The Kid Behind the Legend

His real name was Henry McCarty, though he also went by William Bonney and Kid Antrim. Born around 1859, he was dead before he turned twenty-two, shot by Sheriff Pat Garrett in a darkened room in Fort Sumner, New Mexico.

The legend says he killed twenty-one men — one for each year of his life. The records tell a smaller story. Historians can confirm somewhere between four and nine killings, several of them in self-defense or open gunfights. Still deadly for a teenager, but a long way from the mass murderer of the myth.

His path started in poverty. McCarty was orphaned at fourteen after his mother died of tuberculosis, and he drifted into petty crime to survive.