Did Butch Cassidy Survive Shootout In Bolivia

Butch Cassidy, the infamous train and bank robber, was born and raised in Utah, and spent many years hiding from the law in remote canyons in Utah's backcountry.

He is somewhat of a folk here to some, and there has long been speculation that he did not die in Bolivia, as portrayed in the classic movie "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." Some Utah old timers believe Butch contacted members of his family long after he was reportedly killed.

Now, a newly discovered old manuscript gives energy to that theory. The Washington Post has this article about the theory. Below are excerpts.

A rare books collector says he has obtained a manuscript with new evidence that Butch Cassidy wasn’t killed in a 1908 shootout in Bolivia but returned to the U.S. and lived peaceably in Washington state for almost three decades.

Utah book collector Brent Ashworth and Montana author Larry Pointer say the text contains the best evidence yet — with details only Cassidy could have known — that “Bandit Invincible” was not biography but autobiography, and that Phillips himself was the legendary outlaw.

The author of “Bandit Invincible” claims to have known Cassidy since boyhood and never met “a more courageous and kinder hearted man.”

He acknowledges changing people and place names. But some descriptions fit details of Cassidy’s life too neatly to have come from anyone else, said Ashworth, owner of B. Ashworth’s Rare Books and Collectibles in Provo...

“Total horse pucky,” said Cassidy historian Dan Buck. “It doesn’t bear a great deal of relationship to Butch Cassidy’s real life, or Butch Cassidy’s life as we know it.”

Read the article for more details.