FRONT PAGE - Back to RETIRED PAGES INDEX

In his forty years as a freelance writer and newspaper reporter, Bill Kelly had interviewed and written about hundreds of names familiar to us: Mickey Rooney, Rory Calhoun, Sylvester Stallone, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Broderick Crawford, Henry Fonda, Victor Mature, Ginger Rogers, Ida Lupino, John Wayne, Aldo Ray, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Leonard, Muhammad Ali, and Henry Armstrong are among many.

Bill has authored an astounding 15,000 magazine articles -- a phenomenal feat for any writer. He had appeared in Poker Digest, Card Player, Real West, True West, Treasure Search, Treasure Cache, Lost Treasure, South Bay, Country Review, True Detective, Inside Detective, California Highway Patrolman, Oklahoma State Trooper, Texas Highway Patrol, Inland Empire, Reader’s Digest, Poker World, Ring Magazine, Boxing Illustrated, K.O., and Variety.

His freelance work has appeared in too many California newspapers to list here, but they include, Herald Examiner, Orange County Register and Press-Enterprise.

His critically-acclaimed Collector’s Edition of Bill Kelly’s Encyclopedia of Gunmen is a reference book treasured by historians and Western buffs alike. Bill’s second book, Treasure Trails and Buried Bandit Booty, is a collection of true accounts of buried outlaw swag, and contains clues to reportedly hidden loot throughout the United States.

Bill recently appeared on the History channel as an old west historian in High Rollers: The History of Gambling.

His latest book is Gamblers of the Old West ($24.95). An autograph copy can be purchased by contacting Bill by e-mail: wildbill@cosmoaccess.net or by snail mail: 29759 Longhorn Dr. Canyon Lake, Ca. 92804.

Bill Was born in Tom’s River, New Jersey, on May 5, 1927. He now resides in Canyon Lake, California, where he spends most of his waking hours writing tons of articles to be enjoyed by thousands of readers.

His book, EMPTY SADDLES, is a nostalgic tribute to the sagebrush sagas of the 1940s and 50s, and contains Bill’s interviews with fifty Cowboy stars that made cinema history. No release date has been set for this book at this writing

Original article ©copyright, 2000 Bill Kelly

Layout and design ©copyright, 2000 The GameMaster Online, Inc.

"I'm a killer," he said. "I am a murderer. But let no man say I ever cheated at poker."

BLOODY BILL LONGLEY: FRIENDLESS KILLER AND GAMBLER

Among the early arrivals to Austin County, Texas were uneducated and underprivileged desperados and gamblers. Gamblers like Doc Holiday, Bat Masterson, Ben Thompson and Wild Bill Hickok were legends in their own time, their exploits traded over campfires and in bunkhouses -- their ability to support themselves mostly by gambling -- and only occasionally by other means.

The Longleys were made of different cloth. A family of the soil, they had supported President Lincoln and were the only Unionist family within six hundred miles. Accordingly, they were treated like the girl from Florida that nobody would Tampa with.

William Preston "Bloody Bill" Longley was the sixth born into a family as moral as the biblical Joseph. He was born on a lonely settlement in Mill Creek, Austin County, Texas on October 6, 1851. His father was Campbell Longley, a Texan who had shown valor and courage at San Jacinto. His mother, Sarah Ann Henry, was a descendant of Patrick Henry, the statesman. Bill was two years old when the family moved to Evergreen in Lee County, Texas. He was 14 when the Civil War ended. Even by the standards of the times, Texas was a chaotic nightmare; Wrath slaying hordes of venomous carpetbaggers and Mexican desperados invaded Texas and vandalism and viciousness was strewn like confetti at an Italian wedding.

Obviously, a man who couldn't handle a six-gun had about as much chance as a bosomy blonde in a lumber camp. Bill worked for neighbors to earn money for bullets and spent hours learning how to shoot straight, swift and true at an age when the average boy was still hunting quail with a slingshot.

At age 15, Bill Longley was already six feet tall and scaled 200 pounds. He could ride a horse better than most and could handle a six-shooter like no one else in Austin County. His kid-brother Jim aspired to some degree of proficiency. Unlike Bill, he never hurt a soul.

With not much else to do after a hard-day's work, young Bill and his brothers played cards. In time, Bill would become famous as an honest but pitless gambler who prided himself on being "square." He only killed those who sought vengeance after losing their money or possessions to him. Most of his victims died in face-to-face confrontations, although Bill was not beyond back-shooting, an unpopular crime of that era.

Raised in a climate of hate, fear, oppression and degeneration, Bill quickly matured, and since poker was in his blood, he frequented saloons while in his teens. A large boy for his age, he sat in on poker games with miners, soldiers, lumberjacks, and cattlemen. But his volcanic temper inevitably got him into trouble. He was too quick to draw and shoot. Eventually, his fellow poker players gave him a wide birth. Especially if he had been drinking heavily.

