Thursday, November 10, 2005
The Science Of History
One of the great open questions of American history is what happened to Billy the Kid. The legend says Pat Garrett killed him. But in the 1930's a guy surfaced claiming to be "the Kid." Given that Garrett and Bonney were buddies before they are enemies, and the isolated circumstances of the final Garrett/Bonney showdown, the claim by the old guy has never quite gone away.This picture, by the way is the jail/courthouse in Lincoln, NM where the Kid was held for a time and escaped by killing a couple of deputies. The wife and I visited a few years ago.
Now the great question may be answered by a DNA test. This has been a cause celeb for the Lincoln County Sheriff whose badge bears the image of Pat Garrett, as the preemminent lawman of New Mexico. Well, he got permission to exhume the body of the old guy and extract some DNA, and he is going to compare it to a blood stain off the table on which the body of the Kid was laid after his proported death.
This is gonna be fun. Call CSI.
