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Post by Deleted on Dec 9, 2019 19:30:16 GMT -5
Just how many members of the forum believe Brushy Bill Roberts was Billy The Kid? Just how many members of the forum are unsure about the claims? Just how many members of the forum think he was an imposter? I'm in the camp that Roberts was most likely an imposter, but one of the most convincing in American history. He had the looks, and similar capabilities and a pretty good mind for old West history. But I'm about certain he wasn't Billy The Kid. Still, I investigate like a neutral party, and find some things either corroborates some of his claims or they're still unverifiable. He reminds me of a man that I basically busted years ago as being a fraud by the name of Paddy Monaghan, who claimed to have been the undefeated bareknuckle middleweight champion of the world in over 140 contests all over the world, when the truth was prior to these claims he was known as "Penniless" Paddy who was on the public dole because of being an epileptic. For a while the man had me fooled. He had "eyewitnesses", but these people were largely his own family or men of ill-repute who were untrustworthy. The nail in the coffin, from my perspective, was that Bartley Gorman the King of the Gypsies who fought bareknuckle and knew everybody worth knowing in that field of sport, and is uncle of current heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, wrote in his autobiography about Paddy, and described him strictly as being just the president of the muhammad ali fanclub. Travel records, available online, never once showed Monaghan ever leaving Ireland except when muhammad ali paid for Paddy to go to England and America with him in the early 70s. Yet, to this day, there are dozens and dozens of people who'll fight you tooth and nail that Monaghan was this world's champion. Being the boxing aficionado that I am, Roberts story also reminds me of a man named Tommy Harrison who wound up homeless and claimed that he was Bob Satterfield, the contender who nearly fought for the heavyweight title. Harrison, at one point, was a boxer who was even a sparring partner for Rocky Marciano. Anyways, after his career ended, he assumed the identity of Bob Satterfield and fought in a long series of illegal, unsanctioned fights out in the boondocks. He never stopped using the name of Bob Satterfield, and started telling everyone who would listen that he really was Bob Satterfield and boasted about fighting Jake LaMotta, etc. Needless to say he managed to catch the attention of a writer, who wrote a major headline story of the tragic circumstances that befell Bob Satterfield, living in the garbage, and almost immediately the family of the real Bob Satterfield came bringing a lawsuit saying that their father died some years before. www.boxing.com/bob_satterfield_part_two.htmlJesus bless you all 😊
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Post by MissyS on Dec 9, 2019 21:58:30 GMT -5
rufus, I enjoy reading your posts. You bring up some interesting points to consider. I'm still not convinced Brushy was a fraud, but I sometimes get to the point where I believe he may have been, and then I find something that opens a possiblity that renews my thinking that he could have truly been Billy the Kid. I believe he may have suffered a small stroke at his meeting, It's possible he was afraid of hanging and may have destroyed evidence, or purposely told some untruths due to that, or due to his memory. I believe he was at times misunderstood, and sometimes misquoted, there was damaged tapes to consider and evidence changing hands and lost, I do believe he did work for Pawnee Bill, and Pawnee Bill may or vise versa had gotten Brushy interested in the oil industry? Pawnee Bill at a time was with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, so there's a real possibility Brushy may have performed for him as well, I believe he possibly worked as a security, and as an anti- horse thief. Brushy lived through the Great Depression, it wasn't uncommon for people to take on odd jobs or any work they can find. His photo matching is also convincing. I love a mystery, and I try to keep an open mind and I like to read both pro and cons so I can learn more.
