The Top 5 Most Notorious Outlaws (17 page)

From heartbreak some people have suffered

From weariness some people have died

But all in all, our troubles are small

‘Til we get like Bonnie and Clyde.

A newsboy once said to his buddy

“I wish old Clyde would get jumped

In these hard times we’s get a few dimes

If five or six cops would get bumped.”

In many ways it’s impossible today for cold-blooded cop killers to become folk heroes, but there were several extenuating circumstances about Depression Era America that made it possible. First, when Bonnie and Clyde first came on the scene in 1932, the American people were still smarting from what they perceived to be a betrayal of their hopes and dreams.  The fathers of middle class families had lived through a World War with the promise that, once the Kaiser was beat, all would be well.  They had returned home to hope for a secure future based on hard work and careful saving.  The Financial Crash of 1929 had smashed their hopes to pieces and left most of them even poorer than when they had started.  In the secret places that they would not admit, perhaps not even to themselves, Clyde’s reign of terror against the established systems seemed a little like sweet revenge.

On the other hand, Bonnie’s devil may care attitude had a certain attraction for the hardworking housewife.  Like Bonnie, they had once been free to stay up late and bob their hair.  They had traded that for the promise of romantic and financial security.  Many a 30 year old woman with four or five children to feed had only just a few years earlier been a prosperous bride with the world at her feet.  She and her husband had anticipated only continued prosperity, thanks to a booming economy and cheap land.  Then the bank foreclosed and they traded their little house with a picket fence for a shack in the Dust Bowl or a one room walk-up on the backside of a tenement.  For some of these women, when Bonnie took a shot at one man who stood between her and what she wanted, she was taking a shot at all the men who had ever let some woman down.

Then, of course, there was the way the papers of the day spun the stories.  While reporters did mention the murders, they also told fascinating tales of victims kidnapped by the gang only to be turned loose a few hours or days later with money to get home with.  Some of these victims even spoke well of their captors, referring to their good looks or polite manners.  

However, any good opinion the public had quickly evaporated on April 1, 1934.  That day, Easter Sunday, the gang killed two highway patrolmen, H.D. Murphy and Edward Wheeler, in Grapevine, Texas.  Though Methvin fired the first shot, and he later claimed Bonnie walked up to the officer with the intention of helping, rumors flew around the country that she had not only fired on the officers, but that she had stood laughing over the dead officer’s body.  Others claimed that she left behind a cigar butt with her own teeth marks on it. By the time it was later reported that Bonnie had nothing to do with this shooting, and may have even been passed out pain killers, their public reputation was tarnished.

There was something about this attack that seemed worse to the public.  Maybe it was that it happened on what, to most of the country, was one of the most sacred days of the year.  Maybe it was because Murphy’s young bride-to-be attended his funeral in her wedding gown.  Whatever the reason, the public was now thoroughly incensed at the lawlessness around them and wanted it stopped.  The Highway Patrol and the governor’s office offered a combined reward of $2,000 for the bodies of gang, but specifically for Bonnie and Clyde.

Either unaware of or unconcerned about their new level of notoriety, Clyde and Methvin gunned down 60 year old Constable Cal Campbell five days later just outside of Commerce, Oklahoma.  On the same day, they kidnapped the town police chief, Percy Boyd, and then turned him loose with a clean shirt and money to get home with.  According to Boyd, Bonnie asked that he tell the world she did not smoke cigars.  It seems that of all the things that paper was accusing her of, that was the one that bothered her most.

With Boyd’s eyewitness testimony to Campbell’s murder, the Oklahoma authorities were able to issue warrants for the arrest of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker specifically.  On the other hand, they merely referred to Methvin as “John Doe.”  This marked the first time that Bonnie was actually seen shooting someone.  

“They don’t think they’re tough or desperate

They know the law always wins

They’ve been shot at before, but they do not ignore

That death is the wages of sin.

Some day they’ll go down together

And they’ll bury them side by side

To few it’ll be grief, to the law a relief

But it’s death for Bonnie and Clyde.”

Beginning with his appointment to the case on February 10, Frank Hamer stalked every move that the remaining Barrow Gang made.  One of the things he discovered was that they tended to move in a circular pattern along the states lines of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas.  By moving along state lines, they were able to avoid capture by local officers or highway patrolmen who could not cross state lines.  Another thing that he noticed was that the gang tended to visit their families at regular intervals.  According to his calculations, the next family due for a visit was Methvin’s family in Louisiana.  

