Mystery Files (2010–…): Season 1, Episode 6 - Billy the Kid - full transcript
It's the late 1870s one
of the most infamous outlawsof
the American wild west
is Billy the Kid.
A teenage killer who
terrorizes New Mexico.
His life of crime
comes to an end
when gunned down by his onetime
friend, lawman Pat Garrett.
This is the legend of the Kid.
But closer analysis and
new forensic evidence
reveals his story
is very different.
Somehow or other, this
happened to this real
person, and made him
into this absolutely
unreal person.
So who is thereal
boy behind the legend?
We open the "Mystery
Files" on Billy the Kid.
New Mexico in southwesternAmerica,
it's the old frontier.
And the tales of
outlaw Billy the Kid
portray him as one of
itsmost ruthless characters.
Bob Boze Bell,
aficionadoin all things Wild West.
Popular legend said
he'd killed 21 men.
One for every year of his life.
You know, he robbed banks.
He robbed trains.
He appeared on wanted posters.
You know-- wanted, Billy
the Kid, dead or alive.
He stood in the street,
andhe dared people to draw.
Of course, that's not
what happened, actually.
You know, in fact, his
real name wasn't Billy.
His real name was Henry McCarty.
Henry McCarty and Henry Antrim
are his family names.
William, or Billy
Bonney, and the kid,
are the aliases he now uses.
Curator Elise Gomber has
found that his names are
not the only area of confusion.
Billy the Kid only
killed four people
that we know of for sure.
There seem to be
two divergent myths.
In one, he's a romantic
hero, a dashing outlaw.
And in the other direction,
he's a cold blooded killer
and a ruthless murderer.
In reality,
muchof his life is a mystery.
Frederick Nolan is the
world'sleading expert on the Kid.
We don't know where he was born.
We don't know who
his father was.
We don't know where he spentthe
first 12 years of his life.
But he becomesvisible
in the historical record
when he was arrested
for stealing
some clothing off a laundryline,
aged about 15, in 1875.
We do know, then, that
he got into trouble.
And that made him a drifter.
And that's how he went
to Lincoln County.
But he's still nobody.
He's just some kid
on a horse with a gun
who will fight for money.
The kid gets
caughtup in a bloody conflict
in Lincoln, New Mexico.
He is ultimately branded
an outlaw and murderer
and is sentenced to death.
But the events leading
up to his conviction
are far from straightforward.
And the conflict is notabout
am I right or am I wrong,
or am I good or am I bad.
The conflict is about money.
The Kid's actions in the war
all stem from
meeting one person,
Englishman John Tunstall.
Tunstall runs a store
and a cattle ranch.
He gives Billy a job
in the winter of 1877.
But there is a
rival store in town.
It belongs to the very
successful partnership
of Lawrence Murphy
and Jimmy Dolan.
They'd had a
monopoly for a decade.
And pretty much everybody inthe
county was indebted to them.
Lincoln County
is on the very frontier
of the new world.
The stakes are high.
If a trader could
monopolize the business,
their wealth and power
would grow as the region
became more established.
Lincoln County War
expert, Drew Gomber.
When John Tunstall
arrived in Lincoln
he went into competition withthe
firm of Murphy and Dolan.
He was the first
real competition
that they had ever seen.
And they were not
happy about this.
In the 1870s,
therules of the American frontier
are dramatically different
toTunstall's English etiquette.
Lincoln County itself wasabout
the same size as Ireland,
and it had one Sheriff.
And the one
andonly Sheriff does not have
Tunstall's interests at heart.
Murphy and Dolan, more orless,
controlled Sheriff Brady.
Influenced
by Dolan, Sheriff Brady
raises a posse to arrest
and remove Tunstall
as a commercial threat.
And, of course, the Englishman,
coming from a civilizedVictorian
society, probably
never really dreamed
that they would actually
take steps to kill him.
They'd try to frightenhim,
but not kill, surely.
I mean, after all,
it's only shopping.
On the 18th of February, 1878,
the posse guns
John Tunstall down.
It is the circumstances
of Tunstall's
killing that results in the
Kidbecoming caught up in outlawry.
To find out why,
DrewGomber investigates the site
where Tunstall was gunned down.
Tunstall was coming
from his ranch.
He was coming down this way,
and the killers were coming
from the direction I just came.
According to the
Murphy-Dolan faction,
Tunstall drew his own weaponand
tried to resist arrest.
In the laws of the frontier,
this justifies the
posse shooting him.
But Gomber disagrees with
theposse's version of events.
We know better than this.
This is certainly
not what happened.
It would not have been
inkeeping with Tunstall himself.
