Billy The Kid - Grave Marker Theft and Locations

Grave Marker Theft and Locations

According to Garrett, McCarty was buried the day after he was killed in Fort Sumner's old military cemetery, between his fallen companions Tom O'Folliard and Charlie Bowdre. After Billy's burial, someone took a plain board, stenciled letters on it, and jammed it into the soft earth at the head of his grave to mark it. This marker remained at least until the early part of 1882 before it was stolen or shot to pieces.

Pete Maxwell then placed the next marker and used a four-foot-long, wooden slat removed from the parade-ground picket fence near his home. A one-foot length was cut off and hammered onto the longer piece to form a cross, and the words "Billy The Kid (Bonney) July 14, 1881" were placed on the horizontal crosspiece. After Maxwell sold the old fort to the New England Livestock Company, one of the Board of Directors (a fellow named Chauncey from Boston), that visited Fort Sumner in the late 1880s took the marker claiming he was taking it back east to a museum. It was never recovered.

In 1889 and 1904 the Pecos River floods over took the cemetery and all the markers were washed away. The latter flood inundated the cemetery under four feet of muddy water until the cemetery had no grave markers left of any kind.

For over two decades Billy's grave remained unmarked. The exact location of Billy's grave in the small one-acre cemetery is unknown, however relying on old timers who had once lived nearby to pick the walls, corner, and cemetery entrance, they were able to approximate Billy's grave location.

In 1932, Charles W. Foor, the unofficial tour guide of the cemetery, spearheaded the drive to raise funds for a marker. Although the edges are damaged, this large white marker has never been stolen. It serves as a memorial monument noting three individuals buried in the cemetery, Tom O'Folliard, Charlie Bowdre, and William H. Bonney.

Eight years later, Warner Bros. used a Billy The Kid grave marker as a prop in the movie The Outlaw. James N. Warner of Salida, Colorado, donated this marker to the cemetery when it was no longer required for the movie. This individual grave marker was placed as a footstone with a pointed top.

This marker was stolen and recovered twice. It was first stolen in August 1950, and not recovered until 25 years later, on May 1976, in a field on a ranch near Granbury, Texas. Local resident Joe Bowlin brought it back, and it was ceremoniously re-installed that June.

It was stolen again in February 8, 1981, but recovered days later in Huntington Beach, California. New Mexico Governor Bruce King arranged for the Sheriff of the county seat to fly to California to bring it back to Fort Sumner, where it was re-installed in May 1981. A short time later, the village, which owned the cemetery at the time, erected a steel cage to protect the grave site, preserved the chipped-away white headstone, and placed Billy's individual footstone in shackles, to discourage further vandalism and theft. The cemetery is located 34° 24.253′ N, 104° 11.593′ W. about three and a half miles (5,5 km) south of State Highway 60 on Route 212. The stolen tombstone became the inspiration for the World's Richest Tombstone Race, held during Fort Sumner's Old Fort Days Celebration every June.

On June 16, 2012, a group of vandals entered the cage at night and tipped over the stone.