Because he had a set pattern of behavior, Hamer was able to anticipate his next move and plan accordingly.  In mid-May, 1934, Hamer requisitioned a large number of Browning Automatic Rifles and 20 rounds of armor piercing bullets.  Then, on May 21, he left Texas with four hand-picked posse members and traveled to Shreveport, Louisiana.  There they waited until word reached them through their sources that the trio were heading to Bienville Parish.  The three gang members agreed that, in case they became separated, they would meet on an abandoned stretch of highway near Methvin’s parents’ home.  Methvin’s father became aware of this arrangement and, under increased pressure from the police, exchanged the information for a promise that his son would not receive the death penalty if captured.  

The posse: standing: Ted Hinton, Prentiss Oakley, Manny Gault; seated: Bob Alcorn, Henderson Jordan and Hamer.

Hamer had chosen his posse well.  In addition to himself, there was Ted Hinton, who knew Bonnie from her waitressing days, as well as Bob Alcorn, who knew Clyde on sight.  There was also former Ranger Manny Gaul, Sheriff Henderson Jordan from Bienville, and his deputy, Prentiss Oakley.  Together the men waited outside the rendezvous point on Highway 154 for the little group to show up.  

At about 9:00 on the morning of May 23, 1934, the waiting posse heard a car fast approaching.  Looking through the bushes they quickly identified it as the stolen Ford that Clyde had last been seen driving.  It pulled up alongside Ivan Methvin’s truck, placed there by Hamer to attract Clyde’s attention and to place his car in the best position for the ambush.  The five officers opened fire, spraying the Ford and its occupants with approximately 130 rounds of ammunition.  According to interviews with Alcorn and Hinton:

It was about 9 a. m., when we finally sighted the car.  It was a gray V-8 coach, and that was the car we were looking for.  We had been waiting at the top of a steep hill, and the car had to slow down as it neared the top.  There wasn’t any time to think.  We didn’t have a minute to wonder if we were coming out alive.  The name Clyde Barrow and all the terror and danger it involved didn’t mean a thing.  There were two people in that car and they probably were Clyde and Bonnie.  And that car was getting nearer.

    There must have been a signal given, but “who it came from is another thing.  We just all acted together, stepped out into the road and raised our guns.  We all yelled “Halt!” at once.

    They didn’t halt.  The car was going slowly and Clyde let go of the wheel.  We could see him grab at a gun in his lap.  Bonnie was going for something on the other side.

    Then all hell broke loose.  There were six men shooting at once.  Machine guns?  No, thank God.  We had shotguns and Browning automatics.  We had tried machine guns once before….

    You couldn’t hear any one shot.  It was just a roar, a continuous roar, and it kept up for several minutes.  We emptied our guns, reloaded and kept shooting.  No chances with Clyde and Bonnie.

    As we jumped into sight, I could see Clyde reaching as if to get his gun.  But he never had a chance to fire a shot.  Neither did Bonnie, though we learned a few minutes later that they both were carrying rifles across their laps.

    Each of us six officers had a shotgun and an automatic rifle and pistols.

    We opened fire with the automatic rifles.  They were emptied before the car got even with us.  Then we used shotguns.

    After shooting the shotguns, we emptied the pistols at the car, which had passed us and ran into a ditch about 50 yards on down the road.  It almost turned over.  We kept shooting at the car even after it stopped.  We weren’t taking any chances.

    There was smoke coming from the car, and it looked like it was on fire.  I guess this was caused when one of the shotguns Clyde or Bonnie had across their laps went off.  They did not have time to raise their guns, but the tightening of their muscles as they were filled with lead might have pressed the trigger.  The blast at close range almost tore off …the door.

    We all ran up to the car.  Ted opened the door on Bonnie’s side and she almost fell out.

    She was sitting with her head down between her knees, bent over the gun that was in her lap.  Her right hand had been shot away.  She was also shot in the mouth, and I learned later that there were about 40 other bullet holes in her.

    The door on Clyde’s side would not open.  His head was hanging out the window.  He too had a shotgun across his lap and a pistol in his hand.  The back of his head was shot off.