In my opinion, John
Tunstall's death
was a clear-cut case of murder.
In Lincoln County,
this is a new phenomenon.
There were random killings
allthe time in places like this,
but there had been no murder--
where a man had been
killed, quite clearly,
who wasn't in a gunfight.
The whole community
felt, very strongly,
that something had to be done.
With the
Sheriffloyal to the other side,
Tunstall's man take
mattersinto their own hands.
The Kid joins them,
notas a ruthless gunslinger,
but a young man of around
18 seeking vengeance
for his employer's death.
It's a pretty tough
country to survive
in, let alone make a living in.
This kid just said, this
guy the only person who
ever treated me
like a human being,
so I'm gonna be on his side.
The gang becomes the Regulators.
Their purpose,
to regulatejustice on their bosses
killers.
And so the Lincoln
County War kicks off.
It runs from February
to July, 1878.
And it is the setting
for the Kid's rise
to fame, and his downfall.
Modern investigation
shows his actions
are very different in
reality to his legend.
The Kid does not
lead the Regulations.
The Kid was just
one of the guys.
You have to remember this.
He's just a kid.
He's a smart kid,
and he'svery good at staying alive.
But he's not famous.
Not at all.
Not the slightest bit famous.
Though not the leader,
he has also no hanger-on.
What's amazing about this story
is Billy the Kid washanging
out with some very
rough characters,
and hewas able to hold his own.
But the Regulatorsare
not outlaws at the start
of the war.
Given the circumstances
of Tunstall's murder,
they are given legal
status and arrest
warrants for his killers.
You know, you have a
dulyauthorized sheriffs posse that
kills Tunstall,
and thenthe men that go after them
are duly authorized constables.
So you've got, basically,
two groups of lawmen
fighting against each other.
So how do you make an arrest?
With legality on both sides,
the conflict quickly
deteriorates.
It was just a
worst case scenario.
Couldn't have been worse.
Despite enduringimages
from Western movies
of gun fight showdowns
in the streets,
the reality of a frontier
waris dramatically different.
There were no face
offs in the street
like we see in Hollywood.
It was all about ambushes.
Much like in a real war.
Kind of like a
guerrilla war, actually.
The West is a
fargrittier, more ruthless place.
It is extremely brutal.
And you were a fool if youlet
somebody else shoot first.
That's the real world.
One ambush would
markthe most significant turning
point in the Kid's life.
It is his part in the
killing of Sheriff Brady
nearly two months
after Tunstall's death.
Drew Gomber pieces
together the actions
of the Regulators and the Kid.
They spent the night
in the Tunstall's store.
The next morning,
they werein there having breakfast when
one of them looked
out the window
and saw Sheriff Brady
and four of his deputies
marching down the street.
Somebody had the less
thanbrilliant idea of, hey,
let's go shoot the Sheriff.
And they all rushed out
back in high spirits.
The Regulators had
arrayedthemselves behind a gate
that was about in here.
And by the time they gotthere,
Sheriff Brady his men
were almost down to
where the church is.
The Regulators
opened fire in what
has got to be the dumbest
ambushof the Lincoln County War.
Of the four deputies withSheriff
Brady, two of them
weren't even hit.
Brady, however,
went downwith somewhere between 9
and 16 bullets in his body.
He was dead when
he hit the ground.
The Regulators have gone way
beyond their original
remit of arresting
the men who killed Tunstall.
Prior to it, public sympathywas
really with the Regulators.
But you just don't
kill the sheriff.
It doesn't make any differencewhat
the circumstances are,
no matter how justified
they thought they were.
It's just not done.
And after the Brady killing,
their popularity plummeted.
Their legal status is revoked,
and the war escalates into
afinal bloody shootout where
the Regulators are
surrounded and trapped
in a burning house in Lincoln.
The five day battle was probably
the worst, and
the most dramatic,
of all the skirmishes
that took place.
It is during this battle
the Kid takes his first step
tobecoming the outlaw of legend.
Things were getting desperate.
And it was at that
point that the Kid took
command for the first time.
The Kid gathers a diversion
party to draw gun fire.
Enabling the others
to try and escape.
Anybody ever tells
you Billy was a coward,
doesn't know what
they're talking about.
Because he and his
four volunteers
came out the back door
of the McSween house
into a hailstorm of bullets.
Experienced army officerswho
were present that night
estimated there were 2000
roundsexpended that night alone.
But the gunfire
was so heavy, they
wound up cutting
down the Hillside,
splashing across the
river, and hiding
in the trees on the other side.
The Kid survives.
But many of his
comrades are dead.
The war is effectively over.
As outlaws and branded killers,
the remaining Regulators
scatter.
