Billy The Kid - Escape From Lincoln

Escape From Lincoln

McCarty was transported from Fort Sumner to Las Vegas, where he gave an interview to a reporter from the Las Vegas Gazette. Next, the prisoner was transferred to Santa Fe, where he sent four separate letters over the next three months to Governor Wallace seeking clemency. Wallace, however, refused to intervene, and the Kid's trial was held in April 1881 in Mesilla. On April 9, after two days of testimony, McCarty was found guilty of the murder of Sheriff Brady, the only conviction ever secured against any of the combatants in the Lincoln County War. On April 13, he was sentenced by Judge Warren Bristol to hang.

With his execution scheduled for May 13, McCarty was removed to Lincoln, where he was held under guard by two of Garrett's deputies, James Bell and Robert Ollinger, on the top floor of the town courthouse. On April 28, while Garrett was out of town, McCarty stunned the territory by killing both of his guards and escaping. The details of the escape are unclear. Some researchers believe that a sympathizer placed a pistol in a nearby privy that McCarty was permitted to use, under escort, each day. McCarty retrieved the gun, and turned it on Bell when the pair had reached the top of a flight of stairs in the courthouse. Another theory holds that McCarty slipped off his manacles at the top of the stairs, struck Bell over the head with them, grabbed Bell's own gun, and shot him with it.

Bell staggered down the stairs, dying as he fell. McCarty scooped up Ollinger's 10-gauge double-barrel shotgun. Both barrels had been fully loaded with buckshot earlier by Ollinger himself. The Kid waited at the upstairs window for his second guard, who had been across the street with some other prisoners, to respond to the gunshot and come to Bell's aid. As Ollinger came running into view, McCarty leveled the shotgun at him, called out "Hello Bob!" and killed him. The Kid's escape was delayed for an hour while he worked free of his leg irons with a pickax and then the young outlaw mounted a horse and rode out of town, reportedly singing. The horse returned two days later.