William "Billy the Kid" Burke was a

gangster A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from ''mob'' and the suffix '' -ster''. Gangs provide a level of organization and ...

in the 19th century. Burke was born to an Irish-American family in Massachusetts on March 18, 1858. By 1880 his mother had been widowed and the family had moved to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and Burke had become a professional criminal. His brother, John “Fat Man” Burke, claimed he was a plumber but he also worked as a professional criminal. Two of Burke's younger brothers held positions in the telegraph office. This proved useful to him later when he needed access to messages sent by private detectives, such as the

Pinkertons Pinkerton is a private security guard and detective agency established around 1850 in the United States by Scottish-born cooper Allan Pinkerton and Chicago attorney Edward Rucker as the North-Western Police Agency, which later became Pinker ...

. Burke met Sophie Lyons and they became criminal partners in the early 1880s. Lyons was an adept

pickpocket Pickpocketing is a form of larceny that involves the stealing of money or other valuables from the person or a victim's pocket without them noticing the theft at the time. It may involve considerable dexterity and a knack for misdirection. A th ...

and Burke's specialty was theft by subterfuge, or sneak thievery. (A sneak thief worked by distracting his victims in order to rob them without using violence.) Burke was polite and well-dressed, which put his victims at ease. Burke and Lyons were arrested for attempted bank robbery in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky in 1892. Lyons was not convicted and released, however Burke was convicted. He served his sentence in the

Kentucky State Reformatory Kentucky State Reformatory (KSR) is a medium-security prison for adult males. The prison is located in unincorporated Oldham County, Kentucky, near La Grange, and about northeast of Louisville. It opened in 1940 to replace the Kentucky State ...

. Burke and Lyons lived together for years before getting married in 1910. He continued to work as a sneak thief in the United States and in Europe. He died of a stroke on October 25, 1919, in Detroit.

References

External links

Willliam Burke, alias Billy the Kid, Professional Criminals of America by Byrnes

James William Burke mugshot, 1911 Stockholm, Sweden
Gang members 1858 births 1919 deaths Criminals from Massachusetts {{US-crime-bio-stub

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