By DAVID EPPS
Pastor

A New Mexico lawmaker is trying hard to get a famous outlaw officially pardoned. Democratic State Representative Ben Rios is lobbying the state legislature and the governor of New Mexico to grant a posthumous pardon to William H. Bonney.

Bonney, of course, is best known in history as Billy the Kid. Although glamorized by the paperback books of his day and the television programs of the modern day, Bonney was no hero. He was, in truth, the scourge of the West, a violent, vicious murderer.

Billy the Kid is one of the most famous killers of the Southwest. It is said that he murdered 20 men although there is some evidence to show it might only have been nine men. Billy was born in 1859, in a New York City slum. His mother and stepfather moved west and raised Billy in several towns in Kansas and New Mexico. His natural father died when Billy was 3 years old. As a child Billy was a frequenter of saloons and an adept card player. At the age of 12, he reputedly knifed a man to death for insulting his mother. At the age of 16 he killed three Indians while stealing their furs.

By the late 1870s Billy, having turned down an amnesty offer from New Mexico's territorial governor, Lew Wallace, was leading a 12-man gang on a rampage of cattle rustling and murder. A favorite of dance-hall women and something of a dandy, he was already fabled as an outlaw by the time he allegedly met his end at Pat Garrett's hand.

In April of 1878, Lincoln County Sheriff William Brady was gunned down by Billy the Kid and his gang during the "Lincoln County Wars." In fact, Sheriff Brady was shot 16 times in the back. Billy was eventually tried, found guilty of murder, and sentenced to be hanged.

After killing Sheriff Brady, Billy was jailed in Lincoln, but the death sentence was never carried out. Returned to Lincoln County to hang, the Kid was imprisoned on the second floor of the courthouse. When prison guard Bob Olinger took the other prisoners across the road to the Wortley Hotel to eat, the Kid seized his chance to escape. He asked the other guard, J.W. Bell, to take him outside to use the outhouse. On the trip back up the stairs, Billy slipped his very small hands from the handcuffs, over-powered the guard, and took his gun.

On April 28 he escaped from the Lincoln County Courthouse and killed his two guards. He shot J.W. Bell with Bell's own pistol. He then grabbed a shotgun and gunned down Robert Olinger as Olinger ran across the street to the courthouse. A tombstone is set in the ground at Lincoln to show the exact spot Olinger fell dead. To this day a bullet hole in the courthouse wall reminds visitors of Billy the Kid's escape.

From April 28 on, Billy was a hunted man and rewards were offered for his capture. Then on July 13, 1881, Billy entered Fort Sumner. It was late in the evening, just after midnight on July 14, when he was allegedly shot and killed. Pat Garrett, then sheriff of Lincoln, and a friend of Billy's, had hunted him down. His death ended the Lincoln County War.

So, with the Kid's violent and proven history as a murderer, why is Rep. Rios working so hard to get a pardon for this bloodthirsty criminal? Well, it seems that some of the descendants asked him to do so. On the other side of the controversy are the descendants of Sheriff William Brady. They are, quite understandably, opposing the pardon of the killer of their ancestor.

But, Rios may be on to something. It seems that controversial pardons are in vogue these days, regardless of the merits of the case or the inadvisability of pardoning known criminals.

No one has suggested that the Kid's descendants have contributed vast sums of money to the representative's campaign and there is no evidence that lawyers, paid outrageous sums of money by the family, have strong-armed Mr. Rios. The fact remains, however, that Mr. Rios, for whatever reason, is urging for the pardon of a brutal murderer. New Mexico Assistant Attorney General Joel Jacobsen has simply said, "A lot of people in New Mexico sympathize with Billy the Kid."

But pardoning a criminal who continued to be a murderous unrepentant thug until his dying days? Wonder where Mr. Rios got that bright idea?

[David Epps is the rector of Christ the King Church in Peachtree City. He may be contacted at FatherDavidEpps@aol.com Or at www.ChristTheKingCEC.com.]

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