Billy Kid (Billy the Kid - literally translated "Billy baby") - an American criminal William Henry McCarthy. The history of this killer occurred at the end of the 19th century. William owes his posthumous fame to Pat Garrett, the sheriff who dealt with his business until the very end and subsequently wrote a book about the most interesting persecution in his life.
Biography of Billy Kid
William Henry McCarthy was born November 23, 1859 in New York. Too little is known about this man’s childhood and youth. Billy Kid made history through his own criminal career. In the 1870s, the so-called "pastoral wars" were constantly waged in Lincoln. We are talking about the bloody battles of local gangs over the territory and criminal authority. McCarthy was a member of the Regulators clan. According to some sources, he committed his first murder at the age of 18.
In 1881, Billy Kid appeared in court and was sentenced to capital punishment - the death penalty. While waiting for the execution of the sentence, Billy was able to escape, having committed several more murders. The criminal was tracked down, and William McCarthy was killed in detention.
How was the killer with a child's face caught?
After the trial, William McCarthy, also known as William Harrison Bonnie, Henry Antrim, and Billy the Kid, was sent to the newly-built Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff Pat Garrett was personally responsible for the detention of this criminal.
Once, during a short absence from the chief overseer, William made an audacious escape, killing two employees of the department. The sheriff, struck by such audacity, promised to personally catch the criminal and avenge the dead colleagues.
Billy Kid escaped from custody on April 28, but managed to track him down and attempt to arrest only July 14. The offender somehow got to the suburbs of Fort Sumner and stayed in a Mexican family. As soon as Pat Garrett made sure that he really found Billy, he decided to detain the criminal. After waiting for the darkness, the sheriff personally entered the master’s bedroom. Waking him up, he asked where McCarthy was hiding. To strange sounds, Billy himself entered the room. The criminal, realizing that Garrett and his assistants were going to arrest him, tried to leave. During this attempt to escape, the sheriff fired twice, one of the bullets entered exactly in the heart of Billy. At the time of the death of William McCarthy, he was only 21 years old.
The criminal was buried in a military cemetery near Rio Pecos. A year after the events described, Pat Garrett published the book “The True Life of Billy Kid.” It is believed that it was thanks to this literary work that William became one of the symbols of the Wild West.
Memories of Billy and the photo of the criminal
After the death of William, many people who knew him personally would tell that Bill was pretty and charming. He always smiled, joked a lot and laughed pleasantly. Billy Kid, whose biography horrifies any normal person, looked just like many of his other peers. A short blue-eyed young man often became the soul of the company and enjoyed success with women.
Until recently, it was believed that there was only one photograph depicting the American serial killer McCarthy. However, more recently, it was possible to prove the authenticity of the second picture, in which Billy is present. This was helped by Randy Giharro - a collector who accidentally bought a ferrotype, which captures a group of people playing croquet. By conducting the most modern scientific examinations, it was possible to prove that this is really a gang of “Regulators” on vacation.
Mention in mass art
Today, Billy Kid is one of the symbols of the Wild West. His story formed the basis of about ten feature films. What is noteworthy, interest in Billy does not fade even now, more than a hundred years after the crimes committed and the murder of the criminal.
There are also several songs dedicated to William McCarthy. Characters drawn from Billy Kid can be found in modern computer games. The young killer from the Wild West went down in literary history. The “disinterested killer Bill Harrigan” by H. L. Borges and the “Law of Frontier” by O. Divov are books written based on the real story of William Henry McCarthy.