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1/10
Nonsense Presented as Fact
28 October 2023
This documentary is about an attempt to authenticate a photo supposedly shows the Kid and others at a hydraulic mine near Silver City, though there's no evidence at all as to the actual location. The item was purchased in an antique store in Canada and is of unknown origin. The claim is that the young man in the photo is Billy and the older woman is Silver City resident Margaret Keays Miller. Going on the assumption that the woman is in face Miller, Edwards declares early in the documentary that provenance has been established by the fact that Miller was from Canada and the photo was found in Canada, not even a specific location that can be tied to Miller, just Canada, and absurd statement. Moving on, because, of course, provenance has been established, Edwards turns to New York Police Department Facial Recognition Detective Michael Furia to identify the subjects. For comparison to the unknown woman in the photo, Edwards provided Furia with two known photos of Keays and a photo Edwards believes to be Keays but isn't. That photo is one commonly misidentified as Billy the Kid's mother Catherine Antrim. The problem is the alleged Antrim photo was exposed as a fraud years ago and has no connection to Silver City. It was originally identified as Catherine Antrim in the 1930s by author Eugene Cunningham, who told collector Noah Rose it was her in order to obtain another photo. Cunningham later admitted he lied and had no idea who the woman was. Furia compare this photo along with the two of Miller to the unknown woman and concluded she was both women. So we're supposed to believe that a photo that had been misidentified as Antrim based on a lie just happens to be someone who actually knew Billy?

Moving on to the unknown young man in the photo, Edwards not only gives Furia the one known image of Billy, but multiple photos of Brushy Bill Roberts and a photo of one of Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders that Edwards believes is Roberts but isn't. The Brushy Bill photos were included to Edwards could use the Furia's work to support his claim that Brushy Bill Roberts was Billy the Kid. The purpose of this review is not to waste time on Roberts's ridiculous claim, so I'll just say this: there were over thirty witnesses documented to have seen Billy's body after he was killed by Garrett and not a single one ever said it was anyone other than Billy. Billy the Kid was killed by Pat Garrett in 1881. The photo of the Rough Rider was used in Edwards's attempted to confirm another of claim of Roberts: that he was in the Rough Riders during the Spanish American War, and Edwards believes the Rough Rider to be Roberts because he think it looks like him. The catch is that the identifications of the men were attached to the original 1898 negative. The man Edwards believes to be Roberts is William D. Wood of Bland, New Mexico. Another photo of Wood taken around the same time confirms the identification. Furia, unaware of this history or the actual identification of Wood, compared the unknown man in the photo to Billy Bonney, Brushy Bill Roberts, and William Wood and concludes he is all three people.
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Billy the Kid: New Evidence (2015 TV Movie)
1/10
Sad attempt to manipulate the audience
12 February 2016
"Billy the Kid: New Evidence" follows the journey of a man with dollar signs in his eyes as he attempts to authenticate a photograph with no provenance because he thinks one of the blurry images in it looks like Billy the Kid.The documentary takes a very one sided approach in an attempt to prove the photos authenticity; leaving out most of the vast majority of experts who do not think the photo is of Billy the Kid (or don't think the case is even close to being proved). One of the major pieces of "evidence" was that the photo was supposedly taken at the ranch of John Tunstall, and the filmmakers even claim to have found the location, with the building in the photo still in existence; one problem; the building they claim to be the same one as in the photo wasn't built until the 1930s. Embarrassing that National Geographic would air a show that had the obvious goal of "proving" they found a photograph of Billy the Kid whether the evidence showed that or not. And for the record, the vast majority of experts do not believe the photo is of Billy the Kid and the regulators.
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