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your first month. Hello

1:21

everybody and welcome back to the Chilimanati

1:23

Podcast, episode 266. As

1:26

always, I'm one of your hosts, Mike Martin, joined today

1:28

by the King and Queen of England, Jesse

1:30

and Alex. Hello. Well, well, well, well, well,

1:33

well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, yes,

1:35

yes, well, yes, yes. Oh, hello.

1:37

Of course. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes.

1:40

Yes. Yes. And no funny thing was just going to pretend

1:42

you were dead. Oh, death

1:45

never comes for the monarchy. We

1:49

shall be everlasting. And

1:51

that makes Alex the King then. King

1:54

Charles the third. Congrats. King

1:56

Chronic the fourth. King

1:59

Chronic the 400. And

2:03

I'm Her Majesty the 69th. We

2:07

have Jesse phoning in all the

2:09

way from England this week. It's true.

2:11

It's true. He's in the

2:13

middle of the Chalume Monarchy. The Chalume

2:16

Monarchy. Oh, shit. Is that

2:18

our England branch? The Chalume Monarchy. The Chalume Monarchy.

2:20

Do I sound okay? Am I coming in loud

2:22

and clear? Yeah, you sound fine. You

2:24

sound fine. He is

2:26

joining us live from a balloon over

2:29

London right now. He

2:31

is broadcasting to us via satellite.

2:34

What's absolutely crazy is this room is very bright, but if

2:36

I were to open the window, it is 11.20 p.m. here.

2:41

So it's very dark. Unlike our Patreon, which

2:43

is not dark. That's what keeps the lights

2:45

on. I don't know. Some of these

2:48

episodes lately have been pretty dark. Dude.

2:50

Alfred Packer still sitting with you? Yeah, Alfred

2:53

Packer. Fish. Albert Fish.

2:55

By the way, I finally know why I keep

2:57

saying that, because we covered him. He was a

2:59

two-parter Wild West story a while back. Yeah, he's

3:01

Cannibal the Musical. Still lingering? It's been a while

3:03

since we've done Albert Fish. I don't know, man.

3:06

For some reason, we're tainted by it. You

3:09

made me talk about eating poop or whatever, and that's

3:11

all I can think about now. That sweet, sweet peanut

3:13

butter. My

3:16

little Reese's Cups. Sucks. Not

3:18

my words. My little Reese's Cups. Acolyte.

3:22

Are you an acolyte? Are you a zealot?

3:25

Are you a prophet, or are you the chosen?

3:29

Go find out. Just the frontiers on our

3:31

Patreon. Yeah, patreon.com/slaypod. Did we start a cult

3:34

I didn't know about? Am I? Yeah,

3:36

it exists. You started one last week. You talked about

3:39

the sex cult that people have openly, willingly said they

3:41

would join on a comment section of our episode. First

3:44

off, I forgot about that. Second off, what a fun treat

3:46

to come back to. Oh,

3:48

did I just accidentally start a sex cult?

3:51

Oh, hello. Oh, hello, sex cult. Oh, my

3:53

goodness. Hello. Did you miss me?

3:55

Anyway, you know the drill. Get a bunch

3:57

of stuff on our Patreon in exchange for supporting us.

4:00

It keeps the show going. It keeps

4:02

the show good. I'm about to put

4:05

a bunch of new crap in the

4:07

pipeline. We got a bunch of surprises

4:09

coming up very soon. And

4:12

I think we're going to watch some X-Files pretty soon

4:15

too, right? Yeah. Yeah. Oh,

4:18

you know what? Let's just call it the next one. How

4:20

about that? I think next one's supposed to be me. Oh,

4:22

is that right? Oh, you got to pick the next

4:24

one? I mean, we'll just wait one

4:26

more and I'll pick the one after. No, Neil Breen though.

4:29

I mean, we're not going to watch Neil Breen for a

4:31

while. We're not. There's only really like one more Neil Breen

4:33

movie that's worth watching. And then I'd say the rest are

4:35

so bad. There is a single

4:37

Neil Breen movie that's worth watching, but experiencing

4:39

in your life. Yeah. But

4:42

yeah, head over to Patreon. There's lots of bunch of freebies.

4:44

You got the art by the

4:46

always incredible Mel, um, studio,

4:48

electro, uh, there you got ad

4:51

free episodes. You got the rotten popcorn

4:53

show. You got mini sodes in,

4:55

you know, you get a taste of these mini sodes every

4:57

Wednesday now here on the channel, um,

4:59

or on the podcast feed, wherever you're

5:01

listening to this, but real talk,

5:03

there are so goddamn many because

5:06

there is one that comes out

5:08

literally every single time an episode

5:10

comes out. So the,

5:12

the library of things to listen to that

5:15

you haven't heard before by the Chilimanati is

5:17

vast. So go check it out. I

5:19

don't want to say, I mean, we have a

5:21

live show coming, right? We can say that. Can

5:23

we tweet? Can we tease that we're doing a

5:25

live show? We can totally tease that. So if

5:27

you are curious about joining us in Chicago in

5:29

noir on December 20th

5:32

for a live show that Friday night,

5:34

I would say sometime around October 4th,

5:37

you should prepare to buy tickets. Yeah.

5:40

That sounds like a good idea. Like maybe exactly on

5:42

October 4th, but sometimes around something

5:45

around then. It's a nice generic. Yeah. Just

5:47

like a friendly tip from a friendly guy who may or

5:50

may not run your sex cult. Yeah. And

5:52

if for legal reasons, definitely does not run

5:54

a sex cult. And for tax reasons, maybe,

5:57

maybe a sex charity. It's

5:59

at least religious It's

6:02

at least religious which means we have to meet at least once

6:04

a week. So all right sex

6:06

called. Hey Unlike

6:10

today's episode which is not a sex call Boo

6:15

I know I know boys today's a fun one.

6:17

It's just a one. It's a one-parter today. There's

6:19

so many fun Crazy stories

6:21

that come out of America's 1800 era

6:23

the Wild West era that when I

6:25

dip my toes back in I am

6:27

always surprised to find just a crazy

6:29

dude or a crazy person Bell

6:32

Bell star was the last one we talked about

6:34

she had an awesome story today We're

6:36

talking about a particular man that went by the

6:38

name of Wild Bill Texas bill a bill

6:41

a man by the name of William Preston

6:43

long Lee I don't

6:45

know if he's super well known out there There's

6:47

not there's like a good amount of information out

6:49

there, but he's not like fucking Bell star or

6:51

anything like that BPL BPL

6:55

what's who? See I want to

6:57

beats per Lirik

6:59

pred bill Preston. No, I know. Yeah.

7:01

Oh, yeah. Okay. We're gonna eat spur

7:03

Lear lyric Beats

7:06

per lyric. Yeah, I don't know. Thank God.

7:08

You're not the music industry. You would yeah,

7:10

I think upside down Not in

7:12

a good way. Yeah, that's why I'm in the

7:15

comedy industry where I'm a laugh of me. Can

7:17

you imagine beats per lyric? That's

7:21

like some Busta Rhymes shit It's

7:24

like a wild style. Yeah, that's like

7:27

good. Uh Yeah,

7:29

BPL otherwise known as bill Preston like

7:31

long Lee William Preston long leaves who

7:33

we're talking about today and this gentleman

7:35

was born way back

7:37

on October 6th of 1851

7:42

this was fucking forever ago out

7:44

in Austin County, Texas just west

7:47

of Houston Known

7:49

as bill long Lee or wild bill William Preston

7:51

long Lee in the mid 1800s was still The

7:56

Texas around that time was still a relatively

7:58

young state kind of having gained independence from

8:00

Mexico only about 15 years previous to that.

8:02

And then it was annexed by the US

8:04

in 1845. And his parents

8:07

were Campbell Longley and Sarah

8:09

Longley. And they were

8:11

your typical family farmers at the time. They just

8:13

had a brother and sister. No, they,

8:16

they, uh, his, no, no, she took

8:18

his last they got married. Campbell Longley

8:21

and Sarah Longley. I can't tell if

8:23

that was like a roast of the

8:25

farming community or like, I don't know

8:27

what you're doing there. I just,

8:31

I don't know how long ago was this 1851. Not

8:33

that weird. Not that out of the

8:35

question. It would have been cousins would

8:37

be less weird brother and sister. I

8:39

feel like dire straits or we're happening

8:41

on that point. Okay. But I just,

8:44

it sounded like that same last name. And I understand

8:46

now what you meant by that, but

8:48

yes. Yeah. As, as you were saying,

8:51

uh, she, yeah, they were just

8:53

a typical family, a typical family of farmers at

8:55

the time. Um, they worked on

8:57

the land, like a ton of other settlers

8:59

did scratching out a living in the rough,

9:02

often lawless conditions of frontier Texas. And

9:04

bill was the six of 10 children

9:07

like mega middle child. Well, that's cause

9:09

they, you know, back in the, you

9:11

had to birth your workforce for your

9:13

farm at that point. Like you didn't

9:15

have like a ton of money.