    Bob knew right away that we had at last got the right ones.  He knew Clyde when the punk was stealing automobiles.  He also knew Bonnie, who used to be a waitress near the courthouse.  You can imagine how we felt.  Our first thought was to tell the boss, Sheriff Smoot Schmid so we got to the nearest town as quickly as we could and telephoned.

    ‘Did you sleep good last night?’ Ted asked Smoot.  ‘No, I didn’t.’ he answered.  “Well, you can go on home and sleep now.” Ted told him.  ‘We just killed em both.’  Smoot dropped the phone.  Oakley meanwhile went back to Arcadia for the coroner.  In the back of the car we found three machine rifles, two automatic shotguns, 10 automatic pistols and 1500 rounds of ammunition.  There were a couple of magazines, a detective and a love story.  In the seat beside Clyde and Bonnie was a bacon and lettuce sandwich.

    Before we got back to the car, however, people just sprang up from everywhere.

    Without removing the bodies, we hitched the car onto the back of a truck and towed it into Arcadia, where the bodies were taken to the undertakers.  That little town was filled with cars and people.”

Among the people who “sprang from everywhere” were women who tried to cut of locks of Bonnie’s hair and pieces of her dress.  Another man tried to cut off Clyde’s trigger finger while another went after his left ear.  According to the official coroner’s report, Clyde was shot 17 times and Bonnie 26.  Each had several headshots, any one of which would have killed them instantly.  The undertaker reported having difficulty embalming the body because they were too full of holes to hold the embalming fluid.  

Among the 12,000 people that rushed into the little town in the hopes of seeing a piece of history was one lone farmer with a sad, weather beaten face.  Henry Barrow had been called in by the police to make an official identification of what was left of his son’s body.  Afterwards he sat alone in the back of the furniture store where the bodies had been taken and wept.  There was also a young man in his mid-20s, dress in a quiet suit.  He was Buster Parker, and he was there to bring his sister’s body home.

Another person called in that day to help confirm the identities of the dead was H. D. Darby.  The previous year, Bonnie and Clyde had stolen his car and kidnapped him and his girlfriend.  Giddy and talkative with excitement, Bonnie had asked him what he did for a living.  When he replied that he was an undertaker, she cackled with laughter and observed that perhaps one day he’d get to work on her.  In fact he did, assisting Mr. McClure of McClure’s Funeral Parlor with preparing her body for burial.

Like their short lives, Bonnie and Clyde’s respective funerals got completely out of hand.  Bonnie’s funeral, held at the McCamy-Campbell Funeral Home in Dallas, was inundated with flowers, including arrangements that allegedly came from other “public enemies” such as John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd.  However, no bouquet was a large as the one from a group of Dallas news boys, who paid tribute to the woman whose death had allowed them to sell more than half a million papers in one day.  20,000 people showed up at the Fishtrap Cemetery for her burial, making it nearly impossible for the family to get to the gravesite.

Clyde’s funeral was private and held at the chapel of the Sparkman-Holtz-Brand Funeral Home in Dallas.  He was buried in the Western Heights Cemetery, next to his brother, Buck.  A single head stone marks both their graves and says, simply, “gone but not forgotten,” just as Clyde had earlier requested.

While this epitaph could not be more appropriate (no one who hears his story will ever forget Clyde Barrow,) it also could not be more poignant.  As a young man, he was the fifth of a large, very poor family where there appears to have never been enough of anything, including attention, to go around.  Desperate for adventure and money, he made the poor choice of breaking the law.  However, the law in turn broke him.  The cruelty of the Texas penitentiary system at that time turned a wayward boy into a hardened criminal, and the crimes perpetrated against him while he was in custody played a role in creating Clyde the murderer.   

And what of Bonnie?  What made a good student turn into a bad moll?  For her, it seems that she never overcame the loss of her father at such an age.  Good grades may have been her way of gaining family approval and affection until peer acceptance became more important.  Then her bad marriage, built on the hope of finally having a man to count on soured her to the possibility of ever being a fully functioning adult and drove her instead toward a life of doing whatever felt good at the moment.  She attached herself fully to Clyde, and when it became clear that he would likely die in a hail of bullets, she determined she wanted nothing less than that for herself.  In the end, they both got what they wanted.