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A Bienville Parish Saga: The Ambush and Killing of Bonnie and ClydeAuthor(s): William M. SimpsonSource: Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, Vol. 41, No. 1(Winter, 2000), pp. 5-21Published by: Louisiana Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4233632 .

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A Bienville Parish Saga: The Ambush

and Killing of Bonnie and Clyde

By WILLIAM M. SIMPSONY

In 1934 a veritable "Who's Who" among the nation's "most wanted" criminals died violently at the hands of various local, state, and federal authorities. In July, John Dillinger was gunned down outside Chicago's "Biograph Theater;" three months later Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd met his end on a remote farm site in Ohio; in November, George "Baby Face" Nelson was killed in a shootout with Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in northern Illinois; just a few weeks beyond year's end, "Ma" Barker and son Freddie were killed in Lake Weir, Florida.1

In all of the widely publicized post-Prohibition, Depression- era bloodletting, few cases generated as much attention, curiosity, or morbidity as the ambush and killing of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker on a lonely country road in North Louisiana on May 23, 1934. Even with the passage of decades, a fascination, and for some, infatuation with the murderous duo continues. This allure may be explained in part by controversy

The author is professor of History at Louisiana College.

'John Toland, The Dillinger Days (New York, 1963), 323-25, 335-39, and Paul Wellman, A Dynasty of Western Outlaws (New York, 1961), 342-53. Certainly not all notorious "public enemies" of the mid-1930s met a violent end. Two of the most sought after, George "Machine Gun" Kelly and Alvin Karpis, were taken alive and spent most of their incarcerated lives at Alcatraz. Kelly died in federal prison at Leavenworth in 1954; Karpis won parole in 1969 and committed suicide by drug overdose in 1977. See Jay Nash, ed., Encyclopedia of World Crime: Criminal Justice, Criminology, and Law Enforcement, Vol. 3 (Wilmette, Ill., 1990).

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6 LOUISIANA HISTORY

surrounding the circumstances of their ambush, embellishment of the popular legend over time, and "Hollywood" scripting. Among the latter, Arthur Penn's 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde elevated public interest in the ill-fated pair, portrayed by Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, to new heights.2

Accepting the environment-is-everything postulation of most twentieth-century behavioral scientists, the criminal careers and ultimate fates of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker are not surprising. Life was not easy or particularly pleasant for either. Barrow was born near Ennis, Texas, on March 24, 1909, one of a brood of eight children who lived with their parents in grinding poverty. At the age of twelve, Clyde moved with his family to West Dallas, locating in a squalid neighborhood along the Trinity River bottoms known as "the Bog." A school dropout by the fifth grade, he greatly admired and mimicked the larcenous ways of older brother Marvin "Buck" Barrow. As a youngster Clyde appeared frequently in juvenile court and spent several years in a Houston "reform" school before committing his first felony, a car theft, as a seventeen-year-old. By his twenty-first birthday he had been arrested no less than five times.3

2The first movie to convey a story-line noticeably parallel to the exploits of Bonnie and Clyde, "You Only Live Once," premiered in 1937. It was produced by John Houseman and starred Sylvia Sidney and Henry Fonda. Later portrayals in cinematography prior to Arthur Penn's production included "They Live By Night," "Gun Crazy," and "The Bonnie Parker Story." Pauline Kael, "Bonnie and Clyde," New Yorker, 43 (October 21, 1967): 147-8; and John Treherne, The Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde (Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., 1985), 243-55, offer good summaries and critiques of the various films. However, it was popular interest stirred by Penn's 1967 adaptation that resulted in a proliferation of news and popular magazine articles on Bonnie and Clyde. In addition to Kael's article, see John Reddy, "The Man Who Trapped Bonnie and Clyde," Reader's Digest, 92 (May, 1968), 120-24; David Snell, "Day the Real Clyde & Bonnie Were Gunned Down," Life, 64 (February 16, 1968): 21; and John Toland, "Sad Ballad of the Real Bonnie and Clyde," New York Times Magazine (February 18, 1968): 26-29. Indicative of continuing appeal, in 1995 the A & E Television Network's Biography series presented a documentary entitled "Love and Death: The Story of Bonnie and Clyde." The documentary, which weaves popular lore with serious research, provides a generally accurate account of the pair.

3For several days after the killing of Bonnie and Clyde, the press churned out detailed accounts on all known facets of their lives. Using discernment, a reasonably accurate biographical profile can be reconstructed from this extensive coverage. I have relied most heavily on the Dallas Morning News and Shreveport Times. The Sixtieth Anniversary Collection Edition of the Bienville Democrat (Vol. 2, May 23, 1934-1994) is useful in consolidating the contemporary press reports; hereafter cited as Collection Edition, 2.