9:17

You didn't have any people working for you. You needed

9:19

kids because even at like two or three years old,

9:21

as soon as they can lift rocks and move shit,

9:23

that's what they were doing. Um, however,

9:25

we don't really know much about the specifics

9:28

of all of his siblings. We don't know

9:30

how many brothers or how many sisters he

9:32

had. We have the names of a couple

9:34

of them. And that's about it. Um,

9:36

there's very little details, even with his relationship

9:39

with the siblings and his parents. And it's

9:41

likely that as just one of the boys

9:43

who's probably just expected to take on a

9:45

lot of family farm responsibilities while he was

9:48

growing up, this usually meant tending crops, livestock,

9:50

uh, probably learning how to handle firearms at an

9:53

early age, all that, you know, useful stuff for

9:55

a frontier West at the time. And

9:57

again, as we talk about, like a lot of around

10:00

this time, you keep in mind again,

10:02

just to reiterate the kind of violence

10:05

and upheaval that sort of shaped

10:07

Texas around this time from the

10:09

Mexican American war to the civil

10:11

war, Native Americans, this

10:13

place was violent all the goddamn

10:15

time. And this is what he

10:17

grew up in. He grew up

10:19

during the civil war reconstruction. He

10:21

was constantly exposed to tensions between

10:23

Southern Confederates and unionists as well

10:25

as the violence that erupted during

10:27

this period. And obviously Texas had

10:29

a strong pro-Confederate sympathies and so

10:31

did our dear boy here, Bill.

10:35

His early years were shaped by these racial

10:37

and political divisions and we'll end up seeing

10:39

a lot of his victims end up being

10:41

because of that. Bill

10:43

as a criminal is kind

10:45

of to me what that bug assassin

10:47

and Rick and Morty is, where he's like,

10:50

oh, gah, there I go, kill him again.

10:52

And like, he's such like, oh fuck, every

10:54

time he tries to almost try and get

10:56

away from it, he kind of was just

10:58

like, oops, killed somebody and gets

11:01

away with it for very, for far too

11:03

long. So imagine I'm like,

11:05

you know, I've

11:07

never seen a Rick and Morty. Can you explain

11:10

the bug assassin to me? I mean,

11:12

them, the audience. I don't know the name of it. Alex, do

11:14

you know what I'm talking about? There's like a bug, there's like

11:16

literally a space like

11:18

bounty hunter assassin or hit man. And

11:20

he's so nonchalant about it that when he

11:22

kills people, he's like, oh man, there I

11:25

go, kill him again. And he just starts

11:27

killing people. You know, I haven't seen all

11:29

of Rick and Morty. That's maybe something you've

11:31

seen that I haven't seen, which is rare.

11:33

That's wild to me that I've seen, I

11:36

haven't seen all of Rick and Morty either. Like I've

11:38

seen chunks of Rick and Morty in episodes. I just

11:40

feel like that's like- I've seen a couple, I've seen

11:42

a couple, I've seen a couple of seasons maybe. Like

11:44

obviously I've seen all of it, but like imagine I'm

11:46

one of the people who has it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

11:48

And how would you explain it? All right, well then

11:50

I just say you casually, accidentally finding

11:53

his way back to murder. Okay, all

11:55

right. The way is that just like you could have avoided it.

11:57

Sure. Yeah, all right.

11:59

Yeah. And he, in what is documented, what

12:01

we do have documented here is that at

12:03

a young age, not only was

12:06

he violent, but he was wildly racist

12:08

as well, as were common among many

12:10

of the ex-Confederate families that back

12:13

the views of the Confederates. So

12:15

this tension is all in the background as

12:17

he's born and fucking growing up. And

12:19

the family, the Longley family themselves, despite their

12:22

hardworking nature, seems basically unable to keep Bill

12:24

in check or they just didn't care enough

12:26

to. He was very much an independent person

12:28

right when he was able to walk away

12:30

and speak. They didn't really discipline him very

12:33

much as far as we know. They mostly

12:35

treated him as a farm worker

12:37

and weren't really there for him. But

12:40

I mean, parents at that

12:42

time, that's not what they were doing. There was

12:44

no emotional connection beyond, I raised my child until

12:46

we can- They're just hitching him up to the

12:48

plow and sending him out into the fields to

12:50

till the earth. We know

12:52

that his father, Campbell, was reportedly

12:54

respected in the community as a

12:56

farmer and held pro-Confederate views like

12:58

many, but there's no record indicating

13:01

whether he actively or encouraged

13:03

or dissuaded any of Bill's more

13:05

violent tendencies. And like many

13:07

young men who grew up during the

13:09

Reconstruction era, Bill became restless, rebellious, the

13:12

world around him being in flux. He kind

13:14

of felt like he didn't really belong anywhere.

13:16

And after his belief

13:19

structure was brought down by the

13:21

Union, he felt like he didn't really belong. Which

13:25

moves us about to him being 16 years old.

13:27

We're now about 1867. And

13:30

here is where we see Longley's first kind

13:32

of act- Not kind of, his first act

13:34

of true violence. All the while, while he's

13:36

like a teen, he's getting into fights. He's

13:38

getting into fist fights, fighting his siblings, fighting

13:41

people in town. Like many of the people

13:43

we talk about, he doesn't kill anybody up

13:46

until about 1867. And again, like

13:48

I was saying, we just don't have a ton of documents

13:51

about what his life was

13:53

during his more younger teen years until it becomes

13:55

a criminal. I mean, I would imagine the Civil

13:57

War. Yeah, well yeah, but it was Civil War

13:59

when he- He was so

14:01

he's like 13, 12 or 13 when it starts. Right

14:05

still when it ends, he didn't join the army.

14:07

He wasn't part of that. He was a state

14:09

of. But I'm not just family or people associated

14:11

with him, especially in the South, especially in Texas.

14:13

That was absolutely. Yeah. Huge

14:16

thing. Yeah. So in

14:18

1866 or early 1867, we're not entirely sure when,

14:20

when he was about 15 or 16 years old,

14:23

he and a group of his friends committed

14:25

what is known to be his

14:27

first murder, which involved killing one

14:29

individual of three that they came

14:31

across. Longley and a

14:33

group of his friends were wandering out

14:35

on the fucking road, just going for

14:37

a walk away from town when they

14:40

saw three recently freed slaves coming down

14:42

the road. These

14:44

three were then ambushed by Longley and

14:46

his friends by them pulling a gun

14:48

on him and forcing all of them

14:50

to move over to a dry creek

14:52

bed there in a moment of

14:54

panic. A man, one of the men, green

14:56

Evans, spurred his horse and

14:58

tried to take off. And in doing so,

15:01

that's what brought the gunshots from Bill

15:04

and his supposedly his friends. And

15:07

they hit and killed him as he

15:09

did. The other two jumped on their

15:11

horses and ran. They did not chase

15:13

him, but then they immediately began rifling

15:15

through the pockets of green Evans as

15:18

they ran off. The

15:20

other two people with him were Charlie Willis

15:22

and somebody only known as Ned. We don't

15:24

really know what his real name was. They're

15:26

all Ned, the enigma. He did the enigma.

15:28

Yeah, they got they they took off, but

15:30

yet they shot him dead and then they

15:32

immediately started rifling through his pockets while

15:35

the other two escaped. And quickly

15:38

afterward, Bill immediately took

15:40

off. Now, the local government

15:42

around this time did very little to

15:45

find anybody who killed recently freed slaves.

