Search for the Grave of William Preston Longley, Hanged Texas Gunfighter

Abstract

William Preston Longley was one of the most notorious outlaws in Texas when he was finally tracked down, arrested, and convicted for shooting a boyhood friend. Since he had cheated death before, contemporaries easily believed Longley’s hanging in October 1878 was a hoax that allowed him to live and raise a family in Louisiana under an alias. The ultimate test of the hoax hypothesis would be to find Longley’s grave and expose either his remains or a weighted coffin. In fall 1992 and spring 1994, a team of scientists used electrical resistivity and magnetometer surveys to locate unmarked burials in areas where historical research indicated Longley’s grave may be located. Team members hoped a grainy historic photograph of the marked gravesite could be correlated with a position in the cemetery. The team determined the approximate location of an unmarked grave that could be Longley’s. Excavation uncovered the remains of a tall white male, which fit his description, and artifacts recovered from the grave were consistent with those known to have been buried with Longley. Finally, a mitochondrial DNA comparison with his living maternal relative produced a very high probability match.