Juanita’s Final Resting Place

IT TOOK 142 YEARS, or more than seven times her age at death, for Juanita Martinez Garrett (1860–1879) to get a grave marker. The memorial for Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett’s first wife—a serious-eyed young woman often treated as a historical footnote—now sits steps from the gravestones of more well-known players in her husband’s life, including Billy the Kid and land baron Lucien B. Maxwell, in Old Fort Sumner Cemetery. “The whereabouts of Juanita’s grave had long been a mystery,” says Roy B. Young, of the Wild West History Association. The organization helped her siblings’ descendants prove the local resident was buried at Fort Sumner; they successfully petitioned city council for a marker in 2021. But the cause of Mrs. Garrett’s death remains mysterious. According to family records, Juanita Martinez married 29-year-old Patrick Floyd Garrett in 1879. Since Garrett was not Catholic, a justice of the peace performed the ceremony, during which the candles suddenly blew out. The teenage bride took it as an omen about the legitimacy of the marriage in God’s eyes. When she suddenly died 15 days later, the family attributed it to stress. “Juanita made herself sick with worry,” says her third great-niece Renette Day. Whatever the reason for her demise, Martinez Garrett is at rest, and can now be recognized in her own right.

Read more: The charismatic outlaw followed a rough and deadly path through the state.