15:47

They genuinely just kind of left

15:50

it alone almost always. But

15:52

Bill still ended up kind of taking

15:54

off and getting nervous about it, which

15:57

to me speaks to him understanding that

15:59

what he did. Obviously was wrong, even

16:01

though the hate and the racist and

16:03

whatnot motivated his violence. I mean,

16:05

you know, you don't kill people, right? Like, you

16:07

don't fucking kill people. Yeah, you would think like

16:10

you don't kill people. You

16:12

would hope that maybe he wouldn't kill anybody ever

16:14

again. For whatever whatever the case,

16:16

though, he he took off after this kill.

16:19

And right from this point at

16:21

age 16 years old, Will

16:24

or Bill became a drifter. He

16:26

immediately started drifting around Texas, kind of convincing

16:29

himself that the law was after him, that

16:31

they were going to get him when reality.

16:33

They didn't give a fuck. Nobody

16:36

was after him, but in his mind, they

16:38

were. And so he started wandering through Texas.

16:40

And what else do you do when you

16:42

become a drifter in Texas? Other than gamble

16:45

in a bunch of local saloons all

16:47

the time. Which is what

16:49

he did. Yeah, he he

16:52

became a gambler and met a man by

16:54

the name of Phil Co. Now,

16:56

what we know about Phil Co. Is that he took

16:59

Bill under his wing and this

17:02

is Bill and Bill, Bill and Bill all

17:05

together together. It is like kind of like

17:08

a just like a guide for him. He taught him how

17:10

to gamble. He taught him like

17:12

all the rules of the card games that

17:14

they were playing. And he very much became

17:16

Bill's tutor in the gambling world.

17:19

We don't know much about Pinocchio. Like

17:22

the Fox from Pinocchio. Yes, yes. Like the Fox

17:24

from Pinocchio is a great. That's a great. I'm

17:26

just trying to imagine a 16 year

17:28

old drifter. And I'm like, what does this

17:30

guy up to? Like, what what does he how does he

17:32

drift? Where does he get this money? How is he gambling

17:34

at 16? I know you've seen

17:36

these, but those those videos that are either recolored

17:39

or smooth of like the early 1920s with the

17:41

first video camera on the street. You see these

17:43

people like kids coming up to the camera and

17:45

staring at it. They all look like they're in

17:47

their 30s and they're like 10 years old. So

17:49

I was going to say, yeah, I know. Like

17:51

little pinky blinders. Yeah, yeah. At

17:54

16, the man looks like he's middle aged at

17:56

this fucking. That is crazy that that's

17:58

what's going on. And then this these guys. go out

18:00

and fucking shoot someone. They shoot and then Bill particularly

18:02

takes off. His friends don't take off with him. He

18:05

just leaves. He becomes a drifter. Who was Bill the

18:07

one who fucking robbed his dead body too? They all

18:09

robbed his dead body. Yeah, him and all of his

18:11

friends robbed his dead body. But Bill was the only

18:13

one that kind of took off afterward. Now

18:16

Phil Coe, what we know about him is also

18:18

very little. We also know he, after the war,

18:20

became a drifter in Texas. He

18:22

became friends with a gunman called

18:24

Bill Longley. I mean,

18:26

Will Longley, which is awful. Will,

18:29

Bill and Phil? No, no, no, no. But

18:32

he learned, Phil Coe specifically learned a

18:34

gamble from another gunman by the name

18:36

of Ben Thompson. So Ben Thompson taught

18:38

Phil, Phil taught Bill, and Bill

18:40

was under his wing for a few years there.

18:42

And hung out with Will? Yes, Will is Bill.

18:44

Will was around. Bill Longley. Will was on the

18:47

premises. His wild Bill. Other than that, we don't

18:49

really know much about Phil himself, but they, he

18:51

took Bill under his wing and taught him a

18:53

bunch of stuff. However, Bill's

18:56

time being a drifting gambler came

18:58

to an end just under two

19:00

years after it

19:02

had began when he and

19:04

his brother-in-law, John Wilson, and

19:06

I say brother-in-law with air

19:08

quotes, because while he's noted

19:10

as brother-in-law, there's no record

19:12

of Bill ever being married.

19:15

So I don't know why he's called brother-in-law. A

19:17

sister? Maybe one of the sisters. We don't have-

19:19

I would assume a sister. But there's no, so

19:21

there's no paperwork work attaching this man to any

19:24

of the family members, but you're likely right. It's

19:26

also text in the 1800s, so

19:28

I don't think there's a lot of paperwork flowing around

19:30

anyway. Yeah, they're just be like, they hung out for

19:32

a while and then they're like, you're my brother-in-law. It

19:34

might've been. Cause after he

19:37

was a drifter for a bit and hanging

19:39

back out with this John Wilson, his supposed

19:41

brother-in-law, they made a decision. They were

19:43

gonna get money. They were done working and

19:46

wandering Texas and like trying to find these

19:48

jobs and gambling. Instead, they were gonna

19:50

do what any person in the 1800s were

19:53

gonna do to get money fast. It

19:55

was time for a good old fashioned

19:57

Texas crime spree. Oh. going

20:00

to open a chicken restaurant. That's usually how this

20:02

works. No, that would have

20:04

been smarter if I had done that.

20:06

No, they went across Texas doing thing,

20:08

committing a vast array of crimes. Robbery

20:10

and intimidation were a huge part of

20:12

it. Longley and Wilson reportedly were involved

20:15

in the robbery of settlers

20:17

stealing their livestock, other valuable items,

20:19

as well as many outlaws at

20:21

the time. They likely also targeted

20:23

isolated homes or small settlements where

20:25

they could take advantage of weak

20:27

law enforcement or no law enforcement

20:29

during this reconstruction period and just fucking

20:31

take things at gunpoint from people and

20:34

nobody was going to fucking stop them. And

20:37

obviously, their violent tendencies or at least

20:39

bills didn't really subside. Aside

20:41

from killing this, the first person that

20:44

he killed, he also went on to

20:46

be very violent toward African Americans doing

20:48

all of this, including murdering another freed

20:50

woman in Evergreen, killing a man by

20:52

the name of Paul Bryce, all in

20:55

very quick. They got into an

20:57

argument. He pulled a gun, he shot them, he took

20:59

what he could and he left. But it was only

21:01

freed slaves that he seemed to be killing, at least

21:03

at this particular point. He was robbing all kinds of

21:05

other people, but he was only killing

21:08

freed slaves. So he's a piece of shit

21:10

and he's racist. Oh yeah, he's a huge

21:13

racist from the day he's born to the

21:15

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22:59

I Imagine

23:03

it's Easier like getting

23:05

in his head I imagine it'd be easier

23:07

for him to kill a freed slave or

23:09

a slave considering that Probably growing

23:11

up where he did they weren't necessarily

23:14

considered People to him and so

23:16

it was like to him not a big deal Which

23:18

is why was so easy for him to do it

23:20

Compared to like which is a messed up way to

23:22

think but obviously I feel like that's what he was

23:24

thinking Yeah, a hundred percent. I

23:26

agree with you and the only reason we know he

23:28

killed we was like killing a few people along the

23:30

way is because we have a Few

23:34

pieces of documented evidence, but so

23:36

little is just like we

23:38

probably killed more From the way

23:41

he acted from my research How could

23:43

you ever even connect them if he killed other

23:45

people? Right? Like isn't there's no way to especially

23:47

if they're not Documenting it in any way It's

23:50

but all this while while he's committing this

23:53

crime spree He was building a reputation and

23:55

it's during this time. He officially dons the

23:57

moniker of why? Bill in Texas Bill these

23:59

are what he's being called by the settlers

24:02

he's robbing real wild bill already exists at

24:04

this point or like There's a bunch of

24:06

wild bills. There's like there's a lot of

24:09

look this up wild bill. Hickok was when

24:12

Good question like I feel like later Yeah,

24:16

that's a cock. Yeah,

24:18

he oh, yeah, he was no earlier. Yeah

24:20

earlier Yes,

24:23

was like I'm Iron Man dude. I'm

24:25

Batman fact in fact 1876

24:27

is one while Bill died. Yeah, he was

24:29

like a mind freak Chris Angel, man This

24:31

is a different wild bills and just not

24:34

he's not nearly as wild as actual wild

24:36

bill But he's also like I said,

24:38

he's also got the like more boring name, Texas

24:40

bill It's like okay went with

24:42

wild bill anyway people were like like wild bill

24:44

and he was like, yeah. Yeah, that's me That's

24:46

what you know, that's honestly is probably was with

24:48

part of it It's like he wild bill was

24:50

around in active during this time So and he

24:53

was name was bill or William. So yeah, it

24:55

was probably really easy to take that while bill

24:57

parody account. Yeah Yeah Wild

25:00

bill was taken. Yeah, there are in fact

25:02

many versions of wild bill and what's even

25:04

crazier is for a time People

25:07

were calling bill Clinton wild bill There's

25:09

a bill Elliott from NASCAR was wild bill

25:12

wild bill just to keep using I guess

25:14

it's a name that love

25:19

Names this random muck back then it you would think

25:21

you would think they're all never hit Hickok And I

25:23

would agree because most of them at least from numbers.

