Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Prosecutors won't seek charges for exhumation in Billy the Kid case

PRESCOTT, Ariz - Prosecutors won't seek charges against two men who exhumed the remains of a man who claimed to be the celebrated outlaw Billy the Kid.

Tom Sullivan, former sheriff of Lincoln County, N.M., and Steve Sederwall, former mayor of Capitan, N.M., dug up the bones of John Miller in May 2005. Miller was buried at the state-owned Pioneers' Home Cemetery in Prescott nearly 70 years ago.

"It appears officials in charge of the facility gave permission and the people who were attempting to recover samples of the remains believed they had permission to do so," said Bill FitzGerald, a spokesman for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, which made the decision not to seek charges.

Sullivan and Sederwall obtained DNA from Miller's remains. The samples were sent to a Dallas lab to compare Miller's DNA to blood traces taken from a bench that is believed to be the one Kid's body was placed on after he was shot to death in 1881.

Sullivan and Sederwall have been hunting for the Kid's bones since 2003.

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