|
Welcome
Taphophilia (dot) Com...
A repository of morbid curiosities:
Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.
A Taphophilia Thank You...
Taphophilia (dot) Com would not be possible without the knowledge, experience and talent of DarkestWeb. From its conception and early development, DarkestWeb was faced with many challenges; from inspiring and motivating, to providing guidance and direction. The continued dedication and support has produced results greater than ever expected, and for this, I owe a huge debt of gratitude.
Announcements
Graveyards of Chicago:
The People, History, Art, and Lore of Cook County Cemeteries
By Matt Hucke And Ursula Bielski. Discover a Chicago That Exists Just Beneath the Surface - About Six Feet Under! Take a tour of Chicago's permanent residents! Please visit the Lake Claremont Press website to purchase your copy of Graveyards of Chicago today!
Green-Wood Cemetery Arcadia Publishing announces the release of Alexandra Mosca's historic account of one of New York's most famous cemeteries. Aracdia Publishing's Images of America series has an extensive catalog of many cemetery publications! Please visit Arcadia Publishing to purchase your copy of Green-Wood Cemetery and to browse other available titles!
Men of Mortuaries Calendar
To purchase your 2008 calendar, learn more about the KAMMCARES Foundation, or to be featured in the 2009 calendar, please visit Men of Mortuaries.
Epitaphs: The Magazine for Cemetery Lovers By Cemetery Lovers
For information regarding subscriptions, single issues, submission guidelines, deadlines, classifieds or advertising for future issues, please visit The Cemetery Club.
Guardians of the Soul: Angels and Innocents, Mourners and Saints, Indiana's remarkable cemetery sculpture
with photography by John Bower and foreword by Claude Cookman is now
available. Please visit
Studio Indiana for more information.
West Springfield Massachusetts: Stories Carved in Stone by Rusty Clark features information on early New England gravestone carvers with more than two hundred photos and illustrations. Please visit the Dog Pond Press website.
|
|
Written by DeadGirl
|
|
Thursday, 16 September 2004 |
Jay Miller
Syndicated Columnist
Sep 15, 2004
SANTA FE — The three sheriffs tirelessly pushing the Billy the Kid case for a year may have accomplished their goal, though not ex-actly as they intended.
Lacking historical exper-tise or the advice of an expert historian, they have never-theless tried to change the history of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Since few doubted the story of Pat killing the Kid, it occurred to me that the sheriffs wanted to make a contribution to New Mexico history. And I think they did.
There hasn't been a world-class historical hoax since the early 1900s when a man named Charles Dawson claimed to have found the "missing link" in a gravel pit in England. He called his pieces of braincase and chunk of jawbone Piltdown Man. It took almost 50 years for someone to realize it was an orangutan's jaw with filed-down teeth, and 600-year-old skull pieces. Why did Daw-son do it? Well, he gave Piltdown Man his name: "dawsoni." And maybe it was his version of "punked" humor.
The Piltdown Hoax prob-ably has not had competition because it takes almost as much work to pull off a great historical hoax as to conduct actual research. I'm not counting the Loch Ness monster. Monsters are easy. You just say you saw one and take a blurry photograph.
Webster's Dictionary says to hoax is "to trick into ac-cepting as genuine some-thing false and often prepos-terous." That brings up the missing link in a hoax: peo-ple who believe preposter-ous things. Seems we hit the magic moment. The sheriffs may have created history's Frankenstein's monster, but Gov. Richardson has kept it alive.
In fact, the governor made his own contribution. Try out the definition of a hoax on his appointment of attor-ney Bill Robins from Texas to represent the dead Billy the Kid as a client seeking to have himself and his mother dug up from their graves.
Famous Billy the Kid historian Frederick Nolan called the sheriffs' criminal case filed in the Lincoln County Sheriff's Department a hoax because it looks for all the world like a heavily researched document chock-full of footnotes. Except not a single reference has to do with whether Garrett killed Billy. Since many of the sources are rare or on micro-film, it is not too far-fetched to think that they never dreamed anyone would check it out. But they were wrong.
The case is also set up as a murder investigation with "evidence." Part of that evi-dence is the alleged carpen-ter's bench on which dead Billy lay. Dr Henry Lee, a forensic expert, famous for seeking limelight and paid by the History Channel, was brought in to find blood on it. And, by golly, within hours, he did.
Lee is proceeding to test it for DNA. The problem is that forensic experts around the country said that blood has never been proven to ex-ist much more than 50 years. But it was announced in a news-paper that Robins would again offer his ser-vices, this time to take that "DNA" back to Silver City in hopes of getting at Billy's mother's bones.
Since the case is a real criminal investigation, courts have to be tricked also. The hardest trick is ob-viously calling it a criminal investigation when Garrett, the criminal, has been dead for 96 years. And the case was closed in 1881. It also was discovered that Mayor of Capitan Steve Sederwall, who participated in the case as a deputy sheriff, wasn't one at all.
Motivation is a fascinat-ing part of hoaxing. Fame is tempting. There has been talk of book and film deals. But since these public offi-cials used their time and workplaces for the case, I would throw in the possibil-ity of personal gain at tax-payer expense.
But thanks to the three sheriffs, now New Mexico may not only be home to the Legend of Billy the Kid, but also may be the birthplace of the Lincoln County Hoax: the greatest of them all!
http://www.thedailypress.com/artman/publish/article_2012.shtml |
|
