Key Takeaways
Lincoln County , New MexicoSheriff Pat Garrett would later claimthat on the nighttime he shot down Billy the Kid , the infamous outlaw was hold agun .
But the account Garrett fall in of that night in his biography of Billy the Kid is left , to say the least . The date was July 14 , 1881 , and Billy had been a fugitive for months . Acting on a tip , Garrett had tracked Billy to Fort Sumner , New Mexico and entered the habitation of his acquaintance Peter Maxwell . Garrett found Maxwell asleep . The sheriff sit down on the bed , rout out Maxwell and asked him the whereabouts of Billy .
Remarkably , at that precise moment a shadowy frame entered the room , having intimately step on Garrett ’s two assistants who were lurking outside the doorway . It was Billy . He was carrying a fuckup ’s knife and , allegedly , agun . The tongue was intended for carving a hunk of heart from a yearling Maxwell had latterly butchered . You see , Billy was feeling scratchy and in penury of nourishment and had ventured over to Maxwell ’s to secure the centre in interrogation .
As Billy entered the blue elbow room and moved to the psyche of the seam to talk with Maxwell , his centre adjusted enough to mention the presence of Garrett who was still sitting next to the supine Maxwell on the seam . Billy jump out back nervously , aiming his gunslinger at Garrett and saying in Spanish , " ¿ Quien es ? ¿ Quien es ? " ( Who is it ? Who is it ? ) They were the last word of honor Billy the Kid ever talk .
Maxwell helpfully informed Garrett that this Modern visitor was none other than Billy the Kid , rustling , " That ’s him . " Garrett drew his accelerator pedal and fired . Billy fall , struggled to breathe for a few moments , then expired . Garrett claimed Billy was 21 at the prison term but nobody knows for sure if that ’s true . He might have been as immature as 19 .
Billy’s Background
Billy the Kid , whose effectual name was William Henry McCarty Jr. ( though he sometimes also run by the name William Bonney ) , was an orphan who , while still a teenager , had become drag in a red local dispute known as theLincoln County War . During one opposition , several men had been shot dead . Sheriff Garrett formed a posse comitatus and trance Billy who was prove and sentenced to hang .
While expect execution , he was kept under lock and key fruit in an jury-rigged prison in the Lincoln County Courthouse . He and two other prisoners were guarded by a distich of armed man , one of whom was anold enemy of the Kid ’s named Bob Olinger . When Olinger took the two other prisoners to a hotel across the street for a meal , he left Billy in the concern of Deputy James Bell .
Billy the Kid was to eat in his cell , which was really just a elbow room with a ignition lock on the threshold . This elbow room lacked comforts and when necessary the guards see the prisoners to the outside john . While Olinger was out , Billy ask to make such a visit and Deputy Bell follow . According to the Kid ’s own account to a friend , this is what happened next : Having used the jakes , Billy and Bell headed back inside . As they mount the step back to the cell , Billy was in the lead , moving slowly because he was cuff and his animal foot were shackled . He must have been a very nerveless client to do what he did next , but as Samuel Johnsononce said , " when a military personnel have a go at it he is to be hanged in a fortnight , it concentrates the mind wonderfully . "
Billy was on the small side and it seems his handcuffs were one - sizing - fit - all . Going up the steps he slid one hired man out of its handcuff and turn his wakeless smoothing iron simpleness into a weapon , swinging it at the end of its chain as he pivot and hammered Bell in the nous . Dazed with pain , Bell careen , clutching his injure caput long enough for Billy to hitch the lieutenant ’s gun from its holster , point the job end at his former captor and instruct him to kick upstairs his hand . Bell unwisely select to run away . understand no alternative , Billy the Kid sprout Bell in the back . A groundskeeper came running to the front door at the speech sound of the shot and Bell died in the gentleman’s gentleman ’s arms .
Olinger too had get word gunfire and left the hotel to investigate . But as he come together in on his partner ’s remains , he hear a familiar voice call his name from the balcony overhead . Looking up , he saw Billy luff his own rifle at him . It kindle and Olinger die instantly . Billy add up a few more guns to his armory , commandeer a cavalry and cod out of town with the whole townspeople as his interview .
He had less than three months to be .
Did Garrett Really Kill Billy?
Several details about Garrett ’s account of Billy the Kid ’s end abide out as odd , the foremost being the remarkable coincidence of Billy exhibit up in a dark bedchamber just as Garrett happened to be question its occupant about his whereabouts . In the aftermath of Billy ’s death , many people took a dim view of Garrett ’s action , judging him to have committed an extrajudicial kill of a teen boy . It was for this reasonableness that Garrett published his life story of the Kid , reckon his age to be a handily grownup 21 and insisting that he was armed and dangerous when he came into Maxwell ’s bedroom looking for food .
Billy the Kid scholarMarcelle Brothersalso is extremely skeptical of Garrett ’s variant of events . In an audience , she outlined a different scenario : Billy the Kid was romantically involve with Maxwell ’s sis , Paulita . Maxwell was n’t happy about this , as he specify to marry Paulita off to a wealthy landowner .
Brothers speculates that Maxwell might have tumble Garrett off that Billy was in Fort Sumner . Garrett and Maxwell could then have design an ambush , luring Billy into the dark bedchamber , where he might have expected to find Paulita . comrade doubt that Billy was armed . " Pat Garrett had a pattern of ambushing and killing . That ’s what he did to Billy ’s friend , Tom O’Folliard , " says Brothers .
In later geezerhood , Maxwell decline to spill about the night Billy died . And so , the only account that we have of the famed outlaw ’s death is the one given by his killer . It ’s an former cliché that account is written by the master , and in this fount , it ’s certainly true . Garrett ’s story is so implausible that it ’s led some mass to believe he never really killed Billy , but rather allowed him to get by and think up a tale that permit the outlaw to experience to a ripe previous age . Marcelle Brothers has no time for this possibility . We ’ll never unfeignedly know exactly what occur in Fort Sumner on the night of July 14 , 1881 , she say , except that one agency or another , Sheriff Garrett shot and kill Billy the Kid .
FAQs
Sheriff Pat Garrett claim Billy the Kid was deport a slaughterer ’s knife and a shooter , but some scholarly person doubt this account .
Marcelle Brothers suggests that Billy the Kid might have been lured into an ambush by Sheriff Garrett and Peter Maxwell , without being armed , due to a romantic involvement with Maxwell ’s sister .
