Did Butch Cassidy Survive Bolivia? The Evidence for His Return - Part 2
The Official Death Story and Its Problems
According to the accepted historical narrative, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were cornered by Bolivian soldiers after robbing a mining company payroll near San Vicente. After a brief shootout that left one soldier dead, the outlaws were trapped in their room. When the firing ceased, both Yankees were found dead, Butch with bullet wounds to his temple and arm, and Sundance shot in the forehead and arm, apparently victims of a murder-suicide pact (Meadows and Buck 1997).
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| Artistic Interpretation of Butch Cassidy in Bolivia | BookBrains Press |
However, this account has significant problems. Despite the thousands of man-hours invested in the study of Butch Cassidy, the outlaw's life remains extremely elusive and disputable (Jameson 2012). The identification of the bodies was never definitively established, and when the supposed graves were exhumed in the early 1990s, DNA tests conducted by Clyde Snow, one of the nation's foremost forensic anthropologists, determined they were not Cassidy and Sundance (Meares 2020).
The Return to Utah: Lula's Account
The most detailed and compelling account of Butch Cassidy's survival comes from his own sister, Lula Parker Betenson. In her 1976 book Butch Cassidy, My Brother, she claimed that her famous brother returned to the family home in Circleville, Utah, in 1925—seventeen years after his supposed death.
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| Cassidy Family Home, Circleville, Utah | BookBrains Press |
According to Lula's account, one day in 1925, Mark Parker—one of Butch's younger brothers—was fixing fence at the ranch when a new black Ford touring car pulled up, and a man got out. At first, Mark thought it was a cousin, Fred Levi, but as the man came near, "his face broke into a characteristic Parker grin." Mark studied the face and suddenly realized it could be but one person—Bob Parker (Betenson 1976).
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| Butch Cassidy, Circa 1900 |
The reunion with their father was equally dramatic. Maximilian Parker, then eighty-one years old, was sitting on the step by the kitchen door when the car pulled up. Bob's face was solemn at first, perhaps wondering how he would be accepted. He took off his hat and twirled it through the screen door, landing it squarely on the post of the rocking chair inside. Then he grinned that unmistakable grin. Butch's father knew him immediately (Betenson 1976).
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| Artistic Interpretation of Butch Cassidy Returning Home | BookBrains Press |
During his visit, Butch expressed his deep sorrow for having caused his mother so much heartache, knowing he had broken her heart. He said the realization of the sorrow and humiliation he had caused the family had kept him from coming home long before, but he had gone straight for the past sixteen years (Betenson 1976).
Local Testimony Supporting the Family Account
The South American Survival Story
Butch explained to his family what had really happened in Bolivia. He said that he and Sundance had planned to meet at a certain time and place to return to the United States, but Butch's leg had become badly swollen from what was possibly a scorpion bite, and he missed the planned meeting. An Indian woman took him into her home and doctored him as if he were her own son, putting poultices on the leg until the swelling finally went down (Betenson 1976).
According to Butch's account to his family, he didn't know what happened to Sundance, but he had heard that Percy Seibert from the Concordia Tin Mines had identified the bodies as those of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He wondered why Seibert did that, then realized this was the only way they could go straight—Seibert knew how sick of the outlaw life Butch was and that he would be hounded as long as he lived (Betenson 1976).
Multiple Sightings Across the West
The Betenson family account is far from the only evidence of Butch Cassidy's survival. Numerous credible witnesses reported encounters with the outlaw throughout the 1920s and 1930s.
Jim Gass's California Sighting
One day, Jim Gass, a neighbor from Circleville, came home from a trip to California and told Lula that he had seen Bob getting on a train in Los Angeles. He and Bob waved to each other, but the train pulled out before they could speak (Betenson 1976). This sighting reportedly occurred around 1908, possibly before the alleged death in Bolivia.
Tom Vernon and the Baggs, Wyoming Encounter
Tom Vernon was a well-known citizen of Baggs, Wyoming, often referred to as "Mayor," although the town was too small to support such an office. According to Vernon, Butch Cassidy returned to Baggs sometime in the twenties and stayed with him for two days (Jameson 2012). Vernon, who knew Cassidy well from the outlaw days, had no doubt about the visitor's identity.