25:25

I'm looking at now Although

25:29

there's an ex Mormon frontier

25:31

murderer named wild bill who grew

25:33

up in 1815 It's

25:36

wild bill man. Yeah, wild bills everywhere.

25:38

He's immortal. He's reborn through many

25:40

men I mean, I guess if you're just like

25:42

a kooky dude, then your name is bill your

25:45

wild bill Yeah, hopefully it's you as only hopefully

25:47

wild bill is not only given to people who

25:49

are murderers And maybe if you're just a crazy

25:51

guy you get to be known as wild bill, too During

25:54

this time in this crime spree that they'll go ahead Jesse. Would

25:56

you find another one? No just a lot of baseball

25:59

players also have Wild Bill a lot, like a

26:01

lot of them. Yeah, there's a lot of Wild

26:03

Bills out there. It wouldn't be this Bill's murders

26:06

during this crime spree that would get him caught.

26:08

The thing that got him caught is what got

26:10

so many people caught back then. He

26:13

stole someone's horse, which is, and they got caught

26:15

doing it, which is always like a

26:17

huge thing. Now, he didn't get arrested, he

26:19

escaped, but his reputation,

26:22

not only of stealing the horse and

26:25

harassing settlers, but his reputation of violence

26:27

and murdering all these freed slaves eventually

26:29

did pile up. And in March of

26:32

1870, the Union

26:34

Military Authority put out a warrant for

26:36

their arrest for a $1,000 reward for

26:40

the capture of both Bill and John. That's

26:42

a lot. I meant to actually

26:45

write down the money difference. 1000, yeah. That's

26:48

a lot. That's an 1870 worth today. Um,

26:52

yeah. That's $24,000. That's

26:56

an insane amount of money. And until

26:58

back then, that still would have gotten you

27:00

so much further. Like it's like a huge

27:02

amount. That's how much of a reputation Bill

27:05

built up in like a year of doing

27:07

Texas, but he stuck with Texas. So he

27:09

wasn't like leaving the boundaries of the state.

27:11

He was just staying within his own state.

27:13

And so the rumors were easier and easier

27:15

to build, but this was like the first

27:18

real time in Bill's life that the authorities

27:20

were truly after him. And so Bill, and

27:22

that was Bill's cue to get the fuck

27:24

out of town for the very first time.

27:26

And so he did. He left Texas and

27:28

decided to move further north to avoid the

27:31

authorities that were looking for him. And this

27:33

is where he also parts with his brother-in-law,

27:35

John. Now, Bill said that John died in

27:37

1870, but we

27:39

have historical records that indicate that he

27:41

actually likely died in 1874 in

27:45

Falls County, Texas. Regardless

27:48

of the, of what happened to John,

27:51

Bill, eventually Bill would wander

27:53

himself all the way up to Wyoming where he

27:55

did what any other person in the 1870s running

27:58

from the law would do. ending up

28:01

in Wyoming, he became

28:03

part of a gold hunting party in Cheyenne, Wyoming

28:05

in May of 1870, the

28:08

next get rich quick scheme. And

28:10

their target was Black Hills, South

28:13

Dakota, where they were, where

28:16

they would throw in their lot in

28:18

an attempt to make it rich extremely

28:20

quickly. And this entire journey where

28:22

they want to head out to South

28:24

Dakota for this gold mining expedition that

28:26

Bill seemed genuinely excited about and

28:29

was hoping that would be his ticket

28:31

to freedom lasted all of

28:33

under a month. When

28:35

they got there, there was a

28:37

treaty with the Sioux people that

28:40

prohibited mining in the area and

28:42

that part and their party was

28:44

intercepted by the US cavalry unit

28:46

and disbanded them instantly. So

28:48

they got there to South Dakota cavalry rolls

28:51

up and goes, no, we can't do this.

28:53

You're all gone. And that was it. That

28:55

was the end of his, they didn't try

28:57

to go anywhere else. They didn't try to

28:59

go like any other state. They're just like,

29:01

that's it. And now Bill needed a plan

29:03

fucking D. So for plan

29:05

D, he decided on June 22nd of 1870, that he

29:07

would enlist for a five

29:12

year stint in the army, joining

29:14

up with company B of the

29:16

US second cavalry regiment. Yeah.

29:20

Gold mining to the cavalry. Do you think

29:22

he sees it as like, like

29:24

a way to do crimes on the go?

29:26

Or do you think he's like, that'll be

29:28

a good soldier boy? He's genuinely

29:30

is in this moment trying to be a good soldier

29:33

person. He's like, you know what? I'll do

29:35

it like this. Like, I don't know if like, cause the

29:37

cavalry rolled up and disbanded him. I don't know if he

29:39

was like, genius. He just saw

29:41

the man on a horse and was like, I'm just going to

29:43

go be them now. And it seems

29:45

so kind of just like no thought

29:47

put into it. It was within a week or two

29:49

of them being disbanded that he joined. And

29:52

so he joined up, got put in

29:54

the second cavalry regiment like he wanted.

29:56

And he and his unit were stationed

29:58

in camp. Stambo. And he. Here, he'd

30:00

give his best attempt to live a straightened

30:02

out life and commit. Nevermind. Just kidding. He

30:04

abandoned it in less than two weeks. Two

30:08

weeks. Where's

30:10

camp Stambo? I think it's

30:13

a where in South Dakota. South

30:15

Dakota. Stambo is Ohio. Sorry.

30:18

He was out in Ohio. Mahoning

30:21

County, Ohio is where camp

30:23

Stambow is. And then so

30:25

he made it all of two military. Yeah. Military

30:27

base. He has to make sure. Like what could

30:29

have happened? I was in Wyoming territory. It's only

30:31

in that area. Probably someone yelled at him once

30:33

and he was like, no. My

30:36

friend got hired at Blockbuster, worked one shift

30:38

and quit before the shift was over because

30:40

it was so, so sucking. That's

30:43

that's that's sucks. That's so I

30:45

get it, though. I've been there. No,

30:47

it wasn't like they were too mean. They

30:50

were just to him. It was too

30:52

rigid of a lifestyle, too many rules. He couldn't

30:54

he literally couldn't. He'll be a fucking

30:56

like he couldn't go be a ne'er do well.

30:58

And also be in the cavalry. And so he

31:01

abandoned them in two weeks. And where else would

31:03

he go? He fucking ran into the wilderness. That

31:05

was it. He's like, you know what? Fuck this.

31:07

I'm out. And he ran into the woods and

31:09

he went to try and survive in the woods.

31:11

Very similar to Boone Helm back in the day.

31:13

We talk about him running into the woods. I

31:15

mean, where else are you going to go? To

31:17

be honest, you can't just like leave the military

31:20

when you want. Yeah. And unlike it's kind of

31:22

comforting what that would like. Yeah. Like the idea

31:24

that there was a time when you could just

31:26

like, like, uh, fuck civilization got to go to

31:28

the woods for a little bit and chill out.

31:30

I mean, you can do that. It's called Canada.

31:32

It's there. Yeah, you can get lost in the.

31:34

You can get lost. I like it up there.

31:38

That's where I was going to disappear one day.

31:40

And then Bigfoot sightings in Canada are going to

31:42

skyrocket. 120 percent. Yeah. You

31:49

asking for weed as your car. Today

31:53

Bigfoot spotted out burger restaurant.

31:55

Alex has got like nugs

31:57

hanging from his beer. He's

31:59

like just in the room.