The Kid is on the run.
Despite the romanticimage
of Billy the Outlaw,
he does not seem
to want this life.
He tries to redeem himself.
To try to get back, as itwere,
as a law abiding citizen.
I think Billy
wanted to go straight.
A chance presents itself
when a new government is
appointed a few months
after the end of the war.
New governor, Lew
Wallace, has just
declared an amnesty
foranybody that did anything
in the Lincoln County War.
Investigations of evidence
from a series of
oldletters, replicated here,
reveal a secret deal
made with Lew Wallace.
A deal that meant the
Kid should have received
a pardon for his crimes.
You've got a kid writing
aletter to the governor of New
Mexico saying, dear Sir,
I have heard that you
will give $1,000 for my body.
If I come and talk
to you, I think
I can persuade you that
I can be of use to you
if you will help me.
Far from beingNew
Mexico's Most Wanted,
the Kid is only 14th
on Wallace's hit list.
Wallace needs to
clean up New Mexico,
so he accepts the offer of
helpfrom this small time outlaw.
And Wallace said, or
is reputed to have said,
if you do what you promise
Iwill set you free with a pardon
in your pocket.
The deal is done.
The Kid submits to the court,
and testifies as a witness
against the Murphy-Dolan gang.
But it does not go
according to the plan.
Wallace has underestimatedthe
politics of New Mexico.
I don't think he really knewthe
limits, or the extent,
of his power.
He told a district attorneynot
to prosecute Billy the Kid,
and the district attorneysaid,
you can't tell me that.
You're not part of
the judicial system.
The pardon never appears.
The Kid is tried and convictedfor
the murder of Sheriff Brady
and sentenced to
death by hanging.
The increasing desperationon
the part of the Kid
is understandable.
These letters reminding
Wallace of their deal
reveal even more of
the Kid's mystery.
The interesting
thing about the letter
is the letter itself, in fact.
Because this is not theletter
of an illiterate lout.
It's, actually,
beautifully handwritten
for the time and the place,
and it's grammatically correct.
He is, as someone calledhim,
the eloquent outlaw.
But he puts his case very well.
For-- what is he?
For heaven's sake, he's 19?
Most people of 19 on
thefrontier were just farm boys.
This is a relatively
well educated person.
But his eloquencefails
to win Wallace over.
Wallace took no
notice whatsoever
of the letters that followed.
He just simply washed
his hands of it.
The kid's sense
ofinjustice at his abandonment
is then heightened.
No criminal charge ever
sticks against anyone
else in the gang conflict.
On the Murphy-Dolan side,
or in the Regulators.
The Kid is the only one.
I think Billy was the
only person convicted
after the Lincoln
County War partly
because Billy was the onlyperson
who stayed in the area.
He thought it was
hard that he was
the only one that should sufferfor
that, which I agree with.
However, he was
guilty in the sense
that he was part of the
ones that were shooting.
Whether justified or not,
the kid is faced with hanging.
I think after Billyrealized
that Wallace was
never going to keep his
part of the bargain he
was in a tight spot.
And it was either
get out or hang.
The Kid's escape in April,
1881, around two years afterhis
initial deal with Wallace,
marks his first great
step into celebrity.
Well, what he did
was against all odds.
He cheated the hangman.
Killed his two
captors, and escaped.
And that ended up in
the New York Times.
And that was world news.
And that's the moment thatthe
Billy the Kid that we know
was born.
This bid
forfreedom lies at the heart
of the Kid's legend.
And much of its myth
comes from the account
written by one of
Brady'ssuccessors, Sheriff Pat
Garrett.
Pat Garrett was aformer Buffalo hunter who
had come up here from Texas.
Garret'srelationship with the Kid
has been subject to much debate.
There's a persistent
myth about Pat Garrett
that Pat and Billy
were very good friends.
They probably knew
each other, but I don't
think they were very close.
Even though hewas
not present at the time
of the escape, Garrett's
written account became
the accepted version of events.
It says the Kid is
taken to the outhouse,
and breaks free on the way back.
He runs ahead of his
jailer, James Bell.
Gets up the stairs and into
thearmory, where he finds a gun.
Bell has reached the
bottom of the stairs,
and Billy shoots him down.
Bell makes it outside and dies.
Garrett claims the
kiddispatches his other jailer,
Bob Olinger, with a shotgun.
And then, holds the whole
of Lincoln in terror
as he makes his getaway.
It is an extraordinary tale.
And one that establishes
his legend as a ruthless
killer who gunned
down two deputies
in a clear cut case of murder.
But there is evidence to
suggest that Garrett's
account may be wrong.