Josephine Bassett Morris
Josephine Bassett Morris, who had been romantically involved with Cassidy during his outlaw days, provided detailed accounts of encounters with him in the 1920s. After operating the Vernon Hotel in Baggs, Wyoming, Josie relocated to Rock Springs, where her children could attend school. Butch and Elzy Lay were both in Rock Springs at the Teton Bar when Bert Kraft, an old friend, told them Josie was in town. Butch said, "I'd really like to see Josie again," and Kraft arranged for them to visit her (Bassett 2010).
When Josie opened the door, she recognized Butch immediately. "He had changed some, and both of them carried too much weight," she recalled. The first thing Butch said was, "Josie, you always did make me chase after you." They spent the better part of the night catching up on old times (Bassett 2010).
During these conversations, Butch revealed significant details about his life after Bolivia. He told Josie he had been married and had several children, had been prospecting in Alaska, and was planning to prospect along the Colorado River near Las Vegas, Nevada. According to Josie's 1960 interview, "Butch died in Johnnie, Nevada, about fifteen years ago" (around 1945). She explained that "He had been living in Oregon, and back East for a long time, where he worked for a railroad. In his last years he lived at Leeds, Utah with his cousins, the McMullens, and my sister knew him there...He died before Ann went there to live" (Bassett 2010).
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| Ann Bassett | Courtesy Denver Public Library |
Fred Hillman's Montana Ranch
Fred Hillman was the boy on the ranch outside of Sheridan, Wyoming, where Butch worked shortly after the Castle Gate robbery. According to Fred Hillman, Butch returned sometime around 1910, after Fred was married. He asked Fred if anyone had thrown a rattlesnake at him lately, and Fred quickly recognized Butch as the only one who knew that story (Betenson 2012).
The Hancock Family Christmas
One of the most touching stories involves a family that helped Cassidy during a blizzard. Butch told his family about how he was almost frozen to death in a December blizzard when his horse led him to the Hancock family's corral. They took him in and nursed him back to health. Knowing they were poor and it was near Christmas, Butch went to town and bought warm clothes for the family, food, and all the makings of a Christmas (Betenson 1976).
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| Robber's Roost, Utah | BookBrains Press |
Dr. Francis Smith's Medical Examination
Perhaps one of the most intriguing accounts comes from noted geologist David Love, who recounted a story told to him by his family doctor. During a summer vacation from his college studies at Yale, Love visited the office of his longtime family doctor, Francis Smith, M.D., in Lander. Doc Smith told Love that one of his recent office visitors had been Robert LeRoy Parker himself. The patient remarked that his face had been altered by a surgeon in Paris, then lifted his shirt, exposing the deep crease of a repaired bullet wound—craftsmanship that Doc Smith recognized precisely as his own (McPhee 1999).
Bruce Chatwin's Research
Travel writer Bruce Chatwin, while researching Butch Cassidy's story in Patagonia, encountered Lula Parker Betenson and documented additional details about her brother's life after Bolivia. According to Chatwin's account, after surviving Bolivia, Butch engaged in various activities including "prospecting with Wyatt Earp in Alaska; touring the West in a Model T Ford; calling on old girlfriends (who remember him as gotten rather fat); or turning up at a Wild West Show in San Francisco" (Chatwin 1988).
This account aligns with other reported sightings, particularly Cowboy Joe's encounter at the San Francisco Wild West Show in 1915. Chatwin noted that Lula "has no doubts: her brother came back and ate blueberry pie with the family at Circleville in the fall of 1925," and confirmed his death from pneumonia in Washington State in the late 1930s, though he also mentioned an alternative version placing his death "in an Eastern city, a retired railroad engineer with two married daughters" (Chatwin 1988).
The William T. Phillips Connection
For many years, researchers believed that a Spokane engineer named William T. Phillips was actually Butch Cassidy living under an assumed name. Phillips seems to have done everything possible to encourage this theory, even writing a book—Bandit Invincible—about Cassidy's exploits. He also died in 1937, though Lula claimed he was not Cassidy (Meares 2020).
However, after 40 years of research, historian Larry Pointer finally solved the Phillips mystery. The breakthrough discoveries came during a concentrated three-year period from 2009 to 2011. In 2009, a Utah antiquarian collector discovered the original, complete typed version of "Bandit Invincible" for sale on the Internet—a manuscript nearly twice as long as the abridged handwritten version researchers had been working with and typed on "W.T. Phillips General Machine Work" stationery (Kershner 2012). Through genealogical research and comparison with prison records, Pointer discovered that William T. Phillips was actually William T. Wilcox, a fellow inmate who had served time with Cassidy in the Wyoming Territorial Prison. Both Wilcox and Cassidy were released within a month of each other in 1895-1896, and both went to the Lander, Wyoming area (De Groote 2011).
