My Life with Bonnie and Clyde (39 page)

At three in the afternoon, the officers were traveling northwest on Texas State Highway 114, between Grapevine and Roanoke, when they passed East Dove Road. Apparently, all three patrolmen spotted the Ford V-8 parked up the road about one hundred yards from 114. Ivy had noticed it earlier, but thought nothing of it. Wheeler, however, was curious and motioned for Murphy to follow as he turned up the road to investigate.

Driving behind the patrolmen were Fred and Mary Giggal, a Dallas couple out for a drive. They had been following the officers for several minutes and noticed two of them turn off onto the side road. As they drove past East Dove Road, they saw that the officers had already dismounted and racked their bikes. The Dallas couple joked about how terrible it would be to get a ticket on such a beautiful Easter Sunday afternoon. Then they heard several loud explosions—backfires they thought at first. Then, with growing concern, they slowed down, turned their car around, and drove back to the intersection. When they arrived, they saw “the taller of two men” firing into the prone bodies of the patrolmen. Then the “smaller man” noticed the Giggals and started hurrying back to his car. The Giggals turned around and sped away in search of the third patrolman, Polk Ivy.

By this time, Ivy had noticed his colleagues were not behind him and had turned around to search for them. He soon encountered the Giggals who flagged him down and told him what they had seen. Ivy continued on to East Dove Road where he found Wheeler and Murphy alone, lying in the dirt, their motorcycles still racked. Wheeler was dead. Murphy died minutes later en route to a hospital in Grapevine.

It appears that Wheeler was shot first. His weapon was still holstered. He had no idea he was in danger. In reaction to the shooting of his partner, however, Murphy had evidently tried to arm his weapon, a shotgun he kept unloaded in a scabbard on his bike out of fear that he might one day fall and have it discharge accidentally. The shotgun was found lying near him with several unused shells strewn about.

Murphy was buried in the suit he would have worn to his wedding. His fiancée, Maree, wore her wedding dress to the funeral.

William Calvin “Cal” Campbell, Killed by Clyde Barrow and Henry Methvin, April 6, 1934

Cal Campbell was a resident of Commerce, Oklahoma, and a contractor by trade. He once had his own business but had lost everything when the
depression hit. He was nearly sixty then. A single father of four, Campbell sought election to one of the Ottawa County constable seats to make ends meet. It only paid $15 a week, but in the words of his son Jim, “It kept us eating!” Campbell was elected to the position not because he was a professional lawman, which he was not, but because everyone knew him and liked him.

On the morning of April 6, 1934, Commerce City marshal Percy Boyd received word from a citizen that a car had been parked all night long on a side road just off of Highway 66 in the mining district between Commerce and Miami. Boyd asked Campbell to accompany him as he went to investigate. Campbell agreed, apparently expecting to find nothing more than a carload of drunks sleeping it off, the same thing Boyd expected to find.

Turning off Highway 66, they pulled to a stop in front of the strange car and got out. Suddenly the car took off in reverse, moving fast. Approximately one hundred yards down the road, however, the driver lost control of the car and it veered into a ditch, miring the rear wheels in mud up to the axle. Boyd and Campbell were still standing in the road, apparently dumbstruck by what they had just seen. Suddenly someone from the car was shooting. The officers pulled their weapons and returned fire. Boyd was struck in the head and knocked unconscious. Campbell, still firing, was struck in the abdomen and killed instantly, a bullet severing his spinal chord.

When Boyd regained consciousness, the taller of the two gunmen—Henry Methvin—was standing over him, coaxing him to get up. Once on his feet, Boyd was hustled over to the gunmen’s car, which was still stuck. A crowd gathered as the shorter man—Clyde Barrow—began to enlist bystanders and even Boyd to try and push the car out of the ditch. Eventually a vehicle happened along, and the assailants used it to pull the car free. Boyd was loaded into the car. Besides the gunmen, the car was also occupied by a petite young woman, who sat in the front on the passenger side. The shorter man took the wheel. The larger man got in the back with Boyd. The car lurched forward and Cal Campbell was left behind, dead in the road. Boyd was later released near Fort Scott, Kansas.

Appendix E

Blanche’s Preliminary Parole Report

Sentenced to ten years in the Missouri State Penitentiary in 1933, Blanche Barrow won her parole in March of 1939. Her work toward gaining her freedom is evident in the preliminary parole record that appears below.

