Butch Cassidy recruited Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, also known as "The Sundance Kid", a native of Pennsylvania, into the Wild Bunch. In early 1897, Cassidy was joined at Robbers Roost by Ann Bassett, Elzy Lay, and Lay's girlfriend Maude Davis. The four hid there until early April, when Lay and Cassidy sent the women home so that the men could plan their next robbery. On April 22, 1897, in the mining town of Castle Gate, Utah, Cassidy and Lay ambushed a small group of men carrying the payroll of the Pleasant Valley Coal Company, stealing a sack containing $7,000 in gold, with which
Butch Cassidy entered the house the next morning, whereupon they found two bodies, both with numerous bullet wounds to the arms and legs. The man assumed to be Longabaugh had a bullet wound in the forehead and the man thought to be Cassidy had a bullet hole in the temple. The local police report speculated that, judging from the positions of the bodies, Cassidy had probably shot the fatally wounded Longabaugh to put him out of his misery, just before killing himself. In the following investigation by the Tupiza police, the bandits were identified as the men who robbed the Aramayo payroll