Mike Moran. Skeptic. Volume 25, Issue 3, Summer 2020.
“Quien es?,” Spanish for “Who’s there?” were the last words of the West’s most infamous outlaw, William H. Bonney, born Henry McCarty but known to history as Billy the Kid. Those words were spoken in confusion on the evening of July 14th, 1881, just before he was shot dead by his old acquaintance, the newly elected sheriff, Pat Garrett.
Nearly a century and a half later, many are now looking towards Billy the Kid’s gravesite and asking “Quien es?” Though it’s been nearly 140 years since Billy Bonney’s death made international news, The Kid is still causing chaos, and fierce debates for the residents, along with the governments of New Mexico and Texas.
It’s not cattle rustling and assassinating corrupt politicians that he’s wreaking havoc with today, it’s the legal battle over Billy the Kid’s DNA. The past two and a half decades have seen multiple lawsuits, smear campaigns, and court cases, costing New Mexico and Texas taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. And it’s all over the debate to dig up The Kid’s bones.
Harvard graduate, Gale Cooper, a psychiatrist specializing in murder case consultation, and the author of many books on Billy the Kid, has described the case as “arguably the most elaborate historic-forensic hoax ever perpetrated.” Hoax? This expensive endeavor to excavate the remains of Billy the Kid, she claims, is not to discover valuable historical knowledge, nor to gain some insight into America’s past, but to determine if an elderly man from 1950, who claimed he was Billy the Kid, was spinning a yarn or not.
The hoaxer in question was a gentleman who went by the name of Ollie P. Roberts, or “Brushy Bill” to his friends, and he made the claim about 70 years ago. Mr. Robert’s story has somehow outdone all the many legitimate mysteries surrounding the young outlaw, remaining the premier topic of debate over the identity of The Kid, even among many legitimate New Mexico historians.
Marcelle Brothers, a Billy the Kid authority and curator of AboutBillytheKid.com, has said of the issue, “Although I prefer not to give any attention to this controversial topic, I’m forced to discuss Brushy Bill Roberts, who keeps turning up like a bad rash. It’s disappointing for me to think that the only thing better to debate about on Billy the Kid is that his death was the greatest hoax in Old West history. It also saddens me to think that Billy the Kid enthusiasts that share the same admiration for this famous outlaw are divided and argue so bitterly about Brushy being Billy the Kid.”
What is true is that after the shadowy ambush of the young Bonney (which may have had a few details embellished to make Sheriff Garrett look a little more heroic) rumors spread like they are wont to do about the events of that fateful evening. Myths were quickly perpetuated by both admirers spinning folktales of the immortal rascal, and by enemies fearing his revenge. Some claimed The Kid tricked Garrett. Others said they conspired together. Ollie “Brushy Bill” Roberts’ version has Garrett accidentally killing a man named Billy Barlow (never confirmed to have existed) and burying him in Bonney’s place, allowing The Kid to vanish into the night. Why the spotlight-loving Billy the Kid would suddenly agree to go into permanent hiding when he’d avoided the opportunity for years, is not explained.
Though it was a popular news story of his day, it took the 1926 release of the book, The Saga of Billy the Kid by Walter Noble Burns, for Bonney to really became a true crime sensation. Other books, movies, and even a ballet soon followed. This renewed interest in the obscure outlaw kicked the survival rumors back into gear, in a much larger forum. Soon, old men claiming to be Billy began springing up with stories to tell. Celebrity imposters were something you could do in the days before DNA testing, and it was a pretty common practice.
It wasn’t until 1950 that a lawyer named William Morrison teamed up with the old trickster, Brushy to write a book. Their only public appearance resulted in embarrassing confusion for the elderly Roberts, who died shortly after, well before he could reap any profits from the resulting volume titled, Alias Billy the Kid.
Brushy Bill Roberts wasn’t the first person to claim to be Billy the Kid, nor was The Kid the first Old West outlaw Brushy claimed to be. (A newspaper ran a story years before about a man who made a deathbed confession of being Jesse James, with Brushy by his side masquerading as an old partner). But his story had just enough convincing anecdotes, mostly in the form of a few very elderly friends of The Kid throwing their support behind Brushy, that he stands out from the others. Over the years, Robert’s story has been endorsed by a string of books, slots on pseudohistory shows like Unsolved Mysteries, Brad Meltzer’s Decoded the 1990 feature film Young Guns 2, and recently by political pundit and Old West enthusiast, Bill O’Reilly, in his TV/book special, Legends and Lies.
