American outlaw and gunfighter (1859–1881)
An orphaned teenager who killed his way into the mythology of the American West before he turned twenty-one. The nine murders — four his alone — and a jailbreak that left two deputies dead made him a newspaper sensation from New Mexico to New York while he was still alive.
Henry McCarty was fifteen when his parents died. At sixteen he stole food, then robbed a laundry, then fled across territorial lines into Arizona. After killing a blacksmith in an altercation in August 1877, he started calling himself William H. Bonney and drifted back into New Mexico with a gang of cattle rustlers. The Lincoln County War of 1878 pulled him in deeper — riding with the Regulators, he was charged with three killings including Sheriff William J. Brady. Sheriff Pat Garrett caught him in December 1880, and by April 1881 Bonney stood trial, was convicted of Brady's murder, and sente…
Sourced, dated quotes from Billy the Kid
I don’t blame you for writing of me as you have. You had to believe other stories, but then I don’t know if any one would believe anything good of me anyway.
People thought me bad before, but if ever I should get free, I'll let them know what bad means.
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