Who killed Johnny Ringo?
RF
? ? ?
Dear RF,
For questions such as yours, it is sometimes useful to enlist the aid of a specialist, such as Wild West editor Greg Lalire:
John Ringo’s death was officially ruled a suicide. Some writers have since suggested that it was murder, committed by Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Buckskin Frank Leslie or some other gunfighter … which makes good grist for films, ranging from the almost plausible scene between Val Kilmer and Michael Biehn in Tombstone to John Ireland’s participation in the historically absurd climax of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. However, the late Jack Burrows, author of the 1987 biography John Ringo: The Gunfighter Who Never Was, weighed the evidence and concluded that it was indeed a suicide. The same conclusion is drawn by David Johnson in the latest (2008) edition of his book, John Ringo: King of the Cowboys.
Sincerely,
Jon Guttman and Greg Lalire
World History Group
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