Born Henry McCarty in New York City, Billy the Kid committed his first act of murder before he turned 20. Join Candace and Katie as they explore the fact -- and fiction -- surrounding the legendary outlaw in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
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This episode of stuff, you mustn't history class is brought to you by the completely redesigned twenty twenty Ford explorer. This is not a vehicle is going to take you to the moon or to the bottom of the sea, but it's one that you can use for all kinds of exploration and adventure and your everyday life azure going around town if you're travelling does going over to the grocery store to get everything you need for your kids birthday party once again, that is the all new twenty twenty Ford explore the greatest exploration vehicle of all time I gave my name is damaging. I've been working as a correspondent, an interview I, since I was thirteen, and now
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Welcome to stuff. You missed in history class from housetop, looks dot com
hello and welcome to the buyer. Cast I'm editor, Tina Turner joined by fellow editor came Lambert's Candor Katy when you think of the American Wild West and all the outlaws fame and legend and nor who comes to mind. Well,
Cassidy for one and Billy: the kid were too
Billy. The kid actually had a whole lot of names or a lot of aliases. I should say it,
born. Henry Mccurdy bite
also went by Henry Interim, William H, boy,
and, of course, the kid ass. He was
is somewhat affectionately, known and
he said focus figure and there's not a whole lot of records that exists to show precise detail
his life as and when he was born. We know it
died, but because his birthday is a little bit, suspect peoples
perhaps some people said he was
born in eighteen, fifty nine and died in eighteen, eighty one which would have made him twenty one years old, Sir Wooden,
the sheriff who killed him, look so bad for killing a minor, and we don't.
Very much about his early life. We do
He was born in New York City and that his mother died of tuberculosis when he was fairly young, and
historians and chroniclers of Billy. The kid life would say that his mother's early death is what catapulted him into a lifetime of mischief, making
some eyewitness accounts from
childhood to say that he was. You know as much a little boys. Anyone else just running around town causing me
they mischief nothing extreme and balanced.
Father, was in the picture for a little while, but after his mother's death, he was pretty much out of the picture thanks and exactly
It was forced to do for himself and bounce around two different foster homes and the details of his young life short of paddling. Compare
send the trouble he got into later and he didn't become a kind of colt hero that we think of him ass today, until the sheriff
killed him Pat Garret and any ash ups and wrote the authentic life of Billy the kid a sensational listing tale of his life. Exactly and I haven't read the book K has read it twelve times for different language and counting bite
any of you have read it, I'm a little bit curious about how Billy the kid is. Premature
because to read some accounts of him. It's almost like you,
the troubled teen, who was reconciled to a lifetime of of crime,
but it cannot arrive and I'm wondering if Garret makes them out to be just a ruthless monster, because other accounts, a say in his
getting a little bit of trouble on his teens. But nothing too.
He didn't have much money anyway, so he was maybe picking things up that weren't. Quite his unlike the butter, exist
You remember the battle. A little butter staff, a little butter theft is dollar from a rancher begin, had no money, so he filch some butter.
Sold it to a shopkeeper and they caught obviously, but he only gotta
a finger shaken in history that points not that we condone butterfat now and he was
skinny and hide what some people describe
as ladys hands. So he was passed over for many types of employment opportunities that went to heartier, fell
whose ah such as ranch hands, for instance. So he started.
Working at STAR Hotel, washing dishes, waiting on tables and that's when he met up with some rare jack
some bird jack was the first, I suppose one could say bad character than Billy. The kid crossed paths with
and he noticed a Billy. The kid didn't have any real close
speak I've, so he stole some laundry from a laundromat and gave it to Billy the kid to where he's like bite. If you put this thine, you know you're you're, on
risk, your own hide, because these are all stolen and
Billy. The kid was obviously cod when he dawned these stolen threads and put in prison, but he escaped
this would become, as Katy is winking at me right now, a hallmark of his later life, so here
got some money from one of the foster families he'd been a part of
Headed toward Arizona to see if a step farther could give him a hand with his troubles and a step.
