Butch Cassidy: Beyond the Grave

by W.C. Jameson

Overview

This well-researched biography of the life—and controversial death—of Robert LeRoy Parker, a.k.a. Butch Cassidy, is a journey across the late-nineteenth-century American West as we follow Cassidy’s exploits in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah, where he made his name as a surprisingly affable outlaw. More important, this book answers the question: Did Butch Cassidy, noted outlaw of the American West, survive his alleged death at the hands of Bolivian soldiers in 1908 and return to friends and family in the United States? The evidence suggesting he did is impressive and not easily dismissed, but how he lived and what identity he assumed are still debated.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781630760380
Publisher:	Taylor Trade Publishing
Publication date:	07/09/2014
Series:	Beyond the Grave
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	582,784
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

W.C. Jameson is the award-winning author of more than eighty books. He is the bestselling treasure author in America, and his prominence as a professional fortune hunter has led to stints as a consultant for the Unsolved Mysteries television show, the Travel Channel, and the History Channel. He lives in Llano, Texas.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Chapter 1: Origins
Chapter 2: Youth
Chapter 3: Telluride
Chapter 4: Enter Butch Cassidy
Chapter 5: Prison
Chapter 6: Robberies
Chapter 7: Enter the Sundance Kid
Chapter 8: Growth of an Outlaw Reputation
Chapter 9: Betrayal
Chapter 10: Winnemucca Bank Holdup
Chapter 11: Eastbound
Chapter 12: South America
Chapter 13: The San Vicente Incident
Chapter 14: The San Vicente Incident Revisited
Chapter 15: Exhumation
Chapter 16: Return of the Outlaw, Butch Cassidy
Chapter 17: Enter William T. Phillips
Chapter 18: What Was the Fate of Butch Cassidy?
Selected Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Editorial Reviews

By most accounts, Butch Cassidy (born Robert LeRoy Parker) was an affable, charming rogue who rustled cattle and robbed banks and trains with a smile. Perhaps that explains why many refuse to accept his ignominious end—shot to pieces by Bolivian troops in a grubby mining town. Jameson, an award-winning author and contributor to the History Channel, is determined to cast doubt on that unsavory demise. Much of this compact work is a useful and conventional biography of Cassidy. Jameson describes his young life as the oldest child of devout Mormon parents, growing up poor in Utah. He seems to have drifted slowly into a life of crime as he moved from various ranching jobs across Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. Jameson describes his partnership with the Sundance Kid as a mating of opposites who shared and enjoyed each other’s restless spirits.

Booklist

.. . [M]eticulously researched, and the author’s love of the subject matter comes through clearly. Reading Butch Cassidy: Beyond the Grave is like reading a really good mystery.

Deseret News

By most accounts, Butch Cassidy (born Robert LeRoy Parker) was an affable, charming rogue who rustled cattle and robbed banks and trains with a smile. Perhaps that explains why many refuse to accept his ignominious end—shot to pieces by Bolivian troops in a grubby mining town. Jameson, an award-winning author and contributor to the History Channel, is determined to cast doubt on that unsavory demise. Much of this compact work is a useful and conventional biography of Cassidy. Jameson describes his young life as the oldest child of devout Mormon parents, growing up poor in Utah. He seems to have drifted slowly into a life of crime as he moved from various ranching jobs across Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. Jameson describes his partnership with the Sundance Kid as a mating of opposites who shared and enjoyed each other’s restless spirits.

Booklist

Professional treasure hunter and author Jameson (Lost Treasures of American History) is dismissive of the “poor chronicling and unsubstantiated research” by outlaw history hobbyists. Outlaw history is not ranked high in academia, he notes, so Jameson sets out to separate fact from fiction. He traces Cassidy from his Utah boyhood to his criminal activities with the Wild Bunch and the Sundance Kid, noting erroneous perceptions generated by the popular 1969 film, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Concluding chapters examine conflicting accounts of Cassidy’s “enigmatic and controversial” final years. Was Butch Cassidy killed in a shootout in Bolivia in 1908, as tradition has it? Or did he return to the U.S. alive to visit family and friends? Some think Cassidy returned with the identity of William T. Phillips—“Could it be only a coincidence that Phillips looked amazingly like Cassidy?” and appeared from nowhere around the time Cassidy allegedly died? Phillips died in 1937, leaving behind The Bandit Invincible, a manuscript filled with little-known facts about Cassidy. Many readers will find themselves transfixed by Jameson’s probing discussion of this intriguing mystery, which he calls “a historical conundrum.” Illus. (Oct. 3)

Publishers Weekly

Jameson reviews here the literature on Robert LeRoy Parker, better known as Butch Cassidy. As the death of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in Bolivia in 1908 is not well documented, Jameson champions the case that Cassidy did not die in Bolivia, but returned to the United States to live out his life as William T. Phillips in Spokane, Washington, where he died in 1937. His main evidence is a manuscript biography of Cassidy entitled Bandit Invincible, a work first analyzed at length in Larry Pointer's In Search of Butch Cassidy (1977), in which Pointer argued that the manuscript appeared to be a genuine autobiographical account. Unfortunately, two 2012 publications are not referenced in Jameson's discussions, both of which point to William Wilcox, an outlaw associate of Cassidy, as Bandit Invincible's author. Cassidy's great-nephew, W.J. "Bill" Betenson, has written Butch Cassidy: My Uncle: A Family Portrait, while Larry Pointer has self-published an annotated edition of Bandit Invincible. VERDICT Jameson's book will be of interest to readers of popular outlaw history, but more scholarly readers should note that the facts surrounding the life of Butch Cassidy are now more controversial than ever, as other recent Cassidy biographical works have broadened the discussion.—Nathan E. Bender, Albany Cty. P.L., Laramie, WY

Library Journal