This Photo May Be 2nd Ever of Billy the Kid

A New Mexico historian thinks he's found a photo that he can positively identify as depicting Billy the Kid—which would be a pretty big deal, given that, if verified, it would be just the second known photo of the infamous outlaw. There have been many purported photos of the Kid, aka William Henry McCarty Jr., William Bonney, and Henry Antrim, but historians only generally agree on one, an image of Billy in well-worn attire leaning on his rifle. Billy gave that photo to his friend Dan Dedrick.

Now historian Frank Parrish says an anonymous New Mexico man has come forward with a photo of two men looking far more clean cut. Parrish can positively identify the one on the left as Dedrick, so he's convinced the one on the right is Billy, he tells the Las Cruces Sun-News. Identifying Dedrick, he says, "is the 'clincher' in this image, elevating a near-certain image to a clearly and obvious picture of the Kid." The photo was once part of the estate of Pat Garrett, the sheriff who killed Billy. But Parrish knows there will be doubters, and says forensic analysis of the image is pending. (The previously verified photo of Billy sold for a pretty penny in 2011.)