Is Sundance really buried in Duchesne?

DUCHESNE — The bones of a man buried in the city cemetery 72 years ago have been exhumed for testing to determine whether he is actually Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, better known to most of the world as the Sundance Kid.

The skeletal remains of William Henry Long were disinterred Friday by a University of Utah anthropologist and the executive director of a Salt Lake City genetics lab as some of Long's relatives looked on. A documentary film crew recorded the event.

Long took his own life at his home outside Duchesne on Nov. 27, 1936, according to his step-granddaughter Etta Forsyth. Forsyth, 91, still refers to Long as her "Uncle Billy." She remembers him as kind and loving toward her grandmother, who had six children when she married Long in 1895 after her first husband was killed in a logging accident.

"My mom just knew he was part of the outlaw gang but didn't ever know who he really was," said Forsyth's daughter Diann Peck, who was with her mother at Friday's exhumation.

University of Utah biological anthropologist John M. McCullough, in an affidavit used to obtain a court order to exhume the body, said he compared a known photograph of Long against a known photograph of Longabaugh.

"It is clear that these two photographs are of the (same) person," McCullough told the court.

In a telephone interview with the Uintah Basin Standard, McCullough said he was able to take linear measurements from the two photos and found them to be "almost too good."

"I'd compare the ratios in one photo to the other and it was almost a line," he said. "This was just absolutely beyond belief. It was just so close."

Provo attorney Thomas Seiler represents five of the seven Long descendants who sought to have the remains tested. He said his clients want to determine their ancestor's true identity so they can complete genealogy work as part of their Mormon faith.

"They keep hitting a wall with him," Seiler told the Standard. "They can't find anyone behind him."

Speculation that Long and Longabaugh — sometimes misspelled Longbaugh — are the same person has grown stronger in recent years.

Long's skull and a femur were dug up several years ago by another relative, according to family members involved in the most recent exhumation. The individual had a rectangular piece of bone cut from the femur, apparently to conduct DNA tests. The results of those tests are unknown.

In November 2007, Long's remains — including the skull and femur — were reburied in the original grave site. The bones were placed in a vault.

"We were trying to reverse the 'ethical damage,"' McCullough said.