During his escape The Kid allegedly shot and killed two deputies, but he was never indicted for the murder of James Bell and Robert Ollinger.

Lincoln County Sheriff Tom Sullivan thinks it is time to remedy that old wrong. The Sheriff also thinks it is time to settle an argument over who really was Billy the Kid.

On April 29, Sullivan filed an official case in the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office to reopen the investigation on the two homicides.

But pride is the real reason Sullivan wants to reopen the murder case and prove who is the real Billy. "We have an image of Sheriff Pat Garrett on our Sheriff's Office patches," Sullivan explained to The News when The News found the case filed on the sheriff's office dispatch blotter.

Sullivan explained that last winter he and his wife Pat were traveling through Texas to visit children when they went through Hico. In Hico are a monument and museum to Brushy Bill Roberts the "real" Billy the Kid. Sullivan said the Brushy Bill Roberts story surfaced in 1990 when television journalist Sam Donaldson interviewed the old man who claimed to be the real Billy the Kid.

Roberts claimed Billy did not die by Garrett's gun in Fort Sumner. Rather Roberts acclaimed he was Billy and he had escaped to live his long life in Texas.

Donaldson also interviewed many people in Hico and Fort Sumner, NM where legend says Garrett killed the Kid.

Sullivan said Brushy Bill made his first appearance when he came to Santa Fe in 1949 and met with then Governor Mechem and his lawyers.

"The Brushy Bill story contradicts all Lincoln County stands for," Sullivan said. "It is saying Pat Garrett was a liar and all he stands for was a lie."

"I don't want the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office, with its Pat Garrett patches, to be identified with a lie," Sullivan said.

So Sullivan is out to get some real proof of identity. "We're not sure where Billy the Kid is buried in Fort Sumner," Sullivan said. "But we know exactly where Billy's mother is buried in Silver City."

Sullivan would like to find a way to get a sample of Billy"s mother's DNA and a sample of Brushy Bill's DNA to test whether Brushy's claim is true. He hopes by filing the homicides as a criminal investigation they can get court orders to obtain samples of DNA. "Then we can tell Texas to put up or shut up," Sullivan added.

A private DNA testing company in Dallas is interested in the Billy the Kid project. With the help form the Hubbard Museum of the American West research is being done on old documents and archives in Arizona.

On April 28, Hubbard Museum of the American West historian Drew Gomber tested out a theory about the day of Billy's last escape in old Lincoln. Some claim there is no proof Billy shot the deputies because there were no actual eyewitnesses to the murders. Billy was shackled and being held by a personal guard when he escaped. He allegedly shot his guard and the other deputy who responded to the gun shots. Some speculate the second shooting was to leave no eyewitnesses.

There are more stories about where the gun shots came from. Sullivan said to test the idea that shots fired inside the courthouse could be heard outside the building, a black powder 45 pistol with blanks was shot off inside the old courthouse. Meanwhile two people were sitting inside the Wortley Hotel to determine how easily Billy's gunshot could have been heard those many years ago. "They aid they could hear the shot all over Lincoln," Sullivan said.

The vent was video taped for a documentary. He hopes the project will bring new interest to the Billy the Kid story and finally disprove the Brushy Bill theory.

"We want to get William Bonney indicted for those two murders," Sullivan said.

"And if we find that Pat Garrett was a liar about Billy the Kid we will remove his image from our patch."

Reprinted by permission from the Lincoln County News,
May 22, 2003