Brushy Bill Roberts

Who was Brushy Bill Roberts?

Brushy Bill Roberts a.k.a. Ollie Partridge William Roberts, Ollie P. Roberts or Ollie L. Roberts, attracted attention by claiming to be the infamous western outlaw William H. Bonney, a.k.a. Billy the Kid. Although Roberts' claim has been rejected by almost all historians, there was evidence suggesting his claim may have had some substance. Brushy Bill's story is promoted by the "Billy the Kid Museum" in his hometown of Hico in Hamilton County, Texas. His claim was further promoted by the 1990 film Young Guns II, as well as a 2011 episode of Brad Meltzer's Decoded on the History Channel. Robert Stack did a segment on Brushy Bill in early 1990 on the NBC television series Unsolved Mysteries.

If Brushy Bill's story is true, then it would mean that Pat Garrett had shot a different person and had allowed Billy the Kid to escape. This would have involved a conspiracy of no small proportion, because everyone in the New Mexican village of Fort Sumner, those who liked the Kid and those who didn't, as well as those who liked Pat Garrett and those who didn't, all would have been involved and would have had to have kept the secret. Yet some of the evidence that supported Brushy Bill's claim was compelling.