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(Seattle Times)   Weird: Two guys exhume Billy the Kid. Weirder: But they won't be prosecuted for it. Fark: Because "they honestly thought they had permission"   (seattlepi.nwsource.com) divider line
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    More: Weird  
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14079 clicks; posted to Main » on 23 Oct 2006 at 5:20 PM (16 years ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook



51 Comments     (+0 »)


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Saborlas [TotalFark]
2006-10-23 5:14:16 PM  
Well, gee... if I never got in trouble for things I thought I had permission to do... my childhood would've been a lot happier. Still woulda got in trouble, but nowhere NEAR as much.
 
attention span of a retarded fruit fly
2006-10-23 5:23:47 PM  
I submitted this as well...but my headline was worse LOL Ill never get posted man

*boohoo*
 
BroodishProdigy
2006-10-23 5:24:27 PM  
William the Child.

//Taboo
 
the_marq
2006-10-23 5:27:04 PM  
..and the point of finding the 'real' remains of such a horrible horrible man would be what exactly?
 
Mangoose [TotalFark]
2006-10-23 5:27:08 PM  
I expected this one to involve necrophilia for some reason when I started reading it.
 
on the juice
2006-10-23 5:28:12 PM  
Reminds me of that episode of The Brady Bunch...
 
uofwi92
2006-10-23 5:29:24 PM  
How's it goin', Mr. Da Kid?
 
SwingingJohnson
2006-10-23 5:29:35 PM  
This one REALLY needs pics!
 
NittLion78
2006-10-23 5:31:19 PM  
Not an overly good-looking man before he died, so I can only imagine there's nothing pretty buried six feet under, either.

[image from frontiertrails.com too old to be available]
 
Mirrorz
2006-10-23 5:32:17 PM  
You don't need to dig him up.
Just check Martin or Charlie Sheen's houses for him.
[image from videodetective.com too old to be available]
 
JChris
2006-10-23 5:35:00 PM  
[image from twitchfilm.net too old to be available]

Unavailable for comment.
 
mgbeach
2006-10-23 5:35:20 PM  
"I'm sorry, officer. I didn't know I couldn't do that"
 
uofwi92
2006-10-23 5:36:42 PM  
Billy: Now I'd like you to meet the hole-in-the-ground gang!
Townspeople: [Gasp]
Billy: Frank an' Jesse James!
Townspeople: [Gasp]
Billy:...the Sundance Kid!
Townspeople: [Gasp]
Comic Book Guy: What happened to Butch Cassidy?
The Sundance Kid: (imitating) What happened to Butch Cassidy? We're not joined at the hip, you know!
Billy: And the most evil German of all time... Kaiser Wilhelm!
Townspeople: [Mutterings of "Who?"]
Frank: He ain't no cowboy!
Wilhelm: Sure I am! [stops to think]...uh .. yippy wippy, wippy!
Frank James: OK, he's in!
 
rackrent
2006-10-23 5:40:51 PM  
I just came in here to say that "exhume" is a cool word.
 
bin_smokin
2006-10-23 5:42:07 PM  
thanks for including the results of the DNA test asshole

/sarcasm off
 
StripeyJammies
2006-10-23 5:43:13 PM  
Honestly, officer. I truly thought I had permission to rob... er... 'borrow' money from the bank.

/works everytime.
 
gorgor
2006-10-23 5:44:24 PM  
[image from upload.wikimedia.org too old to be available]
 
LineNoise [OhFark]
2006-10-23 5:44:48 PM  
Ok, so they dug a guy up who died in the 1930s, to see if his DNA matched blood from a guy who died in the 1880s.

What exactly were they expecting to find to shed light on? I am going to go out on a limb, and say the DNA didn't match.
 
Travis McGee
2006-10-23 5:46:22 PM  
Billy the Kid still rests six feet under in a tiny graveyard just outside Fort Sumner, NM. There's a big slab of concrete on top of his grave to discourage looters. There's a big iron cage (resembling a jail cell) surrounding the gravesite to ensure that the headstone doesn't wander off either (as has happened numerous times in the past).

Visited the site last year on a road trip. Pretty sad and lonely.
 
Khazar-Khum
2006-10-23 5:46:27 PM  
So, what were the results of the DNA test?
 
czarangelus
2006-10-23 5:46:29 PM  
I'm so using that excuse next time.

...I mean!
 
spiderland
2006-10-23 5:51:43 PM  
[image from img283.imageshack.us too old to be available]
This just occurred to me...
 
Maud Dib
2006-10-23 6:00:13 PM  
REGULATORS!!!!
Let's ride!!!
 
jordan_lund
2006-10-23 6:00:28 PM  
NittLion78

Something interesting about that photo... Ye Olde Time photo regularly reversed the image. We know Billy was a rightie, not a leftie so in reality the picture looks like this:

[image from img212.imageshack.us too old to be available]

/Not that it helps...
 
Der Poopflinger
2006-10-23 6:01:16 PM  
rackrent I agree
/ain't no assumin' if ya aint exhumin'
//got nothin
 
jgm1976
2006-10-23 6:04:51 PM  
Not that weird at all. Folks are regularly exhumed for DNA purposes.
 
fred_chan
2006-10-23 6:06:15 PM  
Let me get this straight:

-The people who claimed to have been Billy the Kid said that Pat Garrett shot the wrong guy and then lied about it.
-The DNA they are comparing is DNA from a bench where Garrett put the guy he shot (if it wasn't Billy the Kid) after he supposedly killed him

Doesn't that mean that the DNA of the man who claimed to be Billy the Kid will be different from the original sample whether he was Billy the Kid or not?

/WTF?
 