THE AMBUSHAND KILLING OF BONNIE AND CLYDE 7

Bonnie was born into more comfortable circumstances at Rowena, Texas, on October 1, 1910. However, when her father died four years later, she moved with her mother and two siblings to a rough neighborhood on the outskirts of Dallas known as "Cement City." Here Bonnie did well in school, but her educational career ended at age sixteen when she married Roy Thornton. Although Bonnie had a double-hearted tattoo with Roy's name stenciled onto her right thigh, Thornton frequently played cupid with others. In 1929 Bonnie banished him from the house they had shared with her mother, and, although she would never obtain a divorce, Bonnie soon began seeing other men. Thornton subsequently fell into a life of crime and incarceration.4

Most accounts have Bonnie and Clyde first meeting in January, 1930, at a downtown Dallas caf6 where Bonnie worked as a waitress. A quick, mutual infatuation evidently blossomed. Emma Parker, Bonnie's mother, described Clyde as "a likeable boy, very handsome, with dark wavy hair, dancing brown eyes . . . [and] charm." Nell Cowan, Clyde's sister, remembered Bonnie as "an adorable little thing, more like a doll than a girl. She had yellow hair that kinked all over her head like a baby's . . . and blue, blue eyes."5

Regardless of the interpretations rendered regarding their physical countenance, Bonnie and Clyde's short outlaw life together was far from the Robin Hood-like lovers' romp across the Depression-era Southwest that legend sometimes portrays. Many contemporaries, aside from the authorities, saw them as vicious, but bungling murderers. The couple preyed upon

Also a number of books, generally more popular than scholarly, have been written on Bonnie and Clyde. Two of the most recent and insightful are Treherne, Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde and Ted Hinton (as told to Larry Grove), Ambush: The Real Story of Bonnie and Clyde (Austin, 1979). Hinton was one of the six lawmen who killed Bonnie and Clyde.

4Treherne, Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde, 23-31; Hinton, Ambush, 7-9; H. G. Frost and J. H. Jenkins, I'm Frank Hamer: The Life of a Texas Peace Officer (Austin, 1968), 179-80. Like Hinton, Hamer also participated in the fatal ambush.

5Quoted in Treherne, Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde, 48-49. Emma Parker maintained that Clyde first met her daughter at a friend's home, not as a cafe waitress. Soon after Bonnie and Clyde were killed, Mrs. Parker and Nell Cowan eulogized their loved ones in a book authored by journalist Jan Fortune. See Fugitives: The Story of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. As Told by Bonnie's Mother (Mrs. Emma Parker) and Clyde's Sister (Nell Barrow Cowan) (Dallas, 1934).



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8 LOUISIANA HISTORY

highway travelers, gas station and small store proprietors, and farmers more often than banks. Clarence Faulk, a Louisiana resident who knew Bonnie and Clyde, related in a 1990 interview that "the people hated them. All the folks in North Louisiana were frightened of these people; they were afraid to go out at night." Even fellow criminal John Dillinger had the gall to state: "They're a couple of snot-nosed punks. . . . They're giving bank robbing a bad name. "6

While Bonnie and Clyde clearly had a deep affection for, and devotion to, each other, sexual gratification may have come by way of other partners. Speculation continues regarding Clyde's sexual preferences, some suggesting that he had an affinity for those of his own gender; on the other hand, Bonnie was unquestionably heterosexual. According to W. D. Jones, a young con-man who traveled with the pair for almost a year, Bonnie demanded sex of him four or fives times daily! Although Jones's claim is almost certainly an exaggeration, Bonnie's alleged nymphomania has been linked, at least in film, to an obsession with guns and their phallic symbolism.7

Bonnie may have found Clyde a disappointment in love making, but her initial attraction to the young braggart lay in the potential for escape from what had become a drab and boring life. Before meeting Clyde, while husband Roy was sometimes still about, she had penned the following: "Sure am blue. Everything has gone wrong today. Why don't something happen. What a life!"8

Shortly after Bonnie's introduction to Clyde, things did indeed begin to "happen." In March, 1930, just a few weeks after meeting Bonnie, Clyde found himself in a Waco jail awaiting transfer to the state penitentiary following his conviction on

6Faulk quoted in Carl Lindahl, Maida Owen, and C. R. Harrison, eds., Swapping Stories: Folktales From Louisiana (Jackson, Miss., 1997), 231; Dillinger quoted in Nash, ed., Encyclopedia of World Crime, 1:252. Aside from Emma Parker and Nell Cowan, Ted Hinton is one of the few who chronicle Bonnie and Clyde with some empathy for their circumstances. As a youngster Hinton worked briefly with Clyde delivering telegrams in Dallas for Western Union, during which time an acquaintance formed. It must have been a rough crowd of young messengers; among thirty-seven with whom Hinton worked, twelve eventually received prison sentences and four were executed. Hinton, Ambush, 3.

7Nash, ed., Encyclopedia of World Crime, 1:252-53; Treherne, Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde, 248.

8Quoted in Nash, ed., Encyclopedia of World Crime, 1:252.



