Pat Garrett carved himself into Wild West history on a July night 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, hunted 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 Wild West outlaw, but he later wrote his biography: The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid, The 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
Public DomainBilly the Kid died at the hands of Pat Garrett, an Old West lawman.
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.
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 teenage Garrett made his way to Dallas County, Texas, where he lived like a true man of the Wild West. Garrett worked on a farm, became a cowboy, and eventually starting hunting and skinning buffalo. 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 named Billy the Kid.
Pat Garrett Meets Billy The Kid
Public DomainBilly the Kid had already made a name for himself when Pat Garrett arrived in town.
By the time Pat Garrett arrived in Fort Sumner, Billy the Kid — who went by the alias 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 Brady, the Regulators killed Brady 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.
“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 in November 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
Public DomainAn 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.
In December 1880, Pat Garrett began to pursue Billy the Kid and his crew 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 managed to arrest Billy the Kid and his gang in Stinking Springs after a standoff that killed gang member Charlie Bowdre.
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 28, 1881, less than a month before his execution date, Billy the Kid escaped from jail and killed two guards in the process. Garrett, who was out of town collecting county taxes at the time, only became more resolved to capture him.
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.
Public DomainA photo that purportedly shows Billy the Kid and a member of the Regulators, several of whom were killed by Garrett and his men. 1878.
As Garrett later wrote in his biography of Billy the Kid, Garrett went to the ranch on July 13, 1881. Shortly after midnight on the 14th, he snuck inside and found the rancher, Pete Maxwell, 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 “Quién es? Quién es?” (“Who’s that? Who’s that?”).
Public DomainA depiction of the death of Billy the Kid 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’
In the aftermath of Billy the Kid’s death, 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,” according to Legends of America, 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.
Public DomainPat Garrett in 1907, the year before he was shot and killed.
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 about 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.
However, things would get worse.
The Death Of Pat Garrett
To ease his financial difficulties, Pat Garrett eventually leased part of his land to a man named Wayne Brazel so Brazel could graze cattle. To his chagrin, Brazel grazed goats instead.
Public DomainThe cover of Pat Garrett’s Billy the Kid biography.
On Feb. 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.”