Faked death theories of historical figures like Billy the Kid and other celebrities are not just the stuff of internet blogs, and “History’s Mysteries” esque tabloid shows. Many take this phenomenon very seriously. So much so that, should Bonney’s remains ever be exhumed, he will be in good company. Among those who have been dug up to be tested for hoaxes include Billy’s fellow gunslinger Jesse James, JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, son of Marie Antoinette, Louis XVII (who had over 100 imposters trying to claim his throne), and the entire family of Romanov Grand Duchess Anastasia, whose imposter’s claims of survival made it into an animated Disney film in 1997.
Unsurprisingly, DNA tests have thus far had a 0% success rate at rewriting history. But that doesn’t mean other famous corpses will be left to rest in peace. Efforts to exhume, and test the likes of John Wilkes Booth, Napoleon Bonaparte, John Dillinger, and (of course) Elvis Presley, among many others, are regularly lobbied for.
The phenomenon of faked death theories has been around for millennia, and not just in supernatural form. Many theologians believe references in The New Testament point to popular stories at the time of the dreaded Emperor Nero faking his suicide and going into hiding. At least three imposters claimed the notorious moniker in the following few decades.
Several hoaxers came forward in the 1400s claiming to be Joan of Arc, playing on rumors that another prisoner had been executed in her place. The most successful of the Joan of Arc imposters, Claude des Armoises, was actually accepted for a time by the real Joan’s siblings. The fact that the faux-Joan was able to take them on an endless vacation, while being showered in gifts from credulous admirers, may have helped curb any skepticism.
Rumors of deceased Madagascar ruler, Radama II returning in the 1860s were so persistent that the government began fining, and even executing supporters of the idea.
And, perhaps most notoriously, a poll conducted after World War II showed that most Americans believed Adolf Hitler was still alive and in hiding.
The idea of people faking their death isn’t completely without precedent. It does happen every now and then, with some attempts being more successful than others. And it’s also true that a tiny number of public figures have attempted the feat.
There was the eccentric 19th century socialite, Timothy Dexter of New England, who was motivated by the prospect of attending his own funeral in disguise. Dexter quickly blew his cover to cane his wife for her lack of emotion.
There was also One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest author Ken Kesey, who eluded a drug-possession arrest for less than a year by leaving a suicide note with his car by a cliff.
Then there was Aimee McPherson, one of the most popular American evangelicals of the 1920s, whose death was accepted even by her own mother after she went missing during a swim at Venice Beach. McPherson was discovered alive and well five weeks later, with a whopper of a story about a kidnapping, and a lot of speculation that she ran away with a married man.
And let’s not forget the British Junior Minister and spy for the Czech government, John Stonehouse, who managed to have a few obituaries published about him when he left some clothes at the beach and disappeared into Australia, only to have a bank teller out him after noticing fraudulent activity a few weeks later. Stonehouse made the rookie mistake of keeping an assortment of newspapers on him, focusing on his own case, for police to find when they closed in.
More recently in 2018, Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko somehow made it all the way to the morgue after being pronounced dead in pig’s blood-stained clothes, with a few bullet holes cut out. He claimed it was to capture men who had threatened him, though many have pointed out that this made little sense and may have just been a very awkward attempt at gaining publicity.
For a moment in 2013 some of us in the skeptical community were convinced we had a new one for the “Urban Legends that turned out to be true” lists. Several individuals who were in the midst of suing rap star turned online conman Tim Dog, who had brief musical success in the early 90s, speculated his reported death was a ruse to avoid paying legal debts. With no death certificate and a suspiciously silent family, the local jurisdiction agreed to issue an arrest warrant in case he really was alive. It took a whole year to prove he had indeed died.
Now with the internet you can find faked death theories about nearly every deceased public figure you can imagine, so much so that it’s become a click bait guarantee. Fallen hip-hop mogul Suge Knight and his son love the attention they get when they claim Tupac Shakur is still alive and living in Malaysia. Andy Kaufman’s brother enjoys exploiting his sibling’s tendency to joke about faking his own death, with ridiculous claims of his current family life. There’s also a popular website devoted to Michael Jackson sightings, chock full of photos and YouTube videos purporting to prove the King of Pop still dances among us.
Elvis Presley remains the true King, not just of Rock and Roll, but of faked death theories, with the stream of books, TV specials, and tabloid news reports showing no signs of slowing in the third decade of the new millennium. There is even, 40 years after his passing, a Facebook group called Evidence Elvis Presley Is Alive, where you can submit and view lots of photos of men looking vaguely Elvis-ish.