Recommendations from: Dan Holman, H. L. Cohen, Alford Diceman, Paul Reinking, J. C. Briggs, B. F. McCullough, D. Lee (atty.), Milburn Mitchell, H. C. Sanders, R. L. Ives, Jeff D. McLendon, T. G. Carr, W. H. Ray, J. N. McCain, B. D. Paschall, W. J. Whitemen, Edward C. Hall, C. D. Cates, H. P. Hosey, Carl S. Preswitt, Ott Doan, W. G. Citty, Amos Taylor, Robert E. Lee.

Mrs. C. T. Barrow (home offer), Mr. & Mrs. W. J. Wilkerson (employment), W. J. Winkler offers employment.

Your sponsor is James Parsons of K. C., Mo. Judge is neutral, Pros. Atty., neu., Sheriff-Rec.

Blanche, your file is as good as it should be, the idea is just to get these people here to push your file along. There is no one who has any more right to get out of here than you have and I hope you do go. There is nothing you can do to get any better file than you already have. Around 1,000 on petitions.

—B. D. Paschall, Dallas attorney

Notes

Editor’s Introduction

1.
State of Texas, County of Dallas, certified copy of birth certificate 15965, Bennie Iva Blanche Caldwell. Blanche mentions in a letter to her mother, as quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 22–23, that she can’t remember her parents being together “more than a couple of days.” Also, in the first chapter of Blanche Caldwell Barrow’s own memoir she states, “I was brought up by a kind, loving, law-abiding father, without the aid of a mother.” In an interview with the editor, October 5, 2002, Rhea Leen Linder (Bonnie Parker’s niece), said that Blanche had an “everything for me” attitude, which probably stemmed from her father’s attentions.

2.
The divorce rate was one in eighty-five in 1905. By 1911 it had risen to one in twelve. Gordon and Gordon,
American Chronicle
, 117. In an undated letter to her mother written from her prison cell in Missouri, Blanche noted, “I want you two [mother and father] with me for once in my life, as I can’t remember having you both with me at the same time for more than a couple of days.” Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 22–23.

Lillian Bell Pond was born August 25, 1895, and was already ninety-three at the time of Blanche Caldwell Frasure’s death in 1988. She lived an unknown number of years afterward. Bennie Iva Blanche Caldwell’s certificate of birth. Besides Caldwell, other surnames Lillian Pond used included Marcum, Horton, Pierce, and Oberlacher. This is based on addresses in the headings of Blanche Caldwell Barrow’s letters to her mother as reproduced in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 27 and 52; on a
Dallas Evening Journal
article as reproduced in Baker, 21; and on Blanche Caldwell Frasure’s death certificate, December 24, 1988. But Pond may not have actually married these men. To friends Blanche intimated that her mother was prone to merely using the last name of whomever she was living
with at the time. Esther Weiser, interview by editor, October 31, 2002. Hereafter, unless otherwise noted, all interviews were conducted by the editor.

3.
Blanche Barrow quoted in Weiser interview, September 8, 2001. In a letter to her mother, Blanche alluded to this, lamenting that she would never be called “mother” or “grandmother.” Letter of February 28, 1936, reproduced in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 60–62. Later in life Blanche owned at least four dolls that some thought were treated as surrogate children. Blanche made clothes for them and spoke to them as if they were her own flesh and blood. Linder interview, October 5, 2002; Weiser interview, October 5, 2002.

From letters it can be surmised that Callaway remained in contact with Blanche’s mother at least up to and during Blanche’s incarceration in the Missouri State Penitentiary, long after Blanche’s estrangement and subsequent divorce from Callaway. In an undated letter to her mother, Blanche asks her if Callaway still visits her. In yet another letter Blanche responds to an apparent reference by her mother to Callaway: “Well, mother, I don’t care what John [Callaway] thinks of me, but that is just one more mark against him tearing my picture up. But he can’t hurt me any.” Callaway even wrote to Blanche while she was in prison, something Blanche was none too pleased with. Writing to her mother, Blanche stated she did not care to have anything from Callaway. Almost four months later Blanche wrote, “I hope he [Callaway] does not come near me when I am a free woman.” Letters reproduced in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 22–23, 35, 51, 54.

4.
Knowledge of Blanche’s friendship with Renfro comes from information written in Blanche’s hand on the back of a photograph of her and Renfro.