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multiple counts of car theft and burglary. Frustrated that her new man was behind bars, Bonnie smuggled a gun into the Waco jail, enabling Clyde to escape; however, he was soon apprehended and sent to one of the prison farms affiliated with the state penitentiary at Huntsville. Bonnie would have to wait almost two years before he left prison with a pardon in February, 1932, and returned to her in Dallas.9

Following his release from the penitentiary and reunion with Bonnie, Clyde spent a few weeks doing honest work on a con- struction crew. In view of the fact that he was an ex-con and that jobs were at a premium as the nation reached the nadir of its Depression-related woes, one might have expected Clyde to real- ize his good turn in fortune and give law-abiding citizenship a serious try. However, he soon left the job, returned to Bonnie's tender if not arousing embrace, and joined forces with hoodlum Raymond Hamilton. The trio roamed the countryside, stealing cars and robbing small stores. Their lawlessness turned deadly in Hillsboro, Texas, on April 23, when a botched robbery resulted in the murder of store owner J. N. Bucher.10 Bucher was to be the first of twelve people killed over the next two years by the so-called "Barrow gang."

After additional robberies, car thefts, another murder, and failed police pursuits, Ray Hamilton parted company with Bonnie and Clyde in October, 1932, seeking bigger rewards in crime. However, he was soon apprehended, convicted on a series of charges, and ultimately sent to the Texas state penitentiary. Meanwhile, Bonnie and Clyde had acquired a new partner in W. D. Jones, a sixteen-year-old from Dallas who had previously known and admired Clyde. In March, 1933, Buck Barrow, himself just released from prison, and his wife Blanche joined the trio. Buck assured his very reluctant spouse

9Dallas Morning News, May 24, 1934; Hinton, Ambush, 10-12; Treherne, Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde, 53-58. When pardoned by Gov. Ross Sterling, Clyde had not fully recovered from the recent severing of two toes done to avoid further field work at the prison farm.

10Bienville Democrat, Collection Edition, 2; Dallas Morning News, May 24, 1934; Frost and Jenkins, I'm Frank Hamer, 187-88; Hinton, Ambush, 15-16. Clyde had first become acquainted with Ray Hamilton in his mid-teens, when both were engaged in thuggery and petty theft as members of the "Root Square" gang in Houston.



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10 LOUISIANA HISTORY

that he merely wanted to spend some quality time with his little brother whom he had not seen in over a year.11

What transpired next in the saga of Bonnie and Clyde tests credulity given the wild sequence of events, yet the record is clear in authentication. Following an April 13 shootout with authorities that left two lawmen dead in Joplin, Missouri, the Barrow gang made headlines two weeks later when they stole a car in Ruston, Louisiana. H. D. Darby and Sophie Stone, the car owner and his girlfriend, witnessed the theft while cuddling on a front porch swing and promptly gave chase in another vehicle. However, the pursuers suddenly became the pursued and in short order victims of kidnap. After several hours as hostages, the thoroughly shaken couple was released unharmed in southern Arkansas and even given bus fare for their return home. 12

For the next three months the Barrow gang roamed and robbed across the Southwest. In mid-July they rented several cabins near Platte City, Missouri, intending to "lay low" for a few days and give Bonnie time to recover from serious leg burns suffered in a recent car wreck. Local authorities soon learned of their identity and on July 19 cautiously approached the hideaway. However, Clyde had been alert to possible detection, and when the lawmen demanded the criminals surrender, they were answered by a hail of gunfire. In the ensuing battle all members of the gang suffered wounds except W. D. Jones, yet somehow all five managed to get into a car and speed away through police barricades.13

1"Bienville Democrat, Collection Edition, 2; Dallas Morning News, May 24, 1934; Frost and Jenkins, I'm Frank Hamer, 188-90; Hinton, Ambush, 16-25, 35-36; Nash, ed., Encyclopedia of World Crime, 1:255. Buck Barrow escaped the state penitentiary in 1930, but after marrying Blanche Caldwell she persuaded him to go "straight" and turn himself in to authorities. Buck returned voluntarily to Huntsville in December, 1931, to serve out his term. After repeated requests from Blanche and Buck's mother, Gov. Miriam "Ma" Ferguson granted a reprieve.

12Dallas Morning News, May 24, 1934; Shreveport Times, May 24, 1934; Frost and Jenkins, I'm Frank Hamer, 191-92, 199; Hinton, Ambush, 37-39, 48-49. Rolls of film and a partially composed poem of Bonnie's entitled "Suicide Sal" were among the items found in the apartments occupied by the Barrow gang prior to their hasty flight from Joplin. The film was processed and the pictures, along with poem, made headlines in many newspapers throughout the Southwest. The most reproduced photograph showed Bonnie with cigar in mouth, pistol in hand resting on her right hip, and left leg propped on the front fender of a car.

13Bienville Democrat, Collection Edition, 2; Dallas Morning News, May 24, 1934; Frost and Jenkins, I'm Frank Hamer, 200; Hinton, Ambush, 50-51, 62-65.