32:03

Nobody else can see him, but he's got like Boston

32:05

bake bean boy on his shoulder. Gotta

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33:44

Unfortunately for Bill, he didn't have the

33:46

luck or maybe the talent to make

33:48

it very far in the wilderness. For

33:51

all Boonellms dumb fucking, almost dying

33:53

in the wilderness, he had

33:55

a weird uncanny ability to get away for weeks

33:57

still. And then when he was just about to

33:59

die. He would be found. Unlike

34:03

him where he barely made it two days before

34:05

they caught him and brought

34:07

him right fucking back. And he was how many

34:10

days two days just about two days and he

34:12

was caught. He was just like shitting around doing

34:14

nothing. And then like the cops showed up and

34:16

he was like, fuck, you got they have horses

34:18

and he did. I imagine he didn't do what

34:20

Boone Helm did, which is literally run to the

34:22

thick of the woods. He probably stuck near like

34:25

familiar areas. This is a man who drifted

34:27

from saloon to saloon and didn't really like

34:29

try to live out in the wilderness like

34:31

Boone Helm did. Yeah, me like boy,

34:33

this is a stupid like to

34:35

everyone on the Internet. Just bear with me for

34:38

a guy who ignoring

34:40

the terrible racism and

34:43

the fact that he's a murderer and the fact

34:45

that he's a criminal and all the other like at

34:47

his base core. He just

34:49

seems like a

34:52

restless kid who has something he's working

34:54

out, but like he can't sit still.

34:56

He can't commit to anything. He

34:58

like everything he's doing, even

35:00

even the things that lead

35:02

to crimes are like, I just want to get

35:04

some money, man. And I just want to

35:07

like make it. If anything, there are a lot of people

35:09

that have that mentality of like, if I could just get

35:11

the magic pill that would make this happen

35:13

or make me do this thing. He

35:15

has that except for the 1800s and

35:17

it leads to a lot of truly terrible

35:19

things and obviously his background isn't great, but

35:22

like there is something happening here where he

35:24

just can't sit still because either he rejects

35:26

authority or he thinks he's smarter than everyone

35:28

else or he like, I

35:31

don't know. Has narcissism. Yeah, I

35:33

would love to know what a real psychologist make

35:35

up of this guy because there's parts of him

35:37

where I'm like, yo, I see that in people

35:39

just today. We're like, I was just saying,

35:42

start a job and then by the

35:45

end of the first shift, you quit

35:47

just too, too, and just too anti-human

35:49

to like continue giving it

35:51

your, your, your, your, what do you call

35:53

it? Labor, your labor. Yeah. And you throw

35:55

that in the mix of like a civil

35:58

war soup and reconstruction era. Union

36:00

soldiers coming in and replacing all the, you know,

36:02

yeah, absolutely. Like it's fucking disaster for, like

36:04

it's a disaster for somebody like this guy. But

36:06

again, he had a farm. He

36:10

had a like, yeah, it's weird because

36:12

everything he could have led an absolute

36:15

normal life where he had every in

36:18

theory was given to him. Like he

36:20

could, it's a weird vibe that he

36:22

had everything there. And he

36:24

still went out looking again. That's definitely

36:26

psychology. I'm sure again, psychologists when land

36:28

and nail, but like, he

36:30

had everything given to him and he went out

36:32

and sought drama. Yeah. And

36:35

angry all the time. Yeah. And that's what got him.

36:37

And I don't know if that's cause he was six

36:40

of 10 or whatever he was or 12. Seven

36:43

of mine. I don't know if he

36:45

was, cause it's a farm life and he thought

36:47

it was born. There's definitely something there going on

36:49

beneath all the like terrible things he's doing where

36:52

he just cannot settle.

36:55

And he had, again, he had

36:57

everything. It wasn't like he

36:59

was a star or whatever. Like we would think by

37:01

today's standards, but he had

37:03

a life. He had a farm. He had a family

37:05

that I think loved him. Question mark. I

37:08

don't know. It's weird. Love as much

37:10

as one could love in the 1850s

37:12

as broken as people as they probably

37:14

were. Not to say that

37:16

in an insulting way. It's just a different time.

37:18

They raised in a different way. There was different

37:20

expectations of children at the time that we now

37:22

know are bad for kids, like developing minds. But

37:25

yeah, I mean, like they probably did love him

37:27

too, but you know, they also probably still subjected

37:29

him to a lot of hard labor and punishments

37:32

or whatever. I mean, he definitely had the vibe

37:34

of like a kid who grew up hearing some

37:36

really racist shit. Oh God. Yeah. Yeah,

37:38

absolutely. I don't know. So

37:40

yeah, he was brought back. He got caught.

37:42

They court martialed him and he was sentenced

37:44

to the most old timey punishment of all

37:46

time, two years of hard labor at camp,

37:49

stand bow with an actual ball and chain

37:51

attached to his leg. Awesome. Love

37:53

that. This is like, like old timey

37:56

punishment. Like a book, like a

37:58

Cohen brothers character. Yeah. And he served. his

38:00

full two-year sentence and after it was done

38:02

obviously he wasn't forced back into the military

38:05

and he did not rejoin military. Yeah Jesse were

38:07

you gonna say or ask questions? No I

38:10

love that the one commitment he got of

38:12

anything is that he was forced to do

38:14

it and then afterwards he was like I'm

38:16

out to it I can't I can't yeah

38:18

he fucking laughed it's wild and they even

38:20

broken him more mentally who fucking knows. Honestly

38:22

you would think that two years being forced

38:24

to do a thing would break

38:26

him a little bit but nah clearly

38:28

not. Yeah and now he is so

38:30

we're about two years later he's about

38:33

20 21 ish right around

38:35

that age and he after he

38:37

left his prison sentence he went back to

38:39

doing what he did best drifting

38:42

and did he do that best let's be real drifting

38:44

was he good at that? He

38:47

got found in the woods after two days. Yeah I don't

38:49

think he was good at that. Yeah just he stuck

38:52

to him to stick to the roads he was a city he

38:54

was a city boy he wasn't a wilderness boy so

38:58

he started wandering again and was

39:01

back to gambling and saloons

39:03

for a few months because

39:06

right after that in 1872 though we

39:08

don't have specifics we do know that

39:10

he went back to stealing horses at

39:12

the very least he started nabbing horses

39:14

from people. The worst possible crime that

39:16

you can imagine. Yeah yeah essentially at

39:19

that time you get killed for that

39:21

at this era. Yeah just the worst

39:23

possible most risky lowest yield crime possible.

39:25

Yeah and but he actually did a

39:27

good job at not getting caught because

39:29

other than we knew he was stealing

39:31

horses we actually don't really know where

39:33

he was for the rest of 1872

39:35

but by February of 1873 he had

39:37

returned to Texas very specifically Bastrop

39:44

County and we know that because

39:46

there are criminal records of him

39:48

being accused of murdering another freed

39:50

slave over a very small dispute

39:52

that he got over with them

39:54

and this was in line with

39:56

Longley's pattern of targeting African Americans

39:58

during the Reconstruction Era. While

40:01

specifics about this particular individual that

40:03

he murdered or the circumstances beyond

40:05

an argument aren't well documented, it

40:07

was another crime that was being

40:09

added to his very big growing

40:11

criminal reputation. Mind you, that was

40:13

still in existence from him running

40:15

from Texas in the first place.

40:17

So he still has a rap there. And

40:20

following that accusation, Longley then left that

40:22

county and returned to Bell County, Texas,

40:24

where his family farm was, where he

40:27

lived with his father, Campbell Longley, and

40:29

the rest of his family. We

40:31

don't know how much contact Longley had with his family

40:34

during his criminal years. I'm going to guess zero

40:36

or close to zero. I

40:39

doubt they were sending letters back and forth. But

40:41

he didn't spend a ton of time

40:43

at the family farm after he went

40:45

back. He more treated Bell County as

40:47

a temporary refuge and a place to

40:49

lay low. And it's from this moment

40:51

on as well that Bill also starts

40:53

using fake names. He starts anytime

40:56

he's out, people ask him his name, he

40:58

starts giving fake, just fake identities. So he's

41:00

harder to catch because he

41:02

clearly had intense to keep

41:04

fucking doing crimes. Summer of

41:06

1873, Mason

41:08

County Sheriff J.J. Finney managed to

41:10

actually arrest Longley for the murder

41:13

that he actually committed back in

41:15

Bastrop County when he first came

41:17

back to Texas. Finney, aware

41:19

of his growing notoriety, actually took him

41:21

to Austin to collect on that reward

41:24

that was offered by the state and

41:26

federal officials. So he's fucking even if

41:28

you have both, he had one. So

41:30

we thought he was at least going

41:32

to get a 500 bucks for this.

