- Cassidy, Butch
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orig. Robert Leroy Parkerdied 1909?, Concordia Tin Mines, near San Vicente, Bol.?U.S. outlaw.Taking his name from an older outlaw mentor, Cassidy was a cattle rustler and a robber from the mid-1880s. In 1900 he became the criminal partner of Harry Longabaugh, the "Sundance Kid" (1870–1909?), whose nickname derived from a town where he had once been imprisoned. They became the foremost members of the Wild Bunch, a group of bank and train robbers. The two eluded Pinkerton detectives by escaping to South America in 1901. They bought a ranch in Argentina but returned to a life of outlawry in 1906. In 1909, trapped by soldiers in Bolivia, Sundance was mortally wounded, and Cassidy shot himself. The time, place, and circumstances of their deaths vary widely in different accounts.
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▪ American outlawbyname of Robert LeRoy Parkerborn April 13, 1866, Beaver, Utah, U.S.died 1909?, Concordia Tin Mines, near San Vicente, Bolivia?American outlaw and foremost member of the Wild Bunch (q.v.), a collection of bank and train robbers who ranged through the western United States in the 1880s and '90s.Robert Parker took his alias from Mike Cassidy, an older outlaw from whom he learned cattle rustling and gunslinging (1884–87). Thereafter—except for two years of chiefly cowboying (1891–92) and two years (1894–96) in Wyoming State Prison—he was teamed up with a succession of outlaws. His favourite friend and confederate was Elzy Lay (Lay, Elzy), with whom, alone or in a gang, he helped rob a number of trains, banks, and paymasters and rustled horses and, less often, cattle. The year after Elzy was arrested and imprisoned (1899), Cassidy teamed up with Harry Longabaugh, the Sundance Kid. By then, sheriff posses and Pinkerton detectives were capturing or closing in on members of the Wild Bunch, and Cassidy and Sundance (with Sundance's girlfriend, Etta Place) escaped first to New York City and then to South America (1901). (Etta Place returned home in 1907.) From 1902 to 1906 they owned and ran a ranch in Chubut province, Argentina, but thereafter they returned to outlawry. Drifting from country to country, they robbed banks, trains, and mine stations until 1909, when, according to Pinkerton agents, they were trapped by a group of mounted soldiers near San Vicente, Bolivia, where Sundance was mortally shot and Cassidy shot himself. Another story puts their death in Mercedes, Uruguay, in December 1911, cut down by soldiers during a bank robbery. Still other stories have Cassidy (either alone or with Sundance) returning to the United States, drifting about from Mexico to Alaska, and dying in obscurity in 1937 in the Northwest or in Nevada (possibly Spokane, Wash., or Johnny, Nev.).* * *
Universalium. 2010.
