FACTS ABOUT BILLY THE KID

1. He was born Henry McCarty on Nov. 23, 1859 in the Irish tenements of New York City. As a teenager, his family moved to Wichita and eventually New Mexico.  After his mother died of tuberculosis when he was 14, his life took a turn for the worse.  He went from a nice, honest boy to a juvenile delinquent.  He start hanging out with the wrong crowd.
2. In 1875, at age 16, he was arrested for stealing some food and ten days later for stealing from a Chinese laundry. Put in the local jail, he escaped by shimmying up the chimney. 
3. He took up the life of a ranch hand, gambler, and gang member. He was not against thievery, but limited his career to horse stealing and cattle rustling.  No bank or train robbing.
4. He committed his first killing in 1877 in a dispute over a card game in a saloon. The victim was bigger and in the ensuing scuffle, young Henry resorted to his pistol.  This was the first of probably nine deaths that he was involved in.  This was far short of the legendary 21 that he was credited with.   
5. At this point he adopted the name William Bonney, but became more famous as “Billy the Kid” or simply “The Kid”. He had a reputation as a gun slinger and became involved in the Lincoln County War.  He found employment as a ranch hand for British rancher John Tunstall who was in a feud with Irish ranchers James Dolan and Lawrence Murphy.  The war began when Tunstall was murdered by a posse led by Sheriff William Brady.  Tunstall’s men formed a vigilante group called The Regulators and sought revenge.  Billy was in the thick of it.  He was involved in the assassination of Brady, for which an arrest warrant was put out on him.  He also participated in the Battle of Lincoln where the Regulators battled the Dolan/Murphy gang for five days in the town of Lincoln.  The battle ended with Billy fleeing a burning building and going on the lam.
6. One of his most famous killings was of a drunk named Joe Grant. Grant was in a saloon making threatening remarks, including aimed at Billy.  Billy asked to admire his pistol and secretly spun the cylinder so it was on an empty chamber.  Later, when Grant tried to shoot Billy in the back, Billy heard the click and turned and shot Grant.
7. Billy was good at escaping, but not at hiding. In 1880, Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett (an outlaw turned law man who may have worked with Billy in the past) captured Billy without a fight in an isolated cabin.  He was found guilty of the murder of Brady and sentenced to death.  In an episode that the newspapers made famous, he escaped.  He asked to go to the outhouse and on returning he slipped out of his hand cuffs, ambushed his guard, and shot him with his own pistol.  He armed himself with a shotgun and killed another guard.  He cut his leg shackles with an axe and rode out of town on a stolen horse, supposedly singing.
8. Billy went to live with friends in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, but he made no secret of his identity. It did not take long for Garrett to discover where he was.  On July 14, 1881 Garrett was questioning Peter Marshall in his home about Billy’s whereabouts.  It was dark in the room when Billy entered warily and saw silhouettes.  He asked “Who’s that?” and Garrett recognized his voice.  The sheriff fired two shots and one hit Billy near the heart, killing him instantly.  He was 21.
9. The first movie about Billy was a silent “Billy the Kid”. Since then, he has been a character in more than 50 movies.

https://www.history.com/news/9-things-you-may-not-know-about-billy-the-kid

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_the_Kid

https://www.irishpost.com/news/billy-the-kid-9-facts-172738

Billy the Kid and Dick Brewer of the Regulators