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THE AMBUSH AND KILLING OF BONNIE AND CLYDE 11

The escape was short-lived. While Bonnie and Clyde had sustained only flesh wounds fighting their way out of the bungalows, Blanche Barrow had incurred serious eye wounds and her husband had sustained a bullet through the head. By July 23 a large posse of lawmen encountered the bloodied gang encamped in a field near Dexter, Iowa. Again, another fierce gunfight erupted. In spite of additional wounds received in the exchange, Bonnie, Clyde, and W. D. Jones managed to retreat into a nearby wood and made yet another miraculous getaway. Buck, with Blanche at his side in hysterics, continued to blast away at the encircling posse until he fell mortally wounded vomiting blood. He would cling to life in a local hospital before dying on July 29. Blanche ultimately received a lengthy sentence in the Missouri state penitentiary.14

Although Bonnie, Clyde, and Jones eluded the police dragnet in Iowa, they were now more than ever forced to stay on the road, continually moving about in an effort to avoid suspicion or capture. The thrill of running with Bonnie and Clyde began to lose its luster for Jones. Perhaps realizing that he had already survived too many brushes with death, he left the pair in October, 1933, and was arrested a month later in Houston, Texas. During interrogations Jones became a willing informant, claiming that he had been coerced into joining the gang and thus an "unwilling participant" in the crime spree.15 Jones's claim is hardly credible considering the many opportunities for flight in his time spent with Bonnie and Clyde.

The information supplied by Jones on the routines and habits of the notorious duo proved of little value to authorities. However, time was running out for Bonnie and Clyde. Their assistance in the escape of former associate Raymond Hamilton from the Texas state penitentiary in January, 1934, ignited a series of events that brought them to a violent death in Bienville Parish.

On January 16, 1934, Hamilton and four other prisoners killed a work detail guard at the Eastham prison farm near Crockett, Texas, a satellite facility of the Huntsville state penitentiary,

14Nash, ed., Encyclopedia of World Crime, 1:259; Dallas Morning News, May 24, 1934; Hinton, Ambush, 67-79.

15Hinton, Ambush, 100-102, 193; Nash, ed., Encyclopedia of World Crime, 1:259. Because W. D. Jones was only seventeen years old, he received some leniency from the prosecutors. However, he was convicted as an accomplice in one murder and given a fifteen-year prison sentence.



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subsequently making their way to a waiting car driven by Bonnie and Clyde. The daring escape had been arranged a few days earlier and weapons were secreted by Clyde near where the prison detail was expected. Twenty-one-year-old Henry Methvin was among the escapees. His parents, Irvin and Ave Methvin, lived near Gibsland, Louisiana, where they struggled to make a living on a small farm. Within a few days of the deadly jail break, Clyde drove the younger Methvin to visit his parents briefly, and Barrow apparently was "quite taken" with Henry's folks. 16

The newly constituted Barrow gang, which now included Hamilton and "girlfriend" Mary O'Dare, Henry Methvin, and Joe Palmer, another Eastham prison escapee, embarked on a two-month crime spree across the Southwest. They were far from a happy band of outlaws. Mary O'Dare's generosity in sharing her affections and Hamilton's amorous inclinations toward Bonnie caused problems. The breakup came not long after a bank robbery in Lancaster, Texas, when Clyde and Hamilton argued vehemently, almost violently, over division of the loot. In early March, Hamilton and moll Mary went their own way; shortly afterward, Joe Palmer did also. Only Henry Methvin remained with Bonnie and Clyde.'7

As the Barrow gang splintered, a determined group of lawmen were closing in on their quarry. Ted Hinton and Bob Alcorn, deputies in the Dallas County Sheriffs Department, had tracked Bonnie and Clyde for over a year on a part-time basis. Following the Eastham prison escape that left one guard dead, Lee Simmons, head of the state penal system, persuaded former Texas Ranger Frank Hamer to take up the pursuit. Hamer in turn recruited Manny Gault, another former Ranger, to join in the hunt.'8

16Frost and Jenkins, I'm Frank Hamer, 200-201; Treherne, Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde, 170-74, 195-96; Time, 23 (January 29, 1934): 17.

17Treherne, Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde, 174-80. Hamilton and Palmer were soon apprehended, only to escape once again from the Texas State Penitentiary. They were eventually recaptured and both executed on May 10, 1935.

18Dallas Morning News, May 24, 1934; Frost and Jenkins, I'm Frank Hamer, 201-2, 207; Hinton, Ambush, 133-35; Walter P. Webb, The Texas Rangers: A Century of Frontier Defense (Austin, 1965), 539; Time, 23 (June 4, 1934): 16. Frank Hamer, who had become a living legend in Texas Ranger lore, resigned from the Rangers upon Miriam Ferguson's second gubernatorial election. The resignation stemmed in large part from his contempt for "Ma" Ferguson's liberal pardoning of serious criminal offenders in her earlier term. After leaving the Rangers,'




After learning of Henry Methvin's association with Bonnie and Clyde, Hinton, Alcorn, and Hamer began a clandestine infiltration of Bienville and adjacent parishes in hopes of gathering information and perhaps capturing the gang off guard at one of their suspected hideouts near Irvin Methvin's place. Hamer later claimed that he came very close to reaching this objective on several occasions, only to discover that Bonnie and Clyde had recently departed the scene.19

