History of Europe

Wild West Outlaws Who Refuse to Die:Jesse James, Billy the Kid, and Butch Cassidy

Biohistory continues on its way to machamartillo no matter what happens and regardless of who it weighs. DNA continues to solve historical cases and puzzles that would otherwise have been impossible, even in the Wild West. Trivia Question:Who was the most famous gunman in the United States? There would be two candidates:Billy the Kid or Jesse James . To choose. Both were trigger-happy with short lives and tragic deaths colored by legend and doubt.

During his life of crime, Jesse James he robbed more than 12 banks, 7 trains, 4 stagecoaches and at least 11 people were killed. In the end, as if following a movie script, he was shot from behind by two members of his own gang, Charlie and Robert Ford , in the town of Saint Joseph, Missouri, on April 3, 1882 and buried him there. So they say… For a few years, a certain J. Frank Dalton (died in Granbury, Texas, on August 15, 1951 at age 103) told anyone who would listen that he was really Jesse James and that Bob Ford had killed Jesse's cousin named Charlie Bigelow. An old man's ravings many thought. Dalton convinced the writer Robert Ruark and Rudy Turilli, a recognized expert on James, of his claims.

But he was not the only candidate. A historian named Betty Duke she collected some confidential information and published a book with a suggestive title:Jesse James lived and died in Texas , in which she states that the end of the gunman was in 1943, under the name of James L. Courtney . Precisely, the grandfather of this writer.

Given the doubts, in July 1995 a genetic test determined who belonged to the body deposited in the Missouri cemetery. Thanks to mitochondrial DNA from Jesse's tooth, compared to genetic material from a grandson of James (he had two children with his cousin Zerelda Mimms ), proved that the person buried under the inscription «Here lies Jesse James, murdered by a traitor and a coward whose name is not worth appearing here "It was the real Jesse James. The certainty was 99.7%. Solved case? Some skeptics dispute that, saying the DNA samples were taken from a tooth found in the house, not from the buried body. In addition, at least three exhumations of other bodies have been carried out in order to disprove the DNA test, none of them successful. The tomb also produced an unexpected discovery. Jesse's skull did not have a bullet exit hole as claimed.

The Missouri caves where Jesse James took refuge are today a tourist center on Route 66 (dubbed "America's High Street «) and, not far from them, a wax museum remembers the impostor J. Frank Dalton. If the mystery of his bones is solved, another remains to be clarified:where did the "treasure" of Jesse James go? It is estimated that the amount of all the thefts from him would amount to more than 20 million current dollars...

Were there two Bill the Kid?

Now let's go to the other gunslinger who lived fast, died young and left a nice corpse, to paraphrase James Dean (although he didn't say that famous line). Before being gunned down by Pat Garrett Legend has it that he killed 21 men with his gun. One of those who questioned the official theory that Bill the Kid was killed by Garrett was Lewis Wallace , Governor General of the Union in the American Civil War, best known for his celebrated novel Ben Hur (1880). Well, Wallace, who offered Bill a pardon if he collaborated with justice, said in 1881 that he doubted that this man would murder him because they had been friends for a long time. It doesn't seem like a strong argument. Many more have questioned whether Billy the Kid died at the age of 21 from a shot to the heart by Sheriff Pat Garrett at midnight on July 14, 1881.

As fast as I could, I drew my revolver and fired, ducking to the side, and firing again. The second shot was unnecessary, he had already dropped dead. Two seizures and Billy the Kid is gone with his many victims. -the sheriff wrote in 1882 in his memoirs-.

As usual, someone reported that Bill the Kid did not die but he continued to live for a few more years with another identity. An investigation in New Mexico in 2003 tried to determine if Brushy Bill Roberts , who died in 1950 at the age of 90, was telling the truth by proclaiming himself the real Billy the Kid.

We know that Billy was buried at Fort Summer, 150 miles northeast of Lincoln. Years later, the tomb was opened by court order and what would not be the surprise when it was discovered that the body was missing the head. The trouble is that now what has been lost is his body. The Kid , whose real name is Henry McCarty —Although he was also known as William Bonney and Kid Antrim—he is supposedly buried near the house where he was killed in Fort Sumner. The ones that are located are the tombs of Catherine Antrim , who happened to be her mother, and Brushy Bill Roberts's, who claimed to be the real Billy the Kid. The judges and the locals themselves, who live practically thanks to tourism, have not granted permission to do the DNA analysis of Brushy's remains because if it were proven that Billy the Kid died of old age, as Roberts claimed he did, the legend would go away down the toilet as well as tourist benefits. Or not. In 2011, DNA tests were carried out on the body that is in the tomb of Fort Summer and it was shown that his remains do not correspond to those of the famous outlaw and bandit... The intrigue continues.

Butch Cassidy lies in Bolivia

Fewer doubts seem to have the mortuary remains of Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid , two famous train and bank robbers immortalized by the film Two men and a destiny . Their final moments were in San Vicente (Bolivia) where they had taken refuge from the military in an abandoned house. It was November 6, 1908. According to the witnesses who testified before the Judge of Tupiza, at dawn on November 7 the neighbors and the authorities found two corpses inside said house, one of them leaning against a clay pot. Apparently, Butch Cassidy killed the Sundance Kid and then killed himself. Both were buried in the San Vicente cemetery on the same day, a fact verified and demonstrated through written statements by the protagonists of the time.

So why do some say that Butch Cassidy's remains have never been found and that the ones in St. Vincent's grave are not his? DNA tests revealed that the bones found in his grave belonged to a German miner named Gustav Zimmer. . In 1992, a scientific report was broadcast on Channel 4 in London where he recounted how the tombs of Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid were unearthed and that, due to misinformation from one of the neighbors named Froilán Rizo , a wrong tomb was unearthed that actually corresponded to the German Gustav Zimmer, who died in 1930. Hence the misunderstanding. Even so, the thesis of his survival has generated legends and movies. This was the argument that inspired director Mateo Gil to review the myth of Butch Cassidy in the film Blackthorn, sin destiny (2011). For him, he survived the ambush of the Bolivian army and for decades led a secluded life, on a small ranch in the tropical jungle, under the name of James Blackthorn

In short, living legends of dead outlaws who refuse to die entirely thanks to the genetic scalpel and Hollywood cinema.

Collaboration with Jesús Callejo