I think Pat is
absolutely twisting
the myth to make Billy
moreruthless than he actually was.
Based on forensic analysis
and the very courthouse
where the Kid was held,
Steve Sederwall,
former federal agent,
believes that Bell's
death is not a murder,
and Garrett is lying.
In Pat Garrett's account
ofthe escape of Billy the Kid
and the killing of
Bell, he has Bell
at the bottom of the steps.
Sederwall, however,
has discovered evidence
that challenges this account.
Building on informationfrom
contemporary reports,
he investigates further,
using a forensic chemical
called luminol.
It glows blue on contractwith
certain substances.
One of these is blood.
It may even be able
to detect dried blood
that is over 100 years old.
In the courthouse, these
forensic tests found
a positive result upstairs.
And Sederwall believes
this is blood.
With this new
evidence, he thinks
Bell was not shot at the bottomof
the stairs but at the top.
The Kid turned with a gunand
he pulled the hammer back,
and he points the gun at Bell.
Bell is a few steps down.
He lunges forward.
He lunged.
He grabbed the gun
like this, which
put it in line with his body.
The Kid, it startles him.
He steps back and he falls,
andwhen the Kid falls his muscles
tighten up--
the gun went off.
Shot Bell right to left.
What happened after that
was Bell and the Kid
are fighting over the gun.
Bell's got hold of it.
He's got a hold of the cylinder.
He can't cock it.
They're fighting over this gun.
Two kids, fighting face to face.
The Kid then his Bell overthe
head with his handcuffs.
Hits him twice.
Head wound, he's shot,
he's bleeding out all
over the floor right here.
Sederwall believesBell
is killed in self-defense.
And he's not the only
one who thinks so.
I think Billy
and Bell struggled.
I think Billy had to
kill Bell because Bell
would have killed Billy.
And I think Billy was
tryingto escape with his life.
I mean, he was facing
a hanging, and I'd have
done exactly the same thing.
The Kid even expresses regret
almost immediately afterwards.
And Billy said he
felt bad about that.
He said it was a case
of had to, not want to.
However,
the death ofthe other jailer, Bob Olinger,
is not quite so
easily justified.
Kid runs to Garrett'soffice,
picks up the shotgun.
He then runs to this
window, which is open.
He had to have both
the hammers back
when he stuck it out the window.
Olinger has been
overat the Wortley Hotel nearby.
But when he hears thegunshot
that strikes Bell,
he runs back to the courthouse.
He looks up, sees the
Kid just as he's shoving
the shotgun out the window.
The Kid shot him, killed him.
I think Olinger would havekilled
Billy, absolutely,
if he had the opportunity.
And I think it was
anabsolutely necessary killing
So, Garrett's
account of the murders
appears to be flawed.
The Kid's actions are
morethose of a desperate man
than premeditated.
But still, those of a killer.
The Kid's escape from
townonly adds to the mystery.
When Billy escaped fromthe
courthouse in Lincoln,
no one lifted a
finger to stop him.
Pat said it was
because the town was
held in terror of
Billy the Kid, and I
just don't think that's true.
And I think that's becausehe
had so many friends.
He spends an hourtrying to get on a horse.
And he says goodbye
to everybody,
and is just kind
of looking at him.
And-- he spends an hour!
That's truly amazing!
This apparent popularity,
coupled with his last
ditchescape, creates a legend--
that of Billy the Kid.
The drama was suchthat the local newspapers
were full of it, of course.
All of surrounding
territorial newspapers
which, in turn,
were pickedup by the National newspapers.
So, suddenly, thisnobody became a somebody.
And contemporarycomic
books-- dime novels--
also seized on his legend.
The dime novelists
took him over,
and wrote the most
fantasticadventure stories about him.
And, suddenly,
Billy the Kidbecame an entity in itself.
It was almost like a brand.
Billy the Kid
becomes big business.
But the fact remains
that the Kid is
a legally convicted murderer.
His death, by one methodor
another, is inevitable.
In Fort Sumner,
around 200 kilometers
northeast of Lincoln,
PatGarrett hunts the kid down.
Exactly 11 weeks after
his escape from jail.
The Kid's death does notstop
his myth from growing.
If anything, dying young
helps to perpetuate
Billy's legendary status.
Somehow or other,
thishappened to this real person,
and made him into
thisabsolutely unreal person.
Modern
investigationconfirms the true history
of the Kid as a
young man with a gun
caught up in a gang war
reactingto the events around him.
It just didn't work
out for him in the end.
Mostly because of
the choices he made,
and those choices were made bya
man who was just barely a man.
He really was a kid.
Billy the
Kid, a killer, of that,
there is no doubt.
