Butch Cassidy (19 page)

Based on the above, no one knows what happened in San Vicente, nor is there any evidence that Butch Cassidy and Harry Longabaugh were among the participants.

The only potential evidence that might determine whether or not Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were the victims of the San Vicente “shootout” lay in the nearby cemetery.

Convinced by what many would argue is the sparest and most contradictory of evidence that Cassidy and Longabaugh were killed and buried at San Vicente, Meadows determined the best, and perhaps only, way to settle the problem once and for all was to have the bodies exhumed and subjected to an analysis. After making the decision to do so, Meadows was confronted with a number of obstacles—physical, cultural, and legal—but she dealt with the problems like a determined and seasoned professional researcher, eventually overcoming or evading most of them.

Faced with conflicting information relative to the actual graves of the two strangers killed in the San Vicente incident, Meadows eventually located what she believed, marker or no, to be the site at which the strangers were buried.

The evidence for which she had been searching theoretically could lay only a few feet below the surface.

Fifteen

Exhumation

Assuming that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid met their end in San Vicente as a result of being confronted by law enforcement authorities or soldiers, and assuming their bodies were buried in the nearby San Vicente cemetery as many claim, then it should be an easy thing to dig up their remains, subject them to analysis, identify them, make a final determination about what actually happened, and put the matter to rest. This is precisely what researcher Ann Meadows had in mind. If the remains of the two men proved to be Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the controversy over whether or not one, the other, or both died in San Vicente or survived and possibly returned to the United States would forevermore be over.

Once the bodies are exhumed, the investigator would be in the position of initially determining whether or not the bodies were those of two North American Caucasians. One of the bodies, if it belonged to Butch Cassidy, would be approximately five feet eight to five feet nine inches tall and would have weighed about 165 to 170 pounds in life. It would also possess blond hair and a light complexion. Scars and other marks that could be used for identifying the Cassidy corpse would include two small cuts on the back of the head, a small red scar under the left eye, a red mark on the left side of the neck, and a small brown mole on the calf.

The other corpse, if it belonged to Harry Longabaugh, would be five feet nine inches to six feet tall and would have weighed 165 to 190 pounds in life. Longabaugh features would include light brown hair with a slightly reddish tinge, a long Grecian-shaped nose, and according to family members and Pinkerton records, the distinct possibility of a bullet wound in the left leg.

As Meadows embarked on the exhumation project, she was told by a San Vicente resident that, as outlaws, the two men would have likely been wrapped in blankets and interred vertically or face down in the grave as a sign of disrespect. The residents, he said, would not have wasted a coffin on common outlaws.

Following a series of delays and obstacles, Meadows and her group finally received permission to dig in the cemetery. One of those assisting her was Clyde Snow, a forensic anthropologist who made a reputation for himself identifying the bones of Josef Mengele, the noted Nazi war criminal. Snow, as it turned out, was working on a project in Brazil when he learned about Meadows’s research.

Shortly after the excavation of the gravesite was begun, one of the diggers enlisted by Meadows had penetrated several feet into the hard earth of the cemetery when he ascertained that whoever was buried at this location had, in fact, been placed in a coffin and laid horizontally, not vertically. Furthermore, the body had apparently been buried face up. Already, this discovery departed from what the team was led to expect.

Once the body—actually a skeleton—had been located, the excavation became more meticulous and careful. For the most part, the wood of the coffin had rotted away and the bones had to be removed from a matrix of dirt. Early in the excavation, a mandible (jawbone) was found. Snow identified the mandible as belonging to a male approximately the same age Cassidy and Longabaugh would have been in 1908. The mandible contained three gold teeth, the result, according to Snow, of “high-quality dental work” (in
Digging Up Butch and Sundance
).

For the rest of the day, the bones of the deceased were removed from the grave and brought to the surface—ribs, scapulae, humerus, and vertebrae. When the diggers finally reached the bottom of the coffin, they were eight feet below the surface. By the time it was deemed prudent to cease the excavation, only one body had been found where everyone believed there would be two. Among the bones and dirt, the diggers also found a buckle, a button, and a pair of small boots. The discovery of the small boots was initially promising, for it was known that the Sundance Kid had small feet.