Der Poopflinger
2006-10-23 6:07:39 PM  
fred_chan my thoughts exactly
 
rasproteus
2006-10-23 6:07:50 PM  
Question: if he was a rightie, do you suppose he'd have been holding the gun with his right hand, as in the original, or his left, as in the reversed?
 
Burrito Grande
2006-10-23 6:10:34 PM  
Weird: Two guys exhume Billy the Kid WEENER.

/he had a big rifle
//he shot it off alot
 
T.rex
2006-10-23 6:16:16 PM  
simpsons did it, simpsons did it.

[image from trashvideo.org too old to be available]
 
LiTeSp3eD
2006-10-23 6:26:25 PM  
rasproteus, the holster on his belt needs to be on the right, not the rifle.
 
Hiro P.
2006-10-23 6:29:56 PM  
jordan_lund: Ye Olde Time photo regularly reversed the image.

So he was black, wore a dress, and carried flowers?

/I need a nap.
 
apotheosis247
2006-10-23 6:33:28 PM  
Honestly, officer. I truly thought I had permission to rob... er... 'borrow' money from the bank.

/works everytime.

The situation in legal terms is called a "mistake of fact" (as opposed to a "mistake of law") and the reasonable belief that what you've done was legal can be a valid defense.
 
Dread Pirate Slasher
2006-10-23 6:42:34 PM  
[image from img291.imageshack.us too old to be available]

/obligatory in any thread about digging up a corpse :)
 
Mister Peejay
2006-10-23 6:43:17 PM  
rasproteus

Question: if he was a rightie, do you suppose he'd have been holding the gun with his right hand, as in the original, or his left, as in the reversed?

If you shoot a rifle (ahem) right-handed, you would ordinarily hold the barrel with your left so that you could raise the stock up to your right.

/just a thought
 
misanthropologist
2006-10-23 6:46:53 PM  
fred_chan

Let me get this straight:

-The people who claimed to have been Billy the Kid said that Pat Garrett shot the wrong guy and then lied about it.
-The DNA they are comparing is DNA from a bench where Garrett put the guy he shot (if it wasn't Billy the Kid) after he supposedly killed him

Doesn't that mean that the DNA of the man who claimed to be Billy the Kid will be different from the original sample whether he was Billy the Kid or not?

/WTF?

Der Poopflinger

my thoughts exactly

Yup. Which means that the best they can do is to connect the blood from the bench with the body buried in Ft. Sumner (which shouldn't be a problem). Unless the real Billy the Kid was shot, laid on the bench, and then escaped, leading Pat Garret to shoot another man to use the body to give the coffin a little heft...

/something tells me these 'researchers' didn't think their cunning plan all the way through
 
FlyingJ
2006-10-23 6:55:50 PM  
i've been to a durn buncha Old West graves, never thought to snag DNA-this one's still my fave;
[image from outlawscribe.com too old to be available]
 
Mr_Master2
2006-10-23 7:01:39 PM  
Hmmm. Did anyone else notice that these are not just two "guys" but they are the former mayor and sheriff of towns in neighboring New Mexico? Maybe that had something to do with the lack of charges filed against them.
 
zipdogg
2006-10-23 7:42:25 PM  
"I'll make ya famous !!"
 
EJ
2006-10-23 7:55:16 PM  
"I wasn't aware I couldn't do that."
 
Chucklz
2006-10-23 7:59:26 PM  
FlyingJ

What's the name on that grave? Looks like John Teeney Hardin? If so, I LOL'd.
 
JuggleGeek [OhFark]
2006-10-23 8:33:53 PM  
rasproteus: Question: if he was a rightie, do you suppose he'd have been holding the gun with his right hand, as in the original, or his left, as in the reversed?

They are talking about the position of the pistol. Regardless of right or left handed, when standing there holding a rifle that has it's butt on the floor, you can hold it with either hand. But the pistol that you can see is on his left side.
 
FlyingJ
2006-10-23 8:43:41 PM  
Chucklz- you sir are no Dylan fan, it's John Wesley Hardin-the(say it in Tom/Life books voice) "man so mean he once shot a man for snoring" but a descendant of his enlightened me that he really shot the guy for being black because he was also an unrepentant racist as nearly all Western Outlaws were actually p.o.'d Confederate losers in need of a whaaambulance, The More You Know
 
snowcircle
2006-10-23 8:52:34 PM  
Was that wrong? Should I not have done that?
 
DeusMeh
2006-10-23 10:21:09 PM  
i thought a few months ago (according to a fark article no less) they pretty much concluded that 'brushy' bill roberts (the old man telling the story in young guns 2) was the real kid by comparing it to a known mexican decendant of bonney and paulita maxwell.

/momma put these guns in the ground...
//was a leading authority on billy in jr high, read everything about the man
 
the_peddler
2006-10-23 10:47:23 PM  
From TFA

"It appears officials in charge of the facility gave permission, and the people who were attempting to recover samples of the remains believed they had permission to do so," said Bill FitzGerald, a spokesman for the Maricopa County attorney's office, which made the decision not to seek charges.


So why would anyone think they didn't have permission? It was a state owned facility. State officials in charge of the facility gave permission. The bones were returned and reinterred.
Why the legal row?

Why is Arizona full of mutants?
 
Sensei Can You See [TotalFark]
2006-10-23 10:49:33 PM  
rackrent: I just came in here to say that "exhume" is a cool word.

So if the bury him again, are they "rehuming" him?
 
Toshiro Mifune's Letter Opener
2006-10-23 11:38:06 PM  
Bob Genghis Khan wanted for questioning?
 
Alexandra
2006-10-24 1:18:23 AM  
[image from mixnmojo0.tripod.com too old to be available]
 
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