He got into an argument on weather a straight beat a flush, and since Bill could draw faster than his opponent, it became unarguable. He scooped up the pot and then some. He left town in a hurry. He was in serious trouble now. Angry citizens with ropes were systematically hunting the countryside for him. He hopped a Texas & Houston freight train. When it slowed down in Houston he leaped off and disappeared into the brush. Houston was a brutal and unrewarding experience for Bill Longley. This is where he experienced his first brush with violence.

On a rainy, wind-swept night in 1866, Bill was stopped by a beefy black man in a blue uniform of a Union Calvary sergeant. He demanded to know where Bill was going. "None of your damn business," Bill said. The sergeant pulled his gun. Bill got off the first shot. The sergeant, bleeding profusely, fell to the ground. He was dead before breakfast.

The Union soldier had been felled by Bill's favorite pistol, a Dance six-shooter, a gun made famous by the Confederacy during the war between the states. Bill swiped a horse and galloped across the flats before the sheriff could organize a posse.

He stopped off at a saloon and joined a poker game. A man named Tom Johnson was shooting dice with the bartender. Over drinks, later in the evening, Bill confided that he was on the dodge and needed a play to stay until the heat died down. Johnson gave him refuge.

Bill and Johnson were playing two-handed poker in Johnson's cabin when suddenly they heard the shuffle of soft boots outside the door. In lickety-cut, a group of angry men barged through the door. They weren't looking for Longley, but for Johnson whom they intended to string up for rustling cattle. Since Longley was with him, the posse figured he must be a rustler too. So they hauled both men off and strung them to the nearest cottonwood.

The posse hoisted the two men up and left them swinging in the breeze. As they rode off they fired an exultant volley of shots. One of the slugs pierced the rope that was strangling young Longley. His face blue, he fell to the ground coughing. Miraculously, he lived to satisfy his yen to be a poker legend.

Longley next appeared in Lee County where he landed a job as a cow poke. Two days later, Longley and some of the boys were playing poker in the bunk house. One of the cow hands accused Bill of cheating. Guns were drawn. The cow hand lay dead. Bill jumped on his horse and vanished like a dream.

He drifted over to Kansas City, where he signed on with a wagon train to Salt Lake. Eventually he ended up in a poker game with some soldiers. Bill won a sizeable pot with two nine's by out-bluffing a drunken soldier who had three 10s. Heated words were exchanged. Guns were drawn. Blood was spilled - the soldiers. Bill leaped on his horse and galloped for St. Joseph. A hard-riding posse lost him in the hills.

When Bill arrived in St. Joseph, he was greeted by a cavalry troop who arrested him. It seems that a new fanged device called the telegraph had preceded his entry into that town. Arrested for murder, Bill was housed in the Fort Leavenworth prison to await his trial.

Longley's escaped from Leavenworth neared poetry; unheard of in those days. He scaled the wall, pilfered a guard's horse, and galloped to Cheyenne, eluding the posse sent after him.

Cheyenne was an explosive mixture of itchy-footed frontiersmen, prostitutes, gamblers and saloonkeepers. The rowdy, rough-hewn town was irresistible to outlaws on the dodge. There was no shortage of murder and gunplay. Every saloon had one or more gambling tables. Faro, monte and other "games of chance" were commonplace. Some saloons had a back room for the votaries of draw poker.

When Longley got tired of gambling in Cheyenne he lit out for Parkersburg in Kansas, where he sat in on a poker game with Charlie Stuart, the pampered, contemptuous son of Parkersburg's richest citizen. Longley lost everything but his shirt. His keen eyes caught Charlie in the act of slipping an ace from the bottom of the deck. Witnesses who saw Longley shoot and kill Stuart said Charlie drew first. But Charlie's family owned the town. There was little doubt that Longley would be hung. Those who saw him leave town said he was headed in the direction of Texas like his ass was on fire. Old Man Stuart offered $1500 in gold for the capture of his son's killer.

Edmund Davis was the new governor of Texas. "He's worse than the entire Yankee army," Bill's father told him. "He's announced that he's going to hang every killer in Texas who eluded Union troops. You'd better hit the trail, son."

Bill was passing through McLennan when he spotted a tavern frequented by gamblers and prostitutes. Over poker, he became embroiled in an argument with professional gambler and mankiller named George Thomas. "Leave town tonight," Thomas told Longley. "Next time I see you I'll kill you on sight."

Longley got up. walked through the batwings, and returned a few seconds later. "This is the next time," Bill said coolly. When the smoke cleared Thomas was on the floor, blood gushing from a raw hole in his forehead. Longley put a $20 gold piece on the table. "This is for his burial," he said before riding off. Another killing had been added to the Bloody Bill legend.

Bill decided to settle in Frio Canyon in Bandera County. He was tired of running and wanted to settle down. But fate, as cold as a harlot's heart. was against him.

He obtained a cowboy's job under a pseudonym and stayed out of trouble until he sat in on a poker game with Lon Sawyer. Sawyer was a cattle rustler who believed that a steer belonged to the man with the longest rope. He had played poker with Longley before and recognized him as a fugitive with several rewards on his head. Longley knew Sawyer was planning to turn him in.