Pressure increased for apprehension of the three-member Barrow gang when they murdered two highway patrolmen near Grapevine, Texas, Easter Sunday, April 1. A week later in Oklahoma, Clyde killed a town constable who had come to investigate a reported sighting of the gang. In this deadly encounter another officer was wounded and taken hostage. The wounded lawman struck up a conversation with his captors and, at least according to his version, Bonnie quite enjoyed the repartee. Whatever Bonnie thought of the wounded captive, he was released without further injury the next day in Fort Scott, Kansas.220

Perhaps even a cold-blooded murderer is not without a sense of morose humor. On April 13, Henry Ford, head of the Ford Motor Company, received the following letter postmarked April 10 in Tulsa, Oklahoma:

Hamer worked for a Houston-based oil firm before being "recruited" by Lee Simmons. Simmons, like Ted Hinton, later chronicled his role in the pursuit of Bonnie and Clyde. See Lee Simmons, Assignment Huntsville: Memoirs of a Texas Prison Officer (Austin, 1965).

19Dallas Morning News, May 24, 1934; Shreveport Times, May 24, 1934; New York Times, May 24, 1934; Frost and Jenkins, I'm Frank Hamer, 212; Hinton, Ambush, 159-61; Treherne, Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde, 195; Webb, Texas Rangers, 541.

20Baton Rouge Morning Advocate, June 1, 1934; Dallas Morning News, May 24, 1934; Shreveport Times, June 1, 1934; Frost and Jenkins, I'm Frank Hamer, 219-21; Treherne, Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde, 181-86. According to Percy Boyd, the officer taken hostage, Bonnie was most perturbed that the press frequently referred to her as Clyde's "gun-toting, cigar-smoking" woman (based on the photographs developed from film confiscated after the Joplin, Missouri raid). Upon Boyd's release, she admonished him to set reporters straight-she did not smoke cigars!

Regarding the two murdered highway patrolmen, a farmer working nearby who witnessed the killings, William Schiefer, steadfastly maintained that the culprits were not Bonnie and Clyde. However, later ballistics testing on weapons found in their "death" car convinced authorities that Schiefer was mistaken.



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Dear Sir: While I still have got breath in my lungs I will tell you

what a dandy car you make. I have drove [sic] Fords exclusively when I could get away

with one. For sustained speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got ever [sic] other car skinned and even if my business hasen't [sic] been strictly legal it don't [sic] hurt anything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V8.

Yours truly, Clyde Champion Barrow2'

The Texas lawmen pursuing the Barrow gang were not inclined to share Barrow's humor, for they continued to be frustrated in their efforts to nab the outlaws. However, they remained convinced that the best chance for apprehension was in or around Bienville Parish. After gaining the confidence of Bienville Parish Sheriff Henderson Jordan, Hinton and Hamer, as well as the F.B.I., divulged the information they had obtained in hopes that the sheriff, being more familiar with the local scene, might be of assistance. Jordan in turn shared the details with his trusted chief deputy, Prentiss Oakley.22

Finally, after months hunting and several near misses, the trackers bagged their prey on Wednesday morning, May 23, at a site between Gibsland and Sailes along what is today Highway 154. For decades afterward, the most widely circulated account of the ambush maintained that Irvin and Henry Methvin had "set-up" Bonnie and Clyde after negotiating a "deal" with authorities that allowed Henry clemency. According to this version, the elder Methvin persuaded his son to leave the duo temporarily without arousing their suspicion. He then informed Bonnie and Clyde that Henry would rejoin them at a specified time and locale near his place. When driving to the designated rendezvous, they came upon Irvin Methvin changing a flat on his truck and stopped to inquire of Henry's whereabouts, and the lawmen chose this moment to spring the ambush.23

2'Quoted from reprint in Bienville Democrat, Collection Edition, 2. Doubt exists as to whether this typed letter actually came from Clyde.

22Dallas Morning News, May 24, 1934; Shreveport Times, May 24, 1934; Frost and Jenkins, I'm Frank Hamer, 222; Nash, ed., Encyclopedia of World Crime, 1:262; Toland, The Dillinger Days, 295-66; Treherne, Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde, 196.

23Nash, ed., Encyclopedia of World Crime, 1:262-63; Reddy "The Man Who Trapped Bonnie and Clyde," 120-24.



