Most photos of Brushy show him with a mustache.  Only recently did I finally take a closer look at one of the photos made at his meeting with Governor Mabry where he had shaved his mustache.  I couldn’t believe I had never noticed it before but there it is big as day.  Brushy is on the left and the tintype is on the right.  The red + signs on the eyes were used to make sure the two photos were at the same size.  Notice how Billy’s mouth is more narrow on his left side than on his right (highlighted by blue circle).  Notice Brushy’s mouth shows the same anomaly.  This is further demonstrated by the distances between the red lines at the left center and right of the mouth.  

It is a favorite point for those who do not want to believe Brushy was actually Billy The Kid.  Simply that well trained experts in the field of facial recognition, even FBI experts, have compared these faces and concluded they could not be the same man.  I say they were mistaken.  To understand why you must first consider some of their specific findings.  One study said while there were some striking similarities the glaring differences were that the distance from lower lip to chin was just way off and therefore the two could not be the same person.  The following picture shows exactly what they were referring to using similar lines to measure that distance just as the FBI expert did.  Obviously two different people, right?

As you can clearly see, before Brushy lost his teeth, his lip to chin distance was indeed virtually identical to the tintype. Also notice the apparent difference in the shape of the bridge of his nose.  It has often been said that Billy’s nose looked crooked.  Some even say it looks broken.  My point on that is that Brushy’s nose was very capable of exhibiting the same appearance.  It shows up in some photos and not in others.  This is due to the angle and brightness of the light hitting the face as well as the camera angle.  Look closely at a variety of Brushy photos and you will begin to see this is true.

The other finding often cited as evidence these two were different people has to do with the shape and width of the jawline.  Consider the following comparisons of how the jawline can appear different in different photos.  Again, it is due to different camera angles, but in the case of the tintype it is largely due to the open mouth.  The “experts” said the difference in the jawline so obvious in the following photos proves they were different men.  But consider the third photo of Brushy from a newspaper clip about his visit with J. Frank Dalton and you’ll see the shape can change dramatically according to the viewing angle.  Suddenly his face doesn’t look so “square shaped” after all!