Billy the Kid
1859-1881
By the time he was gunned down at the age of 21, Billy the Kid is said to have killed as many as 27 men. Orphaned at the age of 14, it wasn’t long before the young man, then still known as Henry McCarty, turned to a life of crime. In 1877 in a Arizona saloon, he killed his first man, before becoming involved in a violent frontier war, and sought to avenge the death of his employer, shooting Sheriff William J Brady dead. He spent the next three years on the run, and although he was captured in 1880, he escaped a year later on the eve of his execution. However, Sheriff Pat Garrett had been hunting the Kid for some time, and tracked him to the home of rancher Peter Maxwell. As the Kid entered Maxwell’s darkened bedroom, Garrett fired two rounds, shooting the outlaw dead.