Pat Garrett is engraved in history as the man who gunned down the notorious outlaw Billy the Kid. It is not as well known, however, that over a quarter-of-a-century later, the famed lawman himself was also shot to death or that his shooting remains a disputed topic from Old West lore.

Pat Garrett

Having won the 1880 election for Sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico Territory, Pat Garrett was promptly appointed a deputy sheriff, even though his term did not begin until January 1, 1881.

Sheriff Garrett

Following a shootout on December 22, 1880, near present-day Taiban, New Mexico, a posse led by Garrett captured six outlaws of a loose knit group known as the Regulators, or Rustlers. Among those apprehended was twenty-one-year-old Henry McCarty, alias William Bonney, wanted on three counts of murder.

In April 1881, the man popularly known to history as “Billy the Kid” was sentenced to death following his conviction for the 1878 murder of Lincoln County Sheriff William Brady. Two days later, however, the famed outlaw broke out of jail, killing two deputies in the process.

“Billy The Kid”

Three months later, the escapee was tracked to the home of his friend, Pete Maxwell, for whom Garrett had once worked as a cowboy, in Fort Sumner, fifteen miles west of Taiban. On the evening of July 14, the sheriff shot the outlaw to death.

Thereafter, Pat Garrett became forever known as the man who had killed Billy the Kid.

Garrett Captured The Kid Before Killing Him

The now famed sheriff served only one term as Lincoln County’s top lawman. He later worked as a rancher near Roswell, New Mexico, was Sheriff of Dona Ana County in the southern part of the state, and was briefly a Texas Ranger.

In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Garrett the Collector of Customs of El Paso, Texas, a post he held until 1906.

Garrett’s Other Posts

By 1908, the fifty-seven-year-old Garrett had become a horse rancher living near Las Cruces, New Mexico. On February 29, the former lawman forever famed for gunning down one of the Old West’s most noted gunslingers was himself shot to death near Alameda Arroyo, a dry creek bed approximately five miles east of Las Cruces. He was shot twice, once in the back of the head and in the stomach.

“The Kid’s” Killer Is Himself Killed

Garrett had been riding in a buggy with Carl Adamson, one of two partners interested in purchasing Bear Canyon Ranch, a property owned by Garrett  and his son, Dudley, in the eastern slope of the Organ Mountains slightly north of Agustín Pass in Dona Ana County. Approximately four miles east of Las Cruces, they encountered Wayne Brazel, a thirty-one-year old cowboy who was leasing another of Garrett’s properties. The two men had been butting heads over Brazel’s grazing approximately 1,800 goats on the land. Garrett had been unsuccessful in his attempts to break the lease and had been unable to find a buyer willing to purchase the goats.

Brazel joined Garrett and Adamson in the buggy. As Adamson drove, he said an infuriated Garrett warned Brazel he would get even with him if he continued his goat-grazing operations.

Adamson stopped the buggy so he and Garrett could relieve themselves. As they did so, he said each had their backs to Brazel. Upon hearing the two gunshots, Adamson said he turned to see Brazel astride his horse and holding a smoking .45 caliber revolver.

Adamson and Brazel then rode into Las Cruces where Brazel surrendered to authorities. He initially confessed to murder, but later claimed he had shot Garrett in self-defense after the former sheriff had grabbed a shotgun from under his seat and had drawn it on him.

Most historians feel Brazel’s claim was dubious as Garrett had no weapon in hand. A jury, however, acquitted him or murder after a one-day trial, in which, according to some historians, Carl Adamson was not called to testify.

Wayne Brazel

Garrett was known for being hot-tempered, and, at the time of his death, he was deeply in debt due to his excessive gambling. In addition, many of those associated with him viewed him as an opportunist who had sought fame from shooting Billy the Kid, which many believed he had done in cold blood rather than acting in the name of the law.

Because he was not well-liked or respected, many historians believe others were involved in Pat Garrett’s murder.

Garrett Was Not Held In High-Esteem

Among those suspected by some scholars of conspiring to kill the man who had killed Billy the Kid are Oliver Lee, Bill Cox, Jim Miller, and Carl Adamson.

While Sheriff of Dona Ana County, Garrett had pursued Oliver Lee, a rancher and part-time United States Deputy Marshall, on a murder charge for which he was ultimately acquitted.  Lee is alleged to have arranged for Wayne Brazel to lease Garrett’s land for the grazing of goats, knowing that would anger Garrett, who strictly ranched horses and cattle.

Brazel had previously worked for Bill Cox, a wealthy local rancher who had loaned him the money to lease Garrett’s land and who raised the $10,000 for his bond after his arrest for murder. Cox is said to have paid Jim Miller, a hired gun known to have killed at least seven men, $1500 to shoot Garrett.

Adamson, married to a cousin of Miller’s wife Sallie, is said to have selected the predetermined stopping point for the buggy carrying him, Garrett, and Brazel. There, Miller waited and shot Garrett. Because the short-fused former sheriff was livid at Brazel and was known to always carry a shotgun under his seat, the alleged cabal believed Brazel, with no criminal history, could easily claim self-defense against Garrett, which he successfully did at his trial.

Shortly after Garrett’s shooting, Adamson was arrested for smuggling Chinese men to work in the garment and mining industries. Some historians theorize he was involved in the alleged conspiracy to kill Garrett so that he would obtain his land as a staging area for his illegal smuggling operations.

In his 1974 biography Pat Garrett: The Story of a Western Lawman, historian Leon Metz wrote he believed Bill Cox had pulled the trigger, but that Garrett’s family felt Carl Adamson was the gunman.

Most historians, however, reject a conspiracy in the death of Pat Garrett, and none of these men were ever charged with any involvement.

     

Oliver Lee, Bill Cox, Jim Miller, And Carl Adamson

Regardless of how many people were involved in the shooting of Pat Garrett, he is forever entwined with the infamous outlaw he gunned down.

Though Garrett and Henry McCarty, AKA Billy the Kid, are forever etched as sworn enemies, they had been friends prior to Garrett’s becoming a lawman. “The Kid” attended Garrett’s wedding to Juanita Martinez in 1879, two years before being gunned down by the groom.

Friends Turned Foes

Pat Garrett was six-feet-five inches tall, most unusual for a man of his time. Following his murder, no funeral casket fit to hold a man of his height could be located; a custom coffin had to be shipped from El Paso, the city in which he had previously served as Collector of Customs.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/3682/pat-garrett

A Towering Man 

The attorney who secured Wayne Brazel’s acquittal in the murder of Pat Garrett was prominent New Mexico attorney Albert Fall, who was later President Warren G. Harding’s Secretary of the Interior who became infamous for his involvement in the Teapot Dome Scandal.

Albert Fall

Wayne Brazel’s nephew, William “Mac” Brazel, is noted as the man who sparked the Roswell UFO incident and debate upon finding debris on his ranch, approximately seventy miles northwest of the city, in early July 1947.

Mac Brazel  

SOURCES: 

• El Paso Times
• Las Cruces Sun-Times
• Legends Of America
• New Mexico Sentinel
• Pat Garrett: The Story of a Western Lawman by Leon Metz
• Roadside America
• Texas Hill Country
• True West Magazine