Longley circumvented Sawyer's plot by riding into Uvalde and telling the sheriff that he knew where the wanted outlaw John Wesley Hardin was hiding. Hardin was a gambler and the most wanted outlaw in the West. The sheriff, unwilling to tackle Hardin alone, deputized Longley and told him, "bring him in, son."

A man of the law now, Longley set out to shoot down Sawyer, wanted for steer thievery, for resisting arrest. But Sawyer was suspicious of Longley's shenanigans and decided to drygulch Longley as he rode the trail back from Uvalde under a canopy of stars.

A shot in the dark dropped Longley's horse, but he would soon remedy matters. The gunfight through the rocks and sage lasted a good hour. When it was over, Sawyer lay dead. He looked like a strainer with twelve bullets in his body. Longley left town faster than a jack rabbit who heard the howl of a wolf.

With a portion of his gambling revenues, he reached Delta County, directly south of the Indian Territory. He stopped at the ranch of Sam Jack who gave him hospitality. He stayed there for nearly a week, working off his food and oats for his horse. One look at Jack's youngest daughter, Louvenia, and Bloody Bill crumbled like an old ruin under responsibility. He wrote love poems and sang songs under the moonlight.

He decided to stick around and marry Louvenia, but to do that he needed money. He called himself Billy Black and went to work for W.R. Lay, a neighbor of the Jacks. He worked vigorously and courted Louvenia. Her family welcomed him with open arms. Bill vowed never to kill another man.

Before Longley came on the scene Louvenia's suitor was a preacher named Lay, who was not without influence in the county. One morning while Longley was escorting Louvenia to church he was confronted by Lay, who ordered him to stay away from "his girl." Longley stuck to his determination not to kill. Instead, he beat the bejabbers out of Lay, and left him unconscious on the church lawn.

As Longley stepped out of the church he was arrested and charged with malicious assault. He broke out of jail, taking the sheriff's shotgun with him. Preacher Lay was in the barn, milking a cow when Longley walked in and blasted him into the eternity he had so often promised his parishioners. And that ended the only true romantic relationship in the troublesome life of Bloody Bill Longley.

The cortege paraded through town with crowds of people weeping in the line of march to the cemetery. Newspapers bemoaned the fact that Preacher Lay was murdered and the county was swarming with vigilantes who wanted to string up his killer on sight. A horse was about the only means of conveyance, and Longley needed to leave the territory. There's an old quip: "One day the first man tamed the first horse; the next day another man stole it."

Longley put a few more notches on his gun before he landed in Louisiana in 1877. He became a farmhand by day and a gambler by night. His poker chums knew him as Bill Jackson. The ranch foreman noticed Jackson never moved without his six-shooters. Even as he plowed the fields he had them strapped to his plow. The foreman whispered his suspicions to Sheriff Milt Mast, who gathered Deputy Bill Burrows and Constable Courtney and rode out to the ranch for a look-see. Immediately, they recognized Longley as the man with a price on his head. They waited until Longley was asleep before they pounced on him and trussed him up like a hog for slaughter. He was returned to Texas under heavy guard to stand trial for the murder of Wilson Anderson, a poker player who had the misfortune of sitting in on a game with Bloody Bill Longley.

Longley was brought to trial on September 3, 1877. The jury found him guilty of first degree murder. A stern judge sentenced him to hang. Longley spent time in the Galveston and Giddings jails while his lawyers made Herculean efforts to save his life.

On October 11th, 1878, his appeals having run their course, Bill Longley, having killed 32 men, repented from the gallows, urging others to avoid a life of crime.

The Galveston Daily News dated Oct. 12, 1878 covered the execution:

"The black cap was drawn, the rope adjusted, the words 'All ready' given and at 2:37 the drop fell. The body fell eight feet, as was intended. The rope slipped on the beam, and the body continued until the feet touched the earth, when Sheriff Brown and an aid caught and raised it up and refastend it, leaving the body properly suspended. Two moans escaped the lips, the arms and feet were raised three times, and after hanging eleven and one half minutes life was pronounced extinct..."

Just before they sprung the trap, Bill indicated that he had something to say. The sheriff told him to make it quick. Bill's parting words were: "I am a killer. I am a murderer. But let no man say I ever cheated at poker."

In June, 1998. after searching for Longley's body for six years, scientific sleuths Doug Owsley, Dr. Brooks Ellwood, and Suzanne Ellwood finally found the skeltionized remains that had been lost for 120 years. The stone that had marked his grave in the Giddings Cemetery in Lee County, west of Giddings Texas on the south side of U.S. 290, had been moved quite frequently. The undeterred scientists dug up dozens of unmarked graves before finding Bloody Bill.

Make no bones about it, the decayed corpse was Bill -- over 6 feet tall, thin as a whisper, he had on high-heeled boots. He was formally dressed, with studs in his shirt. He wore an artificial flower in his lapel and carried a Catholic medal of some sort.