41:35

Maybe he'll get a thousand when he

41:37

brought him to Austin, brought him to

41:39

the federal prison and whatnot. The federal

41:41

military essentially gave him the runaround. They

41:45

the money wouldn't come up and

41:47

they never had it. And his

41:50

captor, the sheriff, Finney, got so

41:52

fucking frustrated with the feds that

41:55

he literally freed Longley and let

41:57

him go. They

42:00

brought him to Austin spent a few days trying to get the

42:02

money the feds weren't forgiven him the money So he's like fuck

42:04

it. You're not gonna give me the what I'm owed you're free

42:07

That's what he did. We Shit, and

42:09

he's not a bounty hunter. This guy

42:12

is a Mason. He was Mason County

42:14

sheriff. He wasn't even a bounty hunter

42:16

He was the fucking sheriff. It's just

42:18

the luck stat. That is like what

42:20

defines the cowboy Serial killer

42:23

is like his luck stat is

42:25

so high that like three unbelievably impossible

42:27

things happen And then that's

42:29

how he's able to like do a reign of

42:31

terror. I'm just shocked. No one shot him the

42:33

sheriff Oh the

42:36

Bill Bill has at this point gone

42:39

around just murdering

42:43

He has stolen horses which again as Alex

42:45

said probably only this time way worse than

42:47

actual murder for a lot of people at

42:49

least What they thought and

42:52

then he is he has run

42:54

from being in the cap You

42:56

would think someone would have shot his ass the fact that

42:59

he hasn't been shot and killed is Mind-blowing

43:01

to me. I think a part of it too is just again Do

43:04

people really know what he looks like? Like

43:06

if you've unless you've heard someone describe him

43:09

to you or there's a

43:11

picture that's decent the man The

43:13

minute he grows a beard or shaves his beard He's gonna

43:15

look differently like he just people don't wait on the internet

43:17

back then like how do you how do you warn? Three

43:20

counties over about this guy before

43:22

he gets there like draw really

43:25

good picture And then you

43:27

got to get it there before he gets there

43:29

fly it by eagle. Yeah, I'm sending by American

43:31

Eagle That's I that's how it's gonna work. Yeah.

43:33

Yeah, but anyway, yeah, he just

43:35

literally said luck stat at him He just fucking

43:37

like fuck it. Bye. Bye. Goodbye. Now there is

43:39

rumor, but there is no Evidence

43:42

of that there it may have been

43:45

Long Lee a bill's uncle Alexander

43:48

Press Preston who

43:50

lived in California that bribed

43:53

the sheriff to free bill

43:57

but That's the that's nothing

43:59

more than rumor that's just but it's

44:01

out so wait this dude has connections

44:03

like that that's all I know

44:05

of that connection as well which is why I'm

44:07

like potentially potentially actions and he's

44:09

still like God

44:11

I hate him so like this guy sucks like

44:14

not like he's like a like oh

44:16

boy I better kill little birdie shoot

44:18

or whatever like it isn't this guy's

44:21

it's fun either and or character yeah

44:23

just a shitty little guy

44:25

yeah his luck sucks I hate that for

44:27

him I hate that about him it's

44:30

so like this isn't exciting to be like

44:32

oh wow what's this guy did what's gonna

44:34

do next he's gonna eat someone like no

44:36

this dude's just like I'm a piece of

44:38

shit and I cruise through life I don't

44:40

have to pay for anything la la la

44:44

yeah and he then gets

44:46

to spend two years free he's

44:48

not getting caught back to stealing

44:50

horses back to robbing people there

44:53

is suspicion that he killed people during that time

44:55

that we don't have any particular evidence or names

44:57

of specifics and he would get to keep doing

44:59

that until March 31st of 1875 where

45:03

he's now like 22 23 years old and this

45:05

is one of the more notable and well-documented murders

45:08

of all time not of all time part of

45:10

his life because it was a personal murder during

45:14

his in 1875 he killed

45:16

his childhood friend Wilson Anderson

45:19

with a shotgun he the

45:22

murder was reportedly instigated by

45:25

long leaves and will only

45:27

being bill his uncle Caleb

45:29

longley who blamed his nephew's

45:32

childhood friend Anderson for the death

45:35

of his son kale longley

45:37

so Caleb urged his nephew bill

45:39

to seek revenge on

45:41

Wilson Anderson and he complied

45:43

by taking a shotgun to

45:45

Anderson's head you

45:49

need to go over that again no it's as convoluted

45:51

and stupid as it sounds I'm sure it's this

45:56

is somebody he spent a ton of time with

45:58

as a kid not like just like it was

46:00

his last him Just blasted him. Blew his head

46:02

off because his uncle said that he killed his

46:04

son. He's a so- he's just a sociopath. Yeah,

46:07

yes, he doesn't care. He just murdered

46:09

him. Exactly, exactly.

46:12

That's what I'm smiting. I'm telling you.

46:14

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47:20

is like one of his only childhood friends. And

47:22

it was motivated by family loyalty and vengeance.

47:26

It's just really fucking weird. And after

47:28

he killed him, he fucking fled again.

47:30

He just ran northward, this time accompanied

47:32

by one of his brothers, James Stockton

47:35

Longley. Now James was later tried

47:37

for the murder of Anderson. The

47:40

kid fucking blew his head off of the

47:43

shotgun. But he was acquitted of that, which

47:45

is why it was indicated that Bill was

47:47

the sole perpetrator of this particular crime. And

47:49

following this incident, a brand new reward was

47:51

posted for Bill Longley's capture. And he became

47:54

even more of a target for law enforcement.

47:56

Very wild Bill. An

47:58

extremely wild Bill. Under

48:01

increasing pressure from law enforcement, longly

48:03

fled from place to place and

48:05

used several aliases to avoid arrest

48:07

over this time. Unstable bill, out

48:10

of control bill, bill

48:12

the guy you don't mess with bill. You

48:15

think he had like a, like he's professional

48:17

bill when he needs like to like a

48:19

something legally? No, no, no, he's professional William.

48:21

Oh, fuck, you're right. I didn't even think

48:23

about that. Of course that's what he would

48:25

be fucking called. So yeah, he flew, he

48:27

fled again, again. And under the pressure, he's

48:29

like just trying to avoid all these people.

48:31

Eventually while he was on the run though,

48:33

he found himself an actual job,

48:35

a real job that isn't crimes.

48:39

Tell us what this job was, please. He

48:41

worked on a cotton farm. Very

48:44

exciting. He didn't

48:46

last very long. Really? Yeah, I

48:48

know weird. We're

48:51

looking, he lasted about two months because in

48:53

November of 1875, he

48:56

ended up killing somebody that he got into a

48:59

fight with on

49:01

the farm that he got into verbal argument with them,

49:03

which turned into a fist fight, which then turned him

49:05

to beating him to death. Beating him to death? With

49:07

his fist. Yeah, I just like fucking just beat him

49:09

until he died. What the fuck? Yeah, yeah. He

49:15

fucking took off from the farm at

49:17

that point. And not long after he

49:19

found himself in another murder in that

49:21

same month, he ended up killing

49:23

another man by the name of George Thomas

49:25

who was reportedly just one of his hunting

49:28

companions who he

49:30

also then got into a fist fight with, which

49:32

then escalated to him shooting him. How does this

49:34

man have friends? Like real talk. I don't know.

49:37

How does he, you think things would spread between

49:39

the different groups and be like, that guy kills

49:42

his friends, dude. Like, he's no good.

49:44

Like why, what about him says

49:46

that's the man I want to hang out with? I don't know,

49:49

man. No Twitter to stop

49:51

you from learning these fucking facts. No

49:53

Instagram stories. I guess. Yeah, and this

49:55

was another just petty grievance. They have

49:57

a hot temper that just boils. over

50:01

right into deadly violence. And after

50:03

he killed law, after he killed Thomas,

50:05

rather, he fucking took off as fast

50:08

as he could. He just ran

50:10

another pattern of evading justice. And he

50:12

would remain that way for essentially another

50:14

full fucking year until January of

50:16

1876, where he

50:19

became involved in another death,

50:21

where he ended up getting into a gunfight with

50:24

another outlaw by the name of Lou Shroyer

50:26

in Uvalde County, Texas. And

50:29

this actually began as Bill

50:32

attempting to ambush Lou

50:35

Shroyer who sought just to kill him.

