Originally on APBOnline:

MEDIA PATROL: DEEP COVER

Butch and Sundance Died in Bolivia

Jan. 11, 1999

By Daniel Buck & Anne Meadows

Until recently, the Bolivian shootout in which Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid died had not been documented, which helped fuel rumors that one or both had returned to the United States. But the discovery of 90-year-old judicial records and diplomatic correspondence, which substantiate statements from individuals in Bolivia who knew the outlaws, has established that Butch and Sundance died in a shootout in San Vicente, Bolivia, on Nov. 6, 1908, two days after holding up a mine payroll.

According to eyewitnesses, the bandits' physical descriptions fit Butch and Sundance, they used aliases the pair are known to have used, and both died in the shootout. Neither bandit escaped. Their former neighbors in Argentina and friends and relatives in the United States stopped receiving letters from them and heard that they had been killed. Mail sent to Sundance's last known address in Bolivia was never picked up. A court action was instituted in Chile to declare him dead and settle his estate.

As for their alleged return to the United States, no authentic photographs, documents, or other concrete evidence of Butch and Sundance's existence after 1908 has ever come to light. The claims that the bandits came back rely on anecdotal, third-hand, and contradictory information.

Most supposed sightings of Butch Cassidy can be traced to William T. Phillips, a Spokane man who posed as the famous bandit. Sixty years after Butch's death, his sister Lula contended that he had visited her in 1925, but she refused to offer any evidence to substantiate the story, which was disputed by other members of her family, including her son. Butch's father said he never returned.

In short, the weight of the evidence supports the case that Butch and Sundance died in Bolivia.