Billy The Kid: Wild West Gunslinger
Who Was Billy The Kid?
Born Henry McCarty in 1859 in New York City, Billy the Kid was raised by a single mother in Wichita Kansas, until she died of tuberculosis when Billy was just 14 years old.
His first arrest came in 1875, when he stole clothing from a Chinese laundry, but rather than face justice, he shimmied up a jailhouse chimney and fled to Arizona, where he killed his first man in a barroom gunfight. Assuming the aliases of William Wright and William Bonney, Billy the Kid earned his reputation as a gunslinger during the Lincoln County War of 1878, when rancher John Tunstall set up a competing business against a local dry goods and cattle trading monopoly owned by two Irish immigrants.
Bankrolled by Tunstall, Billy the Kid joined a vigilante group known as The Regulators, who murdered Lincoln Country Sheriff William Brady after the Sheriff organized a posse that led to Tunstall’s death.
How Many People did Billy the Kid Kill?
Unlike other Wild West outlaws like Jesse James or Butch Cassidy, Billy the Kid never robbed a bank or a train or even a stagecoach, but rather focused his efforts on cattle rustling in New Mexico and Arizona. Known for his easygoing manner, between 1877 and 1881, the baby-faced gunslinger felled nine men in a stretch of largely saloon-related gunfights, including a drunk named Joe Grant who threatened patrons in a New Mexico saloon.
“That’s a mighty fine looking six-shooter you got,” Billy said to the man, slipping Grant’s gun from its holster, before spinning the cylinder to an empty next round. Later that night, Grant fired his pistol at Kid’s back, and when the weapon failed to go off, Kid turned from his poker hand before ending Grant’s life with a single shot to the chest. In late 1880, Lincoln Country Sheriff Pat Garrett tracked Kid to his hideout in Stinking Springs New Mexico, taking Kid into custody before the outlaw was found guilty in a court of law for the murder of Sheriff William Brady. Scheduled to be hanged on April 28th, 1881, Kid murdered two guards during a trip to an outhouse, escaping yet again to make Billy the Kid the most wanted man in the West.
How Did Billy the Kid Die?
Spending the next several months on the run, Sheriff Garrett caught up with Kid at the home of rancher Peter Maxwell, ending the life of the 21-year old outlaw when one of Garrett’s two shots pierced Kid’s heart. Since his death, Billy the Kid’s life and likeness has been cast in some 50 Spaghetti Westerns and TV series, making the short yet violent life of Billy the Kid, the stuff of gunslinger legend in the bygone days of the American Wild West.