But not the Wild
West's Most Wanted.
of the most infamous outlawsof
the American wild west
is Billy the Kid.
A teenage killer who
terrorizes New Mexico.
His life of crime
comes to an end
when gunned down by his onetime
friend, lawman Pat Garrett.
This is the legend of the Kid.
But closer analysis and
new forensic evidence
reveals his story
is very different.
Somehow or other, this
happened to this real
person, and made him
into this absolutely
unreal person.
So who is thereal
boy behind the legend?
We open the "Mystery
Files" on Billy the Kid.
New Mexico in southwesternAmerica,
it's the old frontier.
And the tales of
outlaw Billy the Kid
portray him as one of
itsmost ruthless characters.
Bob Boze Bell,
aficionadoin all things Wild West.
Popular legend said
he'd killed 21 men.
One for every year of his life.
You know, he robbed banks.
He robbed trains.
He appeared on wanted posters.
You know-- wanted, Billy
the Kid, dead or alive.
He stood in the street,
andhe dared people to draw.
Of course, that's not
what happened, actually.
You know, in fact, his
real name wasn't Billy.
His real name was Henry McCarty.
Henry McCarty and Henry Antrim
are his family names.
William, or Billy
Bonney, and the kid,
are the aliases he now uses.
Curator Elise Gomber has
found that his names are
not the only area of confusion.
Billy the Kid only
killed four people
that we know of for sure.
There seem to be
two divergent myths.
In one, he's a romantic
hero, a dashing outlaw.
And in the other direction,
he's a cold blooded killer
and a ruthless murderer.
In reality,
muchof his life is a mystery.
Frederick Nolan is the
world'sleading expert on the Kid.
We don't know where he was born.
We don't know who
his father was.
We don't know where he spentthe
first 12 years of his life.
But he becomesvisible
in the historical record
when he was arrested
for stealing
some clothing off a laundryline,
aged about 15, in 1875.
We do know, then, that
he got into trouble.
And that made him a drifter.
And that's how he went
to Lincoln County.
But he's still nobody.
He's just some kid
on a horse with a gun
who will fight for money.
The kid gets
caughtup in a bloody conflict
in Lincoln, New Mexico.
He is ultimately branded
an outlaw and murderer
and is sentenced to death.
But the events leading
up to his conviction
are far from straightforward.
And the conflict is notabout
am I right or am I wrong,
or am I good or am I bad.
The conflict is about money.
The Kid's actions in the war
all stem from
meeting one person,
Englishman John Tunstall.
Tunstall runs a store
and a cattle ranch.
He gives Billy a job
in the winter of 1877.
But there is a
rival store in town.
It belongs to the very
successful partnership
of Lawrence Murphy
and Jimmy Dolan.
They'd had a
monopoly for a decade.
And pretty much everybody inthe
county was indebted to them.
Lincoln County
is on the very frontier
of the new world.
The stakes are high.
If a trader could
monopolize the business,
their wealth and power
would grow as the region
became more established.
Lincoln County War
expert, Drew Gomber.
When John Tunstall
arrived in Lincoln
he went into competition withthe
firm of Murphy and Dolan.
He was the first
real competition
that they had ever seen.
And they were not
happy about this.
In the 1870s,
therules of the American frontier
are dramatically different
toTunstall's English etiquette.
Lincoln County itself wasabout
the same size as Ireland,
and it had one Sheriff.
And the one
andonly Sheriff does not have
Tunstall's interests at heart.
Murphy and Dolan, more orless,
controlled Sheriff Brady.
Influenced
by Dolan, Sheriff Brady
raises a posse to arrest
and remove Tunstall
as a commercial threat.
And, of course, the Englishman,
coming from a civilizedVictorian
society, probably
never really dreamed
that they would actually
take steps to kill him.
They'd try to frightenhim,
but not kill, surely.
I mean, after all,
it's only shopping.
On the 18th of February, 1878,
the posse guns
John Tunstall down.
It is the circumstances
of Tunstall's
killing that results in the
Kidbecoming caught up in outlawry.
To find out why,
DrewGomber investigates the site
where Tunstall was gunned down.
Tunstall was coming
from his ranch.
He was coming down this way,
and the killers were coming
from the direction I just came.
According to the
Murphy-Dolan faction,
Tunstall drew his own weaponand
tried to resist arrest.
In the laws of the frontier,
this justifies the
posse shooting him.
But Gomber disagrees with
theposse's version of events.
We know better than this.
This is certainly
not what happened.
It would not have been
inkeeping with Tunstall himself.
In my opinion, John
Tunstall's death
was a clear-cut case of murder.
