Today’s the day in 1881 that Pat Garrett gunned down Billy the Kid … or did he?

Every year when July 14 rolls around, we think less and less of Bastille Day and more and more about Billy the Kid‘s (alleged) death in Fort Sumner.

It has been a while since we’ve heard anything about former Lincoln County Sheriff Tom Sullivan and ex-lawman and former Capitan Mayor Steven Sederwall and their investigation into the true history of New Mexico’s legendary juvenile delinquent.

Three years ago next month, Sullivan and Sederwall resigned their commissions as Lincoln County lawmen to pursue their investigation into whether Billy the Kid (a/k/a William H. Bonney Jr., a/k/a Henry McCarty, a/k/a ????) was really buried at Fort Sumner or whether he lived on and assumed another identity, according to an item we did at the time.

“We will still continue our investigation,” the lawmen said in a memorandum at the time. “Later, we will make the decision if and when we will release the information.”

We’re still waiting.

The investigation generated so much controversy from the time it began around 2003 that Gov. Bill Richardson waded in by pledging the state’s resources in determining whether it was really Billy the Kid in “Billy the Kid’s Grave” (surrounded by an iron fence in Fort Sumner, to prevent any further thefts of the tombstone), we reported a while ago.

Richardson even promised forensic help from the State Police and the state’s two national laboratories to get to the bottom of what had become a mystery — even promising to issue a full pardon for the Kid if the investigation determined that he didn’t really kill then-Lincoln County Sheriff William Brady during his famous Lincoln County jail escape.

Ah, those were the days!