50:37

He was so bad at ambushing that

50:39

a gunfight broke out. Yeah, he tried

50:41

to ambush another criminal outlaw and failed.

50:44

Well, not failed. He technically

50:46

succeeded, but he didn't do it

50:49

cleanly. And the situation quickly got

50:51

turned into a gunfight where Shroyer

50:53

did shoot Longley's horse out from

50:55

under him. But in response, Longley

50:58

shot Shroyer dead. I again must

51:00

state, it seems like he's failing upward and I

51:02

hate this. That's not what

51:05

always is. Everything about this dude sucks so

51:07

much. As

51:10

to the motivation to why he wanted

51:12

to ambush Lou Shroyer, there's debate that

51:14

some say it was just like a

51:16

petty rivalry between two different outlaws that

51:18

were operating on the same turf or

51:21

some say a dispute, kind of just kind

51:23

of bubbled up between the two of them

51:25

naturally, territorial, or even betrayal that they were

51:27

working together at one point. Whatever the case

51:29

was, all we know is it ended up

51:31

in a fucking very public gunfight where Shroyer

51:33

ended up getting killed. It's

51:36

just fucking crazy. And

51:38

he took off. Dude.

51:42

Sorry, what? Sucks. Yeah,

51:44

sorry. He just let that sink in, I guess. But

51:46

you're telling me like this other dude had no friends,

51:49

so we're like, we got to get vengeance. We got

51:51

to hunt him down. Like the fact that people are

51:53

just like that crazy guy, let him go. He's wild.

51:56

Well, this time, it's sane to me.

51:58

This time he did not run to

52:00

another town. time he pulled the boone

52:02

helm and ran into the wilderness this

52:04

time. He went deep into the woods

52:06

and, uh, he lasted two days. He

52:09

actually lasted a decent amount

52:11

of time. How long is decent? Less

52:13

than a year. Okay. But

52:15

about a six or seven months ish, if

52:17

I'm doing my math correctly here, because

52:19

we would then see him pop up again.

52:22

Um, while he was still

52:24

attempting to lie low, he ended

52:26

up doing turning to share cropping around

52:28

this time. And then found work on

52:30

another farm and brought himself

52:32

out of his like wilderness hiding by

52:35

working with a farmer by the name

52:37

of William R. Lay, who was also

52:39

a preacher out in East Texas. And

52:41

he actually for a while, longly

52:43

seemed to settle into this more

52:46

stable life of being

52:48

a sharecropper and just being a farmer until

52:50

trouble soon arose when he found

52:52

himself in a rivalry with the,

52:54

uh, farm owners, his own nephew

52:57

for the affections of a young

52:59

woman, long was violent.

53:01

Yeah. No, a young lady, they both liked. Um,

53:04

and, uh, long leaves nature

53:06

sort of resurfaced when he

53:08

beat up his rival, which

53:11

led to him being an

53:13

actual brief imprisonment. He didn't

53:15

kill him, but he beat the

53:17

fuck out of him. Longly blamed William

53:20

Lay for his imprisonment, believing that lay was the

53:22

one responsible for his troubles. And on June 13th,

53:24

1876, long Lee road to Lay's farm, where

53:29

he found the preacher milking a cow. Longly

53:32

then shot lay with a shotgun. Cause

53:34

he would put in prison for a little bit. It wasn't even

53:36

kill anybody. He beat somebody up as like a couple of nights,

53:38

get it over with. And, uh, then

53:40

went back and was like, I'm going to

53:42

kill the owner and shot him. Uh,

53:45

which, you know, kind of foul falls the pattern

53:47

of this particular playing red dead redemption and like

53:51

getting a high bounding, then painted off at the post

53:53

office. I mean,

53:55

kind of doing five stars, five

53:57

stars cops run right to five

53:59

stars every. time and then just runs off

54:01

to the post office extremely quickly. And

54:04

after he killed Lay, Longley then took

54:06

off again to the wilderness deciding, you

54:09

know what? It's the outlaw's life for

54:11

me, baby. This is what I was made for. This is

54:13

what I'm going to do. Fuck trying

54:15

to make an honest living. Let's just do

54:17

what I'm clearly good at doing. And so

54:19

he traveled off to Grayson County, Texas, where

54:21

he would meet up with two of his

54:23

friends, Jim and Dick Sanders, where

54:26

they were also imprisoned. And what did he

54:28

do? He can't be a

54:30

criminal all by herself. He

54:32

broke his boys out of fucking prison. What?

54:35

In 1876, he helped his

54:37

two friends, Jim and Dick escape from

54:39

jail. The exact circumstance of the jailbreak

54:41

are not super well documented, but it's

54:43

only, but it's clear that he took

54:45

part in freeing them completely. You

54:48

just broke them out. I don't know how we did it.

54:50

I wish we had the details. We just know that

54:52

they fucking, all three of them got out of there. I

54:55

don't know. I guess like, he

54:57

didn't blow up a wall. He must've just like

54:59

when somebody was sleeping or he was able to

55:01

like squeeze through the bars. I don't fucking know.

55:03

But now they're a posse

55:05

of three and so to speak. And

55:08

as they were escaping, they

55:10

immediately bumped into deputy Matt Shelton. Who

55:13

shot him dead. The end. They tried

55:15

to arrest them and long

55:17

lean his companions. No,

55:21

no, they disarmed the deputy and

55:24

continued running. They took

55:26

his gun and then they ran. What

55:30

the fuck? I don't

55:32

know why they didn't kill the deputy at that point

55:34

you figure, but no, no, he just, they disarmed him.

55:36

Like input a game shark code real quick, transferred

55:39

it from in their, his inventory to their

55:41

inventory. Yeah. And now he's

55:43

like, oh, what? Looking confused at his empty hands

55:46

as they run off on their, uh,

55:48

on their, on five, imagine on horses.

55:50

Uh, they, they ended up fleeing out

55:52

to Louisiana regardless. They finally left Texas,

55:54

went to Louisiana and continued this pattern

55:56

of evading capture. Though again, the details

55:58

of how he is. specifically escaped is

56:00

kind of lost. Again, he wouldn't pop

56:02

back up until a full year later

56:05

on June 6th, 1877, and by mid-1877,

56:09

after years of committing murders, theft,

56:11

evading law enforcement, not only across

56:14

Texas, but Wyoming, and the little

56:16

counties in between, he,

56:18

Bill Longley, would finally be

56:21

captured. After his long

56:23

history of narrowly escaping capture, he

56:25

had been on the run and

56:27

hiding in DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, under

56:29

the alias of Bill Jackson. Phil

56:33

Jackson? No, Bill, he stuck with his

56:35

first name, Bill. Bill Jackson didn't change

56:37

his first name at all. I don't

56:39

know why. Phil Jackson would

56:41

have been better. And

56:44

his criminal career had become under increasing

56:46

pressure from law enforcement because we're looking

56:48

at a decade of crime where he's

56:50

just been getting away at this point.

56:52

And his crimes are starting to become

56:54

famous, and that's a problem for law

56:57

enforcement. And a substantial reward was posted

56:59

for his capture once again. And finally,

57:01

on June 6th, 1877, Longley

57:04

was surrounded and arrested

57:06

without incident in Nacogdoches

57:09

County by Sheriff

57:11

Milt Mast and two

57:13

other deputies. Milt Mast?

57:16

Yes, Milt Mast, M-I-L-T-M-A-S-T-B. The accreditation

57:18

exercise. Alliteration was all the rage

57:20

back in the 1800s. Everyone

57:23

was in on it. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

57:25

Milt Mast. Milt Mast.

57:29

Yeah, so Milt Mast actually fucking

57:31

caught him. The arrest took place

57:33

while Longley was residing quietly. And

57:35

unlike many of his previous escapes

57:37

and violent altercations, for whatever reason,

57:39

in this moment, Longley didn't even

57:41

try to run. He

57:43

didn't resist nothing. He

57:45

literally just fucking gave up. And the reasons as

57:47

to why Longley didn't put up a fight are

57:50

actually not clear. There's a lot of speculation, but

57:52

maybe it could have been just by this time.

57:54

He may have realized that his luck was running

57:56

out. Everywhere he's running out of places to go,

57:58

people were starting to know his name. name, the

58:01

money reward was getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

58:03

And he just didn't really have anywhere else to

58:05

kind of run to that already didn't know who

58:07

he was. Um, and so, and

58:09

I'm sure being under the alias Bill Jackson didn't

58:12

really help him very much either. Um,

58:14

but he was finally arrested where he, after

58:16

being arrested, he would, uh, returned, be returned

58:18

to Texas to face justice for his crimes.

