Dan,

Thanks for responding! It's always interesting to hear other people's take on these images.

I was just going thru and checking off a quick list of similarities that I thought of off the top of my head.

1) The hat isn't that relevant since most men wore a hat during that era. But, he does wear it in a similar fashion to BTK, albeit cocked in the opposite direction. The hats differing isn't an important distinction, imo, since many people have been photographed wearing numerous different hats.

2) The height issue is suggestive of the guy on our left being a bit shorter of stature. Not absolute by any means, the other guy may well be tall for that era (and he does look pretty robust).

3) We'll just have to disagree on the ears. I think they are a pretty close match given the angles involved and the quality of the photographs we have to work from.

4) In my experience, it's very rare to find a photo of someone from the late 19th century (if that is when the photo was taken) without a tightly closed mouth. One of the defining characteristics of Billy's appearance was that his teeth were visible pretty much all the time. Also, what I'm seeing as teeth could well simply be his lower lip.

5) Another defining characteristic of Billy was his boyish appearance. Many guys in their late teens are not boyish looking at all but this guy is and he appears to be in his late teens.

I probably should have mentioned another defining characteristic and that is Billy's pointed chin. Unfortunately, both images leave a lot to be desired in determining each guy's chin and jaw structure but they appear similar to me.

I've seen a lot of pictures with just as many similarities to the authentic image but unfortunately, I've never found one where the claimed provenance and the similarities in appearance are equally strong. It's looking like there will probably be no more background information on this one so it will end up being another neat image to look at.