Pat Garrett didn't just kill Billy the Kid, he also became the leading expert on the outlaw's life.
Pat Garrett carved himself into Wild West history on a July day in 1881, when he snuck into a ranch in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. There, hiding in the dark, Garrett shot and killed the outlaw Billy the Kid.
By then, Garrett was a true man of the Wild West. He’d worked as a cowboy, killed scores of buffalo, and been elected sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico. Garrett had spent many nights gambling in saloons, and once reluctantly shot and killed a man in self defense.
But he would be forever known for his link to Billy the Kid. Not only did Garrett fire the shot that killed the notorious outlaw, but he later wrote his biography: Biography of Billy the Kid, The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid, Noted Desperado of the Southwest, Whose Deeds of Daring and Blood Made His Name a Terror in New Mexico, Arizona and Northern Mexico.
This is the story of Pat Garrett, the man who killed Billy the Kid.
A Wild Life In The West
Born on June 5, 1850, in Chambers County, Alabama, Patrick Floyd Garrett spent his formative years in the South. He and his family moved to Louisiana when Garrett was still young, where his father had purchased a cotton plantation in Claiborne Parish. Garrett worked in the plantation’s store.
IanDagnall Computing / Alamy Stock PhotoPat Garrett in 1903, 22 years after he shot and killed Billy the Kid.
But the Civil War would change everything for Garrett and his family. Their slave labor vanished and their crops were confiscated. History Net reports that Garrett’s father sank into a depression and began to drink heavily, and died in 1868. Pat Garrett then decided to try his fortunes out west.
In early 1869, the 18-year-old made his way to Dallas County, Texas, where he lived like a true man of the west. Garrett worked on a farm, became a cowboy, and eventually starting hunting and skinning bison. Willis Skelton Glenn, Garrett’s business partner, recalled the 6’4″ Garrett as a “long-legged specimen” with an “attractive” and “impressive” personality.
But Garrett also quickly proved he wasn’t someone to be messed with. When a fight with a fellow hunter named Joe Briscoe escalated to violence, Garrett shot Briscoe at point-blank range to save his own life.
In 1878, Pat Garrett made his way to Fort Sumner, New Mexico. And it was there that he’d first cross paths with a young man who went by Billy the Kid.
Pat Garrett Meets Billy The Kid
Public DomainBilly the Kid had already made a name for himself by the time Pat Garrett arrived in town.
By the time Pat Garrett arrived in Fort Sumner, Billy the Kid — who went by William H. Bonney — had made a name for himself. Born Henry McCarty around 1859, he’d begun to develop a reputation after he escaped from jail in 1875 following his arrest for the robbery of a Chinese laundry operator. In 1877, he killed his first man after they came to blows during a poker game. And in 1878, he became involved in the Lincoln County War.
In that short-lived but violent conflict, Billy the Kid and others formed a vigilante group they called “The Regulators” to avenge the death of rancher John Tunstall. Because Tunstall had been killed by a posse led by Sheriff William Brandy, The Regulators killed Brandy himself.
Garrett, who found work on a local ranch and by tending bar at Beaver Smith’s saloon, sometimes crossed paths with Billy the Kid. However, the depth of their relationship has been debated. Some claim that the two got so close while gambling together that they were nicknamed “Big Casino” and “Little Casino.” Others state that this relationship has been exaggerated. And Garrett himself depicted their friendship as casual at best.
An 1880 photo that allegedly shows Billy the Kid, second from left, and Pat Garrett, far right, in 1880. The two knew each other before BIlly the Kid’s death, though the depth of their relationship has been debated.
“He minds his business, and I attend to mine,” Garrett once remarked. “He visits my wife’s folks sometimes, but he never comes around me. I just simply don’t want anything to do with him, and he knows it, and knows that he has nothing to fear from me as long as he does not interfere with me or my affairs.”
But on Nov. 7, 1880, Pat Garrett was elected Lincoln County Sheriff. From then on, Billy the Kid would have something to fear from Garrett, who made it his priority to reign in the lawlessness of the outlaw and his gang.