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The six lawmen involved in the ambush-Frank Hamer, Ted Hinton, Bob Alcorn, Manny Gault, Henderson Jordan, and Prentiss Oakley-all publicly denied that the Methvins had played a role, yet innuendo and cloaked responses to direct queries from a converging horde of reporters made it appear that they had indeed been participants. However, Frank Hamer maintained the "official' position some six weeks later in an interview with Walter Prescott Webb. While Hamer admitted receiving "valuable sources of information" in the apprehension of Bonnie and Clyde, he refused to divulge specifics. He did state categorically that Irvin Methvin was nowhere near the ambush scene.24

Still, as years passed the popular supposition that the Methvins "ratted" on Bonnie and Clyde persisted. This assumption seemed validated in 1957, when Lee Simmons, head of the Texas state penal system who initially put Hamer on their trail, wrote in his "memoirs" that a deal had in fact been struck with the Methvins whereby Gov. Miriam "Ma" Ferguson would pardon Henry in return for the betrayal. In 1968, Gordon Frost and John Jenkins published their definitive biography on Frank Hamer, substantiating Simmons's claim. The authors contend that Hamer adhered to the contrived account of the ambush, such as the one given Walter Prescott Webb, in order to protect the various parties involved.25

Any lingering doubts about circumstances behind the ambush seemed conclusively resolved until 1977, when a "debunking" book appeared from Ted Hinton, the last surviving member of the posse that ambushed Bonnie and Clyde. Published posthumously, this work maintains that the Methvins did not betray the ill-fated pair. Quite the contrary; through good police work the lawmen themselves had picked a likely spot and time for the ambush. When Irvin Methvin happened by their

24Baton Rouge Morning Advocate, May 24, 1934; Dallas Morning News, May 24, 1934; New York Times, May 24, 1934; Shreveport Times, May 24, 1934; Frost and Jenkins, I'm Frank Hamer, 210, 231-33; Webb, Texas Rangers, 540-42.

25Frost and Jenkins, I'm Frank Hamer, 259-61; Simmons, Assignment Huntsville. Although pardoned for crimes committed in Texas, in 1935 Henry Methvin was prosecuted in Oklahoma and convicted as an accomplice of Clyde Barrow in the April, 1934, murder of town constable Cal Campbell. Methvin served a ten-year prison term, after which he returned to Louisiana and operated a restaurant in Minden. He was killed a few years later in a train accident. See Hinton, Ambush, 193, and Treherne, Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde, 216, 220.



16 LOUISIANA HISTOR Y

concealed location, his truck was commandeered and he was forcibly detained. The truck was then positioned in the road absent a front tire in hopes that Bonnie and Clyde, who would undoubtedly recognize the vehicle, might stop when and if they came along. The ruse worked. After the ambush, and before others arrived at the scene, the furious Methvin was released and sent on his way with the threat that if he had any hopes of having his son avoid the electric chair, he would not divulge the "carjacking" or bring charges against the officers.26

Apparently Hinton waited until near death to "set the record straight" because the six who participated in the ambush made a "secret agreement" to say nothing of Irvin Methvin's kidnapping so long as more than one among them lived. L. J. Hinton writes in the "Foreword" of his father's book:

The fact is, these six officers broke the law.... They didn't intend to, but when the chance came unexpectedly . . . to set a trap, they decided that the opportunity to catch the known killers of twelve people outweighed the violation of rights that occurred on that Louisiana road.27

What is to be made of the seemingly contradictory interpretations rendered by key principals involved in the ambush and killing of Bonnie and Clyde? John Treherne surmises in a recent study that Ted Hinton was most probably unaware of an earlier deal "cut" with the Methvins and thus accurately described what he had seen and believed to be taking place. This theory implies that Irvin Methvin's kidnapping had been consensually prearranged rather than spontaneous. Treherne, maintaining that such a charade may have been staged to offer Methvin an alibi, argues:

After all, if the ambush had failed, then he would have been in a very awkward position, for Clyde Barrow would have attempted to murder his betrayers. Shackled to a tree and protesting vigorously, he had a good alibi for the presence of his truck, which was an important element in the strategy of the ambush.28

26Hinton, Ambush, 166-72.

27Ibid., ix.

28Treherne, Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde, 219-20.



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Accurate or not, this is at least a plausible explanation. One may also conjecture that Methvin cooperated with the kidnapping ruse to avoid ostracism from local sympathizers of the young outlaw couple.

If an earlier "arrangement" had been concluded without Hinton's knowledge, either confusion arose about when the ambush would occur or Irvin Methvin was unable to "deliver' on time. Hinton maintained that he and the other officers began their roadside stakeout on Monday evening, May 21. By mid- morning of the next day, the concealed lawmen began to doze, but they remained at the site and spent a second mosquito- invested night awaiting their quarry.29

Regardless of the circumstances leading to the ambush, it is a matter of historical record that at approximately 9:15 a.m. on May 23, 1934, while driving south of Gibsland, Louisiana, in a tan-colored V-8 Ford, Bonnie and Clyde were almost literally shot to pieces. Perhaps Frank Hamer offered the most succinct description of what transpired when he told the press shortly afterwards: "We just shot the devil out of them, that's all. That's all there was to it. We just laid a trap for them. A steel trap. You know, Bessemer steel, like gun barrels are made of." In what might be construed as gentlemanly deference to Southern womanhood, he went on to state "I hate to bust a cap on a woman, especially when she was sitting down. However, if it hadn't been her, it would have been us."30

This writer accepts the interpretation that Methvin's abandoned truck in the roadway caused Clyde to decelerate upon approaching and stop as he drew alongside. Whether the ambush party then gave the occupants a chance to surrender is a matter of conjecture. As would be expected, all six officers told reporters that a warning of some type was given, but to no avail. According to Ted Hinton, as the Ford V-8 stopped adjacent to the truck Bob Alcorn bellowed "halt!" Bonnie responded with a startled shriek and as Clyde gunned the car in an attempted escape, the six lawmen opened fire at near point-blank range. The bullet-riddled Ford slowly rolled down the road into a side embankment, Bonnie and Clyde being hit repeatedly all the while. After the car came to a rest, the officers cautiously approached and found both passengers dead, Clyde with a death

291bid., 200-202; Hinton, Ambush, 162-67.

