—Courtesy the Bob Fischer/Renay Stanard collection
After Bonnie and Clyde met on that early January evening, they quickly became an item. Bonnie’s mother met her daughter’s new boyfriend a couple of weeks later. She said he looked more like a student than the bandit he turned out to be. She was introduced to him in the kitchen, where he was wearing an apron and making hot chocolate—not a very threatening figure.1
Clyde continued to see Bonnie on into February while trying to keep out of sight of the cops. He hadn’t been charged along with Buck and Sidney Moore, but he knew he was still “hot.” About the second week in February, Clyde was visiting Bonnie at her mother’s house and stayed until late in the evening. Some sources say he told Bonnie he was leaving town the next day, and Bonnie may have already known that the police were looking for him.2 Bonnie’s mother suggested that, since it was so late, Clyde should just stay over.
The Parker house, in February 1930, was a little crowded.3 Emma Parker was living there with her two daughters, plus Billie Jean’s husband, Fred Mace, and their young baby. That’s why Clyde got the living room couch for the night. In the morning, Mrs. Parker fixed breakfast, saw Fred off to work, and let Clyde sleep in a little. The Barrow family always believed that the police found out through the grapevine that Clyde had started seeing Bonnie on a regular basis and began watching the Parker house for a chance to catch him. He was still on the couch, wearing a pair of Bonnie’s brother’s pajamas, when they came to arrest him.4
Once in custody, Clyde found he was wanted in several places. From the Dallas jail, he was sent to Denton for the Motor Mark Garage job. He was kept there until the end of the month, but there was not enough evidence to convict him. Next in line was Waco, and that was a different situation. There, he was charged with several things relating to his activities with Frank Clause the year before. Whatever the evidence was, it convinced Clyde to plead guilty to seven counts of burglary and auto theft. He was given two years on each count but would be allowed to serve them concurrently. This may have been part of a deal for a guilty plea. He could be free and clear in twenty-four months. Clyde had been moved from the Dallas area to Waco on March 2, 1930, and the next day, his mother traveled there to be with him during the proceedings. Along with her went Bonnie Parker.5
According to Marie Barrow, the arrests of both Buck and Clyde devastated their mother. Not only were two of her sons in serious trouble, but now they had both been sentenced to substantial terms in the state prison system—known as one of the most brutal in the nation. The boys had been routinely picked up by the police, but they had never before been found guilty or sentenced to any jail terms.
Just before he was transferred to Huntsville from the Denton jail, Buck wrote a letter home. In this original letter, Buck’s early lack of interest in schoolwork was apparent, as was the influence of movies and dime novels. The letter was dated January 12, 1930.
Mr. and Mrs. H. B. Barrow
My dear mother and father and all home folks,
It is with pleasure that I send this letter to you in answer to your sweet letter which I received today. However, it grieves me to be compelled to send it to you from prison. Mother, the days drag on here now and it seems like six years since your tear-stained face looked into the jail here at me, your son. I can fully realize that if I had’ve heeded your and Father’s kind, loving advice, I would not have been here on this dreary, lonesome day. Oh, mother, if God gives me one more chance I shall try to do the best that is in me to lead a worthwhile life in the future and to be a man that the people will respect and that my relatives will honor. I know the heartaches and sorrow that my crookedness has given to you and Father.
Mother, tell B——— that I am going to whip her year [sic] down if she doesn’t write me, and also tell Elvin to send me gloves when I get down on the farm, but don’t send auto gloves for there are no cars to drive down there and send me two big red handkerchiefs also. This is all for this time. I send you all of my love.
Your son, Buck Barrow.6
As a postscript, Buck included “All for my dear mother” with a whole line of “X’s” afterward.
Buck’s first letter from the Huntsville area, with its news of him being in the prison hospital, didn’t reassure his mother. This letter was dated January 16, 1930.
Dear Mother and all:
Will write you a few lines to let you know that I have made the trip. Mother, I am in the hospital now and my legs are hurting pretty bad. It sure looks hard but I am going to take it.
