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Short Stuff: The Death of Billy the Kid · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh and there's
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Chuck and we're Chucked and this is short stuff, so
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: let's go. So we're talking today about the death of
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Billy the Kid, which I thought I learned from a
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Billy Joel song called the Ballad of Billy the Kid.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: It seems like an appropriate place to learn it. Great song.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: But it turns out that Billy Joel stopped at the
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: what was to be the hanging of Billy the Kid,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: and growing up, I thought that's how his story ended. Boy,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: you are misinformed, buddy. Yeah, I mean the song literally
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: stops with the townfolk in their kin like the c
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: came rolling in to watch the hanging of Billy the
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Kid and there's one more course and that's it. You
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: know Now that makes me question if whether we really
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: did start the fire. Hey, did you see that video
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: of him playing the piano on the street the other day?
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: And uh wherever he's from Island. I did see a
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: tweet that mentioned it in um link that I surmised
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: from the headline what had happened. So yeah, basically it
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: was pretty neat. Someone was throwing out of piano and
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Billy Joel goes over there and he's playing it, and
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: he's like, hey, it's a good piano. It's out of tune,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: but he's got good actions. The petals work. You said,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: somebody should donate this thing. It sounds like he's like
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Rodney Dangerfield. Now, well at least not too far off.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: So um No, it turns out that Billy the Kid.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Everything I know about Billy the Kid I learned from
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Young Guns and Billy the Kid didn't die at all.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: He went on to live to about a hundreds something
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: years old in New Mexico. Um, because he escaped and
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: his death was faked. That's right. It was was that
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Emilia was he Billy? Yes? Yes? Yeah? And uh man,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: that was a great movie to me. Billy the Kid
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: is Chris Christofferson from the Great Great Sam Pecumpalm movie
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. I never saw that one. Well,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: there's two versions, and see if you can watch the
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: director's cut, because the other ones a mess. Oh is
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: that right? It's like a Hurricanes episode. Yeah, And funny
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: enough you mentioned Hurricane. Bob Dylan is in that movie
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: and does the soundtrack and score. Who does he play
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: in the movie? Let me guess the Undertaker. No, something
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: like that. I think he's just like a stranger in
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: town that does a couple of things. It's not a
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: big part Sam Peck. And Paul was a Bob Dylan fan. Sure,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: he did tons of drugs and was an alcoholic, sure,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: but Bob Dylan fan. Yeah. Man, huh. Alright, So can
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: we get going on this? This is a short stuff.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: We wasted three and a half minutes. Well, we'll just
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: say this, Billy the Kid died. That's that. That's right.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: I think we should kind of reverse this a little
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: bit and talk a little bit about Billy the Kid first. Yeah, agreed.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Did you know he was a born New Yorker? I
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: did because I'm kind of into these old West dudes,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: and I've researched some of them to certain degrees. And
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: he was born William Henry McCarty Jr. Uh. And if
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: you've heard the name William Bonnie, that was a name
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: he went by a lot. I think you've heard William
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Bonnie a lot more, probably than McCarty. Yeah, for sure.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: I actually had never heard Henry McCarty until today. Yeah.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: And he was orphaned at fourteen and became one of
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: the Lincoln County regulators. Yeah, and so regulators will sound
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: familiar if one you are a Young Guns fan or
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: if you're a Nate Dog and Warren g fan. Either way,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: the regulators were kind of a group of hired hands
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: for a guy and hired guns, I believe too young ones,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: um for a guy named Tunstall, I believe down in
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Lincoln County, New Mexico. And Um, toun Stall was killed
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: from what I understand, fairly unfairly um, and that kind
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: of set Billy the Kid and his his posse of
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: regulators off on a bit of a killing spree. Started
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: what's known as the Lincoln County War. That's right. And uh,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: during one of those skirmishes there was some murders that happened.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: And Pat Garrett, who was a sheriff in New Mexico
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: played by James Coburn in the Bob Dylan movie played
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: by Bob Dylan and Young Guns, Uh he was. I
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: haven't seen Young Guns a long time. That was a
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: big college movie for us. I need to see that again.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: It was like it didn't come out when you were
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: in college. Sure, No, yeah, I don't think so. Look
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: it up and I'll keep going all right live corrections.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: So Pat Garrett formed a posse. UH captured Billy and
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: that part of the Billy Joel song checks out, and
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: he was sentenced to hang. They captured him at Stinking Springs,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: New Mexico, and while he was awaiting his execution, he
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: was kept in a it wasn't even a prison, it
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: was a room, a locked room at the Lincoln County Courthouse. Uh.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I found this article says too, I heard, I saw
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: there were five other prisoners. Um. Regardless, there were other
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: prisoners being guarded by some armed men. Uh. One of
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: them was an enemy of Billy's named Bob Ollinger. And
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: at one point he took all the rest of the
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: guys over to a hotel across the street to eat,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: left Billy there under the charge of Deputy James bell Man.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: These are some great old timey Old West names, aren't they. Oh? Yeah,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: when was Young Guns out? So if you if you
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: were in college at age seventeen, then I'm impressed. I
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: said it was a big movie in college. I didn't
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: say it came out in college. I asked you, than
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: came out in college? And you said, oh yeah, I
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: thought you mean, was it out in college? As if
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: it came out after that thought that that's what I meant. Now,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: it came out in high school, but we watched the
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: heck out of it in college. I should have that,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: should have said. So James Bell is watching Billy. Billy says, uh, hey, gout,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: he's a bathroom. Can you take me out to the outhouse?