Some have even made lucrative careers out of Elvis faked death theories, like author Gail Brewer-Giorgio, who boosted her book sales with appearances on some of America’s biggest television programs, including Oprah, Larry King Live, and Nightline. Singer Jimmy Ellis, who sounded and (kind of) looked like Presley, took advantage of Elvis death hoax stories by performing in a small mask under the name Orion. Though never officially making the claim, he and his record company quietly encouraged rumors that he was The King in disguise. To this day, about 7% of people polled believe that Elvis may still be breathing.
Decade after decade, century after century, faked death theories remain a titillating facet of humanity’s fascination. Why? With such a low success rate on faked death theories, why do people take these things seriously enough that they’re willing to exhume gravesites, some hundreds or thousands of years old? That rational, intelligent, adults believe imposters with no solid evidence, and are willing to spend large amounts of money fighting for the legal right to do exhumation DNA testing cries out for an explanation.
First, of course, there are the obvious proximate reasons of tourism, book sales, TV appearances, etc. But in order for those incentives to exist, there surely must be some deeper psychological need to believe in this strangely specific phenomenon.
A deeper explanation may involve the ancient myth of the “resurrection” or “rebirth” that shows up in popular legends and religions again and again. In the West we are most familiar with the crucifixion/resurrection story of Jesus Christ, but similar narratives have existed for other mythical Gods, such as ancient Egypt’s Osiris, Telipinu of the Hittites, The Indonesian Dema Deities, and more.
Is it possible that in our modern lives we feel compelled to reshape secular public figures into the archetypal narratives of supernatural icons of the past? Or that these modern faked death theories fill the same need that legends of immortal beings of old did? In a 1993 feature article in SKEPTIC, “The Resurrection Myth,” Steven B. Harris reviews these and other “tales of the divine but mortal hero in search of the gift of immortality,” noting that “resurrected hero stories seem to occur in all cultures.” For example “when the Roman Catholic Church made it to the New World in the 16th century, some of the resurrection myths the natives were telling were so close to the Christian one that some of the Jesuits listening to them were convinced they were the work of the devil.” Jungians, of course, contend that such similarities reflect deep archetypal themes in the human collective unconscious.
Dr. John Lucas, a professor of psychology at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York City, believes celebrity culture is one of the many ways humanity deals with the relatively newfound problem of no longer having religion as an influence and inspiration in much of modern society. “What we know of (celebrities) through People magazine and other media sources fills a gaping and painful void in our lives,” he was quoted as saying in a Health Day Reporter article. “The dwindling influence of religion adds to that sense of yearning in people, making the stars’ exploits and eccentricities, their loves and losses, more than a form of entertainment.” He adds, “Religion is faltering, and in the process people are grappling with infantile wishes, with magical thinking. Star status conveys a sense of immortality and invincibility,” and “we are shocked when they die.”
Variations on the resurrection story exist not only in religious myths, but in all kinds of modern media: everything from Marvel superhero movies, pulp crime novels, and even conceptual rock albums like Marilyn Manson’s Antichrist Superstar, and Kiss’ Music from the Elder.
The archetypal trope of rebirth has been most thoroughly examined by the comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell, who explained that resurrection is a crucial part of the hero’s journey—the mono-myth that is prominent in storytelling across time and cultures in which a hero is called to adventure, faces death, but overcomes it a changed person. “Essentially, the same mythological motifs are to be found throughout the world. There are myths and legends of the virgin birth, of incarnations, deaths and resurrections; second comings, judgements, and the rest, in all the great traditions,” Campbell explains in his classic work, Myths to Live By. “And since such images stem from the psyche, they refer to the psyche. They tell us of its structure, its order and its forces, in symbolic terms.”
Perhaps it is not enough for the heroes, or antiheroes of stories to face death, they must overcome it, at least in our mythical story telling. And that’s what these faked death theories are—mythologized versions of real life events.
Maybe it is hard for us to accept that Billy the Kid, a symbol of youthful rebellion who outwitted authorities again and again, was simply shot down unceremoniously before he could grab his gun. Or that Joan of Arc, a teenage peasant girl in 15th century France, could lead an army to victory, only to be executed publicly like a petty criminal. Or that Elvis Presley, a larger than life icon of showmanship and musical ability, could simply overdose on drugs in his bathroom. Our minds simply cannot accept how death works in the same quotidian way with our heroes as with everyone else. As Billy the Kid historian Drew Gomber wrote, “It just goes on and on. We don’t want our heroes to die.”