Mother, try to get me a furlough and don’t fail to write often and don’t forget to tell Blanche to write me and to tell me all of the news that happens in the outside world. Send me some stamps and envelopes that I can write every day and I wish you would do the same. Mother, tell sister to send my shoes and send me some more pajamas because they burned mine up, but they will let me have some more now if you send them to me and tell her to help me all she can to get out on a parole or a furlough while you are so sick.
I hope that the outside world don’t forget me because I am in the walls.
Goodbye Mother and don’t worry— [signed] Marvin Barrow7
Buck’s second letter also had a postscript: “Don’t send me any tobacco but send me some money. Because they won’t let any tobacco come in.”
While Clyde was sitting in the Denton jail, Buck wrote his family another letter from prison. It was dated February 24, 1930, and was postmarked from Midway, Texas. In this letter Buck seemed to be adjusting to prison life. The letter reads as follows:
My dear mother—
I am sorry I have not written you sooner. I am well and hope you are the same. The guards and the Captain down here treat me awfully good. So I see no reason why I should not get along. You must write me often and with all of the good news. Tell Marie that I will send her something pretty when I get some money. My Captain’s name is W. R. Crume and anything you want to write him for me will be all right. You ask me if I need anything—I am doing fine and don’t need a thing, only lots of sweet letters from you, Mother Dear.
Will close with all of my love to you—
Your son Buck— Ferguson Farm, Midway, Texas8
Clyde hadn’t gotten around to bringing his new girlfriend home before he was arrested, but once he was in jail, Bonnie became a regular visitor at the Barrows’. That was when Marie first met her. She said that Bonnie could be characterized as cute, even pretty when she fixed herself up.9
One question that naturally came up when Bonnie and Clyde got together was Bonnie’s status as a married woman. Evidently, Bonnie discussed this with her mother (and with the Barrows as well on a few occasions, because Marie knew her feelings on the matter). Emma, Bonnie’s mother, had encouraged her to divorce Roy Thornton—especially after he was sent to prison. By then, Roy had been gone for a long time, and Bonnie had decided in her own mind that she and Roy were through. That seemed to be enough for her. For some reason, she felt that, since she hadn’t divorced him after he abandoned her, to divorce him now that he was locked up would be like kicking him when he was down. Besides, she told her mother, she wasn’t interested in marrying anyone else.
Bonnie was just seventeen when Roy left for good, and she had been dating other men since then, even before Roy was “sent up.” None of the dates were serious—until Clyde, and now that she had fallen head over heels for him, he was in jail too.10 She couldn’t just stay in Dallas and wait, so, when she found out that Cumie was going to Waco for Clyde’s trial, she asked to go along.
According to Emma Parker, Bonnie was able to go to Waco because she had a cousin named Mary she could stay with free of charge. Cumie also stayed at Mary’s house for a couple of days, but when Clyde pleaded guilty and was sentenced, she went back to Dallas.11 Bonnie was determined to stay until Clyde was transferred to Huntsville. Until now, Bonnie Parker had been around—and fallen in love with— some shady characters, but she had not committed any crime herself. That was about to ch
ange.
The Barrow family felt, when they read Buck’s letter near the end of February, that he might be settling into the prison routine and would get out soon. Unfortunately, he did in fact get out. About two weeks after his February 24 letter, he stuck his head in the door of the Barrow home on Eagle Ford Road. He and another prisoner had escaped. Like many other events in the lives of the Barrow brothers that were played up and dramatized by the media, the real story of Buck’s breakout was actually very simple. It certainly wasn’t the classic 1930s escape from the big house with baying bloodhounds, machine-gun-wielding guards, and howling sirens.
During the first week of March, Buck was working as a trusty in the prison kitchen, his wounded legs keeping him from farm duties. He and another prisoner saw an opportunity to leave and simply walked out of the kitchen. Once outside, they got into one of the guard’s cars and drove away, losing themselves in the maze of country roads and wooded areas around Huntsville.1 All Buck’s determination to go straight if given “one more chance” seemed to have been forgotten. Buck and the other inmate made their way to west Dallas from the prison farm in about five hours’ time.
