The story goes that Catholic nun Sister Blandina Segale had a run-in with Billy the Kid back in the 1870s. He was angry when physicians in Trinidad, Colorado, refused to treat one of his gang members.
Billy wanted to kill the town doctors. The legend says Sister Blandina talked him out of it and they became friends.
Just one catch. The outlaw in question wasn’t William H. Bonney. It was Arthur Pond, alias Billy Leroy, alias Billy the Kid; he was a stage robber who was lynched in 1881.

True West May/June 2025
In This Issue:
Features
- Historic Hotels of the American West
- A Journey Through Wyoming’s Outlaw History
- A Journey Through Washington’s Wild Frontier
- Blazing The Oregon Trail
- Journey Through Time
- Did Brigham Young Order a Massacre?
- Mountain Meadows Scapegoat John D. Lee VS. A Firing Squad
- Mormons in the Movies
- An Indigenous Consultant Ensures Accuracy
- The Battle Axe And A Raw Deal
- Showdown: Bridger VS. Brigham
- The Mountain Man and the Mormon Moses
- The Ghosts of Mountain Meadows
- The War Before the War
- Mountain Meadows