Billy the Kid (left), Brushy Bill Roberts (right)
According to Fox News, the current governor of New Mexico is considering a pardon of Billy the Kid. I have no idea what initiated this nor do I understand why Gov. Bill Richardson would even consider it. Billy the Kid was a criminal. He was a murderer. Why pardon him after all of these years? As you might expect, the grandchildren of lawman Pat Garrett, the man who shot and killed Billy after a jailbreak, has written the governor, saying, “If Billy the Kid was living amongst us now, would you issue a pardon for someone who made his living as a thief and, more egregiously, who killed four law enforcement officers and numerous others?”
There is plenty of mythology and folklore surrounding the legend of Billy the Kid. For instance, it has been questioned whether Garrett even killed Billy the Kid during that incident in 1881.
In 1950, a man by the name of Oliver L. Roberts, better known as Brushy Bill, requested a meeting with the governor of New Mexico, Thomas Mabry. He claimed that he was Billy the Kid, who had not been killed by Pat Garrett and was requesting that the governor grant him a pardon. He realized that he was nearing the end of his life and wanted to die a free man.
Mabry agreed to meet with Brushy, and on November 29th, 1950 the meeting took place in Mabry’s mansion. Also there were Oscar and Jarvis Garrett, sons of Pat Garrett, Cliff McKinney the son of Kip McKinney, one of the deputies who had been with Garrett when the Kid was killed, and Arcadio Brady, grandson of Sheriff William Brady killed by the Kid and the Regulators. The historians were in attendance as well: William Keleher, E.B. Mann and Will Robinson.
Roberts gave his testimony and was cross-examined by the gathered men, during which time Roberts made a number of errors and forgot a number of basic items about Billy the Kid’s life, unable at one point to even remember Pat Garrett’s name. After the meeting the Governor declared that Brushy Bill would not be granted a pardon as Mabry did not believe that he was Billy the Kid. Unfortunately for Brushy Bill he would die just a few months later of a heart attack in his hometown of Hico, Texas. (Read more of this story at Associated Press)
There does seem to be evidence in support of Brushy Bill and Billy the Kid having been the same person, but it seems to me there is more evidence against the notion. Either way, why would the current governor pardon him? Is this some kind of political move? Is is looking for publicity? Is he simply a Billy the Kid fan? I don’t get it.
