Who Was Billy the Kid? The Life and Crimes of a Wild West Legend

Born Henry McCarty in 1859, little is known about the early life of Billy the Kid. His father’s identity is uncertain, but most historians agree his mother was named Catherine McCarty and was an Irish immigrant living in New York City when Henry was born.

Catherine, Henry and his brother headed west to the New Mexico Territory while Henry was still a young boy. Catherine remarried to William Antrim in 1873, and the family eventually settled in Silver City, N.M. When Henry was 14 years old, his mother died of tuberculosis, after which his stepfather became an absentee parent. 

Without proper adult supervision, Henry became a streetwise delinquent. Despite this, he was a literate youth who quickly learned Spanish and loved reading and singing. But his affable demeanor hid a violent temper, and it wasn’t long until he and his rowdy friends ran afoul of the law.

By 1875, Henry was arrested for theft and thrown into jail. Fearing both the courtroom and his stepfather’s wrath, Henry executed the first of many prison breaks by taking advantage of his slim, wiry physique and shimmying up a chimney to escape. 

Now 15 years old and on the lam, news of his arrest and escape made headlines in the Silver City Herald. He headed into the Arizona Territory where he eventually fell in with a gang of horse thieves and cattle rustlers. 

By that time, Henry was referred to as “Kid Antrim” or simply “the Kid” by people in the territory, but he soon made a break with his past by adopting the moniker William “Billy” Bonney. In 1877, Billy was again arrested, this time for stealing horses—and he again managed to escape while his prison guards were at a local dance.

Billy’s criminal tendencies took a darker turn later that year, when he got into a saloon fight with Frank Cahill, a burly blacksmith in the Arizona Territory town of Bonita. According to reports, the two began exchanging insults until Cahill assaulted the much-smaller Billy, who evened the score by shooting Cahill.

After Cahill died the next day, Billy—now wanted for murder—fled to Mesilla, N.M., but was apprehended by local authorities and detained at a local guardhouse. Once again, he escaped and resumed a career of stealing horses with his criminal allies. 

By the end of 1877, Billy was again arrested for possessing horses belonging to rancher John Tunstall. Upon his release from prison, Tunstall decided to hire the 18-year-old. Tunstall needed manpower because he was locked in a bitter struggle with a rival business led by Lawrence Murphy and James Dolan. 

Murphy, Dolan and their associates had secured a lucrative government contract as dry goods and beef providers for nearby Fort Stanton, but Tunstall was beginning to muscle in on their business. During a confrontation in a remote canyon, Tunstall was shot and killed by members of the Murphy-Dolan gang, also known as the House. 

The killing sparked what became known as the Lincoln County War. Ongoing skirmishes pitted local Sheriff William Brady and members of the House against Tunstall loyalists—a group called the Regulators—which included Billy and leader Richard Brewer.

Brewer was deputized by a Lincoln County justice of the peace, giving the Regulators a veneer of respectability. In March 1878, the Regulators captured and killed two members of the House, and the following month, Brady was killed, possibly by Billy.

Gunfights continued to erupt throughout Lincoln County, killing several men on both sides and culminating in a bloody battle in Lincoln, N.M., in July 1878. About 60 men joined Billy’s Regulators in a five-day shootout with some 40 members of the House. The gunfights ended only when a regiment from Fort Stanton arrived to maintain order.

The mayhem in New Mexico reached the desk of President Rutherford B. Hayes, who appointed Lew Wallace as new governor of the war-torn territory. Tasked with maintaining order, Wallace offers amnesty for those involved in the Lincoln County War, except anyone currently under indictment. That amnesty excluded Billy as he was still wanted for the killing of Brady. 

Once again on the run from the law, a battle-weary Billy sought relief from Wallace, writing to him that “I have no wish to fight any more. Indeed I have not raised an arm since your proclamation. As to my character, I refer to any of the citizens, for the majority of them are my friends and have been helping me all they could … I remain your obedeint [sic] servant.”

The governor arranged a secret meeting with Billy in March 1879 and offered him amnesty in exchange for his testimony in a case involving the murder of a local lawyer named Houston Chapman. Billy testified but afterward was imprisoned, and the local district attorney refused to set him free despite Wallace’s promise. So, in June 1879, Billy simply escaped from the jail, as was his habit. 

Now firmly established as a notorious Wild West outlaw, Billy shot and killed a rowdy drunk in a saloon in Fort Sumner, N.M., in the winter of 1880. The total number of men he killed over his life is unknown, but he is believed to be directly responsible for four murders and involved in five more. 

After another shootout involving Billy in November 1880—during which a deputy sheriff was killed—Lincoln County Sheriff Patrick Garrett began searching in earnest for Billy. Garrett caught his man in December and put him on trial for the death of Sheriff Brady. Found guilty, Billy was sentenced to death by hanging in April 1881. 

Despite the trial and death sentence, Billy remained curiously upbeat. “What's the use of looking on the gloomy side of everything?” he said in a jailhouse interview with the Las Vegas Gazette. “The laugh's on me this time."

Perhaps he remained optimistic because he had never seen a jail that could hold him. One day, while awaiting his hanging, he asked his jailer to allow him to use the toilet. While walking to the toilet, Billy grabbed the jailer’s gun and killed him with it. He also shot and killed a second guard, broke the shackles around his ankles with a pickax and fled on a stolen horse.

Newspapers nationwide wasted no time in celebrating the latest murderous exploits of Billy, but his notoriety was to be short-lived, because Garrett was hot on his trail. Responding to rumors that Billy was visiting a girlfriend at the home of rancher Pete Maxwell, Garrett paid a visit to the ranch.

Billy appeared at the ranch around midnight on July 14, 1881, where Garrett surprised the outlaw and shot him twice, killing him. Billy was just 21 years old when he was buried at nearby Fort Sumner.

Rumors that Billy was not actually killed and remained a free man circulated widely, but none have ever been substantiated. His legend—as a murderous, thieving outlaw or as a charming folk hero—lives on in the hundreds of pulp novels, movies, plays, video games and television shows that feature Billy.