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Post by Wayne Land on Dec 10, 2019 0:06:46 GMT -5
I think everyone knows where I stand. But here goes anyway. Even though it is certain that no one alive can know for a fact he was, I am fully and completely convinced that Brushy "may have been" the real Billy The Kid. But I am a little different in my conviction than some others. Mine is based not so much on the details of his story but more on his physical appearance and his claim in general. I have just one problem with the appearance. Brushy's right earlobe is less "detached" than in the single most trusted tintype of Billy. Other aspects of his ears do match however, and there is a simple explanation for the earlobe difference. In the Dedrick tintype, Billy had a head brace behind him that may well have been pushing that ear forward. That said, if we accept that Brushy looked very much like the Kid and factor in the things he knew that Oliver P. Roberts would not likely have known, there are just too many coincidences not to accept his claim. I look forward to the day someone is able to prove it.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2019 0:46:11 GMT -5
I think everyone knows where I stand. But here goes anyway. Even though it is certain that no one alive can know for a fact he was, I am fully and completely convinced that Brushy "may have been" the real Billy The Kid. But I am a little different in my conviction than some others. Mine is based not so much on the details of his story but more on his physical appearance and his claim in general. I have just one problem with the appearance. Brushy's right earlobe is less "detached" than in the single most trusted tintype of Billy. Other aspects of his ears do match however, and there is a simple explanation for the earlobe difference. In the Dedrick tintype, Billy had a head brace behind him that may well have been pushing that ear forward. That said, if we accept that Brushy looked very much like the Kid and factor in the things he knew that Oliver P. Roberts would not likely have known, there are just too many coincidences not to accept his claim. I look forward to the day someone is able to prove it. I'm glad you said the hinge of your argument basically is upon appearance largely, and that everything else is secondary. I've said it before on the forum that everyone, basically, has a physical twin somewhere in the world. The odds of someone looking virtually identical is 1 in 135. www.sciencealert.com/here-s-the-chances-of-you-having-a-doppelgaengerNow, the University of Adelaide that did this study did remark however that for someone to be identical in all eight facial features used in their analysis is 1 in 1,000,000,000,000 (trillion). How Brushy Bill Roberts would stand up to their tests and the clearest cut picture we have of Billy The Kid is uncertain because it's not been done to the standards of the University of Adelaide--- though we have had facial comparisons in the past that are remarkably close. Still, we must keep the fact in mind one being all but identical to someone else is far more common than people think--- especially when you consider most people around the world come from particularly small gene pools, marrying locals for generations, etc. So it's possible that maybe Roberts, in some distant way, could've been a relative of the real Billy The Kid because after all there was X amount of settlers in certain areas and it's likely somebody at some point married into somebody who was biologically related to that particular party of interest. bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2019.1Everyone's DNA ultimately leads back to two people in the distant past, so in all reality we're all related. However, you can tell a Midwestern person from a Floridian, etc--- basically by the gene pool that was available historically. I'm reminded of a study I read years ago about the British Isles and how everyone with blue eyes were related to one another. Astonishing as that seems to be it's not altogether surprising because Britain is an island nation. So, we have to figure, Brushy Bill Roberts is likely a very striking figure who wasn't Billy The Kid because it's more likely to find someone who looks like such a person as Billy The Kid than it is to assume Billy The Kid survived 1881. But, I know Wayne will say that's why we need to couple the appearance with the secondary evidence which is Roberts testimony. One can argue, though, that he may have known some things because of his association with employers like Susan McSween Barber and others instead of being Billy The Kid. Jesus bless you all 😊
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Post by chivato88 on Dec 10, 2019 14:22:20 GMT -5
I still believe that Brushy and The Kid were the same, but sometimes I also have my doubts, you bring some very strong points, I would love to sink my teeth into it more but my job and family take all my time, for now all I can do is read and learn as much as I can 😊
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Post by Wayne Land on Dec 10, 2019 22:27:48 GMT -5
<< it's more likely to find someone who looks like such a person as Billy The Kid than it is to assume Billy The Kid survived 1881. >>
I must respectfully disagree with this statement. I don't think it's more likely at all. I think ir ia extremely unlikely that someone who just happened to look that much like Billy would also know as much about him as Brushy did. In fact I find that so unlikely as to border on impossible.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2019 23:29:17 GMT -5
<< it's more likely to find someone who looks like such a person as Billy The Kid than it is to assume Billy The Kid survived 1881. >> I must respectfully disagree with this statement. I don't think it's more likely at all. I think ir ia extremely unlikely that someone who just happened to look that much like Billy would also know as much about him as Brushy did. In fact I find that so unlikely as to border on impossible. Considering John Miller had characteristics very much like Billy The Kid, that's at least one example apart from Brushy Bill Roberts of someone looking like someone that they were not. In the book "Whatever Happened to Billy The Kid?", by Helen Airy there's a model replica of John Miller's head that is virtually identical to a model replica of Billy The Kid's head. I know it's something people don't want to believe or wrap their mind around but there's a photographer who has documented at least 200 pairs of people who look virtually identical who are not related. Google the name Francois Brunelle. He's spent the last 15-20 years tracking down people who are almost mirror reflections of eachother. Or heck Google those alleged "time traveler" articles of modern day people looking identical to people in the past. Again, I've come across people in person and in pictures who looked a lot like me. One time I saw a picture of a man with the same toboggan hat, goatee & mustache, and hairy arms. He had the same nose and virtually the same eye color as myself. I never came across the picture again, but somewhere out there was a man who could've easily been mistaken for me. I'm open minded enough to consider Brushy Bill Roberts as being Billy The Kid, but, it's not uncommon for there to be people who look much like yourself out there. There's even an app or website that'll take your picture and compare it to others in their database and pull up the closest matching person in their system. Jesus bless you and your family
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Post by Wayne Land on Dec 11, 2019 12:06:41 GMT -5
Lets not get too bogged down in this one item on which we disagree but I have to just say, I have my 70th birthday coming up next week and I have been involved with large groups of people my whole life (thousands) and I have never met anyone who looked as much like me as Brushy looked like Billy. I fully respect that your experience has been different but think about any one of those people you've known that looked like you and ask yourself, "how much detail did they know about my life and activities that was not commonly known?"
