Billy the Kid's last laugh - Whereabouts does he lie? Depends on whom, and where, you ask ...

In Hico, the Texas town whose motto is "Where Everybody is Somebody," folks are bristling at the notion that Brushy Bill is nobody.

Earlier this month, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson announced a plan to finally learn the truth about what happened to Billy the Kid by exhuming bodies in Texas and New Mexico for DNA comparisons.

It is generally accepted history that Sheriff Pat Garrett tracked down Billy the Kid, a.k.a. William H. Bonney, after the 21-year-old outlaw escaped from the Lincoln County, N.M., jail in 1881. His remains are believed to be buried at Fort Sumner.

But a man named Ollie L. Roberts also claimed that he was the Kid and escaped to Texas, where he lived a long life under several aliases, including "Brushy Bill." A month before he died in 1950 at age 90 in Hico, Brushy Bill even applied for a pardon for his crimes from New Mexico's governor.

In Hico, 100 miles southwest of Dallas, the Kid is part of the town's legend. And residents are quick to dismiss the thought that he could have been an impostor.

"I denounce the whole thing as a publicity ploy," said Bob Hefner, a retired municipal court judge and justice of the peace. "If New Mexico is really on a historical search, they would dig in their own state. Why come to Texas and dig and ignore what they say is conclusive proof right there at home?"

New Mexico officials say they have court records and documents identifying Billy the Kid's mother. They plan to exhume her body from a Silver City, N.M., grave to obtain a benchmark DNA sample. The next step would be to dig up Brushy Bill, said Billy Sparks, a spokesman for Mr. Richardson.

"New Mexico is very confident that Billy the Kid is buried here and the other claims need to step up to the plate," Mr. Sparks said. "The state is hoping Texas will be cooperative. Hico is the one making the claim."

New Mexico is relying on volunteers to do much of the work and donations to finance the investigations, expected to cost about $50,000.

Some Hico residents contend that the Kid's New Mexico grave is empty, which is why officials don't want to dig there first.

"We are not trying to take away from the Billy the Kid history in New Mexico," Hico resident Anita Mueller said. "But I think they should dig up their own body, if they can find one."

Mr. Sparks responds that Texas should be responsible for disproving New Mexico's longtime claim to the body, rather than the other way around.

And New Mexicans say they are motivated to defend the honor of Sheriff Garrett, whose likeness is on the uniforms worn by Lincoln County sheriff's deputies. If he didn't kill the Kid, some contend that he probably murdered a sidekick and lied about it.

In any case, it's not even clear who would give the OK for Brushy Bill's exhumation from a cemetery in Hamilton, near Hico. He has no living relatives. The Texas attorney general's office says it has no authority to make a ruling. And Hamilton County residents are unlikely to agree to it.

Mr. Hefner said officials in New Mexico likely would have to obtain a court order.

The stories of Billy the Kid paint a vivid picture of the gun-slinging Wild West, the tumultuous days when New Mexico was still a territory.

The Kid is occasionally credited with killing a man when he was just 12, and the notches on his belt range from four to as many as nine. He was convicted of killing a sheriff and sentenced to hang, but shot two guards in an escape from the Lincoln County Jail on April 28, 1881.

That's where the New Mexico and Texas versions of the story take separate paths. The generally accepted version has the Kid fleeing to Fort Sumner, where he stayed with friends until Sheriff Garrett hunted him down and shot him dead.

An alternate account suggests that the sheriff and the Kid were friends who hatched a plan for Billy's escape to Texas, where he died in 1950 as Brushy Bill.

The Kid is one of several outlaws of old whose remains have become subject to new analysis.

For years after Wild Bill Longley's 1878 hanging in Giddings, some residents maintained that the Texas outlaw had managed to survive and slip away. After digging up 35 graves throughout the 1990s, a Smithsonian Institution scientist announced in 2001 that DNA testing and a reconstruction of facial bones found eight feet from the grave marker made it certain that the Texas gunman was put in his coffin.

Jesse James was dug up from his grave in Kearney, Mo., in 1995 so a forensic specialist could prove he really was buried there and debunk a story that he escaped and lived a long life under an alias.

In 2000, searchers in Granbury attempted to unearth the remains of J. Frank Dalton, who claimed until his death in 1951 to be Jesse James. But the tombstone was placed incorrectly in Granbury Cemetery and the remains of Henry Holland were exhumed instead, ending the hunt for the time being.