The final breakthrough came when Pointer found that Phillips appeared "out of nowhere" with a marriage record in Michigan on May 14, 1908, right after Cassidy's supposed death in Bolivia. Phillips was listed as the son of Celia Mudge, but research revealed that Wilcox's mother was Celia's sister, Flora. When Pointer found a 1896 prison photograph of Wilcox in 2011, it matched perfectly with later photos of Phillips. Pointer vividly recalled the moment: "When that image appeared on my computer, it was a kick in the pit of my stomach. There was no question in my mind that I was looking at an image of William T. Phillips" (Kershner 2012). As Pointer admitted, "After I saw the photographs, I could absolutely no longer be in any denial... William T. Wilcox and William T. Phillips are the same man" (De Groote 2011).
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| William T. Wilcox Mugshot in 1896 |
This revelation explains why many of Cassidy's Wyoming friends were convinced that Phillips was truly Cassidy, because Phillips/Wilcox had intimate knowledge of Cassidy's life from their time together in prison and possibly riding together afterward. Among those who visited Phillips and believed he was Cassidy were Charlie Siringo, Leonard Short, Harry Logue, Orson Grimmett, Hank Boedeker, Eugene Amoretti Jr., and Ed Farlow. Farlow was particularly convinced, saying he knew Phillips was Cassidy because Phillips related an incident that only Cassidy and one other person knew about, and that other person had died (Jameson 2012). However, an old sheepherder named James Regan had long insisted that Phillips was not Cassidy because he had seen both men living in a cabin near his sheep camp (De Groote 2011).
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| William T. Phillips in Wyoming in 1910 |
The complexity of this case reflects the broader challenge of identifying Western outlaws, who frequently used multiple aliases. Robert Leroy Parker was known by various names, including George Parker, Jim Lowe, Jim Maxwell, Lowe Maxwell, Jim Ryan, and George Cassidy (Kershner 2012). Pointer himself acknowledges that questions remain, suggesting the possibility that "Bandit Invincible" might be the story of "two individuals intertwined" and that "these two guys were messing with us from the get-go" (Kershner 2012).
One of the most compelling pieces of evidence for Cassidy's survival was his ability to reference personal details that only he would know. A 1902 letter from Argentina to Matilda Davis, showing Cassidy's distinctive handwriting and intimate knowledge of family and friends, provides a baseline for comparison with later encounters—details that would be impossible for an impostor to replicate (Betenson 2012).
Family Members and Close Associates
Dan Parker's Daughter-in-Law
Dan Parker's daughter-in-law, Elinor, said that Butch visited his brother, Dan, in Milford, Utah, in late 1930 or early 1931. Maximilian and two other brothers were also present. Elinor said she was very excited to meet Butch since she'd heard so much about him. Butch was "really taken by my baby" and cradled her oldest son who was born in September 1930, singing to him a little song she had never heard before (Betenson 2012).
The Law Enforcement Connection
Remarkably, some law enforcement officials seemed to know about Cassidy's survival. Utah State Patrolman Merrill Johnson pulled over an old man near Kanab, Utah, in July 1941 for failing to obey a stop sign. He gave the man a warning ticket. Later, Merrill returned to Kanab to find the same old man at the home of his in-laws, the Kitchens. He was introduced to the old man as Bob Parker—Butch Cassidy (Betenson 2012).
Additional Confirmed Sightings
The evidence for Cassidy's survival extends far beyond family accounts. Will Boedeker wrote that Butch Cassidy visited Dubois and Lander, Wyoming, in 1929. His father, Henry E. Boedeker, had known Cassidy during the late 1880s when Henry was hauling lumber. According to Will, in 1929 when he was running the old Frontier Café in Dubois, Butch Cassidy and two young fellows came to the café and ordered T-bones. Butch talked to him for hours, asking about all the old-timers around Lander (Betenson 1976).
Mrs. Joe Chamberlin of Arapahoe, Wyoming, wrote in a letter dated May 24, 1972, that her husband and father-in-law knew Butch and camped in the mountains with him around 1933. During the trip, she said, Butch supposedly came to look for his cache, which they claimed he had found. When he rode into camp after being out all day, they asked him what luck he had, and he said "Alright" (Betenson 1976).