As for John Miller, I'd like to see those models that look so identical because my careful comparisons of Miller's face with Billy's show marked differences. I'll go back and try to find those comparison graphics I did and post them. Do you have a copy of the book that contains the models you mentioned? Maybe you could scan those and send them to me. I won't post them on here (possible copyright issues). Thanks.
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Post by Wayne Land on Dec 11, 2019 12:57:06 GMT -5
I couldn't find the comparison I had done years ago, so I did a new one on both claimants and I was surprised MIller's came out as similar as it did. First, let me say that there are way too many efforts out there that compare photos by morphing from one face to the other or by placing the right side of one face next to the left side of the other. Those types of facial comparisons can be very misleading and in my opinion are not scientifically valid at all. That said, I also freely admit that my efforts are not state of the art and surely pale when compared to the most sophisticated facial recognition science. But I do believe my method is valid at least to a point. I start by flipping if the image is a reverse (you tell by how the shirt overlaps). Then I rotate both images, without distorting them, so the faces are vertically straight (in this case the white line down the center of the nose and mouth. Then I mark the position of the pupils of the eyes and resize the images so that those are exactly the same (the distance between one's eyes never changes with age). Then I use the black lines to measure facial width, length, distance from eyebrows to pupils to base of the nose to mouth and chin. I was surprised this time that much of it matched up really close but there are a couple of differences in this result that I believe make it impossible for these two faces to be the same person. First, Miller's nose is shorter than Billy's. Noses don't get shorter with age. If any change happens due to aging, the nose would get longer, not shorter. Second, if you look close you'll see the distance from pupils to eyebrows is greater on Miller. Third, Miller's mouth is wider. And the chins are shaped different although that could be due to aging and missing teeth. Those differences are not there with Brushy. It is difficult to see mouth width on Brushy due to the mustache and like Miller, he has no teeth which would compress the mouth and make it appear wider. Bottom line, I still think Brushy looked more like BTK than Miller did. Here are both comparisons for your consideration:
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2019 16:01:33 GMT -5
Unfortunately, for whatever reason, Google Books is not giving me access to the page that has the model busts of both Billy The Kid, based on the tintype, and that of John Miller.
Granted Wayne, I don't believe Miller to be Billy The Kid either, but my general point is that someone CAN look very similar, if not practically identical, to someone in the past or presently.
It happens quite regularly. There's actually an industry in the area of entertainment where look-alike's are hired to go out to various places to trick the media, so that celebrities can sneak away and have some privacy. For a long time Paris Hilton, for example, fooled a lot of people into believing a woman named Natalie Reid was herself.
Yes some people look more alike than others. Granted Roberts looks more like Billy The Kid than Miller, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I know you want to go on and on about accuracy of the comparisons, but mind you people get arrested every day because they match a description.
There's people who have been in prison for decades, later to be found innocent, because of logic like yours Wayne--- "He/She was virtually identical to the witness description, the witness picked them out, there can be no doubt."
Besides... Nobody wants to admit that the tintype photograph is one of the worst pictures possible of the real Billy The Kid... Head all crooked, looking disheveled, mouth open, was a mirror image instead of an actual image, etc... And whose to say The Kid wasn't purposely raising one of his eyebrows?
There's all these things to consider. The worst available picture of The Kid, Brushy looks like. But would he IF a perfectly clear picture, with a resting face, was discovered today? I'm not so sure. Nobody wants to take into consideration the margins of error there can possibly be.
In my view, Roberts telltale ears were just too big, even as a young man to have been The Kid. Unfortunately we don't have more pictures of Roberts at our disposal, but I don't think he matches up as much as people think. He's nearly identical, but not entirely identical.
Maybe someone, one day, could take the tintype and try to auto-age the photograph and add a mustache and see if it wouldn't be nearly identical to Roberts. But even if it was the case, with a 5% margin of error almost always figured in, it doesn't mean Roberts was The Kid.
It could also mean that throughout his life people remarked just how similar he was to The Kid that he decided to start calling himself The Kid and got too carried away.
Jesus bless you and your family
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Post by MissyS on Dec 11, 2019 17:24:21 GMT -5
"Maybe someone, one day, could take the tintype and try to auto-age the photograph and add a mustache and see if it wouldn't be nearly identical to Roberts".