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: He said, I really gotta go. He shackled, his arms
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: and legs are shackled. Take him out use the bathroom.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: On the way back end, they're going up the steps.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Billy's in front, and the account I read was that
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: he ducked around a blind corner, got his hands out,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: and then smashed this guy in the head with his
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: arm irons. The guy went, what Billy pulled his gun
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: from his holster. The other guys holter, Yeah, of course
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Billy didn't have a gun on him. Why would they
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: do that. He's like, why didn't I think they're using
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: that first? They're like, well, he's in handcuffs, just go
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: ahead and keep his gun on him. And so he
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: pulls the guy's gun on him, and the guy tries
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: to run and Billy shoots him dead in the back.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: And so now roughly we reached the end of the
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Billy Joel song, which I think is a good time
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: for an ad break. What do you think, Sure, we'll
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: be right back. M alright, Chuck, We're back. And um,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Billy the kid has just shot the deputy that's in
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: charge of watching him. Another deputy runs back, uh or
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: runs back from the hotel and okay, Olinger, um apparently
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: is he's running and he hears his name and looks up,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: and Billy the kids got Olinger's own rifle on him
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: and shoots him dead like a dog in the street.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: So Billy the kids killed two people. Now he's out
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: of his shackles and he grabs a horse and high
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: tails it out of town for a life on the
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: run that would last about four more months. Yeah, that's
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: um the only dispute I have with that accoun on us.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: It supposedly took him about an hour to get out
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: of his leg shackles with an axe, and I guess
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: no one just came up there. When Olinger came to
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: find him, Billy actually yelled down, look up, old boy,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: and see what you get. Wow, And that's the last
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: words that he heard. So Billy's on the run at
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: this point uh, And obviously Pat Garrett has be in
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: his bonnet to go get him again. Well, sure, he's
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: the Sheriff of Lincoln County and Billy the kid, who's
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: become one of the most notorious bandits in the country
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: has just escaped out from under his watch. So yeah,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: there's a reward. Well, sure there's a reward too. So
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Pat Garrett had this um history of lying in wait,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: in ambushing people and shooting them, whether they were ready
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: to shoot back or not, killing them very frequently. He'd
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: done it before, and um, he wanted to do it again.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: He went to go look for Billy a kid. Um.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Like we said, he he made his way as an outlaw,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: like a double outlaw by this point, um on the
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: lamb for good four months before he was caught up
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: with I think still in New Mexico in um July
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: of eight one, and he apparently was staying at the
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: house or nearby the house of a friend named Peter Maxwell.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: And Peter Maxwell had a younger sister that Billy the
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Kid was sweet on, and Peter Maxwell didn't like that
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Billy the Kid was sweet on her. And by sweet
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: on her, I mean that they were having extramarital sexual relations,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: and Peter didn't like that because he was planning on
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: marrying off his his sister to a rich Land baron nearby,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: and Billy the Kid was kind of toying with that possibility.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Um so Peter Maxwell is in this kind of mindset
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: allegedly when Pat Garrett shows up. That's right, Garrett shows up.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: This isn't well, he doesn't show up at night, but
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: eventually night falls, and uh, well, actually maybe he did
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: show up because supposedly he he found him asleep. Uh
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Pete Maxwell, that is, And Garrett very presumptuously goes into
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: his room and sits down next to him and says, Pete,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: wake up, wake up. And then he wakes up, and
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: he says, where's that Billy the Kid? And as the
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: story goes, and we're gonna poke holes at it in
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: a second, right, then Billy the Kid actually walks into
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: that room, that dog gone room, and has a gun
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: and a knife because he had just went to cut
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: some meat off. He was hungry, I guess after some
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: he had post coital hunger pains and carves some meat
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: off and was from a yearling supposedly and had just
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: eaten a little bit, and so he has a knife
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: and a gun and can't really see him the dark
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: and starts going Keyennis Keiennis Spanish for who is it?
