Digging up Butch and Sundance

by Anne Meadows

Lawyer-turned-writer Anne Meadows and her husband, Dan Buck, set out to solve the mystery of what really happened to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. With the tenacity of Pinkerton agents, the couple tracks the outlaws and the enigmatic Etta Place through South America, where they fled in 1901. Meadows and Buck rove Argentinian pampas, Chilean deserts, and Bolivian sierras; pore over faded newspapers and musty documents; exhume skeletons with the aid of forensic anthropologist Clyde Snow; unearth eyewitness accounts of Butch and Sundance’s final holdup and the Bolivian shootout; and examine letters by the bandits and interviews by the Argentine police who investigated their activities. Information about William T. Phillips, who claimed to be Butch Cassidy, is also included.

 

While filling in the blanks in the Wild Bunch saga, Meadows explores the nature of truth and discovers how myths are made. She updates the search with a new afterword to this edition.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, True Crime, Westerns

412 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1994

Reviews

[Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun book for anyone who has been intrigued by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Etta Place. The author and her husband undertake a serious and most-thorough search for all things/anything related to the famed banditos. Their travels in South America are both adventure and great travelogue. Ms Meadows leaves her work open because there still is a host of unanswered question attending her subject. She has invited inquiry. At one point the search for the Bolivian grave of Butch and Sundance centers on San Vincente. I called attention to a local (U.S.) custom; a non-Catholic may not be buried in a Catholic cemetery, save by special dispensation. Meadows replied (in part), "Thanks for the email. That thought has cross our mind, that perhaps the locals dumped them in a shallow grave on the pampas, outside the cemetery walls. But, what evidence there is indicates that they were interred inside the cemetery…" This is a fine work.

[Dan Flood · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was OK. You have to read less as a book about Butch and Sundance and a book about the author and her travels.
I feel like it didn’t really clarify anything. In the movie, they are shown dying in Bolivia after someone IDs a stolen donkey. The book uncovers that they died in Bolivia after someone IDs a stolen donkey. And it’s not really proven. Just evidence that points to that conclusion. I guess I was hoping for more.

[Rod McFain · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a disappointing read. Page after page of the most boring details about the author’s research trip. It should have been titled “How I Spent My Summer Vacation.” I’d hate to be stuck in a long car ride with the author and her husband.

[Donald · Rating 5 out of 5]

The original information on Butch and The Sundance Kid in South America.

But, they didn't die in Bolivia.

[Gail Siqueiros · Rating 1 out of 5]

This author used too much filler to tell a story that could have been told in under 200 pages.

[SoulGlobe · Rating 4 out of 5]

　　挖掘布屈、日舞與埃塔在南美的旅途與過往，是非常吸睛的題材！加之旅遊的心得與感想，著實讓人沉浸在一同踏上考據之路的情緒裡。可惜的是如此穿插時間軸，顯得在閱讀上有些紊亂，只要一分神便會不曉得自己在哪個時空裡，實為唯一比較可惜之處。除此之外，非常敬佩作者與其丈夫，對於犯罪者們深沉的愛意。

[Sheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first heard about the effort to find the bodies of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid by the author and her husband on PBS's Nova. When I spotted the book in the catalogue, I immediately bought it.

***Spoiler***

The recent news about a grave in Duchesne, Utah being exhumed and the body being DNA tested to determine if he was actually the Sundance kid reminded me of this book. Stand by for the results of the DNA test.

[Shane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story about Butch and Sundance in South America. This is the story we do not know.