For over a century, the fate of Billy the Kid has been shrouded in legend and controversy. Official history claims he was gunned down at age 21 by Sheriff Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, and buried under a headstone that tourists still visit today.

But a closer look at the evidence—autopsy records that never happened, questionable witness testimony, and a suspiciously hasty burial—raises unsettling doubts about whether Billy really died that night in 1881.

Born Henry McCarty in New York City, Billy’s early life was marked by hardship, losing his mother at 14 and forced to survive alone in the harsh world of the Wild West.

He became a fugitive after killing a man in self-defense and quickly learned the art of disappearing, adopting new names and blending in with Mexican communities. To some, he was a notorious outlaw; to others, a folk hero who fought corrupt land barons and protected the poor.

Billy’s daring escapes only added to his legend. In April 1881, sentenced to hang, he killed two deputies and broke out of jail in a dramatic fashion, walking out in daylight and vanishing into the New Mexico wilderness.

But three months later, the official story says he was shot by Garrett in a dark bedroom, identified only by hurried witnesses, and buried before sunrise. No doctor examined the body, no photograph was taken, and rumors spread that the dead man was too heavy, had a beard Billy never grew, and didn’t quite match his description.

Decades later, in 1948, a Texas attorney named William Morrison met an old man in Hico, Texas, named Brushy Bill Roberts. Brushy claimed to be Billy the Kid.

He didn’t want fame or money—just the pardon that Governor Lew Wallace had promised him back in 1879. Morrison was skeptical, but Brushy recounted obscure details about the Lincoln County War, the courthouse escape, and even the brands of food carried by old companions—facts never published in any book.

When pressed, Brushy showed scars that matched Billy’s known wounds: bullet and knife marks in the same locations, a scalp scar from a pistol-whipping, and a distinctive dental pattern described by contemporaries.

Facial recognition experts compared the only authenticated photo of Billy with young images of Brushy Bill, finding a 93% match—remarkably high for the era. Handwriting analysis revealed striking similarities between Billy’s letters and Brushy’s. The evidence was compelling enough for Morrison to petition the Governor of New Mexico for a pardon.

But when Brushy arrived for the hearing in 1950, he was ambushed by reporters and hostile historians. The stress triggered a stroke, and he died weeks later, his name unredeemed.

Despite mounting forensic and historical evidence, the state of New Mexico has refused to exhume Billy’s supposed grave for DNA testing, citing lost records and flood damage.

Some believe the authorities fear what a test might reveal: that Pat Garrett, desperate for reward and reputation, shot the wrong man and built a legend on a lie. Meanwhile, Billy the Kid—if Brushy Bill’s story is true—escaped justice, lived into old age, and watched the world chase his ghost for decades.

The myth endures because the truth remains inconvenient. The scars, the teeth, the secretive politicians, and the refusal to test the DNA all suggest that Billy the Kid may have pulled off the greatest escape in American history, dying not in a blaze of gunfire, but in the quiet of old age, his real identity hidden until the end.