In the summer of 1950, the governor of New Mexico sat in his office in Santa Fe, preparing for a visitor who had traveled more than seven hundred miles to see him. Thomas J. Mabry had announced the meeting publicly, and the press had gathered, sensing the oddity of what was about to take place. The man who was about to walk through the door claimed he was William H.

Bonney. He said he was Billy the Kid. And he was asking, at last, for the pardon he insisted had been promised to him seventy years earlier. The old man who entered the governor’s office went by the name Brushy Bill Roberts.

He had been living quietly in the small town of Hico, Texas, and had spent the previous two years telling his story to anyone who would listen: that he had not been killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett in 1881, that the man shot dead in a darkened bedroom in Fort Sumner was someone else, and that the outlaw known to history as Billy the Kid had simply walked away and lived out his life under a string of false names. Now, at the end of that life, he wanted the record set straight. Governor Mabry heard him out. He reviewed the evidence Roberts had brought.

Then, formally and without hesitation, he rejected the pardon request. There was not enough evidence, he said, to support the old man’s story. Nearly seventy years earlier, in July 1881, Sheriff Pat Garrett had reported killing Billy the Kid in the ranch house of Pete Maxwell in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. The Kid, a fugitive after escaping from the Lincoln County jail two months before, was said to have walked into the dark room where Garrett was speaking with Maxwell.

Garrett fired twice. The second shot struck the Kid in the chest, killing him instantly. That was the story that became legend, sealed by Garrett’s own book, published the following year. But doubts surfaced almost immediately, and they were raised by the very men who were with Garrett that night.

Only three individuals witnessed the death of Billy the Kid: Garrett and his two deputies, John W. Poe and Thomas McKini. It was a crucial detail that would complicate the official account for generations. McKini admitted he had only a vague familiarity with the Kid; he could not have identified him with certainty in the dark.

Poe had never laid eyes on him before. When the shooting was over, Poe reportedly turned to Garrett and said he believed the wrong man had been killed. The lighting in the room was so poor that none of the witnesses could provide a clear visual identification. Garrett claimed he recognized the Kid by his voice, although only hushed words had passed between them.

The deputies eventually backed Garrett’s account, but the hesitation had been real. Years later, McKini reversed himself, joining Poe in suggesting that Garrett may have misidentified the man he killed. Local residents of Fort Sumner had their own doubts. Garrett, who had political reasons to secure the credit for the Kid’s death, quickly arranged an inquest with associates who were well connected, which allowed him to claim the reward money without serious dispute.

The body was buried the next day. The grave, however, was not permanent. Over the decades, the marked grave believed to hold Billy the Kid’s remains was damaged and likely washed away by flooding. Today, the grave that visitors are shown may contain no remains at all.

Requests for exhumation and DNA testing have been consistently denied by authorities. The story of the man who claimed to be the Kid surfaced in a roundabout way. In 1948, a probate investigator from St. Louis named William V.

Morrison was conducting routine work when he came across an elderly man named Joe Hines, who had recently filed a claim on land left by his deceased brother. During their conversations, Hines began sharing detailed recollections of his involvement in the Lincoln County War, the bloody conflict in New Mexico that had made Billy the Kid a legend. Morrison was surprised when Hines insisted that the Kid had not died in 1881. Hines declined to reveal the name or location of the man he claimed was still alive, but the suggestion was enough to set Morrison on a new path.

The same year, Morrison encountered another figure who fed the mystery: J. Frank Dalton of Oilton, Oklahoma. Dalton had already drawn attention by declaring himself to be Jesse James. Along with that claim, Dalton asserted that Billy the Kid was also still living, and that the man known locally in Hamilton, Texas, as O.

Roberts was in fact the outlaw in hiding. Morrison, following the lead from Joe Hines, initiated a written exchange with the elderly man in Hamilton. Over time, that man opened up. He declared that he was indeed Billy the Kid.

His name, he said, was William Henry Roberts, born on December 31, 1859, in Buffalo Gap, Texas, near Abilene. Over the course of his life he had used several identities, including William Henry Roberts, Ollie Partridge, William Roberts, Ollie N. Roberts, and Ollie Roberts. In his letters and conversations with Morrison, he recounted stories from his past, tales that filled in many of the gaps in Billy the Kid’s life that historians had struggled to document.

He explained that the man Garrett killed in 1881 was not him, but another outlaw named Billy Barlow. According to Roberts, the mistaken identity had allowed him to slip away unnoticed and travel to Mexico. One of his main motivations for coming forward was the pardon he had been promised. Roberts claimed that New Mexico Governor Lew Wallace had promised him a full pardon back in 1879, following the Lincoln County War, but that it had never been formally granted.

He insisted he would fully reveal his story if the pardon was finally delivered. To demonstrate that his claim was real, Roberts showed Morrison skills from his former life, including the ability to slip out of handcuffs. Morrison, convinced he had found something significant, began building a case. He located Jim McDaniels, a former member of the Jesse Evans gang, living in Round Rock, Texas.

