A while ago, I issued a challenge for people to tell me about their unusual meetings with famous people. I said that once enough people had told their stories, that I would tell mine. I’ve been publishing their stories as they tell them and now I’m ready to tell mine. I actually have another one I’ll tell once I hear a few more of yours as well!!

One of the first gringos I met when I moved to Mexico in 2001 was Betty Petersen, who was a wonderful artist and a great fan of the song “Coo Coo Roo Coo Coo Paloma.” One day in 2005, she asked me to join her for lunch at the Hotel Real de Chapala because her favorite mariachi band was playing there and since she had gifted their leader with a portrait of himself years before, they always played the favorite song mentioned above for her.

We had been serenaded and were enjoying our meals when a man came in and sat down at a table next to ours.  He hadn’t been there long when he struck up a conversation with me, asking about whether I was visiting, as he was. I said no, I’d lived here since 2001 and after asking me a few questions, he began telling me about his life.

Since most of the details sounded rather implausible, I asked him his name, and when he told  it to me, I must admit it was even more implausible than his stories, for he was claiming to be Billie Sol Estes!

Yes, of course I knew who Billie Sol Estes was, but I must say that little as I would ever imagine meeting him, it seemed even less plausible that I’d meet him in Ajijic, Mexico! Sensing I didn’t believe him, he then pulled out his book, which had just been published, and proceeded to tell even more outlandish stories, dropping names like JFK and Lyndon Johnson–at one point insisting that he had proof that Johnson had had Kennedy assassinated, saying Dorothy Kilgallen had been murdered because she had the proof of a further conspiracy in Kennedy’s murder.  All-in-all, he talked for over an hour, and when I got up to leave, he handed me a copy of his book. It was not until I got home that I opened it and saw what he had written inside.  (Since it took me some time to interpret his scrawl, I’ve written it out for you below.)

Yes, my jaw dropped when I read it, but not as much as it did when I read some of this other information about him online. This is part of an article that appeared concerning events that occurred after he had been indicted on a number of counts of fraud:

“Soon after the Estes indictments, however, Mr. Freeman, the agriculture secretary, disclosed that a key investigator on the case, Henry Marshall, had been found dead in Texas — bludgeoned on the head, with nearly fatal amounts of carbon monoxide in his bloodstream and five chest wounds from a single-shot bolt-action rifle. Local officials ruled it suicide, but the body was exhumed and the cause changed to homicide.Six other men tied to the case also died. Three perished in accidents, including a plane crash. Two were found in cars filled with carbon monoxide and were declared suicides. Mr. Estes’s accountant was also found dead in a car, with a rubber tube connecting its exhaust to the interior, suggesting suicide, but no poisonous gases were found in the body, and his death was attributed to a heart attack.In 1963, Mr. Estes was convicted on federal charges and sentenced to 15 years. A state conviction was overturned on grounds of prejudicial news coverage. After exhausting appeals and serving six years, he was paroled in 1971. In 1979, he was convicted of tax fraud and served four more years. He was released in 1983. A year later, in what he called a voluntary statement to clear the record, Mr. Estes told a Texas grand jury that Johnson, as vice president in 1961, had ordered that Mr. Marshall be killed to prevent him from disclosing Johnson’s ties to the Estes conspiracies. He said a Johnson aide, Malcolm Wallace, had shot him. The Justice Department asked Mr. Estes for more information, and the response was explosive. For a pardon and immunity from prosecution, he promised to detail eight killings arranged by Johnson, including the Kennedy assassination. He said that Mr. Wallace had not only persuaded Jack Ruby to recruit Lee Harvey Oswald, but that Mr. Wallace had also fired a shot in Dallas that hit the president. Mr. Estes also claimed knowledge of a White House plan to kill Fidel Castro and a plot by the former Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa to kill Robert Kennedy. Mr. Estes reiterated his allegations in a book, “JFK, the Last Standing Man” (2003), written with William Reymond, as well as his own memoir, “Billie Sol Estes: A Texas Legend” (2004). As with similar allegations in books, articles and documentaries over the years, none of the Estes claims could be proven. Johnson had died in 1973, and everyone else, except Mr. Estes, was also dead.

In case you are wondering, no, I was not Billie Sol Estes’ mistress. I had never seen him before our encounter in 2005. Nor did I ever see him again.  He died on May 14, 2013.

Please rest assured that I am not supporting the truth of anything he said.  Just reading what he had written inside the book he gave to me made me fairly sure that I would take anything he said with an entire box of salt!!!!