I'm not writing this column to criticize The New York Times. I'm doing it for journalism.
On the very day The Times' two top editors resigned over the Jayson Blair scandal, I found yet another egregious error in a front-page article about Billy the Kid.
The article, published June 5, examines whether legendary sheriff Pat Garrett really shot Billy the Kid. In an otherwise riveting article, reporter Michael Janofsky published the blatantly false statement that the Kid has no known living relatives.
I couldn't believe that The Times somehow missed my Oct. 24, 1997, column in the Dayton Daily News — the one that definitively established my family's connection with the outlaw.
Billy the Kid started life as one Henry McCarty, with roots — according to one tantalizing rumor — in the same Indiana town as my relatives.
I have proof far more decisive than any DNA test: Folks in Anderson, Ind., think it's so.
Some years back, researchers contacted courthouse officials in Anderson, Ind., following a lead on the Kid's father, whose identity has never been established.
Nobody in Anderson had any doubt they had come to the right place. Townfolk lorded it over my relatives: "Now, at last, we understand the deportment of all you McCartys."
My great-great-grandfather, Patrick Henry McCarty, settled in Anderson after emigrating from Ireland in the mid-1840s. The only known tintype of the Kid bears a striking resemblance to my McCarty male ancestors: The same jutting chin, the same Dumbo ears.
The identity of the Kid's mother is even in doubt. That's part of the battle being waged today about the outlaw's legacy. The official history goes like this: On July 13, 1881, Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett surprises the Kid at a ranch in Fort Sumner, N.M., and shoots him in the heart. Garrett becomes an instant national hero whose likeness still graces the patches of Lincoln County sheriff's deputies. Billy the Kid is dead at 21.
There are many alternative theories, including a persistent one that will soon be put to the DNA test. In 1950, an ancient Texas man by the name of Brushy Bill showed up in New Mexico, claiming to be Billy the Kid. This gave rise to the theory that Garrett actually killed a vagrant named Billy Barlow.
Curators at the Billy the Kid Museum in Canton, Texas, have been granted permission to exhume the body of Brushy Bill. His DNA will be compared with that of Catherine Antrim, who is believed to be the Kid's mother.
Or she could be his half-aunt. In other words, it may never be possible to separate myth from reality.
Present-day Lincoln County Sheriff Tom Sullivan desperately wants to know — even if it means ripping the Pat Garrett patches from his uniform. "I just want to get to the bottom of it," Sullivan told The Times.
Who am I to do anything less than my part? In the interest of history, in the interest of science, I volunteer to submit to DNA testing. It's the least I can do to help The New York Times get the story, and get it right.
So let those investigators come right here to Dayton to snip a lock of my hair and prick my finger. But better do it quick. I can't stand the sight of blood.
Mary McCarty writes for the Dayton Daily News. E-mail: mmcarty@coxohio.com