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Who's there? And Maxwell or I'm sorry. Pat Garrett supposedly
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: recognizes the voice as Billy in the dark and shoots
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: him dead. Yeah, and I just want to make sure
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: we're all on the same page. Heart Yearling is a
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: young horse. He was after some horse meat to eat.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: That's right. So this was the death as far as
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Pat Garrett said of Billy the Kid. But like we
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: said before, Pat Garrett already kind of had developed a
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: reputation of ambushing people, of lying in wait, catching him
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: off guard when they least expected it, And even in
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: this story that he told this this is the official
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: line that Pat Garrett told in the biography he wrote
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: about Billy the Kid, Um, that that was how he died.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: But even that, which is kind of on the edges
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: of fair um is disputed, is probably untrue, and that
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: the truth is probably involves even more of an ambush
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: and more surprise, and even less of Billy the Kid
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: being able to defend himself than that. Yeah, I think
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: the other version is that he was actually ambushed and
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: set up by Maxwell because he didn't like him being
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: with Paulita, his little sister, and basically said, hey man,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: it's uh, it's all going down here, and here's your
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: here's your chance to come over to Fort Sumner and
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: take care of this kid once and for all. And
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: so he did so, and a lot of people say
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: that's how it really went down. And then and then
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: he tipped off pat Garrett, right, yeah, and that he
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: in fact even changed his age. Who was he was
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: supposedly like eighteen or nineteen when he was shot dead
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: and said no, no, no no, he was really twenty one.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: So I didn't have this extra judicial killing him some kid.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: He was a full grown man and it was just
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: happenstance that he happened to walk in the room where
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: I was sitting there with a loaded gun. Yeah, And
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: the other people historians think, like, probably Billy the kid
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: didn't walk in with a gun and a knife looking
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: for some yearling meat. He probably walked in fully unarmed,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: expecting Pete Maxwell's sister to be waiting for him there,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: and instead pet Garrett and his gun was waiting for
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: him there. So he probably was fully ambushed and killed murdered.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: I guess it's the other way to put it in
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: that that's probably how Billy the Kid died. Either way,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: he died at the other end of Pat Garrett's gun.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: That much we know about, right, even though there are
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: were and have been rumors over the years that uh,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: he was in cahoots with Pat Garrett and he let
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: him escape, and that he lived to be a ripe
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: old age. There have been exhumations, they've been DNA tists
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: over the years. Obviously, nothing has ever come back with
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: any sort of conclusion. Uh, Young guns seem to be
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: pretty concluding. I got a little cherry on top two
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: if you're interested, let's hear it. You know that very
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: famous picture of Billy the Kid, sort of one of two,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: although the second one they aren't quite sure at him.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: But there's that one, very very famous perotype, which is
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: a picture on like a metal plate. Um that photo,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: that farotype, the original plate was bought for uh two
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: point three million dollars by none other than William Coke,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: who's that the Koke brothers. Oh, yeah, I forgot. He's
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: super into like Old West stuff apparently, Yeah, I forgot
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: about that. Well, that's pretty interesting, quite a quite a
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: quite quite a cherry on top. I'm glad a millionaire
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: gets what he wants in the end. As for Garrett Uh,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: he was originally denied the five hundred dollar reward. A
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: bunch of the city's felt bad for him and raised
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: seven thousand dollars, and then a year later there was
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: I think an injunction or a vote or something where
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: he actually finally got the reward. So in today's dollars, supposedly,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: if that all checks out, he got about two hundred
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: and something thousand dollars for killing Billy the kids. He's
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: like that barista from Starbucks who refused service to that
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: woman You wouldn't wear a mask. Now they're rich, right Dan,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: I don't serve anyone coffee without a mask. There you gifts,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: We'll start to go fund me for Chuck everybody. Um, well,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: that's it for short stuff, right, Chuck. That's right? Get
• 15:14
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