Patrick Floyd Jarvis Garrett (June 5, 1850 – February 29, 1908) was an American Old West lawman, bartender and customs agent known for killing Billy the Kid.

[4][5] When Garrett arrived at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, he found work as a bartender, then as a cowboy for Pedro Menard "Pete" Maxwell.

[citation needed] As guests watched Garrett and his wife dancing at a celebration of their recent wedding, she collapsed, dying the next day.

[1]: 40–41 [10] Between 1881 and 1905 Apolinaria Garrett gave birth to eight children: Ida, Dudley, Elizabeth, Annie, Patrick, Pauline, Oscar, and Jarvis.

They expected to find the Kid there, but only succeeded in capturing John Joshua Webb, who had been charged with murder, along with an accused horse thief named George Davis.

[12][13] Garrett turned Webb and Davis over to the sheriff of San Miguel County a few days later, and moved on to the settlement of Puerto de Luna.

[18][19] On April 15, 1881, Billy the Kid was sentenced to hang by Judge Warren Bristol, but escaped thirteen days later, killing two deputies.

The Kid was asleep in another part of the house, but woke up in the middle of the night and entered Maxwell's bedroom, where Garrett was standing in the shadows.

[23] He coauthored The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid with Ash Upson,[24] and for decades his book was deemed authoritative.

[25] Following Billy the Kid's death, writers quickly went to work producing books and articles that made a folk hero out of him, while making Garrett seem like an assassin.

Although filled with many errors of fact, The Authentic Life served afterward as the main source for most books written about the Kid until the 1960s.

[29] Twentieth-century editions of Garrett's Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid (with alterations to the original title) appeared in 1927,[30] 1946[31] and 1964.

[34] Garrett discovered a large reservoir of artesian water in the Roswell region and went into partnership with two men to organize the "Pecos Valley Irrigation and Investment Company" on July 18, 1885.

[citation needed] By 1892, Garrett had moved his large family to Uvalde, Texas, where he became a close friend of John Nance Garner (1868–1967), a future vice president of the United States.

On January 31, 1896, Colonel Albert Jennings Fountain and his eight-year-old son Henry disappeared at the edge of the White Sands area of southern New Mexico.

[39][40] During the early morning hours of July 12, 1898 Garrett and his posse confronted Oliver M. Lee and James Gililland at a spot called "Wildy Well" near Orogrande, New Mexico.

Garrett had hoped to capture the fugitives while they were sleeping, but Lee and Gililland expected trouble and took their bedrolls up to the roof of the bunkhouse to avoid being taken by surprise.

One of Garrett's deputies named Kearney heard footsteps on the roof, scaled a ladder, and was mortally wounded by the fugitives.

Due to his concern for his dying deputy, Garrett arranged a truce with the fugitives and withdrew while Kearney was lifted into a wagon.

Kearney, however, died on the road to Las Cruces, and Lee and Gililland remained at large for another eight months, before they finally surrendered to Sheriff George Curry.

[42][43] Garrett killed his last offender in 1899, a fugitive named Norman Newman, who was wanted for murder in Greer County, Oklahoma.

The lawmen and Jose Espalin, one of Garrett's deputies, rode to the ranch, and on October 7, 1899, Newman was killed in a gunfight.

As a show of his support, Roosevelt invited Garrett to attend a Rough Riders reunion being held in San Antonio during April 1905.

His ranch had been heavily mortgaged, and when he was unable to make payments, the county auctioned off all of Garrett's personal possessions to satisfy judgments against him.

Since Curry's inauguration was still months away, the destitute Garrett left his family in New Mexico and returned to El Paso, where he found employment with the real estate firm of H.M.

[55] Dudley Poe Garrett, Pat's son, had signed a five-year lease for his Bear Canyon Ranch with Jesse Wayne Brazel.

Miller met with Brazel, who agreed to cancel his lease with Garrett – provided a buyer could be found for his herd of 1,200 goats.

[67] The site of Garrett's death is now commemorated by a historical marker south of U.S. Route 70, between Las Cruces, New Mexico and the San Augustin Pass.

In 1940 his son, Jarvis Garrett, marked the spot with a monument consisting of concrete laid around a stone with a cross carved in it.