A scientist who helped identify the body of Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele says he may have found the remains of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in Bolivia, where legend has it the two died in a shootout.
Forensic anthropologist Clyde Snow said in a recent interview he is "guardedly optimistic" that the bones uncovered in a cemetery in the Andean village of San Vicente last month are those of the American outlaws.A San Vicente man who said his father told him Cassidy and Sundance were buried there 83 years ago directed Snow to the single grave containing both sets of remains. Bodies are buried on top of one another in the cemetery.
Snow said he will use computer imaging to try to produce pictures of two humans from the remains. He may also conduct DNA tests to see if there are any genetic similarities between the remains and descendants of the two men.
Snow said evidence suggests Cassidy shot Sundance in the head, then killed himself while under attack by Bolivian soldiers. Skulls from both bodies contain bullet holes.
"It sounds to me like they may have been wounded, and Butch Cassidy shot Sundance Kid and shot himself."
Newspaper accounts and a U.S. investigation indicate Cassidy and Sundance - on the lam for a string of bank and train robberies - were killed in November 1908 in a gunfight with soldiers who tracked them to San Vicente.
But sightings of them in following years came from all around the world.
Last month Snow unearthed a skeleton that he said is about the same height - 5-foot-11 - as the Sundance Kid. He also unearthed a skull and some bones he believes were Cassidy's.