About Billy The Kid.com False statements
Here you will find some comments on a popular Billy the Kid web site stating falsehoods trying to prove Brushy Bill Roberts was not Billy the Kid. Here also you will find the truth about what actually was done and said. Comments in italics come from the web site About Billy the Kid.com by Marcelle Brothers
http://www.aboutbillythekid.com/billy_vs_brushy.htm
"Brushy's niece Geneva Pittman mentioned that Brushy’s birth is recorded in the family bible as August 26, 1879. Pittman says, “I know for a fact my uncle was born in 1879 in east Texas, and Billy the Kid was supposed to have been shot by Pat Garrett in 1881 and that would have made him two years old.” To support Pittman’s sources, Brushy Roberts a.k.a Oliver P. Roberts, is found in several census records: age one in 1880, Arkansas; age twenty in 1900 Hopkins County, Texas; age 30 in 1910 Van Zandt County, Texas; age 41 in 1920 again in Van Zandt. In the 1930 Van Zandt census Roberts turned up again at the age of 52 with a wife named Lutcida. Now here’s where Brushy supporters deny that Oliver P. Roberts, in the above census, is not their Brushy Bill Roberts. They say it’s because Brushy wife’s name was Louticia, not Lutcida, so therefore this Oliver P. Roberts is not Brushy. Come now…hasn’t anyone else had their name spelled incorrectly? Are you going to tell me that Lutcida and Louticia are not the same woman just over a misspelling error? If only I got a dollar every time my name was misspelled as Marcella or Marcel. So in other words, it’s purely coincidental that Oliver P. Roberts and Brushy just happen to marry women with similar to identical names -I don’t thinks so. Brushy supporters also say the Oliver P. Roberts was dead and buried in 1939 at Alto, Texas, so again, he can't be the same man, but yet his name is not listed in the cemetery records.
On another point to
ponder, let's not forget that the birth date November 23, 1859 (the date that
Ash Upson gave for the Kid's birth) is now highly questionable. There is more
evidence against it than supporting it. So Brushy was simply following the
historical trend at that time and claimed that 1859 was his birth date."
To begin with Geneva Pitmon (notice the correct spelling of her name) is misquoted here. I will include a copy of her letter so you can see for yourself. Geneva Pitmon was a young child when Brushy was introduced into her family, and most of her family called him Uncle Ollie. This was a natural mistake on her part; after all she never met her real Uncle. Brushy never went by the name Oliver P. Roberts. This is an outright lie used to discredit Brushy. He went by the name Ollie Roberts. Most of the census records read Ollie Roberts and not Oliver P. Roberts. Whether or not Brushy was actually born when he said he was is still unproven. Even his family had different dates for his birth but none of them were later that 1862. The argument about his second wife’s name is a ridiculous one since only one or two people ever argued that point.
Geneva Pitmon Letter:
"In November of 1950
Morrison and Brushy went before Governor Thomas Mabry to request a pardon for
Brushy Bill Roberts alias Billy the Kid for his past crimes, not only to clear
the reputation of Billy the Kid, but so that Brushy could die with a clear
conscious.
Yes,
that was their goal, but here's some food for thought: In March of 1879 Billy
the Kid secretly met and made a bargain with Governor Lew Wallace to turn state
evidence for a full pardon. The Kid stuck to his end of the deal, but the
governor didn't follow through on his. After losing his trust for the governor
and fearing conviction, the Kid escaped from custody. Two years later while
confined in Santa Fe, the Kid wrote a few letters to the governor reminding him
of his promise and also talked openly about the bargain he made with the
governor to the news press. Billy the Kid always and strongly felt that he was
used, betrayed, and cheated out of a pardon that he earned. So why didn't
Morrison and Brushy mention the Wallace pardon? Why didn't they mention that
Billy had carried out an agreement for a pardon back in 1879? If Brushy were
Billy the Kid, he most certainly would have brought that up."
The truth here is that Morrison and the legal firm he worked for did include this information in the legal document they sent to Gov Mabry prior to their meeting with him. Making this statement on the website is just another lie to try to discredit Brushy.