McDaniels, along with Cleo Gallegos, Martel Abel, and Jose Montoya, all of whom had known Billy the Kid during his lifetime, signed sworn statements expressing their belief that Roberts was indeed the same man. But not everyone agreed. Bill and Sam Jones, also believed to have known the Kid, declined to sign affidavits. Sam Jones wrote back with a simple explanation: “I received your letter and am sorry, but feel that I can’t sign your affidavit.

I’m old and I just don’t feel like being obligated. ” Bill Jones’s grandson, writing on his behalf, also expressed doubts and declined. The 1950 article in the Austin American-Statesman added another layer to the story. It reported that Roberts had initially claimed to have been a member of Jesse James’s gang, and only later came forward asserting that he was Billy the Kid.

In early 1950, Roberts stated that as a young man he had ridden with the James-Younger gang. He also identified J. Frank Dalton, the same man who had pointed Morrison toward Texas, as the real Jesse James. Morrison also claimed that during a personal physical examination, when Roberts was unclothed, he observed 26 old wounds, which he described as scars from bullets and blades.

This physical evidence, Morrison believed, supported Roberts’s claim. The Kansas City Southern Railway, which operated in the region, issued a statement confirming that Roberts did indeed have numerous scars consistent with gunshot and knife wounds. The questions, however, did not stop. It was well documented that Billy the Kid could read and write English and spoke Spanish fluently.

Roberts could not read or write, and his spoken Spanish was moderate at best. Critics seized on this linguistic gap as a key point against his claim. His physical appearance, while showing resemblance in some early photos, was not conclusive, and questions about scars and fingerprints could not be resolved without access to the Kid’s records, if any existed. There was also the matter of his age.

Marshall Trimble, the official state historian of Arizona, referenced the work of Frederick Nolan, a respected expert on Billy the Kid. Nolan highlighted a 1987 letter written by Mrs. Geneva Pitman, sent to Joe Bollen, founder of a historical interest group called the Billy the Kid Gang, Inc. In her letter, Mrs.

Pitman identified her uncle, known publicly as Brushy Bill, as Oliver P. Roberts. She stated, based on the family bible, that he was born on August 26, 1879. That would have made him 71 when he died in Hico in 1950.

Author W. C. Jameson, a vocal supporter of Brushy Bill’s claim, argued that Brushy Bill’s true name was William Henry Roberts, and that Oliver Pleasant Roberts and Brushy Bill were two separate individuals. This directly contradicted Geneva Pitman’s statement, which firmly linked her uncle Brushy Bill to the name Oliver P.

Roberts and rejected the idea that he was Billy the Kid. If Brushy Bill had indeed been born in 1859, as his supporters claimed, he would have been approximately 90 at the time of his death. The age discrepancy became a central point in the debate over his identity, further complicating the narrative. The physical evidence was also highly contested.

William B. Morrison claimed that during his examination of Roberts, he observed 26 old wounds which he described as scars from bullets and blades. Morrison believed this supported Roberts’s claim to be Billy the Kid. But critics noted that Billy the Kid, by most accounts, had not sustained that many documented wounds, and the scars could not be independently verified.

After Governor Mabry’s rejection in 1950, Roberts returned home to Hico. The attention, combined with the stress of travel, reportedly took a toll on his health. Not long after the meeting, he passed away on December 27, 1950, at his residence on West Second Street in Hico. He was laid to rest in Hamilton, the county seat, about twenty miles south of Hico.

For many years, both Roberts and his story faded from public memory. Then, in 1990, the film Young Guns II portrayed Brushy Bill as the narrator, recounting the life of Billy the Kid and the events of the Lincoln County War. The film reignited interest in the mystery, and new books began exploring the possibility that Roberts may have been telling the truth. The first major work on the subject had actually appeared years earlier, in 1950, under the title Alias Billy the Kid, co-authored by William V.

Morrison and Western historian C. L. Sonnichsen. While the book attempted a fresh look at the story, most research on the topic, including theirs, relied heavily on the 1882 account published by Sheriff Pat Garrett.

Garrett’s book, however, had been largely shaped by Ash Upson, the postmaster of Roswell, who contributed both factual elements and fictionalized material. Upson’s embellishments helped solidify the legend of Billy the Kid in the public imagination. Upon its release, Alias Billy the Kid received mixed reviews. Despite this, it found an unexpected supporter in former U.

S. President Harry Truman. Truman wrote to Morrison expressing his belief that Roberts may indeed have been the Kid. He regretted that Brushy Bill had passed away before being given the opportunity to present his case to a different governor, one who might have been more receptive to his request for a pardon.

In 2005, W. C. Jameson, who had studied under Sonnichsen, revisited the subject in his book Billy the Kid: Beyond the Grave. His research renewed interest in the case and prompted further investigation.