The Hunt For Billy The Kid
Starting in December 1880, Pat Garrett started to pursue Billy the Kid in earnest. On Dec. 19, he and his men killed gang member Tom O’Folliard during an ambush in Fort Sumner. And on Dec. 23, Garrett and his men were able to arrest Billy the Kid and his gang in Stinking Springs after standoff that killed gang member Charlie Bowdre.
Public DomainA photo which purportedly shows Billy the Kid and a member of the Regulators, several of whom were killed by Garrett and his men. 1878.
But the story didn’t quite end there.
Though Billy the Kid was found guilty of killing Brady and sentenced to death, the outlaw had no plans to go quietly. On April 18, 1881, about a month before his execution date, Billy the Kid escaped from jail and killed two guards in the process. Garrett, out of town collecting county taxes, resolved to capture him anew.
The outlaw had been on the run for months when Garrett received a tip that Billy the Kid was hiding out at the Maxwell ranch in Fort Sumner. In July 1881, Garrett made his way there.
As Garrett later wrote in his biography of Billy the Kid, Garrett went to the ranch on July 14, 1881. Shortly after midnight, he snuck inside and found the rancher in his bed.
“I walked to the head of the bed and sat down on it, beside him, near the pillow,” Garrett later wrote. “I asked him as to the whereabouts of the Kid. He said that the Kid had certainly been about, but he did not know whether he had left or not.”
At that moment, a figure entered the room holding “a revolver in his right hand and a butcher knife in his left.” As the figure approached, Garrett urgently asked Maxwell who it was — and Maxwell replied: “That’s him!” just as Billy the Kid cried “Quien es? Quien es?” (“Who’s that? Who’s that?”).
Public DomainA depiction of Billy the Kid’s death from Pat Garrett’s 1882 biography on the outlaw.
Pat Garrett fired his gun.
“[Billy the Kid] never spoke,” Garrett recalled. “A struggle or two, a little strangling sound as he gasped for breath, and the Kid was with his many victims.”
Billy the Kid’s death lasted just a moment. But it would hang over Pat Garrett for the rest of his life.
‘I Sometimes Wish That I Had Missed Fire’
Public DomainPat Garrett in 1907, the year before he was shot and killed by an unknown assassin.
In the aftermath of Billy the Kid’s dead, Pat Garrett became known as the man who’d killed the famous outlaw. But reactions toward him were mixed. Though one local newspaper dubbed Garrett the “hero of the hour” others resented him for killing Billy the Kid. Some criticized Garrett for killing the outlaw in the dark, when Billy the Kid couldn’t see who was firing at him, and even claimed that Billy the Kid had been unarmed.
“I sometimes wish that I had missed fire, and that the Kid had got his work in on me,” Garrett once remarked.
But though he would always be remembered for those fateful couple of minutes at the Maxwell ranch in 1881, Garrett lived another 26 years.
He struggled in the aftermath. Garrett lost the next election for sheriff — and several others for different political offices. He wrote his Billy the Kid biography in 1882 — but eight other books had already come out describing the outlaw. Theodore Roosevelt appointed him as a customs collector in 1901 — but didn’t reappoint him when the appointment proved controversial.
“Everything seems to go wrong with me,” Pat Garrett once told a friend.
Public DomainThe cover of Pat Garrett’s Billy the Kid biography.
However, things would get worse. To ease his financial difficulties, Garrett leased part of his land to a man named Wayne Brazel so Brazel could graze cattle. To his chagrin, Brazel grazed goats instead.
On Jan. 29, 1908, tensions between them escalated and Garrett ended up dead just outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico. Brazel claimed he had killed Garrett in self defense. A witness backed him up, but an investigation found that Garrett had been shot in the back of the head. Still, Brazel was acquitted. And mystery surrounds Pat Garrett’s death to this day.
Today, his legacy remains mixed. Though some celebrate Pat Garrett for killing a notorious outlaw, others sympathize more with Billy the Kid. For his part, Garrett didn’t seem to think that the infamous killing was anything to boast about. Aside from the biography, he purportedly rarely spoke of it.
“Pat never talked about how many men he killed,” one acquaintance noted, “and it was the hardest thing in the world to get him to tell the story about his killing of Billy the Kid.”
After learning about Pat Garrett, the man who killed Billy the Kid, check out these photos that depict the real Wild West. Then, read about Buford Pusser, the man who got revenge on the people who killed his wife.
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