Robert LeRoy Parker (p.7)

On November 4, 1908, two men, believed to be Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, robbed the Aramayo Mining Company payroll. After relieving the carrier of the payroll, the outlaws took one of the mining companies mules for good measure. It seems to be extremely illogical that two experienced outlaws such as Butch and Sundance would make a slip-up of extreme proportions like stealing a mule. Much less a mule carrying the brand of the very payroll they just robbed. This is just one of many reasons why some believe that the identities of the two men involved in the Aramayo robbery were anyone but Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Two days after the payroll robbery the bandits were confronted in San Vicente, Bolivia and involved in a shootout. The following morning it was reported that the outlaws were killed in the battle. For some, this ends the saga of Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. For others, this is where the real story begins.

Following his “death” in Bolivia, Cassidy sightings became something of a phenomenon in the United States. Many of the same people who knew Cassidy during his outlaw days reported reunions with the famous outlaw.

Cassidy’s youngest sister, Lula Parker Betenson, reports that after the 1908 Bolivian shootout, her brother made an appearance at the Parker homestead. As detailed in her book, Butch Cassidy, My Brother, Cassidy told the family that Sundance left South America without him before the shootout and that it was Percy Seibert who identified the bodies of the San Vicente shootout victims as Butch and Sundance. Cassidy figured Siebert lied about the identities of the two men to help his old friend go straight. With Butch Cassidy presumed dead, he could go back to being plain old Robert LeRoy Parker.

From South America Cassidy traveled to Mexico where he ran into the Sundance Kid and Etta Place living in Mexico City. After visiting them for a while Cassidy moved on to Europe, spending time in Italy, then traveled to Alaska before settling down in the Pacific Northwest. Betenson says her brother died in 1937 somewhere in the northwest under the alias William Phillips. She makes a point of stating he was not William T. Phillips of Spokane, Washington, the man many feel was Butch Cassidy.

Throughout the 1920’s and 30’s Cassidy sighting popped up everywhere. Some write-off William T. Phillips as a hoax, but one has to admit the similarities between the two men. If Phillips was indeed a hoax, he did he research, fooling old friends and lovers of Cassidy. To date no conclusive evidence has been produced that Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid met their fates in San Vicente.