THE TRIAL OF BILLY THE KID
On Monday, March 28, 1881, Billy the Kid and Billy Wilson were escorted from their jail cells in Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory, to the train depot by Deputy U.S. Marshal Tony Neis and Police Chief Frank Chavez. Accompanying the lawmen and their handcuffed prisoners was attorney Ira E. Leonard. Though they were being transported to Mesilla, nearly 300 miles to the south, to face trial for serious crimes—the Kid for having killed Lincoln County Sheriff William Brady and Andrew L. “Buckshot” Roberts, Wilson for counterfeiting—the pair must have been elated at their relative freedom. They had been locked up in the Santa Fe jail for 91 days.
The southbound train went only as far as Rincon, some 30 miles shy of Mesilla. As the party disembarked, they were confronted by a mob of “roughs” who intended to wrest Billy from his escorts. Marshal Neis was able to shepherd the Kid and Wilson to a saloon across the street where he and Chief Chavez barricaded themselves and their prisoners in a back room. Neis, not knowing whether the mob intended to free or to lynch Billy, advised his prisoners that if the door were breached, his first action would be to “turn his guns loose” on them. Disinterested men on the outside eventually convinced the roughs to disperse.
The next morning the party took the stagecoach to Mesilla, passing through Las Cruces. Hostile crowds were waiting at both places. On reaching their destination, Neis and Chavez turned over the Kid and Wilson to Doña Ana County Sheriff James W. Southwick, who placed the pair in the two-cell Mesilla jail, which already held 14 prisoners. The jail was within a high-walled placita. Forming one wall of the placita was the Mesilla Courthouse, which served as a
