Henry McCarty (September 17, 1859 – July 14, 1881), better known under the pseudonyms of Billy the Kid and William H. Bonney, was a 19th-century gunman who participated in the Lincoln County War and became a frontier outlaw in the American Old West. According to legend, he killed twenty-one men, but it is now generally believed that he killed eight, with the first on August 17, 1877.McCarty was 5 ft 8 in (173 cm) tall with blue eyes, blonde or dirty blonde hair, and a smooth complexion.