One prominent figure who joined the discussion was Steve Sederwall, a former deputy sheriff of Lincoln County and a former mayor of Capitan, New Mexico. In April 2015, broadcaster and author Bill O’Reilly added his voice to the debate. In his book Bill O’Reilly’s Legends and Lies: The Real West, he suggested that the evidence supporting Brushy Bill’s claim might actually outweigh the traditional narrative. O’Reilly cited the original Alias Billy the Kid as a foundational source and featured the story on his national television program, reconstructing the events of Billy the Kid’s supposed death from Brushy Bill Roberts’s point of view.

In 1989, the Lincoln County Heritage Trust sponsored a computer-based facial comparison study. The research was conducted by Robert Eler and Dr. Thomas G. Kyle, who developed a custom analytical method rather than relying on the standard procedures used by law enforcement agencies.

They scanned photographs of Brushy Bill Roberts, Billy the Kid, and 150 additional individuals, then used a computer to compare 25 key facial landmarks through a similarity index. When the results were ranked, Roberts’s image placed 42nd, meaning 41 other individuals more closely matched the well-known tintype image of Billy the Kid. Researcher Robert Snow noted that if Roberts and the Kid were truly the same person, the photo should have ranked near the top, ideally within the top two matches. But he also pointed out that photo comparisons are highly dependent on the alignment and angle of the faces being compared, which may have affected the outcome.

The following year, 1990, a second study was carried out at the University of Texas. This one used advanced facial comparison tools at the Laboratory for Vision Studies and the Advanced Graphics Laboratory, led by imaging experts Scott Acton and Alan Bovik. Unlike the earlier study, this one corrected for differences in facial angle and applied a facial recognition system that had been used by agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and Interpol. These tools offered greater statistical reliability.

One early photograph of Brushy Bill, reportedly taken when he was around 14 years old, was found to closely resemble the famous tintype of Billy the Kid. A photo of Roberts at age 71 produced a 93% similarity rating to the known image of the Kid. Acton and Bovik concluded that their findings showed a very close resemblance between Roberts and Billy the Kid. They acknowledged, however, that for the results to be accepted scientifically, the study would need to be independently replicated.

So far, no follow-up studies have been conducted to confirm these results. And even if the facial comparison findings were replicated, similarity alone could not serve as definitive proof of identity; without supporting evidence, it could not verify that the two individuals were the same person. In 1996, the results of the University of Texas study were reviewed by Judge Andre McNeil of Arkansas’s 12th Judicial District and attorney Helen Grinder, a respected legal figure in the state. Both expressed confidence in the strength of the findings.

Grinder described the case for Brushy Bill being Billy the Kid as strong, substantial, and excellent, based on the photographic study and other supporting evidence. DNA testing might have settled the matter, but that avenue was blocked. In 2003, an effort was launched to resolve the mystery of the Kid’s final resting place, led by Lincoln County Sheriff Tom Sullivan, Capitan Mayor Steve Sederwall, and De Baca County Sheriff Gary Graves, all based in New Mexico. Their goal was to use modern DNA testing to confirm whether Billy the Kid was truly buried in Fort Sumner.

They proposed exhuming the remains believed to be his, along with those of his mother, Catherine Antrim, for comparative analysis. The plan faced immediate challenges. Historical records lacked the clarity needed to pinpoint the exact burial locations of either individual with confidence. In addition to the logistical difficulties, the project encountered a series of legal complications.

In September 2004, a court ruling blocked the proposed exhumations, halting the investigation before DNA analysis could be conducted. And so the town of Hico, Texas, has become the keeper of the alternative story. After his death, Brushy Bill Roberts was buried in Hamilton, but it is Hico that has embraced his legacy. The local chamber of commerce supported the establishment of the Billy the Kid Museum in the historic western district of the town.

The museum highlights Roberts’s claim and its place in the broader legend of the American frontier. A commemorative marker stands in downtown Hico recognizing the man and the controversy surrounding his identity. The inscription reads: “Ollie L. ‘Brushy Bill’ Roberts, alias Billy the Kid, died in Hico, Texas, December 27, 1950.

” The plaque also acknowledges Roberts’s final mission: to convince the world that he was truly Billy the Kid and to secure the pardon he said had been promised to him by Governor Lew Wallace of the New Mexico territory. Was Brushy Bill Roberts a forgotten outlaw who slipped through history’s cracks, or just a man caught up in the legend of Billy the Kid? Despite decades of investigation, sworn affidavits, photo analysis, and DNA discussions, the truth remains elusive. The case for his claim rests on the testimony of aging men who had known the Kid, the physical scars Morrison swore he observed, and two computer studies that produced contradictory results.

The case against it rests on the documented story of Garrett’s killing, the question of age, the gap in literacy and language, and the strong words of a niece who identified him as someone else entirely. The debate continues to ride the line between fact and folklore, and with every request for exhumation denied, the answers stay buried with the man in Hamilton, Texas.