The first place Buck went, of course, was to his parents’ home. Marie Barrow remembered that day very well. She said they heard someone walk up on the porch and open the door to the house. Buck stuck his head into the doorway, gave them a goodnatured laugh, and then walked in, still in his prison clothes. Marie said they almost fainted. Except for Clyde, Buck was the last person they expected to see. In his letter of February 24, he had sounded so resigned to his situation.
Buck seemed to take the whole thing in stride as he told his flabbergasted parents about how he leisurely drove away from the Ferguson farm. Henry Barrow just smiled, shook his head, and said, “That’s Buck.” Cumie and Marie, while delighted to see him, were frightened by the circumstances under which this unexpected reunion took place.
Buck might have been happy to be home, but he was under no illusions about his situation either. He was there just long enough to reassure the family and to get out of his prison uniform. The other boy was still with him, and they were still using the guard’s car. Buck changed out of his prison clothes and shoes and told his mother to burn them, but Marie later said she didn’t. Then he and the other boy disappeared into the night, separating soon after leaving the Barrow house. Buck’s fellow escapee was shortly captured and sent back to prison. Meanwhile, Buck picked up Blanche, and the two of them vanished.2 The authorities would not see him again for twenty-one months. Buck’s escape had been a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing. Clyde’s would take a little more planning but would be much less successful.
On March 8, the same day Buck escaped, four new prisoners were put in the cell block at Waco. Three were first-time offenders. The fourth was William Turner. He had already been in prison, escaped, and been recaptured, and he was now up on a federal rap for robbing a post office. Turner was a local boy, and his parents still lived in Waco. He had an escape plan, but he needed outside help and began to ask around to see if any of the other inmates were interested in getting out. Clyde Barrow certainly was.
When Bonnie visited Clyde later that day, she was in for a shock. Clyde introduced his new friend and asked Bonnie if she would help them escape. The plan involved a gun at Turner’s parents’ house. Bonnie would have to get in the house while the Turners were away, take the gun, and smuggle it in to Clyde. When Bonnie agreed, Clyde slipped her a map that Turner had drawn showing the house and the location of the gun. At the bottom, Clyde had written, “You’re the sweetest baby in the world to me.”3 With her cousin Mary as a rather unwilling accomplice, Bonnie drove to the address on the map—625 Turner Avenue—found the key where she had been told it would be, went in the house, and found the gun. She then concealed it under her clothes, went back to the jail, and passed it to Clyde. Until then, she had been a law-abiding girl in love with a criminal, but now she had stepped over the line.
The next day, another new prisoner arrived. Emory Abernathy was a burglar and bank robber. Both he and Turner were looking at serious time and knew it, so Abernathy was added to the group. On the evening of March 11, they made their move. Turner complained of an upset stomach and asked for a bottle of milk. When the milk was delivered, Turner jammed the door open with his body and Abernathy put the gun to the guard’s head. Before the three of them left, they locked the guard in the cell with the remaining prisoners, who had decided against joining the break.
Clyde and his cronies were out of the cell; now they had to get out of the building. One floor down sat the turnkey, a man named Jones. The escaped trio got the drop on him and, after a little persuasion, had the keys to the outside. Jones managed to wing a few pistol shots at them as they ran down an alley. The shots missed, but they woke up the chief jailer, Glenn Wright, who had quarters in the building, and he and Jones began phoning the alarm to other cities. Of course, as soon as Clyde and his friends got away from the jail, they began to look for a car, and Mrs. J. M. Byrd was the unlucky victim. Her green Ford coupe was parked a few blocks away. It only took a few seconds to hot-wire it, and the three escapees were gone.
After passing the gun to Clyde, Bonnie and her cousin went back to Mary’s house. They had been excited and anxious while doing their part, but now the real fear set in. The waiting was the hardest part: waiting to find out if the escape came off at all; if Clyde might get shot; if their part had been discovered by the police. Finally, the morning after the escape, it was all in the paper. Everything had gone as planned, nobody was hurt, and there wasn’t a word about them. Only one thing went wrong: Clyde hadn’t come for Bonnie like she had thought he would.
