Newly Discovered Photos That Might Show Billy the Kid as a Child Set for Auction

Two newly discovered photographs that are said to depict the infamous Western gunslinger Billy the Kid as a child are up for auction.

Only one authenticated and universally accepted photograph of Billy the Kid exists. The portrait, attributed to photographer Ben Wittick, shows the outlaw holding an 1873 Winchester rifle and was purchased at auction by businessman William Koch for $2.3 million, the highest price ever paid for a historic image of the American West.

According to a report by NBC Philadelphia 10, two newly discovered images, purported to show Billy the Kid, suggest he may have lived in Philadelphia during his childhood. The photographs are scheduled to be sold by Fox Auctions on April 25, 2026, in South Jersey.

Lee M. Fox, owner of Fox Auctions, tells NBC Philadelphia 10 that records indicate Billy’s mother Catherine McCarty lived in Philadelphia between 1863 and 1867. One of the newly discovered images was also taken in the city, suggesting Billy may have lived there with her during that period.

Fox says one of the photographs includes information on the back indicating it was taken at “WM. W. Seeler’s Photo-Miniature and Photograph Gallery” at 8th and Spring Garden Streets in Philadelphia. The second image is described as a tintype of McCarty as a teenager, with “Billy” written on the back.

“This is a historical discovery that fills in crucial missing western provenance and has great potential to be the new most valuable historic imagery of the American West,” Fox says.

Cowboy State Daily reports that the photographs come from the private collection of South Jersey couple Beth and Tom Ronketty. The images had been in Beth’s family for more than a century, but she did not mention them to her husband until the two were watching Jeopardy! together in January 2016, when Billy the Kid was referenced in a clue.

“I asked her why in the world would you know about Billy the Kid?” Tom says. “Beth told me that when she was a kid, her dad always said that they were related to him, but his family wasn’t proud of the relationship.”

Beth later produced a scrapbook containing two childhood photographs that she believed showed the outlaw. After further research, Tom concluded that his wife was not related to Billy the Kid, but that the outlaw and his mother may have been close to her family. He says the photographs could provide new insight into Billy the Kid’s early life.

A 19th-century Philadelphia directory shows that Catherine McCarty lived in the city between 1863 and 1867, when Billy the Kid would have been between four and eight years old. The photography studio named in one image was located near her address. The type of photograph, known as a Potter’s Patent, was only produced for a limited period, which aligns with the timeline of the family’s time in Philadelphia. After exhausting their own research, the couple decided to sell the photographs in the hope that a buyer could further investigate and potentially verify their authenticity.

The Debate Over Photos of Billy the Kid

Many photographs claiming to show Billy the Kid have surfaced over the years, but most remain disputed. A separate tintype showing a figure believed to be Billy playing croquet with members of the Regulators is widely considered genuine, though it has also been debated. Outlaw and old West historian Michael Bell tells Cowboy State Daily that the challenge lies in the fact that experts cannot authenticate photographs of Billy the Kid. Only robust evidence can prove a photograph of Billy the Kid is the real deal.

Even with modern technology, Bell says facial recognition analysis of 19th-century photographs is highly unreliable. He adds that even when a person in a photograph closely resembles a well-known historical figure, without documented provenance, the identification cannot rise above speculation and wishful thinking.

“In the absence of such robust evidence such photographs remain nothing more than wish-pics,” Bell tells Cowboy State Daily. “Most look little like the character the owner hopes it is.”

He says the strongest possible case would require a clear, continuous provenance tracing a photograph’s ownership from its creation to the present day.

“Constant ownership by a family of a photograph does not prove that it portrays a particular individual,” Bell tells the news outlet. “The provenance must also document the creation of the image, documentation that proves explicitly that the subject in the picture is the person the current owner wants it to be.”

Billy the Kid remains one of the most well-known figures of the American West. Born in New York, he became an outlaw and was long rumored to have killed 21 men before being shot and killed by Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett in 1881 at the age of 21. Some historians estimate the number of people he killed was closer to nine.

The auction can be found here.