30Quoted in New York Times, May 24, 1934.



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grip on an unfired pistol. Later, in an understated jewel of bureaucratic documentation, the coroner's jury concluded "after diligent inquiry and thorough investigation" that Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow died of gunshot wounds.31 The officers found a veritable arsenal of weapons in the death car, along with more than a dozen car license plates, road maps, detective and romance magazines, a saxophone, and assorted canned goods. On the floorboard between Bonnie's feet was a half-eaten sandwich.32

Aside from the lawmen participating in the ambush, a Gibsland caf6 proprietress may have been the last person to see Bonnie and Clyde alive. Rosa Canefield told reporters that about 7:00 Wednesday morning the two, whom she had served the day before, entered her establishment and ordered coffee and donuts. She described the man she later learned to be Clyde Barrow as "morose and sulky, slumping over his plate and hardly raising his eyes." Bonnie, on the other hand, was polite and courteous in demeanor. Ms. Canefield said of her: "She was such a little thing . . . and I'll always remember how sweetly she smiled at me."33

Shortly after Bonnie and Clyde had been killed, Frank Hamer, Ted Hinton, and Henderson Jordan drove to Arcadia, the Bienville Parish seat of justice, to summon the coroner and notify various officials of their accomplishment. Meanwhile, Bob Alcorn, Manny Gault, and Prentiss Oakley remained at the ambush scene to keep the rapidly congregating curiosity seekers from tampering with evidence and taking "souvenirs." Their efforts were largely in vain. By the time Hamer, Hinton, and Jordan returned approximately two hundred cars were parked along the roadway and scavengers crowded around the bullet- riddled Ford V-8 trying to get access to the stiffening corpses still inside. John Treherne writes of the grisly spectacle:

31Hinton, Ambush, 168-70; facsimile of Bienville Parish Coroner's Inquest, May 23, 1934, in possession of the writer. The "death" car had over 150 bullet holes, mainly on the driver's side as the lawmen fired from more or less a horizontal line stationed east of the roadway and the car was traveling in a southerly direction. Bonnie and Clyde both suffered approximately fifty gunshot wounds.

32Baton Rouge Morning Advocate, May 24, 1934; Dallas Morning News, May 24, 1934; Shreveport Times, May 24, 1934; Hinton, Ambush, 173. Hinton captured it all, including the bodies of Bonnie and Clyde, on 16mm. film footage.

33Quoted in Shreveport Times, May 24, 1934.



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Hair had been hacked from Bonnie's head, material cut from her blood-soaked dress and from Barrow's gory shirt. One man had attempted to amputate Clyde's trigger finger; another had tried to cut off his ear. . . . Despite the rain, men and women were crawling on all fours searching for empty cartridge cases or attempting to dig embedded bullets from the surrounding trees.34

When parish coroner Dr. J. L. Wade concluded his preliminary inspection, the car with bodies still slumped on the front seat was towed to Arcadia, trailed by an ever growing "macabre convoy" of vehicles. As the entourage neared the parish seat, the towing truck stalled temporarily opposite a school yard and children on the playground flocked to the death car. According to Ted Hinton, Bob Alcorn "leaped out of our car to try to order them away. Despite everything he could do, they had already plucked frayed strands from Bonnie's red dress, ripped samples of her hair, [and] smeared their little fingers in clumps of not-yet-coagulated blood."35

Fortunately, the tow truck was soon operating again, and the long line of vehicular pilgrims progressed into Arcadia, where the bodies of Bonnie and Clyde were laid out in a funeral parlor of sorts at the rear of S. A. Conger and Son Furniture Store. The next few hours saw pandemonium as thousands tromped and thrashed through the store in an attempt to glimpse the shattered corpses. In sheer desperation after being unable to proceed in his work, the undertaker resorted to spraying the gawking mob with embalming fluid. By dusk, what was normally a town of 3,000 had become a macabre sideshow arena for some 12,000 sightseers, officials, dignitaries, and newspaper reporters.36

34Treherne, Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde, 208-9. See also Hinton, Ambush, 173, 183.

35Hinton, Ambush, 182. See also Bienville Democrat, Collection Edition, 2; Shreveport Times, May 24, 1934; Treherne, Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde, 209.

36Bienville Democrat, Collection Edition, 2; Shreveport Times, May 24, 1934; Hinton, Ambush, 183, 188; Treherne, Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde, 209- 210; Snell, "Day the Real Clyde & Bonnie Were Gunned Down," 21. Snell writes of his recollections as a thirteen-year-old in town that day, having come with his parents from nearby Minden to partake of the historic festivities.