5.
Blanche Barrow, letter to her mother, n.d., quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 22–23.

6.
Marie Barrow interview, May 1, 1998; Weiser interview, September 8, 2001. According to a letter written to her father, Blanche Barrow establishes the date she met Buck as November 11, 1929. Blanche Caldwell Barrow, letter to Matt Caldwell, November 11, 1933. See Appendix B. Because the date of Buck Barrow’s arrest following a Denton, Texas, burglary has been listed in some sources as occurring in October 1929, the date in Blanche’s letter would seem incorrect, but it is not. Buck was arrested shortly after midnight on November 30, 1929.
Denton
(
Tex.
)
Record-Chronicle
, November 30, 1929. See also Fortune,
Fugitives
, 32; Cumie Barrow, unpublished manuscript. The latter two sources both list October 1929 as the date of the Denton, Texas, burglary.

Supposedly the origin of Marvin Barrow’s nickname, Buck, lay in the fact of his sprinting abilities. His aunt once observed him running around acting like a horse when he was just a child. Accordingly she dubbed him Buck, and the name stuck. Cumie Barrow, unpublished manuscript.

7.
State of Oklahoma, Marriage License, July 2–3, 1931. In her unpublished manuscript, Cumie Barrow cites Buck’s sentence as four years; Blanche also states four years in her memoir. However, the sentence is listed as five years in Fortune,
Fugitives
, 32. Buck’s letter of January 16, 1930, to his mother appears in Appendix C. The letter was no doubt written by a fellow convict.
According to Cumie Barrow, Buck was illiterate. Cumie Barrow, unpublished manuscript.

8.
Cumie Barrow, unpublished manuscript. Also in a 1984 interview, Blanche openly admitted to accompanying Buck on robberies while he was an escaped convict. Blanche Barrow interview, November 18, 1984.

9.
For the full story of the evolution of the plot to raid Eastham, see Phillips,
Running with Bonnie and Clyde
, 33–92. In an interview by the editor on November 3, 1984, Blanche stated that she had visited Clyde a number of times while he was at Eastham, accompanied more than once by Buck, who had escaped from the Ferguson unit, just across the Trinity River from Eastham. During each visit Clyde told Blanche he couldn’t stand Eastham, that he wanted to escape, then raid the farm and free as many prisoners as he could.

10.
Blanche was a self-described camera buff, using a camera of some kind throughout most of her adult life. She loved taking snapshots, nothing formal or particularly aesthetic, just images of captured moments, mostly of the people closest to her. Between 1930 and 1933, she owned a handheld Kodak camera with folding bellows, probably a No. 2A Folding Autographic Brownie, manufactured between 1915 and 1926. It used 116 film and produced eight 2½-by-4¼-inch negatives per roll. She bought the camera secondhand for three dollars (the original retail price was thirteen dollars) to use mostly during road trips with Buck in 1930 and 1931.

Throughout 1932, Blanche used the camera both in West Dallas and Denison, Texas, while she waited for Buck to finish his prison term. Early in 1933, she lent the camera to Bonnie, Clyde, and W. D. Jones. With it they took some of the better-known photographs of themselves, including the infamous shot of Bonnie with a cigar clenched in her teeth. The unprocessed rolls of film containing these images, as well as the camera itself, were among the many items abandoned in Joplin, Missouri, following the shoot-out of April 13, 1933.

Blanche was then without a camera until fall 1933 when her mother mailed her own red Kodak handheld camera to her in prison. This was a less expensive fixed-focus camera, probably a No. 2A Beau Brownie, manufactured between 1930 and 1933 and available in five colors, including red. Like its folding-bellows forerunner, the Beau Brownie used 116 film.

Throughout Blanche’s incarceration, she and her mother mailed the camera back and forth to each other. Blanche used it to make all her prison photographs. Her interest in taking pictures continued after her release from prison, lasting until a few years before her death. Blanche Barrow interview, September 24, 1984; Blanche Barrow, letter to her mother, April 10, 1934, quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 39; Weiser interviews, September 8, 2001, and October 31, 2002.

11.
Blanche Barrow interview, November 3 and September 24, 1984.

12.
Accompanying Blanche Barrow’s original manuscript is a large, unused Christmas card, on the back of which appears in Blanche’s hand, “written in 1933 or 34 & 35. Part of my story with the Barrow gang. Blanche Barrow.”

13.
Blanche Barrow, letter to mother, October 28, 1933, quoted in Baker,
Blanche Barrow
, 15.