U.S. & World History – William H. Bonney better known as Billy the Kid, was a famous 19th-century American gunman. According to legend he killed 21 men, and his first victim died at his hands when Billy the Kid was just 17, and could have been as young as 15. Newspaper clippings from his hometown along with some of his family’s records, show that when he was a very young child he was destined to be a criminal. The documentation jointly reflected that when he was only five years old, he shot at his younger brother for wetting his bed, he was charged with aggravated assault for beating a classmate in kindergarten with a box of Legos, and he was also arrested several times for tricycle-jacking.