"During his testimony,
Brushy repeatedly contradicted himself and couldn’t recall important events in
Billy the Kid’s life. For example, Brushy said James Dolan was one of those who
gunned down John Tunstall and that Susan McSween was present when Dolan and
Campbell killed her attorney, Huston Chapman and the most absurd was he couldn’t
even remember Pat Garrett's name. Supporters say, “he was an old man, his
memory was a little fuzzy.”
A little
fuzzy! No matter how old and senile Billy the Kid would not have forgotten Pat
Garrett’s name and other crucial moments in his life, such as the fact that
Dolan did not gun down Tunstall, because Dolan wasn’t even there. The Kid also
would have remembered that Susan McSween was not present when Chapman was
killed."
The truth of the matter here is that Governor Mabry promised Morrison that he would meet with him and Brushy in private to discuss the pardon. When Morrison and Brushy showed up Mabry had called the entire press corps to ambush Morrison and Brushy outside. When they entered the building they were greeted by numerous armed Police officers and a group of hostile men, including family members of the men he had killed. Brushy was afraid that they were going to go ahead and hang him so he didn’t admit being Billy the Kid. Brushy also had a stroke while he was there.
"After the killing of
Sheriff Brady, Brushy said that Fred Waite and he jumped over the wall to
reclaim his revolver.
Not
exactly. It was Jim French that accompanied Billy to Brady's body so the Kid
could reclaim his rifle and Alex McSween’s arrest warrant."
There is still to this day controversy over who it was that jumped over the wall with Billy that day. I believe Brushy knew exactly who it was that was with him.
"After capturing Billy the
Kid at Stinking Springs, Garrett took his prisoners to Fort Sumner, where Brushy
recalled how Mrs. Maxwell asked if he could be unchained from Rudabaugh and go
in the other room with an Indian girl.
Yes,
Mrs. Maxwell asked if the Kid could be unchained from Rudabaugh to go in the
next room with a girl for a farewell fling, but it wasn’t with an Indian girl it
was with Paulita Maxwell. Not only was she not Indian, but she wasn’t even all
Hispanic, but only one-quarter. Once again, the real Billy the Kid would have
known that."
This is the most ridiculous statement ever made against Brushy. There is no proof that Billy was in fact in love with Paulita Maxwell. As far as it goes she could have been one of his many conquests. I know that folklore has put the two of them together as a couple and it is very romantic to think it was true but the fact still remains that there is no proof of any such love. That being said she could have been just another Indian girl to him.
"Brushy clearly stated that
he didn't kill Bob Olinger and James Bell during his escape from the courthouse,
but instead he just got on a horse and rode off.
Just got on his horse and rode off, eh? If his testimony was correct then
Olinger and Bell were never killed but lived to see another day, but of course
as we all know that’s not so. In reality, the Kid gunned down both his guards,
used a pick axe to free himself from his leg irons, had a groundskeeper saddle a
horse for him and THEN he got on his horse and rode off."
This is another bold-face lie told to try to discredit Brushy. On pages 40-45 of Alias Billy the Kid by C.L. Sonnichsen and William V Morrison, it tells the story of Billy’s escape from the Lincoln county jail as Brushy remembered it happened. It most definitely tells how he shot and killed both Bell and Olinger at the time of his escape. This just goes to show how far a person will go to discredit Brushy and try to make their belief into fact. Unfortunately here she is totally wrong and it makes me wonder why she would tell this lie on her website.
"On July 14, 1881 (the
night the Kid was killed), Brushy recalled that he was warned that Garrett was
in the vicinity and not wanting to be seen he sent his partner Billy Barlow to
fetch some meat at Maxwell’s house. Moments later he heard shots fired, Brushy
then ran towards the house and after a brief shoot out with Pat Garrett and his
deputies he retreated in a Mexican’s house. Brushy was shot in the jaw, left
shoulder and across the top of the head. After learning that Garret was passing
Billy Barlow’s body off as him, Brushy slipped away unseen with the help of
Frank Lobato.
