William Preston Longley was born on October 6, 1851, at Mill Creek in Austin County, Texas, the sixth of ten children to Campbell and Sarah Longley. By April 1853, his family shifted to Evergreen (then Washington County, later Lee County), where he grew up working on the family farm and attending a modest local school.

As the Civil War ended in 1865, Reconstruction brought federal troops and a state police force dominated by freedmen—sparking resentment among many, including Longley. By 1867, he had dropped out of school, immersed himself in drinking and rowdy companionship, and began terrorizing newly freed African Americans in the region.

Longley's violence began in mid‑December 1868, just a mile from his family farm along the Camino Real, a historic route linking San Antonio to Nacogdoches. When three former slaves—Green Evans, Pryer Evans, and one known only as Ned—rode through Evergreen, Longley and two associates ambushed them in a dry creek bed. As Green Evans panicked and tried to flee, Longley fired multiple shots, killing him. The other two managed to escape. After the killing, Longley rifled through Evans’s pockets, later downplaying his own culpability by suggesting others had shot too.

In 1869, Longley joined forces with his brother-in-law, John W. Wilson, leading a small crime wave across southern Texas. Their spree included robbery of settlers and, in Bastrop County, the murder of freedman Paul Brice for his horses. They were also suspected in the killing of a freedwoman near Evergreen. These violent acts spurred Union authorities to place a $1,000 reward on their heads by March 1870.

After wandering north to Wyoming in hopes of gold, Longley enlisted in the U.S. Cavalry but soon desertion landed him in a court-martial and jail at Camp Stambaugh. He was released after months due to his sharpshooting prowess—but deserted again in June 1872, drifting back to Texas where rumors and murders trailed him.

By February 1873, he resurfaced in Bastrop County, accused of killing another freedman. Although arrested by Sheriff J. J. Finney and taken to Austin, Longley walked free—likely after a payoff from his uncle, Alexander “Pres” Longley.

On March 31, 1875, Longley shot and killed his old friend Wilson Anderson with a shotgun—claimed as retribution at his uncle Caleb’s prompting for his son's death. That same day, he fled north with his brother James, who was later tried and acquitted for abetting the crime. Later that year, in November 1875, a drunken fistfight with friend George Thomas in McLennan County ended in Thomas's death at Longley’s hands.

In January 1876, an ambush of outlaw Lou Shroyer in Uvalde County turned into a shootout. Shroyer shot Longley’s horse out from under him, but Longley killed him.

Longley then took up working for preacher William R. Lay as a sharecropper. A dispute with Lay’s nephew landed him in jail, but he escaped—then on June 13, 1876, walked to Lay’s farm and shot him dead with a shotgun while he was milking a cow—his final confirmed killing.

Before capture, Longley allegedly broke Jim and Dick Sanders out of jail in Grayson County and even disarmed a deputy in the process. His unstoppable run ended on June 6, 1877, when he was arrested in De Soto Parish, Louisiana under the alias “Bill Jackson” by Sheriff Milt Mast. 

Return to Texas led to his conviction for Anderson’s murder—his appeals denied, and on October 11, 1878, he was publicly hanged in Giddings, Texas.