The thieves also vandalized other graves in the cemetery. De Baca County authorities said that the criminals were still at large and that there is a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest.
Billy the Kid, born William Henry McCarty, Jr. in 1859, became a famed outlaw in the Wild West who according to legend killed 21 people, although it is generally believed that he actually killed between four and nine people. Billy the Kid tombstone vandalized,
He was a central figure in a violent, Irish-English land war in New Mexico, and was beloved by Mexican-American ranchers who felt discriminated against by racist white bankers and land thieves.
Most likely born in New York City, he came to New Mexico with his mother while searching for a better economic future.
It was in Silver City, N.M., that a young Billy the Kid learned Spanish and Mexican dances as he mingled easily among the territory’s large Mexican-American population when others from the East Coast didn’t even bother, according to Paul Hutton, a University of New Mexico American West historian, who appears in the new film.
When his mother died of tuberculosis when he was 15, Billy the Kid was left an orphan and raised largely by Mexican-American ranchers and sheepherders.
This helped the Kid later when he was on the run from the law and was given shelter by poor Mexican-Americans ranchers he befriended, Hutton said.
The Kid was swept up in what was known as the “Lincoln County War” after his British mentor was gunned down by a corrupt Sheriff William Brady. In revenge, Billy the Kid organized the assassination of Brady, which escalated into a war between faction.
He then fell in love with the daughter of a Mexican-American landowner. When he was being chased down by another sheriff, Billy the Kid refused to leave Maxwell for safe haven south of the border. Her brother tipped off Sheriff Pat Garrett who eventually gunned down the 21-year-old Kid at the Maxwell’s Fort Sumner, N.M. home.
