Exhumation case dismissed
September 27th, 2004
all photos by Joe Micalizzi, webmaster Billy the Kid Outlaw Gang
all rights reserved, no reproduction without permission
Calling it a “big day for the Village of Fort Sumner,” Mayor Raymond
Lopez congratulated a room full of Billy the Kid supporters Monday
during a victory celebration at City Hall.
The group gathered to celebrate last Friday’s stipulated dismissal of
a petition to exhume the body of Billy the Kid from the Old Fort
Cemetery. Officials from all over the state, as well as noted Billy
the Kid historian Frederick Nolan of Chalfont St. Giles, England,
were present for the victory party, hosted by the Village of Fort
Saying “the truth won,” Nolan said the efforts of those fighting to
prevent the exhumation “sends a message that there are people who
care about history; that there are people who want to get it right
and that there are people who will fight for it.”
The petition for exhumation was filed Feb. 26, 2004 by Lincoln County
Sheriff Tom Sullivan, Capitan Mayor Steve Sederwall and De Baca
County Sheriff Gary Graves. The three sought to extract DNA from the
Kid’s remains for comparison to that of his mother, Catherine Antrim,
to prove the Kid is buried in Fort Sumner. A Grant County District
Court judge previously denied a similar petition seeking the
exhumation of Antrim from a cemetery in Silver City.
Officials from both Fort Sumner and Silver City opposed the
exhumation efforts on a number of fronts, including the threat to
major tourism sites in both areas.
Adam Baker of Albuquerque and Herb Marsh of El Paso, TX, who
represented the Village in the case, were honored for their efforts
in the case and received status as honorary citizens of Fort Sumner
from Lopez, as did a number of those present, including Nolan.
The dismissal was a surprise development in the case that originated
in June, 2003. Sullivan, Sederwall and Graves announced their
“criminal investigation” to attempt to prove that Pat Garrett killed
Billy the Kid and not an imposter, as is the claim of a museum in
Hico, TX. The Texas museum owners claim that Billy actually escaped
from Fort Sumner and lived out his life as Ollie P. “Brushy Bill”
Roberts, and that someone other than the Kid is buried in the grave.
Sullivan said such a scenario would make Garrett a murderer and that
he wanted to clear Garrett’s name.
Gov. Bill Richardson joined the case, providing lawyers for Billy the
Kid as part of what he called an effort to increase tourism interest
in Billy the Kid and New Mexico.
Because the dismissal was filed with prejudice, it cannot be refiled
“We won the battle,” said Lopez. “I don’t know if we won the fight
yet or not.” Lopez referred to the case in Grant County, where the case was
dismissed without prejudice, meaning in can be refiled.
Adam Baker of Albuquerque, the lead attorney for the Village in the
case, said, the “sheriffs are done in Fort Sumner.”
“The sheriffs wanted to rewrite history, based on speculation and
misinformation,” Baker said.
“The community stood up to them for what is right.”
Marsh said the victory was accomplished not by three or four
individuals, but by 40 or 50 people who contributed to the effort
Syndicated columnist Jay Miller, whose writing shed a great deal of
light on the case, said he became interested through a friend who
questioned ‘trash history’ being used to promote the sheriffs’
investigations. Miller’s columns questioned the use of public money
by Graves, Sullivan and Sederwall to pursue what appeared to be a
Lincoln County Commissioner Leo Martinez was also honored. Martinez
was verbally attacked in a County Commission meeting recently by both
Sullivan and Sederwall after the Commissioner questioned the use of
public money in the case.
Attorney Mark Acuna, who represented Sullivan, Sederwall and Graves,
said the investigation will now be directed at an old bench believed
to have held the Kid’s body after the shooting. Dr. Henry Lee, a
forensic specialist who was involved in the O.J. Simpson trial,
recently took samples from the bench for testing.
“We’re going a different direction,” said Sullivan. He declined to
say if efforts to exhume the body of Catherine Antrim would resume.
Following Monday’s reception, Nolan was part of a contingent that
went to the grave site. The British historian placed a bouquet of
flowers on the Kid’s grave, which will apparently remain undisturbed.
More than 40 years earlier, a district judge refused to allow Lois
Telfer’s petition to dig up the Kid’s body and rebury it in Lincoln
County. District Judge E.T. Kinsley ruled in 1962 that a search of
the grave site for the Kid’s body would “inevitably lead to
disturbing the remains of other persons buried” in the cemetery.