Bonnie planned to go home to Dallas late that evening, but she changed her mind when two men arrived at Mary’s house and knocked on the door. The two girls weren’t about to open the door to a couple of strangers, so they waited them out. The men sat in their car at the curb for a while and finally drove away. Afraid the law might be watching them now, Bonnie forgot about the bus or train and hitchhiked back to Dallas. Actually, the two men had been sent by Clyde to get Bonnie, but she didn’t find that out until later.
Clyde and his two buddies put as many fast miles behind them as they could, leaving a trail of stolen cars through Texas, Missouri, and Illinois. Finally, from Nokomis, Illinois, Clyde sent Bonnie a telegram telling her he was all right and asking her to contact his mother and wait for him.4
Aweek after they had broken out of the Waco jail, Barrow, Turner, and Abernathy were in Middletown, Ohio, just north of Cincinnati, and the trio needed money to finance a return trip to Texas. On the afternoon of March 17, 1930, they stopped at the Baltimore & Ohio depot, and Clyde went in and asked for a train schedule. He also cased the joint. The ticket agent, Bernard J. Krebs, must have recognized a suspicious character when he saw one, because he took down their license number (Indiana 163-439)—just in case. The three escapees spent the rest of the afternoon parked beside a canal.
Late that evening, they began making the rounds. They were later suspected of breaking into three service stations, finding a total of about $10. They denied this but confessed to breaking into the Gough-Lamb Cleaners on Charles Street. They also admitted that they finished up the night with the robbery of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad office, where they got $57.97. Their getaway was successful until they turned onto the dirt roads of the Ohio countryside. Being unfamiliar with the area, the three fugitives got lost in the dark in short order. Finally, they stopped and slept for a while near Elk Creek on property owned by a family named Gentry. After sunrise, they accidentally drove back into Middletown, directly by the B&O depot they had just robbed. Even though they had license plates from four other states on hand, they were still using the ones Mr. Krebs had seen. What had started out as a bad morning was about to get a lot worse.
Officers Harry Richardson and George Woody had been sent to investigate the break-in at the depot and were coming out of the railroad office with the
license number in hand just as the boys drove by. No wonder the Waco newspaper would refer to them as “The Dumbbell Bandits.” Within seconds, the chase was on through the streets of Middletown. When the police car closed in and ordered them to stop, the car turned onto Auburn Street and speeded up.1 Officer Woody fired on the car. When they didn’t stop, Woody fired again, and this time the car pulled over to the curb and the three men ran. Woody fired a third time at Clyde, who got away, as did Abernathy, but Officer Richardson chased Turner into an alley and captured him.
Abernathy was caught about an hour later on the east side of town, but Clyde hid under a house for almost five hours. About 1:00 P.M., he made a run for it, but he was spotted by another officer, Tom Carmody. Clyde led them on a merry chase on foot and then stole a car belonging to Orville Baird. Clyde might have had a chance except he turned up a dead-end street. With the police running up behind him, he drove up in someone’s yard, jumped out, and tried to run again, but there was nowhere to go. Just before he was captured, he threw the gun Bonnie had given him into the Middletown Hydraulic Canal.
Clyde Barrow mug shot taken after his capture, March 18, 1930, in Middletown, Ohio, following his escape from the Waco, Texas, jail. He was six days short of his twenty-first birthday. When captured, Barrow claimed to be Robert Thomas of Indianapolis.
—Courtesy the Middletown, Ohio, Police Department
At the police station, Turner and Abernathy confessed that they were escaped convicts, but they tried to run the story that Clyde was just a hitchhiker they had picked up. Clyde went along for a while, identifying himself as Robert Thomas of Indianapolis. Unfortunately, the Middletown police were already in contact with the folks in Waco, so Clyde finally admitted he was the third man. The Middletown policemen received commendations for their good work, and by March 21, all three escapees were back in Waco.2 On his arrival, Clyde found that he and Frank Clause had been implicated in the murder of Howard Gouge, a Houston man. Some “secret witness” had named Clyde and Frank, but this witness was later discredited and Clyde Barrow’s first murder charge was dropped.3
Bonnie and Clyde- A Twenty-First-Century Update Page 5