Clifford McMullin, a cousin to the Parkers, said in 1923 that he ran into Cassidy when he stopped in a boat for ice on the Colorado River. Clifford knew Cassidy from when he had come to hide out at his uncle Brig's house in Leeds, and Cassidy asked Clifford, "How's uncle Brig and aunt Ada?" (Betenson 2012).
Ada Calvert Piper, who knew Butch from the Big Piney, Wyoming area, was convinced he had returned from South America. In a 1963 letter she stated that Harry Alonzo (Longabaugh) had been killed in South America, but "Butch Cassidy was not killed in S.A. He was here in 1930 and I visited with him and he told several of us he escaped" (Betenson 2012).
Otto Schnauffer's grandchildren reported that their grandfather, a Rock Springs butcher from the 1890s, had a visitor in the 1930s. They were asked to go outside and play, which was unusual since they had always been allowed to stay inside when visitors came. The stranger was an older man who seemed to be a good friend of Otto's. Their grandparents later told the children that the stranger was Butch Cassidy and that he had worked with Otto years before (Betenson 2012).
Wallace Ott, an old rancher in Southern Utah, claimed he met Butch Cassidy as a boy in Henrieville, Utah, in April 1936. Cassidy was visiting Ott's neighbor, Elijah "Lige" Moore, and Moore invited Wallace over to meet Cassidy (Betenson 2012).
Joyce Warner, Matt Warner's daughter, claimed that a man visited her in 1939 in Price, Utah, looking for Matt. Unfortunately, Matt had passed away in December 1938. The stranger confided that he was Cassidy and related accounts of his longtime friendship with Matt Warner, including stories about bank robberies that matched exactly what her father had told her (Betenson 2012).
John Taylor, a car dealer in Rock Springs, said, "One day in 1922 Butch Cassidy drove into the shop in a Model T to get some work done on the car. He was pulling a two-wheel trailer loaded with camping gear. He asked me a lot of questions about old-timers around Rock Springs. He didn't tell me who he was, but I recognized him" (Jameson 2012).
Tom Welch, an associate of Butch and his friends, was asked in 1959 if Cassidy had died in South America. Welch responded, "Well, if he did, then I met and shook hands with a dead man in Lander in 1930!" In another interview, Welch said, "If Butch Cassidy was killed in South America... I had a couple of drinks of whisky with a mighty lively ghost" (Betenson 2012).
Cowboy Joe (Joseph Claude Marsters) saw Butch at the Wild West Show in San Francisco in 1915. Joe had just made a spectacular ride on a bucking steer while shooting his six-shooter loaded with blank cartridges into the air. A "dressed up cowhand" jumped over the fence and into the arena and complimented him on his ride, saying his old boss thought he had improved his riding since he had last seen him. Looking up in the direction the cowboy was pointing, Joe saw Butch in the audience with "that big bright smile he often displayed" (Betenson 1976).
Multiple Family Confirmations
According to Bill Betenson, his family knew exactly where Cassidy was buried after his alleged real death in 1937: "My great-grandmother, Butch's little sister Lula, was very clear. She said that where he was buried, and under what name, was a family secret; that he was chased all his life and now he had a chance to finally rest in peace – and that's the way it must be" (Betenson 2012).
The 1937 Death and Secret Burial
Multiple sources point to Butch Cassidy's actual death occurring in 1937. Lula said, "Robert LeRoy Parker died in the Northwest in the fall of 1937, a year before Dad died. He was not the man known as William Phillips, reported to be Butch Cassidy" (Betenson 1976).
One day that year, Maximilian Parker received a letter from a man named Jeff who informed him that his son, Robert LeRoy Parker, alias Butch Cassidy, had died of pneumonia. Jeff informed the family that he had made arrangements for the burial. The location of the gravesite remains a Parker family secret to this day (Betenson 1976).
Recent investigations have suggested a possible burial location. On an episode of Mission Declassified (2019), investigative journalist Christof Putzel met with local researcher Marilyn Grace at Cassidy's childhood log cabin on the Parker ranch in Circleville to talk about the alleged burial of Cassidy there on July 20, 1937. Grace explains that Cassidy was secretly buried at Tom's Cabin, a former sheepherders' log cabin located in a remote area of the property (Mission Declassified 2019).