The skull that was taken from the grave was closely examined. It was described as being long and narrow and clearly not belonging to Cassidy but possibly resembling one that might fit Longabaugh. The forehead of the skull between the eyes was shattered, and Snow claimed the wound was “consistent with the damage from a gunshot wound at close range.” The alleged wound was also consistent with the description provided by witnesses relative to what happened to the taller of the two strangers involved in the shooting. Additionally, minute copper fragments, possibly from a bullet, were also found in the bone of the skull.

Oddly, there was no exit wound, something one might expect assuming the victim was shot at close range. Snow also declared the wound was most likely inflicted by someone other than the deceased. “Had it been suicide,” Snow determined, “the wound would likely have been in the temple or upper mouth.”

Witnesses to the San Vicente shooting also claimed the taller stranger had been struck by bullets several times in the arm, but none of the radii, ulnae, or humeri bore any evidence of wounds. It is possible that, had the victim been shot in the arm, the bullets passed through flesh without ever striking bone.

Assuming the excavation was conducted, as initially believed, at the site where the two strangers were buried, it was indeed puzzling that the remains of only a single individual was found. At this point, most investigators would have deduced that the location was probably not the burial site of the two presumed bandits if, as had been reported, they had been tossed into a single grave. However, based on what scanty evidence was available, Meadows’s group initially and optimistically concluded that the bones they found
might
have belonged to Harry Longabaugh. It was certain they did not belong to Butch Cassidy. Thus, as a result of the preliminary analysis and a process of crude deduction, the team seemed anxious to believe it was in the possession of the bones of the Sundance Kid, although not those of Butch Cassidy.

Continued examination of the skeleton was necessary to establish a stronger link between the body and the Sundance Kid. Closer analysis was at first promising for it revealed a gunshot wound on the left tibia, a bone in the lower leg. The wound was an old one, one suffered many years before interment, and it more or less matched the one the Sundance Kid was alleged to have.

Regarding the three gold teeth found in the skull, a Pinkerton report states that, as a result of an interview with Lillie Davis, who married Will Carver, Longabaugh “used to have a gold tooth in front, [on the] left side . . . [but he] had it taken out” and replaced with a white one (in Meadows’s
Digging Up Butch and Sundance
). However, the report was several years old. If the bones belonged to the Sundance Kid, he might have had additional dental work done during one of his trips to the United States with Etta Place.

The bones tentatively identified as belonging to the Sundance Kid were eventually taken to a house in San Vicente and arranged on a table. Following a more detailed examination of the remains, Snow pronounced the decedent was “pretty definitely Caucasoid,” a male who stood between five feet eight to six feet two inches in height. Thus far, the number of similarities between the skeleton and Harry Longabaugh seemed to be growing and afforded some encouragement.

In order to achieve a positive relationship, a DNA comparison test was suggested. For the basic DNA test to be valid, the investigators required genetic material from a maternal Longabaugh descendant. Unfortunately, none could be identified. A refined DNA test was recommended, one that could use DNA material from a paternal descendent, of which there were several. The test was conducted, and when the results arrived they clearly showed the bones were not those of the Sundance Kid. Just to be on the safe side, a DNA test was also conducted with Cassidy relatives. Again, as expected, there was no match.

Still attempting to establish a connection between the exhumed bones and the Sundance Kid, Snow gave the skull to one Lewis Sadler, a man who, according to Meadows, “pioneered a technique in which digitized photographs of people are superimposed over video images of skulls in order to determine whether they match at certain points.” At a laboratory at the Department of Biomedical Visualization, University of Illinois at Chicago, Sadler, employing tissue-depth markers on the skull, reconstructed an outline of the head as it might have looked if it had flesh attached to it. Following the procedure, one of Sadler’s associates called Meadows to inform her that it was a match—the skull, he claimed, belonged to the Sundance Kid.

