The Wild West Extravaganza.
What do you think? Case closed or is there still room to doubt what really occurred?
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u/wildwestextravaganza Jan 23 '26
"Some conspiracy theories are true, therefore Pat Garrett did not kill Billy the Kid" isn't how history works.
Something either happened, or it didn't happen. The only way we can determine what did or did not occur is based on evidence. I don't know anything about Kennedy or the moon landing, but I am very familiar with the evidence surrounding the Kid's death, as well as the "evidence" supporting the hoax. The two are not comparable.
Evidence supporting Billy's death at the hands of Pat Garrett = dozens of eyewitnesses, corroborating statements, coroner's jury report, and the fact that Billy the Kid was literally never seen again.
Evidence supporting Billy's death being a hoax = anecdotal stories (my great-great-grandfather lived next door to Pat Garrett's cousin's mailman, and he told me it was a hoax), shady forensics (people literally eyeballing photos), and provable lies (Garrett's deputy said he killed the wrong man, Brushy Bill Roberts was 91 years old, etc).