Salute refused real class act that stepfather tribes
Here's Billy the kid. He really is just a kid he's. Skinny he's fragile
he's got no work, no chance really and his adrift in the desert, and it was.
While he was in Arizona, but he met
their outlining John Mackey, with whom he dabbled in horse thievery for awhile and
after he would engage in his very first act of manslaughter and some people say it was self defense.
Others say it was just an act of cold blooded killing, but he got in
when altercation, with windy, K Hill, who is teaching him about his size right, yes and ended up, shooting him and some people say again that he attacked Henry Mccurdy.
The current who was much smaller,
an billion really have a chance and shot him in self defense. While others say that it was just a little bit of sport on Billy, the kid said,
well, no matter what actually happened. Billy the kid was pretty scared, and so he got out of Dodge
soon. After and New Mexico, he met up with Jesse Evans and his gang termed, very innovatively, the boys
no one so that when coming so, you gave incorporated into this little coterie of gunslingers and
even though the kid wasn't too fond of the idea of associating himself without law as you that, if you're going to
at by in the American West, which was largely lawless. At this time you had to have some sort of protection
and the problem with the boys, you Jesse Evans gangs, that they were involved in the Lincoln County WAR and basically this is,
the eighteen seventies and New Mexico and a guy named John TON stall, had moved there and real
as for the entire place, was run by Lawrence Murphy and John Dolen. They owned the only store in the entire county, and
to an army contract had a beef monopoly as well, and he does,
that wasn't fair and wanted to set up shop against them, and it just
this battle that went on
for years, starting
eighteen. Seventy eight when morphine Dolen tried to take stock
the horses for a cordon quote out, standing Dat that may or may not have existed, probably didn't and that's where the gangs come in and the kid actually
He turned on his gang when to install offered him a job, an extra
for his testimony against stolen and company, and so the kid thought this was a pretty good offer,
do something a little more righteous. Then what
it had been involved with. So he agreed
and he took on the new, Alias William H body. This was an act of reinventing himself away and became part of the ring,
leaders the name of the gang that was going to avenge the death of tonnes stall, who was shot and killed by Sheriff William Brady and his party, which included Jesse
This gang. The regulators were so my lawful until they killed
man, though Morton Frank, anger and William costs, and they also set up a trap for share Friday. They been trying
Things by the book
you file, complaints and and act in a proper paperwork sort of way by
and the American why's that doesn't get you very far. They are almost
send to being outlaws. There are doing their best, but when the government, the local government is corrupt, that doesn't mean
with a lot of options, and so it's Billy the kid mexican Cowboys and american cowboys and they finally it took
Their guns and started the Gun
killed in April of eighteen, seventy eight and was riddled with bullet holes. It just wasn't one shot that happen to get him, they made sure that he was dead and the same with the deputy
Sheriff Brady was killed in April of eighteen. Seventy eight and was riddled with bullet holes. It just wasn't
one shot that happen to get him they
It sure that he was dead and the same with the deputy in a whiff of on some
I'm sorry. I didn't exactly reverently at the past.
Eventually all of these separate skirmishes culminated in a final event at Alex Mixed Swedes
os and mix, we, as you may recall, had been
socio with ton stall. The british business man had been,
now as well as his attorney. So
regulators are held up and make Swedes house and there's round by Dawns gang and
the new sheriff and their panicking.
And so. Finally, the kid is the only one trying to keep his wits about em and devise a plan were half the gang, we'll go out. One side of the house
and the other will escape the opposite says to distract the gunslingers out front and it works, except that
half of the outlaws, got shot and killed and Billy the kid in his cohorts, made off the other side. So he's gay play
wasn't the bass. Fetid did save the kids hide, which was, you know, accounted him and
he ran,
he was an outlaw again for what is this? What third? Fourth time, I must count on you.
Famous forest, possibly having committed as many murders as there.
Years of his life twenty ion
We don't know if that's actually true effort was more like now.
No, but he was
and getting himself off the hook, but when he got word that there was a new governor and Lincoln in lieu while he offered,
you surrender and come back to Lincoln and give a testimony in it.