In Lincoln County,
this is a new phenomenon.
There were random killings
allthe time in places like this,
but there had been no murder--
where a man had been
killed, quite clearly,
who wasn't in a gunfight.
The whole community
felt, very strongly,
that something had to be done.
With the
Sheriffloyal to the other side,
Tunstall's man take
mattersinto their own hands.
The Kid joins them,
notas a ruthless gunslinger,
but a young man of around
18 seeking vengeance
for his employer's death.
It's a pretty tough
country to survive
in, let alone make a living in.
This kid just said, this
guy the only person who
ever treated me
like a human being,
so I'm gonna be on his side.
The gang becomes the Regulators.
Their purpose,
to regulatejustice on their bosses
killers.
And so the Lincoln
County War kicks off.
It runs from February
to July, 1878.
And it is the setting
for the Kid's rise
to fame, and his downfall.
Modern investigation
shows his actions
are very different in
reality to his legend.
The Kid does not
lead the Regulations.
The Kid was just
one of the guys.
You have to remember this.
He's just a kid.
He's a smart kid,
and he'svery good at staying alive.
But he's not famous.
Not at all.
Not the slightest bit famous.
Though not the leader,
he has also no hanger-on.
What's amazing about this story
is Billy the Kid washanging
out with some very
rough characters,
and hewas able to hold his own.
But the Regulatorsare
not outlaws at the start
of the war.
Given the circumstances
of Tunstall's murder,
they are given legal
status and arrest
warrants for his killers.
You know, you have a
dulyauthorized sheriffs posse that
kills Tunstall,
and thenthe men that go after them
are duly authorized constables.
So you've got, basically,
two groups of lawmen
fighting against each other.
So how do you make an arrest?
With legality on both sides,
the conflict quickly
deteriorates.
It was just a
worst case scenario.
Couldn't have been worse.
Despite enduringimages
from Western movies
of gun fight showdowns
in the streets,
the reality of a frontier
waris dramatically different.
There were no face
offs in the street
like we see in Hollywood.
It was all about ambushes.
Much like in a real war.
Kind of like a
guerrilla war, actually.
The West is a
fargrittier, more ruthless place.
It is extremely brutal.
And you were a fool if youlet
somebody else shoot first.
That's the real world.
One ambush would
markthe most significant turning
point in the Kid's life.
It is his part in the
killing of Sheriff Brady
nearly two months
after Tunstall's death.
Drew Gomber pieces
together the actions
of the Regulators and the Kid.
They spent the night
in the Tunstall's store.
The next morning,
they werein there having breakfast when
one of them looked
out the window
and saw Sheriff Brady
and four of his deputies
marching down the street.
Somebody had the less
thanbrilliant idea of, hey,
let's go shoot the Sheriff.
And they all rushed out
back in high spirits.
The Regulators had
arrayedthemselves behind a gate
that was about in here.
And by the time they gotthere,
Sheriff Brady his men
were almost down to
where the church is.
The Regulators
opened fire in what
has got to be the dumbest
ambushof the Lincoln County War.
Of the four deputies withSheriff
Brady, two of them
weren't even hit.
Brady, however,
went downwith somewhere between 9
and 16 bullets in his body.
He was dead when
he hit the ground.
The Regulators have gone way
beyond their original
remit of arresting
the men who killed Tunstall.
Prior to it, public sympathywas
really with the Regulators.
But you just don't
kill the sheriff.
It doesn't make any differencewhat
the circumstances are,
no matter how justified
they thought they were.
It's just not done.
And after the Brady killing,
their popularity plummeted.
Their legal status is revoked,
and the war escalates into
afinal bloody shootout where
the Regulators are
surrounded and trapped
in a burning house in Lincoln.
The five day battle was probably
the worst, and
the most dramatic,
of all the skirmishes
that took place.
It is during this battle
the Kid takes his first step
tobecoming the outlaw of legend.
Things were getting desperate.
And it was at that
point that the Kid took
command for the first time.
The Kid gathers a diversion
party to draw gun fire.
Enabling the others
to try and escape.
Anybody ever tells
you Billy was a coward,
doesn't know what
they're talking about.
Because he and his
four volunteers
came out the back door
of the McSween house
into a hailstorm of bullets.
Experienced army officerswho
were present that night
estimated there were 2000
roundsexpended that night alone.
But the gunfire
was so heavy, they
wound up cutting
down the Hillside,
splashing across the
river, and hiding
in the trees on the other side.
The Kid survives.
But many of his
comrades are dead.
The war is effectively over.
As outlaws and branded killers,
the remaining Regulators
scatter.
The Kid is on the run.
