Blandina Segale: The Nun Who Rode on Billy the Kid

Author Gale Cooper’s Blandina Segale, The Nun Who Rode on Billy the Kid: Sleuthing a Foisted Frontier Fable, in hardcover and paperback, 546 pages, exposes the first and strangest Billy the Kid hoax, created by a 19th century Sisters of Charity missionary nun to the Southwest. In her alleged frontier diary-journal, which she later published in magazine articles and a book, she claimed first-hand contacts with a monstrous Colorado highwayman and murderous scalper: Billy the Kid; with her faith inspiring his better behavior. But she gave herself away by fabricating dates and locations, and cribbing from 20th century books for her fables. Adding to the unexpected, is that she is now in the running for sainthood.