Billy the Kid’s Gravesite

Legendary outlaw Billy  the Kid was killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett and buried in Fort Sumner. Billy the Kid, also known as Henry McCarty, Henry Antrim and  William H. Bonney was a 19th century American frontier outlaw and  gunman who participated in the Lincoln County War. According to legend, he  killed 21 men.
McCarty (or Bonney, the name he used at the height of his  notoriety) was 5 ft. 8 in. to 5 ft. 9 in. tall with blue eyes, a smooth  complexion, and prominent front
teeth. He was said to be friendly and  personable at times. Relatively unknown during most of his lifetime, Billy  was catapulted into legend a few months before his death by New Mexico’s  governor, Lew Wallace, who placed a price on his head. 
Sheriff Pat Garrett shot and killed Billy the Kid July 14, 1881. Billy was buried  the next day in Fort Sumner’s old military cemetery, between his fallen  companions Tom O’Folliard and Charlie Bowdre.  A single tombstone was later erected over the graves with a one  word epitaph of  “Pals” carved into it.
The tombstone has been stolen and recovered three times since it was set in place in the 1940s, and the entire gravesite is now enclosed within a steel cage. Following his execution by Lincoln County sheriff Pat Garrett, several biographies were written that depicted the Kid as either a vicious outlaw or a nineteenth-century Robin Hood.