Grave Used to Trap Tourists

Steven Sederwall is no longer fighting to exhume "Brushy Bill" Roberts to see if he was Billy the Kid. He can't be certain where to dig.

Sederwall said he suspects Roberts' actual grave is at the back of the cemetery and the one up front is "a tourist trap for them to sell their wares," referring to the Billy the Kid Museum in Hamilton. The back of the headstone, which is visible from the highway, contains a clear plastic cylinder full of museum fliers.

"I find it hard to believe that a pauper would get a front and center next to the highway gravesite," said Sederwall, who is investigating Bonney's jailhouse escape and the murder of two deputies during a courthouse shootout in 1881. [Link]

Brushy Bill May Rise Again

The City Council in Hamilton, Texas, is considering a request to dig up the remains of "Brushy Bill" Roberts to obtain DNA samples.

Steve Sederwall, a former mayor of Capitan, N.M., told the council that he hopes to compare the DNA samples from Brushy Bill with remains of Billy the Kid’s mother. He said he already has samples from John Miller, another would-be Billy from New Mexico, along with a blood-stained bench where the Kid supposedly died after Sheriff Pat Garrett shot him. [Link]