The conclusion was premature and without basis. In spite of Meadows’s contention, Sadler did not pioneer any such photoanalysis techniques. At least two court-approved and statistically valid photo-comparison methods had been in use and available long before this time, and it is curious that Sadler did not employ them. Sadler’s technique lacks any kind of statistical validity, a primary requirement in a scientific study. However, Sadler was apparently impressed enough with the results of his project to go to the press and tell them he was “convinced” the skull belonged to the Sundance Kid. In the meantime, Sadler’s associate issued a statement saying the analysis was inconclusive.

Sadler, it should be pointed out, employed his computer technique to “prove” a man named William Henry Roberts was not Billy the Kid. Like the Sundance Kid project, Sadler’s Billy the Kid study, while impressing a handful of hobbyists and some outlaw history buffs, possessed no scientific validity and was roundly rejected by experts. Sadler’s so-called computer studies as they relate to identification have been described by facial-comparison experts as being more along the lines of a classroom project rather than a scientific study and are not regarded credible by professional and qualified investigators.

A second burial site was eventually discovered near the first one. Encouraged that Butch Cassidy may still be found, the team continued digging. From the new excavation came the remains of a wooden coffin and several bones, including two skulls! Snow identified one of the skulls as belonging to an Indian, which eliminated Cassidy. On the other hand, it must be recalled here that “Enrique B. Hutcheon” was the identity initially attached to one of the dead men at San Vicente and that subsequent investigation suggested Hutcheon was half Chilean. Could this have been Hutcheon’s skull?

According to Snow, a portion of the cranium of the second skull manifested evidence of “entrance and exit wounds in the temples” that, according to the investigators, matches witnesses’ descriptions of the condition of the shorter San Vicente stranger believed by some to be Butch Cassidy. This skull appeared promising and invited additional analysis.

Weeks later, a portion of the second skull was powdered so DNA could be extracted. When the DNA sample was compared to those taken from relatives of Butch Cassidy, however, no match was found. Finding no DNA match does not completely eliminate the possibility that the skull belonged to Cassidy, but continued analysis of the fragments by Snow yielded the conclusion that it, like the earlier one, was not Caucasian and therefore could not possibly have belonged to the outlaw.

As a result of the efforts of Meadows and her group, they determined that the two skeletons exhumed from the site believed to contain the remains of the two presumed bandits who died at San Vicente in November 1908 did not to belong to either Butch Cassidy or Harry Longabaugh.

Could they, then, belong to two men who were mistaken for the famous North American outlaws? If so, it would be a simple thing to conclude that Cassidy and Longabaugh did not, in fact, perish at San Vicente. At this point of the quest, the possibility is great.

As a result of a later comparison of two-decades-old photographs of the cemetery, however, it was eventually determined that Meadows’s team had dug up the remains of a man named Gustav Zimmer, a German miner who once lived and worked in the area.

In spite of the negative DNA analysis, the fact that two of the skulls found belonged to Indians, the discovery that the first gravesite was that of Gustav Zimmer, and bits and pieces of other evidence, it remains surprising that many are still convinced the two men alleged to be the robbers of the Aramayo mine payroll were killed in San Vicente and buried in that same cemetery. Whether or not the two men were Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was now open to even more conjecture than previously, with logic and reasoning tilting dramatically toward the distinct possibility they were not. The evidence that Cassidy and Longabaugh were killed at San Vicente was growing even more flimsy.

According to Meadows’s own research and analysis, the body exhumed was most certainly not that of Butch Cassidy and only has the remotest chance of being Harry Longabaugh. The likelihood that it belonged to Gustav Zimmer was considerably greater.

The question remains: where are the bodies of the two strangers killed in November 1908? Could they, in fact, have been hauled out onto the plains as was earlier suggested by a resident?

Despite some compelling evidence otherwise, Meadows and her husband in 1996 somehow remained convinced that the two men killed in San Vicente were Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, that they were buried in the town’s cemetery, and that they are still there, or nearby, in an unmarked grave yet to be found.