Despite the romanticimage
of Billy the Outlaw,
he does not seem
to want this life.
He tries to redeem himself.
To try to get back, as itwere,
as a law abiding citizen.
I think Billy
wanted to go straight.
A chance presents itself
when a new government is
appointed a few months
after the end of the war.
New governor, Lew
Wallace, has just
declared an amnesty
foranybody that did anything
in the Lincoln County War.
Investigations of evidence
from a series of
oldletters, replicated here,
reveal a secret deal
made with Lew Wallace.
A deal that meant the
Kid should have received
a pardon for his crimes.
You've got a kid writing
aletter to the governor of New
Mexico saying, dear Sir,
I have heard that you
will give $1,000 for my body.
If I come and talk
to you, I think
I can persuade you that
I can be of use to you
if you will help me.
Far from beingNew
Mexico's Most Wanted,
the Kid is only 14th
on Wallace's hit list.
Wallace needs to
clean up New Mexico,
so he accepts the offer of
helpfrom this small time outlaw.
And Wallace said, or
is reputed to have said,
if you do what you promise
Iwill set you free with a pardon
in your pocket.
The deal is done.
The Kid submits to the court,
and testifies as a witness
against the Murphy-Dolan gang.
But it does not go
according to the plan.
Wallace has underestimatedthe
politics of New Mexico.
I don't think he really knewthe
limits, or the extent,
of his power.
He told a district attorneynot
to prosecute Billy the Kid,
and the district attorneysaid,
you can't tell me that.
You're not part of
the judicial system.
The pardon never appears.
The Kid is tried and convictedfor
the murder of Sheriff Brady
and sentenced to
death by hanging.
The increasing desperationon
the part of the Kid
is understandable.
These letters reminding
Wallace of their deal
reveal even more of
the Kid's mystery.
The interesting
thing about the letter
is the letter itself, in fact.
Because this is not theletter
of an illiterate lout.
It's, actually,
beautifully handwritten
for the time and the place,
and it's grammatically correct.
He is, as someone calledhim,
the eloquent outlaw.
But he puts his case very well.
For-- what is he?
For heaven's sake, he's 19?
Most people of 19 on
thefrontier were just farm boys.
This is a relatively
well educated person.
But his eloquencefails
to win Wallace over.
Wallace took no
notice whatsoever
of the letters that followed.
He just simply washed
his hands of it.
The kid's sense
ofinjustice at his abandonment
is then heightened.
No criminal charge ever
sticks against anyone
else in the gang conflict.
On the Murphy-Dolan side,
or in the Regulators.
The Kid is the only one.
I think Billy was the
only person convicted
after the Lincoln
County War partly
because Billy was the onlyperson
who stayed in the area.
He thought it was
hard that he was
the only one that should sufferfor
that, which I agree with.
However, he was
guilty in the sense
that he was part of the
ones that were shooting.
Whether justified or not,
the kid is faced with hanging.
I think after Billyrealized
that Wallace was
never going to keep his
part of the bargain he
was in a tight spot.
And it was either
get out or hang.
The Kid's escape in April,
1881, around two years afterhis
initial deal with Wallace,
marks his first great
step into celebrity.
Well, what he did
was against all odds.
He cheated the hangman.
Killed his two
captors, and escaped.
And that ended up in
the New York Times.
And that was world news.
And that's the moment thatthe
Billy the Kid that we know
was born.
This bid
forfreedom lies at the heart
of the Kid's legend.
And much of its myth
comes from the account
written by one of
Brady'ssuccessors, Sheriff Pat
Garrett.
Pat Garrett was aformer Buffalo hunter who
had come up here from Texas.
Garret'srelationship with the Kid
has been subject to much debate.
There's a persistent
myth about Pat Garrett
that Pat and Billy
were very good friends.
They probably knew
each other, but I don't
think they were very close.
Even though hewas
not present at the time
of the escape, Garrett's
written account became
the accepted version of events.
It says the Kid is
taken to the outhouse,
and breaks free on the way back.
He runs ahead of his
jailer, James Bell.
Gets up the stairs and into
thearmory, where he finds a gun.
Bell has reached the
bottom of the stairs,
and Billy shoots him down.
Bell makes it outside and dies.
Garrett claims the
kiddispatches his other jailer,
Bob Olinger, with a shotgun.
And then, holds the whole
of Lincoln in terror
as he makes his getaway.
It is an extraordinary tale.
And one that establishes
his legend as a ruthless
killer who gunned
down two deputies
in a clear cut case of murder.
But there is evidence to
suggest that Garrett's
account may be wrong.
I think Pat is
absolutely twisting
the myth to make Billy
moreruthless than he actually was.
