An Arizona historian is asking a New Mexico court to order a death certificate for Billy the Kid to settle questions about whether the infamous outlaw was actually killed in 1881.
As per santafenewmexican.com, the historian hopes to put an end to claims of true believers who doubt whether Billy the Kid was really killed by Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett in 1881 after he escaped from jail, the
Most historians believe that Garrett shot the Kid, also known as Henry Antrim and William Bonney, in Peter Maxwell's bedroom in Fort Summer, but others say the Kid did not die that night.
One story has him adopting a Navajo boy with his New Mexico wife and taking up ranching and later farming. Ollie "Brushy Bill" Roberts of Hico, Texas, who claimed he was the real Billy the Kid, sought a pardon in 1950from Thomas Mabry, then New Mexico's governor, who denied it. Roberts died the same year.
As per Robert J. Stahl, a professor emeritus at Arizona State University, who has written a 29-page petition containing a detailed account of the documentary record and extracts from the testimony of eyewitnesses that he believes show beyond any doubt that the Kid died by a bullet from Garrett's pistol, the certificate would "end a lot of people's doubts" and "undermine supporters of Brushy Bill and other imposters.
Stahl's petition says that within hours of the Kid's death, a coroner's jury was appointed and determined that the dead man was indeed William H. Bonney and that he died by a bullet from Garrett's pistol.
The report was handwritten in Spanish and signed by the men, all of whom knew the Kid. In order to claim the reward, Garrett had the document translated into English and signed by the same jurors.
The petition includes Peter Maxwell's account of lying in his bed at about midnight and seeing Garrett fire two shots at the Kid. It also includes a story published in the Las Vegas Optic on July 18, 1881, that quoted a recently discharged Pvt. George Miller, who heard the shots, saw the Kid's body and helped dig his grave, as well as an account in another paper by the jury foreman, who said he knew it was "the Kid's body that we examined.
