Billy’s Bill or Just Bull? Unraveling Counterfeit Controversy

This serves as a retraction and correction of the article "A Brief Bit of History from the Cold West Files," by Steve Sederwall, which appeared in Volume 3 of our Coalition Press. When we support wrong history, and are shown the errors, we regard it our duty to correct ourselves and realign our trajectory with the facts. We have reached out to Steve Sederwall and David Turk for their conment, but as of this posting, have received no response.  

On December 31, 2022, Sederwall advised his audience in his Cold West Detective

Agency Facebook group that he was thinking of writing a book, and shared the first five paragraphs with his fans. While not revealing anything groundbreaking.Sederwall does share some pretty good images of the counterfeit note marked 517617, without handwriting from Wild,and without Dolan's "D."

In July of 2010, the El Paso Times ran  an article by Julie Carter entitled “Counterfeit Bank Note Rewrites  Chapter of Billy the Kid.” The article opens with the claim that “one of  the counterfeit bank notes proven to be in the sequence passed by Billy  the Kid and his gang has found its way back to Lincoln County.” 

The  two men responsible for this counterfeit bill “finding its way” back to  Lincoln were Steve Sederwall and (at that time) historian for the U.S.  Marshals, David Turk. 

Sederwall  was already well known for the notorious dust-up of 2003-2004,  involving DNA testing of floorboards and furniture, digging up bullet  shells,  and exhumation attempts of Billy the Kid and his mother (and  one successful exhumation of Billy the Kid claimant John Miller – and the occupant of the grave next to him). 

According  to the article, in January of 2010, Steve Sederwall called up the  Secret Service, and got a hold of Michael Sampson, often referred to as  an archivist in the Secret Service division. 

Knowing  that Secret Service Agent Azariah Wild examined the counterfeit note  that Billy Wilson passed to James Dolan, and that its serial number was  517607, Sampson searched some files. 

Although  none of the men seemed to expect any real results, Sampson (according  to the article) called Sederwall back the next day, saying he had found a  counterfeit note, serial number 517617. 

The  fact that the serial number of this newly discovered note was one digit  off from the note reported by Agent Wild in 1880 was no deterrent to  Sederwall. He simply came up with a reason for the discrepancy: “the  second number from the right had been changed from a zero to a one.” 

The  only issue is, anyone examining the note in question with two  functioning eyes - perhaps even one moderately functioning eye - can see  that the “1” in the serial number has not been altered at all. There is  no trace of a phantom “0,” no evidence of tampering. And why would  there be? Was there a counterfeit-counterfeiting ring going around at  the same time in New Mexico, altering counterfeit notes by changing  already fake serial numbers, in order to make them appear more  counterfeit to fool the counterfeiters? 

Clearly,  the note found by Sampson is a counterfeit note from the New Bedford  bank plates, just like the note passed by Wilson to Dolan. It may have  been part of the same batch as the ones that made their way to New  Mexico, including the one marked 517607. 

But contrary to Sederwall’s claims, the note re-discovered in 2010 is not the same note. 

The discrepancy in serial numbers is not the only witness against this claim.

We have the testimony of Secret Service Operative Azariah Wild himself. 

On  October 5th, 1880, Wild reports that the $100 counterfeit note on the  Merchant’s National Bank of New Bedford, serial number 517607, upon its  being received, was marked by Jimmy Dolan with the letter “D.” An  examination of Sederwall’s $100 bill reveals that there is, in fact, no  marking of a “D” anywhere on the bill, front or back. 

For  further proof of Sederwall’s bill being misidentified, researchers can  visit Wild’s daily report to his chief, dated October 2, 1880, where he  states that, “after looking at the note, and taking a description of the  same, I wrote my name in full across the face with the date of October 2nd 1880 underneath it.” 

If  Sederwall is granted the possibility that there is a magical  disappearing ink mechanism that can manage the vanishing of a  handwritten “D” in nineteenth century ink without a trace of detection,  as well as the flawless alteration of a serial number with no trace of  tampering, the ability of any such piece of technology to erase a Secret  Service agent’s enormous signature across the face of the bill, as well  as an equally largely printed date beneath it, must be stretch the  credulity of even the greenest novice out there. 

An  examination of the counterfeit note Sederwall peddles as Billy Wilson’s  “Dolan note” will show that there was never any handwriting on it,  either from Dolan or Wild, just as there was never any alteration of its  serial number. It could very well be a counterfeit note from the same  or similar batch, but is not the specific piece of history they are  claiming it to be. 

Sederwall  must not have been satisfied with Ms. Carter’s article of July 2010. Or  maybe he just needed another dose of spotlight when he wrote “Billy  Bonney’s Bad Bucks” for True West Magazine on April 28, 2015. 

In  an effort to razzle-dazzle and next-level this counterfeiting business,  Sederwall introduces in this article Jesse James, John Hays, William  Brockway, Missouri Civil War connections, the underbelly of New York  organized crime, and much more. 

In  Sederwall’s article, Agent Wild catches Dolan by surprise, with  counterfeit notes in Dolan’s safe, and Dolan shifts the blame on Billy  Wilson. (It was actually Mr. Larue who owned the store in which the bill  was passed; Dolan was just a clerk. Dolan was introduced to Wild by Ira  Leonard, and the counterfeit bills in the safe at the Larue store had  already been noted and reported.)

One  final piece of this tale involves the perspective of Michael Sampson,  the Secret Service public affairs contact who tracked down the  counterfeit note for Sederwall. Does his version of events match  Sederwall’s? Did he call them back, ecstatic, that a heretofore  unidentified counterfeit note in the “vault” had now been identified as  one of “Billy Bonney’s bad bucks?” 

In  “The Billy the Kid’s Bad Bucks Hoax,” author Gale Cooper tells readers  that she was able to reach Michael Sampson, and “he told me what  actually happened.” According to Cooper, Sederwall contacted Sampson in  2010 asking for counterfeit bills involved in the Azariah Wild case in  New Mexico. “Sampson told him there were none in the files.

So Sederwall  requested any counterfeit bill from the period. It had no documented

connection…to Wild or to Billy Bonney; and it was not filed as a  Brockway bill.” 

That  really sums up the whole situation. This counterfeit note claim by  Sederwall is just another public relations spotlight-grab. He  misrepresented the serial number. He misrepresented (according to  Cooper) their communications with the Secret Service, and, once again,  he misrepresented history.