Grace says an eyewitness, neighbor Dee Crosby, saw the burial take place at the cabin. Earlier, Putzel spoke to Alta Orton, another Parker neighbor, who described the family as having been dressed in funeral-like attire on that same day. Cadaver dogs had been brought to the cabin and led to a positive indication. The underside of the cabin was later dug, and two bones were discovered, identified as a human spinal bone and a toe bone (Mission Declassified 2019). However, DNA testing was inconclusive due to the age and condition of the remains.
Why the Family Kept the Secret
The Parker family had compelling reasons to maintain secrecy about Butch's survival and return. As Lula explained, "If I were to reveal his burial place, someone would be sure to disturb it under some pretext, and my brother is entitled to rest in peace" (Betenson 1976).
Bill Betenson maintains Lula was telling the truth, but that several members of the family did not want her to write the book because of a promise made to Maximilian Parker (Betenson 2012). The family agreement was to never reveal what actually happened.
The Weight of Evidence
When examined collectively, the evidence for Butch Cassidy's survival is substantial. We have:
- Detailed family accounts from his sister, who lived with the secret for decades
- Multiple credible witnesses who knew Cassidy personally
- Law enforcement officials who encountered him years after his supposed death
- Medical professionals who treated wounds they had previously treated
- The failure of DNA tests to confirm that the Bolivian bodies were actually Cassidy and Sundance
- A logical explanation for how the death reports originated
As researcher W.C. Jameson notes, "Given all of the hypotheses relative to the so-called death and return of Butch Cassidy, Occam's Razor supports the decision to reject Cassidy's death in South America and accept his return to the United States" (Jameson 2012).
The legend of Butch Cassidy's survival may be more than just legend. The accumulated testimony of family members, friends, and acquaintances paints a compelling picture of a man who successfully faked his own death, lived quietly for nearly three decades after his supposed demise, and took his final secret to a hidden grave somewhere in the American West.
Whether Butch Cassidy died in a hail of bullets in Bolivia in 1908 or peacefully of pneumonia in the American Northwest in 1937, his story continues to captivate us more than a century later. Perhaps that's exactly how the "Robin Hood of the West" would have wanted it.
💬 Join the Conversation
What do you think happened to Butch Cassidy? Do you believe the compelling family testimony and multiple witness accounts of his survival and return, or do you think he died in Bolivia in 1908 as officially reported?
If Butch Cassidy did survive and return to the United States, why do you think so many credible people kept his secret for so long? What does this say about the loyalty he inspired among friends and family?
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📚 For Further Reading
Barton, John D. "Cassidy, Butch." In Utah History Encyclopedia. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994. https://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/c/CASSIDY_BUTCH.shtml.
Bassett, Josie. "A Personal Interview with Josie Bassett." Interview by Kerry Ross Boren. Transcript, August 19, 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20100819052014/http://www.prospector-utah.com/bassett.htm.
Benson, Lee. "About Utah: Little Left of Butch's Life in Circleville." Deseret News, July 24, 2006. https://www.deseret.com/2006/7/24/19965117/about-utah-little-left-of-butch-s-life-in-circleville/.
Betenson, Lula Parker. Butch Cassidy, My Brother. New York: Penguin Books, 1976.
Betenson, W. J. Butch Cassidy, My Uncle: A Family Portrait. Glendo, WY: High Plains Press, 2012.
"Butch Cassidy's Buried Secrets." TV Broadcast. Mission Declassified. Travel Channel, May 19, 2019.
Chatwin, Bruce. In Patagonia. New York: Penguin Books, 1988.
De Groote, Michael. "Butch Cassidy Imposter Exposed." Deseret News, August 17, 2011, sec. Utah. https://www.deseret.com/2011/8/17/20209992/butch-cassidy-imposter-exposed/.
Jameson, W. C. Butch Cassidy: Beyond the Grave. Lanham, MD: Taylor Trade Publishing ; [S.l.] : Distributed by National Book Network, 2012.
Kershner, Jim. "Man Who Wrote Butch Cassidy Died in Spokane Changes Story." The Spokesman-Review, July 22, 2012. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2012/jul/22/an-about-face/.
McPhee, John Angus. Annals of the Former World. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999.
Meadows, Anne, and Daniel Buck. "The Last Days of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." Wild West, February 1997.
Meares, Hadley. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: The True Story of the Famous Outlaws." Biography, September 8, 2020. https://www.biography.com/crime/butch-cassidy-sundance-kid-real-story.
Phillips, William T. The Bandit Invincible: The Story of the Outlaw Butch Cassidy. Rocky Mountain House Press, 1986. https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=317793.
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