Just last month, authorities in Neodesha, Kan., exhumed the remains of a Kansas farmer who died in 1935 to explore claims that he could have been Jesse James. DNA samples were taken for analysis.

In the case of the Kid, the renewed interest is not about proving anything, but boosting tourism, charged Mr. Hefner, a Brushy Bill adherent who wrote "The Trial of Billy the Kid."

"I think the governor of New Mexico and the tourism director are pulling the biggest scam," Mr. Hefner said. "Why aren't they trying to prove their story within their own borders when they claim to have all the bodies?"

The Kid is big both in Fort Sumner, N.M., and Hico, where museums are dedicated to him.

The New Mexico museum gets between 19,000 and 26,000 visitors a year. Hico's museum doesn't track its visitors, but reports getting as many as 50 people a day, or as few as two. A logbook identifies guests from as far away as New Zealand, Germany, South Africa and Denmark.

Even New Mexico's governor acknowledges that the Kid is important to the state's tourism industry.

"Getting to the truth is our goal," Mr. Richardson said earlier this month. "But, if this increases interest and tourism in our state, I couldn't be happier."

Hico residents already have noticed a bump in visitors and media attention following the media blitz about exhuming Brushy Bill.

"I saw people with cameras strapped all over their bodies going into the museum. I knew they weren't locals," Ms. Mueller said. "We couldn't buy that kind of publicity. The Billy the Kid story put Hico on the map. It's been a big deal."

Tourism expert Liping A. Cai suggests that both towns cultivate the Kid's myth rather than spend time competing.

"When two counties say they are authentic, they lose credibility," said Mr. Cai, director of Purdue University's Tourism & Hospitality Research Center. "They need to work together, promote community branding."

Interest in outlaws has been an ongoing phenomenon, especially in the 1920s, when several books were written about the Old West, and again in the 1950s, when prime-time TV westerns flooded the airwaves, said Mark Boardman of the Western Outlaw Lawman History Association.

"It's part of one of the most interesting periods of American history," Mr. Boardman said. "When you have that kind of creative action going you have all kinds of turmoil and people battling for power. These people represent an era we will never see again."

Even though DNA testing concluded that the real Jesse James had been found, folks argued that the body was a fake.

"Does it close down those debates? No," Mr. Boardman said. "Those who are in adherence to that school of thought are going to believe what they want no matter what kind of testing is done. They have something invested, either emotionally or financially."

Amazing! Two US States fighting for ownership of a thieving, murderous bastard.

I have read several places that Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid had been friends - evidently this is the basis for the rumors that Garrett's killing of the Kid was faked

It sounds like the people of Hico better start gathering string for the largest ball of string so they don't slip off the map.

4 posted on 06/21/2003 5:49:18 PM PDT by Shooter 2.5 (Don't punch holes in the lifeboat)

All very interesting from an historical point of view but why should we give a flying flip as to where the criminal is buried?

Oh, yes! Silly me. It is the tourism dollars..............

If you're really into "HOKEY" I suggest you visit the museum at Hico. It's wonderfully hokey--right up there with the display and museum about the Dalton Gang in Caney KS.

I've been to the Hico B.T.K. museum it was.... well.....

Lame

Hico has a neat downtown though and it holds a nice small town charm.

If I'm headed south I usually visit the Texas Ranger museum in Waco. I really enjoy going into that place. A guide asked if I wanted to see something and he took me into one of the backrooms where they kept all the records. It's really a facinating place.

9 posted on 06/21/2003 7:11:52 PM PDT by Shooter 2.5 (Don't punch holes in the lifeboat)

Judge Roy Bean's place was pretty cool...I was 12 the last time I was there,but it made an impression on me.
The Alamo is great if your ever in San Antonio.

I haven't been in that direction yet to visit Langtry. I have been to San Antonio a couple of times. The Alamo is great.

There's a big Cowboy Action Shoot some place near Fossil Ridge. I've been meaning to get there one of these days.

Frontier days in Fort Worth is fun too.

Every once in a while I have to ask how a Chicago boy wound up in Texas.

11 posted on 06/21/2003 7:59:37 PM PDT by Shooter 2.5 (Don't punch holes in the lifeboat)

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