The "death" car was as big a crowd pleaser as the corpses. Over the decades numerous entrepreneurs have owned and exhibited the vehicle, which sold as late as 1973 for $175,000. See Jessica Foy, "Bonnie and Clyde," in Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, ed. by Charles Wilson and William Ferris (Chapel Hill, 1989), 1499-1500.



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For this brief moment in history, national attention turned to the morbid carnival in Arcadia, Louisiana.

Lassar Alexander, a physician from nearby Winn Parish who was among the curious horde, gave a detailed description of the tattered bodies. He noted that what had earlier in the day been Clyde Barrow was so shot to pieces, the morticians were forced to inject embalming fluid into different parts of the torso. The inquisitive doctor further reported that if head wounds were discounted, Bonnie was "shot up worse than Clyde."37

The postscript to the Bienville Parish saga of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow came on Thursday, May 24, when their bodies were transported to separate funeral parlors in Dallas, Texas; Bonnie's to the McKamy-Campbell Funeral Home and Clyde's to the Sparkman-Holtz-Brand Chapel. Large crowds, mostly the curious, visited the respective funeral homes to view the bodies before interment. Earlier on several occasions Bonnie had requested burial next to Clyde when their end came, but now her grieving mother could not abide this thought. Emma Parker angrily stated that "Clyde had her for two years. Look what he did to her. Now she's mine. Nobody else has a right to her."38

The Reverend Clifford Andrews, pastor of the Oak Cliff Full Gospel Church, conducted both funerals. Late Friday afternoon, May 25, Clyde was buried next to his brother Buck in the "Western Heights" Cemetery. During the graveside service an overflying airplane dropped a spray of gladioli with an attached card inscribed simply "From a Flyer Friend." Even before family mourners had vacated the cemetery, souvenir hunters began snatching floral arrangements from the coffin. The following day, Saturday, May 26, Bonnie was interred several miles away in the "Fishtrap" Cemetery. While most relatives bid her a tearful farewell, one of her aunts, Mrs. E. M. Stamps, confided "I am glad she is dead but I am sorry she had to go the way she did, without repenting, because she surely is in Hell."39

37Winn Parish Enterprise, January 21, 1998. (Reprint of a newspaper article first published on June 1, 1934.) Numerous photographs of the slain pair substantiate Lassar Alexander's depiction.

38Quoted in Shreveport Times, May 25, 1934; see also Dallas Morning News, May 25, 1934.

39Quoted in Time, 23 (June 4, 1934): 16. See also Alexandria Daily Town Talk, May 26, 1934; Baton Rouge Morning Advocate, May 27, 1934; Dallas Morning News, May 25, 26 & 27, 1934; Shreveport Times, May 26, 1934. The Reverend Clifford Andrews had not been personally acquainted with either Bonnie or Clyde; however, L. C. Barrow, Clyde's brother, had come to know the Reverend



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Over the next few weeks, the six law officers who killed Bonnie and Clyde generally received accolades for a dangerous job well done. Typical of the perfunctory commendations was the following telegram from Louisiana Governor Oscar K. Allen to local hero Henderson Jordan: "You are to be congratulated on the capture of two of the most notorious outlaws in the southwest. It is only by such diligence and action as you have shown that crime can be stamped out."40 On a grassroots level, appreciative citizens of Austin, Texas, planned a Frank Hamer-Manny Gault "Hero Day" for their hometown celebrities on May 28. Ted Hinton and Bob Alcorn received near equal adulation back home in Dallas, along with a modest monetary stipend. Congress lauded all of the men responsible for the apprehension of Bonnie and Clyde with a "special resolution" of gratitude for their efforts in the fight against crime.41

For the remainder of 1934, and indeed over the next few years, a citizenry impoverished by the Great Depression continued to monitor through lurid press details the elimination and incarceration of big-name criminals. Although the "bad guys" were temporarily on the run, being regularly nabbed in a more aggressive federal pursuit directed by J. Edgar Hoover, their public "persona" endured, even to the point of romanticized legend. In time, Bonnie and Clyde's sudden and gruesome end on a remote Bienville Parish roadway would become ensconced in this lore.

through his Sunday afternoon visitations to the county jail in Dallas. From this association, L. C. requested the pastor to officiate at his brother's funeral; Emma Parker subsequently asked him to preside at Bonnie's service.

40Quoted in Shreveport Times, May 24, 1934.

"1Frost and Jenkins, I'm Frank Hamer, 249-50; Hinton, Ambush, 192; Treherne, Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde, 226-27. Not everyone "lauded" the lawmen for their actions in dispatching Bonnie and Clyde. They received censure or scorn from many who questioned the ambush-style killing and whether the victims had been given a "chance" to surrender.



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Documents

A Bienville Parish Saga: The Ambush and Killing of Bonnie ...Bonnie+and+Clyde.pdf · A Bienville Parish Saga: The Ambush and Killing of Bonnie and Clyde By WILLIAM M. SIMPSONY In