EYEWITNESS TO THE ESCAPE OF BILLY THE KID

Back in years 1937-1939, as part of the New Mexico Federal Writers’ Project, Edith Crawford, the FWP representative in Lincoln County, collected a number of interviews of Lincoln County pioneers.  These were never published and lost until the collection was brought to the attention of the Lincoln County Historical Society.  This vignette is based on that work and taken from the actual words spoken by the subject.

Daniel Carabajal stated in an interview that he was born in Lincoln County on December 12, 1878.  On April 28, 1881, Billy the Kid shot his way out and escaped from custody at the Lincoln County Courthouse.  And little Daniel, at age 2 years and 4 months, remembers seeing Billy the Kid leave town!  At least that’s how he remembered it when he related the story to Edith Crawford 58 years later!  A photo taken of Daniel in 1941 is inscribed "70 years of age" which would have put his birth in 1871, making him 10 years of age at the time of Billy the Kid’s escape.

Convicted in a Mesilla court, Billy was sentenced to hang on May 13^th and had been taken from Mesilla to the Lincoln County Courthouse by seven guards.  Sheriff Pat Garrett knowing that Billy was a sly prisoner whose life depended upon escape, kept the Kid shackled hand and foot and guarded around the clock in the room behind his own courthouse office.

Sheriff Garrett was away collecting taxes in White Oaks and had assigned deputies Bob Ollinger and James W. Bell to guard Billy. Ollinger had the reputation of being mean and it was said that he constantly harassed the Kid.  The other guard, Bell, apparently treated the prisoner well.  Ollinger took the five other prisoners across the street to Sam Wortley’s hotel around 6pm for dinner.  Billy was left shackled in the room with Bell keeping watch.

Most folks agree that the Kid asked Bell to escort him to the outhouse out back of the courthouse and Bell did just that.  Billy was still in his leg irons, chains and handcuffs.  Once back in the building, Billy made his move.

An anonymous writer, published in the Santa Fe New Mexican, stated, “Quick as lightning he jumped and struck Bell with his handcuffs, fracturing his skull.  He immediately snatched Bell’s revolver and shot him.”

Ollinger, still having dinner at the hotel, heard the shot and came out with the five prisoners.  As Ollinger entered the courthouse yard without the prisoners, he heard his name called from above.  When he looked up, Ollinger saw his own double-barreled shotgun pointing down at him from an upstairs window.  Somehow Billy had been able to get the shotgun out of Garrett’s office.

“I stuck the gun through the window and said, ‘Look up, old boy, and see what you get,” recalled Billy.  “Bob looked up and I let him have both barrels right in the face and breast.”  Ollinger died instantly.

"We lived just below the old Torreon at the time" Daniel remembered.  "I was up-town playing with some boys just across the street when Billy killed the guards.  We hid behind a picket fence.  We were too scared to go and see the two men he had killed; as we were afraid he would come back and shoot us."

Now lots of stories tell about how Billy left town that evening, taking his time and even shaking hands with passers-by.  But Daniel Carabajel tells a different story about how the people of Lincoln reacted on that fateful day.

"All the people of Lincoln were afraid to come out for a long time after Billy rode away towards Fort Stanton.  I wanted to go and see the men he had killed but I was afraid to go."