Now this
doesn't sound logical at all. To have pulled it off, Garrett and the Kid had to
meet somewhere to plan this hoax, but Garrett and the Kid were not the “good”
friends that legend claims. If a meeting was set, it would've been a trap and
Garrett would've arrested or killed the Kid on the spot, not concocted such a
plan. Besides Garrett couldn't depend on the entire population of Fort Sumner to
go along with this little scheme, someone would surely have blab. Fort Sumner
wasn't entirely filled with Billy the Kid supporters and friends, there were
some that didn't like him. If Garrett did accidentally kill the wrong man, he
would have faced the music and the courts would have dropped the charges, it
would've been declared a misfortunate accident during the line of duty; after
all, if some police officers today get away with it, why not Garrett? Also how
would Garrett know that after passing another corpse off as the Kid, he wasn't
going to turn up again in Ft Sumner or New Mexico? Billy the Kid had a terrible
habit of returning to places where he shouldn't be. Think about it. If the Kid
didn't leave New Mexico after his jailbreak 2 1/2 months earlier, what makes
people think he would've left and stay gone? Even Garrett had to have realized
that, and he couldn't count on the Kid seizing the opportunity of having his
death conveniently faked and leave the territory for once and for all.
Let’s look at this in another view: If the real Billy the Kid knew Garrett was
in or around Fort Sumner and sent his comrade to Maxwell's because he was
suspicious, then upon hearing shots being fired, Billy the Kid would not have
been so foolish as to run up to the house in the line of fire. The Kid was
reckless but he wasn't stupid! Furthermore, if Brushy was as badly wounded as
mentioned, he would not have been in any condition for immediate traveling. This
isn’t a Hollywood Western where men walk around with half their shoulder blown
off as if it were a paper cut; gunshots wounds as Brushy supposedly received,
would have immobilized him for days. Also, if Garrett shot him in the jaw it
would've left a very nasty disfiguring scar on his face, but yet when you look
at photos of Brushy, there's no scar at all. We also have Frank Lobato helping
the Kid escape, but Lobato wasn’t even at Fort Sumner at that time.
Now let’s talk about the Kid's friends. Billy the Kid’s death was mourned for
years by his friends and one of his loyal admirers was Deluvina Maxwell, who not
only visited his grave regularly, but at the time of the Kid's death, she was
one of the first to find him lying on the floor of Pete Maxwell’s bedroom and
she also helped prepare his body for burial. Till her dying day she was
extremely bitter towards Garrett for killing Billy the Kid and would later go on
to say that she was glad to live long enough to see him dead and buried. Now is
this the right attitude for a woman who knew Garrett didn’t really kill the
real Billy the Kid, but allowed him to escape? Many years later Billy the
Kid’s Fort Sumner friends pitched in and bought a headstone for his unmarked
grave in the 1930s. Now if they knew it wasn’t him, why would they waste their
money buying a headstone? After all, they supposedly looked the other way when
Garrett was passing Billy Barlow’s body off as the Kid...right? When wannabe
Billy the Kids began surfacing, the Kid's surviving friends from Lincoln and
Fort Sumner, including Lobato (who supposedly helped one wannabe slip out of
Fort Sumner), discredited all such claims and firmly stated that it was
Billy the Kid who was killed on July 14, 1881. Those that publicly identified
Brushy Bill Roberts as Billy the Kid, where not really friends of the Kid’s (or
even met him) but locals who had heard the stories of the famous outlaw or only
saw Billy the Kid as a child, so how can they identify Brushy as being Billy the
Kid almost 70 years later! Lastly, after intensive research nothing at all has
surfaced or proved that Billy Barlow ever existed in or around Fort Sumner or
New Mexico for that manner.
Pat Garrett's account of
what happen on July 14, 1881 is sketchy, but it's not because he faked Billy the
Kid's death, but more likely that he ambushed Billy the Kid in the dark. Brushy
Bill Roberts on the other hand has a heck of a lot more holes and discrepancies
in his account than Pat Garrett. All in all, Billy the Kid was killed that night
in Fort Sumner because all the facts, including eyewitnesses accounts, said he
was, while the Brushy Bill Roberts claim is built purely on conspiracy theories
and second and third hand accounts."
