The odds of the many eye witnesses

[garyabc]

Shotgun Collins with his own list of a.k.a s. He told his family he was Btk s friend before and after 1881. He claimed he was at the funeral. As far as i know he and his family have no connection with Brushy or Miller.

[MissyS]

Apr 16, 2023 21:30:50 GMT -5 garyabc said:

Shotgun Collins with his own list of a.k.a s. He told his family he was Btk s friend before and after 1881. He claimed he was at the funeral. As far as i know he and his family have no connection with Brushy or Miller.

Thank You garyabc. John Collins, or Abraham G. Graham or John Graham; also known as Shotgun Collins is definitely a name to add to the witness list. He was said to have been a resident of Fort Sumner, and claimed he helped dig the grave and said the corpse was not Billy the Kid that Garrett killed. He had ties to Silver City and fought in the Lincoln County War and rode with the Kid and did some rustling with him. It would be Interesting if Brushy had mentioned knowing him, I believe he knew Billy the Kid. The witnesses that have seen the Kid alive in Texas after 1881 is compelling to me because I believe there was a good chance they were talking about seeing Brushy Bill. 

[MissyS]

Jun 13, 2022 22:31:45 GMT -5 MissyS said:

A couple others;
In the book The Kingdom of Zapata by Virgil N Lott and Mercurio Martinez pub. 1953, (not word for word ) a few months after the Fort Sumner shooting a slender buck toothed young man with feminine hands worked on a ranch and he vanished after working there some time, later it was discovered he was the Kid. This ranch was located in Zapata County in Texas.

Another story in the Mentone Monitor 1932 of Billy the Kid living near El Paso, playing the fiddle at dances and the old white haired man had a fear of friends of his victims.

If this was Brushy Bill then it would be an important find, a mention that he played the fiddle!

So the question now is did Brushy ever reside near El Paso in 1932? Or worked in Zapata County Texas? These are a couple things to research. Brushy mentioned El Paso in the Lost Interviews, one mention that in 95’ Brushy said he struck out for El Paso where he ran into a bunch of cowboys whom he was acquainted. Brushy wouldn’t have been old enough to have had white hair then though, he would have been only 35 yrs old in 1895. How far is considered Near of El Paso is another question?

With the witnesses of seeing Billy the Kid in El Paso including Leland V. Gardiner of Santa Fe, believing he may have seen the Kid on an isolated ranch within 500 miles of El Paso. When strangers would visit the ranch the Kid would hide until they left;
I found on a Texas County Cattle brand listing  that a Sterling O Roberts had a ranch in El Paso County in 1883 because he registered his cattle brand. I’m wondering if Sterling O Roberts may have been kin to Brushy? and he may have been visiting him? 

animalscience.tamu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2018/03/El-Paso.pdf

[tboor74]

Any other records of Sterling O Roberts? What's his back story?

[MissyS]

There is a Sterling O Roberts born in Texas 1892 and died in 1975. It may be a different one, or the date 1883 on the Cattle brand document was wrong? It could be that 1883 may have been the year the Ranch was established? It would be interesting to know for sure if there was a Roberts family in El Paso just to give reason for Brushy to be there to explain the witness sightings, but he could have just been working at a ranch that wasn’t his kin. I thought it may be a possibility to make note of Brushy’s whereabouts and look at the locations of the witness sightings of Billy the Kid to see if they correspond, because if a witness said they saw Billy the Kid at a certain location at a certain time and Brushy said he was at that location around the time, then it would be evidence enough for me that Billy the Kid was recognized as Brushy Bill. It’s interesting that a witness saw Billy the Kid in Mexico and Brushy said he went to Mexico. Knowing Brushy’s interests I do believe he would have been attracted to attending a bullfight, and an old school chum of Billy’s saw Billy the Kid at a bullfight after the shooting by Garrett. Billy the Kid was seen in Mexico, New Mexico and Texas and we know Brushy traveled extensively, I came across a statement in a 1883 Missouri newspaper also referring to being infested with many Billy the Kid’s and Brushy was in Missouri quite a lot.

mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/libertytrib/id/60678/rec/2

[MissyS]

Here is another article printed in 1896 making note to the all the talk of Billy the Kid still being alive after the shooting and an old timer Cottonwood Wason that claims the Kid is in New York going under the name McGuire.

chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84020631/1896-01-02/ed-1/seq-1/print/image_681x648_from_2312%2C3676_to_3793%2C5086/

[BrushyBillLives]

Aug 27, 2023 10:35:10 GMT -5 MissyS said:

Here is another article printed in 1896 making note to the all the talk of Billy the Kid still being alive after the shooting and an old timer Cottonwood Wason that claims the Kid is in New York going under the name McGuire.

chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84020631/1896-01-02/ed-1/seq-1/print/image_681x648_from_2312%2C3676_to_3793%2C5086/

Sometimes i start thinking there’s 20 Kids running about, and their crimes pile to one scapegoat.

What bothers me and leads the most is Garrets claiming to have killed the Kid, year earlier in sentences required Maxwells acknowledgment.

Why write you had to ask, be confirmed, the. say you did the deed.

But this is the same fool who later gets a deputy shoot full of holes and leaves said deputy to die… The same one incapable of shooting in the dark under much the same issues..