The Toll of the Bell

Billy the Kid's jailer had a sordid past.

- MARK BOARDMAN

New Mexico lawman J.W. Bell is best known for guarding (and being killed by) Billy the Kid in 1881. Usually, Bell is portrayed as a kind man, at least toward Billy, and a solid officer. But until recently, not much else was known about him.

Until Billy the Kid's Historical Coalition board member James Townsend looked into Bell's story—and found a blot on the record.

Bell was born in Maryland in 1853; at what point he moved to Texas is unknown. But somewhere in the early 1870s, Bell fell in with bad company in Montague County, Texas (north of Fort Worth). Led by the Brown family, the group called itself a “vigilance committee.” In reality, according to Townsend, it was a violent gang that used murder and intimidation to gain power in the region.

And Bell was part of at least one killing.