Someone had done this on the show "Mysteries at the Museum" Who Killed Billy the Kid episode he had someone age progress Billy the Kid's tintype. and compared it to Brushy Bill, it was a very interesting episode. It was done by Steve Mancusi a forensic artist that has worked with the NYPD for 20 yrs, Steve used a cleaned up version of the tintype of Billy, he age progressed it, and he compared it to Brushy and according to Mancusi it was not a match to Brushy. The ears he said were different mainly. I don't know if he took account of the neck stand that may have pushed Billy's ears forward and the hat covering alot of Billy's ears? And I question if he age progressed it 90 yrs or just 70 to 80 yrs?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2019 17:55:50 GMT -5
"Maybe someone, one day, could take the tintype and try to auto-age the photograph and add a mustache and see if it wouldn't be nearly identical to Roberts". Someone had done this on the show "Mysteries at the Museum" Who Killed Billy the Kid episode he had someone age progress Billy the Kid's tintype. and compared it to Brushy Bill, it was a very interesting episode. It was done by Steve Mancusi a forensic artist that has worked with the NYPD for 20 yrs, Steve used a cleaned up version of the tintype of Billy, he age progressed it, and he compared it to Brushy and according to Mancusi it was not a match to Brushy. The ears he said were different mainly. I don't know if he took account of the neck stand that may have pushed Billy's ears forward and the hat covering alot of Billy's ears? And I question if he age progressed it 90 yrs or just 70 to 80 yrs? Thanks for that. Wasn't aware. youtu.be/kekoxL_OrkoStill, Wayne must acknowledge that there are numerous pictures out there allegedly having the same features, and passing all similar acid tests that he says proves Brushy was Billy--- yet clearly these men are not Brushy Bill Roberts. So that brings to mind just how beneficial or reliable such tests are to begin with? I'm not so sure I'd rest my laurels on them. All they prove, from my vantage point, is that they prove many people have the same facial structure as Billy The Kid.
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Post by Wayne Land on Dec 11, 2019 19:01:30 GMT -5
Wait just a minute here. I didn't say anything "proved" Brushy was Billy. I'm simply explaining why I believe he may have been Billy. I'm also not ready to acknowledge that there are numerous pictures out there having the same features. Because I've seen just about every photo posted online as being a suspected photo of Billy and I've yet to see one that matched the tintype as well as Brushy's does. Check my webpage at musicpla9.wixsite.com/searchingforthekid/other-photos for some examples. Rufus, I really appreciate your postings and have learned much from them, but please don't put words in my mouth. I never said Brushy had been proven to be Billy. He certainly has not been. I do insist that I've seen nothing that rules it out. Also, I've never said that Brushy's appearance alone convinces me of anything. I've said it is unlikely that someone who shares so many facial features would "also" have the knowledge of the LCW and Billy's activities and be the same overall stature with the same sloping right shoulder, etc. That is the reason I support Brushy's claim as much as I do. I consider all the supporting evidence and the evidence against. It's not any one thing. If you make the discussion about facial appearance only and ignore everything else, then, yes I would agree with most of what you're saying. But it can't be about the appearance alone.
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Post by Wayne Land on Dec 11, 2019 22:21:40 GMT -5
I think it's uncertain that Brushy worked for Susan McSween. A very blurry, questionable brand on a horse doesn't do it for me. But if he did work for her wouldn't that be strong evidence he was not Oliver Pleasant Roberts? You asked about so many who knew Billy insisting he was dead. The simple answer is they were told he was killed and they believed it. Your suggestion that he was living out in the open in plain sight throughout Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico seems to suggest there were individuals that knew Billy that would have seen him and reported it. I'm sure that you realize it is quite possible for two people who know each other to be living in the same state or even the same city for years without their paths ever crossing. Your points are interesting but we must agree to disagree on much of it.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2019 22:35:20 GMT -5
I think it's uncertain that Brushy worked for Susan McSween. A very blurry, questionable brand on a horse doesn't do it for me. But if he did work for her wouldn't that be strong evidence he was not Oliver Pleasant Roberts? You asked about so many who knew Billy insisting he was dead. The simple answer is they were told he was killed and they believed it. Your suggestion that he was living out in the open in plain sight throughout Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico seems to suggest there were individuals that knew Billy that would have seen him and reported it. I'm sure that you realize it is quite possible for two people who know each other to be living in the same state or even the same city for years without their paths ever crossing. Your points are interesting but we must agree to disagree on much of it. No. Because if the original tombstone birthdate of 1868 is correct, or even 1879, he'd of been between 23 or 34 years old in 1902, the most likely date of that photograph. Certainly old enough to have been employed by her even if he was just Oliver Pleasant Roberts. Furthermore, considering just how much smaller places used to be the further back you go, it's less likely one wouldn't bump into each other at some point. Besides, small towns equates to much gossip. You'd figure someone would've spilled the beans. Jesus bless you and your family
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