The 'Killer Cowboy' of San Andreas woods was actually just... other players fooling themselves.
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The 'Killer Cowboy' of San Andreas woods was actually just... other players fooling themselves.

The infamous Killer Cowboy myth — a hostile cowboy NPC supposedly stalking Back O' Beyond with a Desert Eagle — has been thoroughly debunked. The 'sightings' were actually a cocktail of cheat codes (BGLUAWML arms all pedestrians), Vigilante mission criminals lingering after the minigame ends, and plain old confirmation bias: players who knew the myth were more likely to record this specific pedestrian model and interpret normal countryside NPC behavior as supernatural aggression.

Verdict:Busted

Source: Killer Cowboy — CC BY-SA

The full story

A vintage player screenshot likely capturing the exact pedestrian that kicked off the whole Killer Cowboy hoax.
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A vintage player screenshot likely capturing the exact pedestrian that kicked off the whole Killer Cowboy hoax.

The classic 'Killer Cowboy' image that circulated forums for years, fooling hunters everywhere.
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The classic 'Killer Cowboy' image that circulated forums for years, fooling hunters everywhere.

A woods pedestrian sprinting toward the player — normal NPC behavior that myth-believers twisted into 'stalking.'
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A woods pedestrian sprinting toward the player — normal NPC behavior that myth-believers twisted into 'stalking.'

Another gallery shot from Back O' Beyond showing how easy it was to mistake any random NPC for something sinister in those murky woods.
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Another gallery shot from Back O' Beyond showing how easy it was to mistake any random NPC for something sinister in those murky woods.

Another frame from the same zone — probably a Vigilante criminal left behind after the minigame, rebranded as a new 'supernatural' threat.
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Another frame from the same zone — probably a Vigilante criminal left behind after the minigame, rebranded as a new 'supernatural' threat.

The final gallery image summing up how anything in those dark woods could become 'evidence' — when the truth was far more mundane.
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The final gallery image summing up how anything in those dark woods could become 'evidence' — when the truth was far more mundane.

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