I don’t even know where to begin with this one. I have to say that both sides of this argument are entirely screwed up. the First thing I have to admit is that Brushy probably got carried away when telling this story and embellished quite a bit. After all he was an old man used to sitting around and telling tall tales with his friends, just as he had in New Mexico as Billy the Kid. Here the author of this web site assumes to know about the entire population of Ft Sumner in 1881. if The truth be known, only a few people were allowed to view the body before it was put in a wooden box and put into the ground. Here the author assumes Pat Garrett was an honest man, in thinking he would have faced the consequences of killing the wrong man out of his jurisdiction. Pat Garrett was far from honest and just wanted to get the whole Billy the Kid thing over with and collect his $500.00 reward. Pat Garrett went as far as to conveniently lose the original coroner's report, and had a phony one made up with signatures of people who were not even in or near Ft Sumner that day. Now here I have to admit that the gunfight Brushy describes that night is most likely an embellishment on his part.
"Brushy was not left-handed
and illiterate, but like Billy the Kid, he was literate and ambidextrous.
According to authors W.C. Jameson and Fred Bean, who researched the Brushy Bill
Roberts claim, they stated that Brushy was almost entirely illiterate and had
terrible chicken scratch handwriting and his wife did all of his writing for
him. In the beginning when Brushy first came forward with his claim, it was
pointed out that Brushy was illiterate, but yet, he knew so much about the
Lincoln County War and Billy the Kid and since he couldn’t read about it,
therefore he must be Billy the Kid. But as we learned over the years, the real
Billy the Kid was not illiterate, contrary to legendary belief, but could read
and write and had beautiful, readable penmanship. So now Brushy is literate!
Here's another claim that flip flops: due to the reverse image of the Kid's
authentic photo, it was thought for years that he was left-handed, so Brushy was
said to be left-handed too. But then it was learned the Kid was really
right-handed, then suddenly Brushy is right-handed as well. Then
historians/biographers unveiled that the Kid was actually ambidextrous, so now
it's said that Brushy was ambidextrous too. It seems the character and testimony
of Brushy keeps changing during the course of time as we learn more about the
real Billy the Kid."
The truth here is that Brushy Bill Roberts was ambidextrous and very literate. I don’t recall reading anywhere that Brushy himself said he was left handed. What he said was that he was better at the draw with his left hand than with his right. Brushy kept many journals that he wrote himself. The truth here also is that there is only one document that actually has the Kid’s handwriting on it and that is the bill of sale given to Dr Hoyt for a horse Billy gave him. That handwriting matches with Brushy’s. It seems to me that Historians and Biographers keep changing what they believe about Billy often. They seem to think that will discredit Brushy.
"By looking at photos of
Brushy Bill Roberts and Billy the Kid, one can clearly see the resemblance.
I’m
sorry but people who think that must be blind. Look above at the photos...Brushy
doesn't look anything at all like Billy the Kid. Not only were Brushy and Billy
the Kid's photos compared and analyzed on a computer and the results were
negative, but one can easily see for themselves, without computer technology,
the two are not the same man. First of all, Brushy appears to have had some
Hispanic descent due to his dark hair and complexion, but he did have gray eyes
with yellow specks around the pupil. While Billy the Kid was of Scot-Irish
decent, had light hair, was of fair complexion and had clear blue eyes. Brushy
had a square-shaped head, squared jaw line, large but long hanging ears and
average set shoulders. Billy the Kid on the other hand, had an oval-shaped face,
a narrow chin, small mouth, round ears and very narrow slopped shoulders. The
Kid also had thicker and longer eyebrows than Brushy (and as one grows older,
their eyebrows grow thicker). The two men couldn't look more different. That
alone is more than enough proof that Brushy and Billy were not the same man."
Yes, Brushy and Billy have been compared on many computers some say he was Billy the Kid and others say he wasn’t. It all depends on who paid for the analysis. There is one site that shows the comparison by an individual where you can judge for yourself.