Based on forensic analysis
and the very courthouse
where the Kid was held,
Steve Sederwall,
former federal agent,
believes that Bell's
death is not a murder,
and Garrett is lying.
In Pat Garrett's account
ofthe escape of Billy the Kid
and the killing of
Bell, he has Bell
at the bottom of the steps.
Sederwall, however,
has discovered evidence
that challenges this account.
Building on informationfrom
contemporary reports,
he investigates further,
using a forensic chemical
called luminol.
It glows blue on contractwith
certain substances.
One of these is blood.
It may even be able
to detect dried blood
that is over 100 years old.
In the courthouse, these
forensic tests found
a positive result upstairs.
And Sederwall believes
this is blood.
With this new
evidence, he thinks
Bell was not shot at the bottomof
the stairs but at the top.
The Kid turned with a gunand
he pulled the hammer back,
and he points the gun at Bell.
Bell is a few steps down.
He lunges forward.
He lunged.
He grabbed the gun
like this, which
put it in line with his body.
The Kid, it startles him.
He steps back and he falls,
andwhen the Kid falls his muscles
tighten up--
the gun went off.
Shot Bell right to left.
What happened after that
was Bell and the Kid
are fighting over the gun.
Bell's got hold of it.
He's got a hold of the cylinder.
He can't cock it.
They're fighting over this gun.
Two kids, fighting face to face.
The Kid then his Bell overthe
head with his handcuffs.
Hits him twice.
Head wound, he's shot,
he's bleeding out all
over the floor right here.
Sederwall believesBell
is killed in self-defense.
And he's not the only
one who thinks so.
I think Billy
and Bell struggled.
I think Billy had to
kill Bell because Bell
would have killed Billy.
And I think Billy was
tryingto escape with his life.
I mean, he was facing
a hanging, and I'd have
done exactly the same thing.
The Kid even expresses regret
almost immediately afterwards.
And Billy said he
felt bad about that.
He said it was a case
of had to, not want to.
However,
the death ofthe other jailer, Bob Olinger,
is not quite so
easily justified.
Kid runs to Garrett'soffice,
picks up the shotgun.
He then runs to this
window, which is open.
He had to have both
the hammers back
when he stuck it out the window.
Olinger has been
overat the Wortley Hotel nearby.
But when he hears thegunshot
that strikes Bell,
he runs back to the courthouse.
He looks up, sees the
Kid just as he's shoving
the shotgun out the window.
The Kid shot him, killed him.
I think Olinger would havekilled
Billy, absolutely,
if he had the opportunity.
And I think it was
anabsolutely necessary killing
So, Garrett's
account of the murders
appears to be flawed.
The Kid's actions are
morethose of a desperate man
than premeditated.
But still, those of a killer.
The Kid's escape from
townonly adds to the mystery.
When Billy escaped fromthe
courthouse in Lincoln,
no one lifted a
finger to stop him.
Pat said it was
because the town was
held in terror of
Billy the Kid, and I
just don't think that's true.
And I think that's becausehe
had so many friends.
He spends an hourtrying to get on a horse.
And he says goodbye
to everybody,
and is just kind
of looking at him.
And-- he spends an hour!
That's truly amazing!
This apparent popularity,
coupled with his last
ditchescape, creates a legend--
that of Billy the Kid.
The drama was suchthat the local newspapers
were full of it, of course.
All of surrounding
territorial newspapers
which, in turn,
were pickedup by the National newspapers.
So, suddenly, thisnobody became a somebody.
And contemporarycomic
books-- dime novels--
also seized on his legend.
The dime novelists
took him over,
and wrote the most
fantasticadventure stories about him.
And, suddenly,
Billy the Kidbecame an entity in itself.
It was almost like a brand.
Billy the Kid
becomes big business.
But the fact remains
that the Kid is
a legally convicted murderer.
His death, by one methodor
another, is inevitable.
In Fort Sumner,
around 200 kilometers
northeast of Lincoln,
PatGarrett hunts the kid down.
Exactly 11 weeks after
his escape from jail.
The Kid's death does notstop
his myth from growing.
If anything, dying young
helps to perpetuate
Billy's legendary status.
Somehow or other,
thishappened to this real person,
and made him into
thisabsolutely unreal person.
Modern
investigationconfirms the true history
of the Kid as a
young man with a gun
caught up in a gang war
reactingto the events around him.
It just didn't work
out for him in the end.
Mostly because of
the choices he made,
and those choices were made bya
man who was just barely a man.
He really was a kid.
Billy the
Kid, a killer, of that,
there is no doubt.
But not the Wild
West's Most Wanted.