58:21

In particular, he was tried for the murder

58:23

of Wilson Anderson, his friend who had killed

58:25

about two, no, three years earlier at this

58:27

point, as part of personal revenge plopped by

58:29

his uncle and the murder, uh, the murder

58:32

of Anderson was one of the most personal

58:34

and notorious killings in longley's career, uh, as

58:36

Anderson again had been his, his best friend,

58:38

and that's really. Why they had the most

58:40

details on this murder in particular. So that's

58:42

like how they were able to fucking get

58:45

him. And the trial in Lee

58:47

County court, uh, went well

58:49

for everybody, but Bill with the

58:51

specific charge of murdering Wilson Anderson,

58:53

the trial did not take long.

58:55

There was significant amount of evidence

58:57

and witness testimony against longley. And

58:59

the brutality of Anderson Anderson's murdered

59:02

coupled with longley's extensive criminal history

59:04

over 10 years left little room

59:06

for doubt regarding that this man

59:08

was fucking guilty. And so

59:10

following his trial, longley was sentenced to hang

59:12

for Anderson's murder. This was not surprising. Obviously

59:14

this is kind of just like what they

59:17

did with these kinds of criminals. But at

59:19

this time, what we do know is that

59:21

longley had often boasted about killing 32 men

59:25

by this point in his life.

59:27

But when asked historians that if

59:29

they believe that number, they think

59:31

the number is much closer to

59:34

about 10 longley's probably

59:36

blustering about how much he, how much

59:38

of a violent criminal he is, but

59:40

he's still 10, uh, somewhere around 10

59:42

people is like a horrible heinous individual.

59:44

And he was, uh, after being sentenced

59:46

to death, death, his defense attempted to

59:48

appeal the conviction in the hopes of

59:50

securing a reduced sentence or even just

59:52

overturning the verdict, but appeal appeals were

59:55

a common tactic at the time. Still

59:57

kind of fucking are obviously, um,

59:59

that's that. But this was a high profile case.

1:00:01

This was entertainment at the time. 1877, moving into

1:00:03

1878, capturing

1:00:06

one of the more notorious criminals around that time, at least

1:00:08

for these people. People were fucking

1:00:10

there every day at court. His

1:00:12

appeal was denied in March of 1878, confirming

1:00:15

the original sentence of hanging that would be

1:00:17

carried out. There would be no clemency, despite

1:00:19

his notoriety in the efforts of his defense.

1:00:21

Longley was denied clemency. His violent history and

1:00:23

the nature of his crimes kind of made

1:00:25

him a target of law enforcement so over

1:00:27

the years, he became an embarrassment to law

1:00:30

enforcement so he kept getting fucking away. And

1:00:32

so this time they really made sure he

1:00:34

would not get escaped. I am waiting

1:00:36

for you to be like, however

1:00:39

they were out of rope that day, so no hanging

1:00:41

would occur. Actually kind

1:00:43

of the, yeah, go ahead, no, yeah.

1:00:45

No, no, no, no, no, no, you can't say

1:00:47

actually kind of the what, kind of the what.

1:00:49

Kind of the opposite. On

1:00:51

October 11th of 1878, Bill

1:00:53

Longley was executed by hanging in Giddings, Texas,

1:00:56

just a few miles from his childhood home

1:00:58

in Evergreen. He was like, home was

1:01:00

right backyard. Great, good. And his hanging didn't

1:01:02

go well for him in that he didn't

1:01:05

die instantly and he struggled for a

1:01:07

very long time. Great, good, okay. Before he

1:01:09

fucking died. I'm all right with that. This

1:01:11

hanging drew a huge crowd

1:01:13

of people. Like there was a mass crowd watching,

1:01:15

eager to witness the end of this guy. He

1:01:17

probably thought he was gonna slip out of the

1:01:20

fucking ropes and land on a horse and ride

1:01:22

off into the fucking sunset. There are some reports

1:01:24

that Longley remained defiant until the very end and

1:01:26

I think there were some people that probably were

1:01:28

expecting, how is he gonna get out of this

1:01:30

one? Whatnot. Though he reportedly

1:01:32

also expressed some regret for his crimes

1:01:35

in the days leading up to the

1:01:37

execution. No, he regrets being caught. That's

1:01:39

exactly correct. According to

1:01:42

some accounts, Longley reportedly told the crowd that

1:01:44

he had been unfairly treated by the law

1:01:46

and that he was not guilty of all

1:01:48

the murders attributed to him. And that he'd

1:01:50

be running for president. Yeah, nowadays. However, his

1:01:53

final statements did not change the outcome. Longley

1:01:56

was hanged in Giddings, a place where

1:01:58

now there's an actual burial. in

1:02:00

historical marker, you can look up right

1:02:02

now, where even today, people like, so

1:02:04

there are like flowers on his grave

1:02:06

sometimes. It's wild. His

1:02:10

grave became a point of interest for historians and

1:02:12

visitors over the legacy of the old West. But

1:02:15

he would have, he actually was fucking killed

1:02:17

and it wasn't pleasant. And that on October

1:02:19

11th of 1878 would mark the

1:02:22

short but violent end of the short

1:02:24

of violent life of Bill. At 1878, he

1:02:26

was a little, about

1:02:31

30, almost like maybe a

1:02:33

little over a little under 30 years old. And

1:02:37

just from the get, the boy was fucking

1:02:39

violent and he met his very violent end.

1:02:42

And like I said, the wild West is

1:02:44

filled with little stories of

1:02:47

these people. He's very violent.

1:02:49

Yeah, it's all very violent, but

1:02:51

it's like, that's what's fascinating about the wild West

1:02:53

is how many people like this guy existed, these

1:02:55

people that live these 20 or 30 year

1:02:58

lot lie lives, but like were like

1:03:00

a flash in the pan of violence, crime

1:03:02

and all kinds of crazy shit. Some cannibalism

1:03:05

as we've talked about, but he's

1:03:07

like a great example in my opinion of these people who

1:03:10

just like lived town to town

1:03:12

murdering. And there were hundreds of these people

1:03:14

out there at the time. That's

1:03:17

why it became priority post civil

1:03:19

war for the

1:03:21

expansion towards West because

1:03:23

of all the little towns and things going on out

1:03:25

there. There was no real law or government authority. And

1:03:27

yeah, sure. There was a lot of like, if the

1:03:30

government stay, we can make more money. But

1:03:32

also they were like, yo, we

1:03:34

need, we need like someone to get the

1:03:36

military out there, put people out there. Yeah.

1:03:40

It was, it was not a great place to be

1:03:42

if you didn't have any way to protect yourself. And

1:03:44

that boy's ends are a short tail here. I'm not

1:03:46

sure it's a fucking full episode, but no, I'm not

1:03:48

a multi-parter. So in my mind, it's short, a

1:03:51

short story of bill only

1:03:53

AK wild bill, Texas bill,

1:03:55

crazy bill, insane

1:03:57

bill, bill Jackson and

1:03:59

all kinds of other dumb. No, Phil

1:04:01

Jackson, the better. We should have.

1:04:05

Uh, that's it for us today, boys. We're out of here.

1:04:07

Thank you all so much for listening. We're

1:04:10

off to patreon.com/luminati pod. Do a little mini.

1:04:12

So as we always do, we appreciate you. We love you

1:04:14

and Alex is taking the reins next

1:04:16

week. I'm very excited. Yeah. He's

1:04:20

married now, so he's got nothing to do anymore.

1:04:22

He's just bored. My big burden is through. All

1:04:24

I have to do is joke him up. Now.

1:04:28

Yes. Thank you guys so much.

1:04:30

We appreciate you. We love you. Goodbye.

1:04:33

Bye. Bye. Anyway, me and my

1:04:35

wife were sitting outside indulging on our porch one night enjoying

1:04:37

ourselves. I needed

1:04:39

to go to the bathroom, so I stepped back inside and

1:04:42

after a few moments I hear my wife go, Holy shit,

1:04:44

get out of here. So I

1:04:46

quickly dash back outside. She's looking up

1:04:48

in the sky. I

1:04:51

look up to and there's a perfect

1:04:53

line of dozen lights traveling across the sky. Good.

1:05:00

Thank you. Bye.