Despite his young age, Billy the Kid managed to be arrested several times throughout his life. He also managed to be arrested for quite a variety of reasons: stealing clothes, horse and saddle theft, and, of course, murder. Yet what makes Billy so unique is that he never managed to stay incarcerated for long. There seems to have been no jail strong enough to contain him, because, through one way or another, he always went free. Though the local jails in the late 1800s were not terribly formidable, and Billy never went to a real prison, the likes of Leavenworth and such, his uncanny knack for escaping or being released from incarceration cannot be denied. Therefore, I have made this section of my page to detail all the known times he managed to be arrested or captured and imprisoned. I have also described how he managed to go free in each circumstance.
- Late Apr. 1875; Silver City, New Mexico Territory---Billy the Kid, at the time only known as Henry McCarty, is arrested by Grant County Sheriff Harvey Whitehill for throwing rocks at some of the local Chinamen and/or for stealing several pounds of butter from a local rancher named Abel L. Webb. Apparently, young Henry has been associating with a local gang of ruffians led by 'Sombrero Jack' Schaefer, who participated in the illegal acts with him. Henry apologizes and promises to never break the law again and Sheriff Whitehill, who only arrested the boy in an attempt to ''scare him straight,'' releases him.