Change for getting
the new governor stood Gray says he said he was tired of being out long wanted to do the right thing and kept writing him letter upon letter no offering to give himself up in exchange for some
and of Amnesty and Lou Wallace. I believe at one point did agree to it
or made some sort of promise to him that maybe that was something they to do, which he later recanted Wallace was,
still not fully aware of the kind of power and Cloud TAT Darwin and his gang had. So even if
wanted to give the kid some sort of asylum and some sort of pardon he wouldn't have enabled here, because it
were tied any sense of court
system more legality. There wasn't Lincoln was overruled by Darwin and Billy. The kid
time is so notorious from the Lincoln County WAR, the upshot of which does no one one and they just large gun battles every couple of days that it was impossible for him
I'm in politically to make love
not to mention that at this time the news
we are really getting hold of his name and splashing it everywhere, and maybe people had had some semblance of sympathy for him in that,
passed by and now now that he should people on than Lears and gives
of interviews about it he's in jail
Where are you know, they're they're thing in his travel? No one wants him in town
Oh, he goes after Fort Sumner, so it goes off the Fort Sumter
and there he gets embroiled in more gain conflict, surprise, surprise and then
opposition party of his kills Adele
evening. James Carlisle and the kid gets blamed, even though, is appositely friendly fire that helps deputy he's so notorious. At this point
any where he goes. He's like a little black rain clouds on the west troubled as follows: him in it so easy to scapegoat him. When, at this point, I believe he has a abounding on his head and thereafter him that's one too many
and it's about time, the law catches up with Billy the kid and the
came in the form of Pat garrets. He was animal
did you S, Marshall, on the hunts and on December twenty third
eighteen eighty he trap them and
I am to surrender, throw him in prison and
convicted of murdering sheriff Radiant sentenced to hang on to hang so
April eighteen. Eighty one he's in prison he's supposed to hang and being Billy the
had he murders his guards and escapes good job
this one's on us. Where did you go back to Sumner because he felt somewhat safe there at the place where he feels that you, someone belongs, but good
it is not going to let him get away with us, so he gets words oppose it
for this guy Maxwell, whom he knows that the kid is in town and Maxwell is somewhat friendly with the cat, or at least the kid
that he is, and on the night of July, Fourteenth eighteen, eighty one he came sniffing around for dinner
and the events of the evening of July Fourteenth eighteen, eighty one are a bit murky, but how most people and
but the story is this:
the kid knocks on Maxwell's door, hoping that he can get his dinner.
The kid proceeds inside the house, and he can make out a shadowy form and MAX
little bit uncertain of wits going on because he ceased to strange men on the front porch and then
She garrets two deputies or Billy. The kid proceeds inside them
and he can make out a shadowy form and Maxwell's room. He called out
asking about the two men get so answer, so we call
gone, but this time asked the question and spanish, and at this point
it's pretty sure, that's Billy, the kid so
He ain't gonna cheats
and MAX lingered about side they can.
Again- and they ascertained that? Yes, indeed that was Billy the kid and now he is dead on Maxwell's. For
others. Some people refused to believe that Billy, the kid died at all and there were several people who
years pretended that they were him and he had escaped that evening in a staged death spreading.
Evil given office sense prior to his suppose. It does bites for people who
really get into American West Lauren sorts of legendary figures like Billy the kid it's rather anticlimactic to think that
The kid died after
I'm, not the sort of trot that he's been springing his whole life or other people, but allow
they got him in the end, but today,
The state of New Mexico really does have Billy the kid to thank for bring a thriving tourism industry to its affair borders where people can see different spots, where Billy the kid and gay
stun gun, slinging and all sorts of pranks.
Harmless or not,
go, see the stamping ground with Billy the kid that and if you want
information on the wild west and guns gunslingers. They shorted check out the website at how stuff works, dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics, does it how stuff works, dot com? Let us know what you think: send an email to podcast, Housetop Worth Stockholm and be sure to check out the stuff you missed in his request: blood on the health of workers that come home. This episode is brought to you right, Norton, lifelong when you shop bearing and browse with your smartphone. It feels like your personal info is right.
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Transcript generated on 2020-02-07.