Just before 6:00 P.M. on January 26, 1933, Officer Persell noticed three people in a Ford V-8 sedan involved in what he suspected was “car spotting” near the Shrine mosque in downtown Springfield. By that he meant they acted like car thieves looking for a victim. One car had already been reported stolen that day. Convinced they were up to no good, the officer followed them. They were headed north, and just as they started over the Benton Street viaduct, Persell motioned for them to pull over. He might have chosen this spot to make it difficult for his suspects to try and escape, but Clyde Barrow was not about to let himself be trapped in the middle of an elevated bridge over a railroad track, so he just kept on going. He didn’t speed up to make a getaway, but he insisted on clearing the bridge before stopping. At the north end of the bridge, Clyde turned right onto Pine Street, past the Pitts M.E. Church on the corner, and stopped in the middle of the block.
Persell had dealt with car thieves before, but Clyde Barrow had been involved in four murders and was wanted for three of them plus numerous other crimes. He couldn’t allow any law officer to get the “drop” on him. Persell parked his motorcycle and approached the car only to find himself looking down the barrel of a pistol and a sawed-off shotgun. Clyde simply said, “Get in or I’ll blow you up.” W. D. Jones got out of the car, disarmed Persell, and forced him into the front seat between him and Clyde. Bonnie sat in the back. The abduction was witnessed by several people, but the car pulled away before anyone could intervene— which was fortunate, since Clyde would not have hesitated to shoot if he was threatened.
Picking up a local policeman for a nice ride was obviously not in Clyde’s plans, so he just had to improvise. They headed north out of the city, filling up with gasoline at a local station along the way, and drove around the countryside for about seven hours. Persell later gave a pretty good account of their route even though he was under a blanket on the floor part of the time. They simply made a large half-circle north and west of Springfield. With all that time on their hands, the bandits and the policeman had several long conversations. For instance, Persell told them that the reason he had been alert for car thieves was because a tan Ford V-8 had been reported stolen that afternoon by a Mr. Kerr. Yes, they had done that, Clyde told him, but they decided the color was too conspicuous so they left it out in the country.1 They even told him where to find it, and it was recovered the same day Persell returned.
About five hours into the evening ride, a crisis developed. It seemed that the generator on their Ford had failed, and now the battery had finally run down as well. By this time, they were on the outskirts of the town of Oronogo, a few miles west of Carthage. According to Officer Persell, a short discussion was held on how to solve their car troubles.
Oronogo was familiar territory for Clyde. Back in November, he and Bonnie and two partners had spent a month in the area, hiding out around Carthage and working the whole area. They had, in fact, spent considerable time exploring the Oronogo area prior to robbing the bank less than sixty days before. Clyde remembered that a Chrysler automobile was always parked on the street in front of a certain house. It was decided that W. D. Jones would take Persell with him and steal the battery out of the Chrysler. They walked into town and found the right house, but the car wasn’t there.
Roy Ferguson, the car’s owner, remembered that cold January night in 1933 very well. “I guess putting that Chrysler up probably saved my life,” he said. In his early nineties, Roy may have been the oldest person in Oronogo, Missouri, when he was interviewed by the author (October 2000). His mind was still sharp, and he remembered hearing the policeman tell about Clyde and Jones discussing his car. “That car always stayed parked close to my bedroom window, and I was a light sleeper,” he said. “Those old batteries were in the floorboard of the car in those days, so I know I would have heard them trying to get it out. I would have probably gone out there to see what was going on and got killed.” For some reason, Roy had made arrangements to have the car put up in a garage the day before. W. D. and Officer Persell had to settle for the battery out of Wayne Watson’s car, which was parked across the street.2
Clyde Barrow, 1933.
—Courtesy Sandy Jones–The John Dillinger Historical Society
When the two men rejoined Bonnie and Clyde and got their car running again, Jones complimented Persell on his assistance in the felony. Persell even shared the job of lugging the heavy battery back. The idea of the officer being so much help in a robbery probably appealed to their sense of humor. The group drove south to Joplin, cruised around for a while, and then headed northwest out of town.
By now, it was about 12:30 in the morning, and they were near a place called Poundstone’s Corner. Clyde stopped the car, opened the door, and simply said, “Go on in.” Persell got out of the car, but then he turned to Clyde and asked for his sidearm back! “You’ve got all the guns you need,” he said. Persell had recently bought the revolver for half a month’s salary and fitted it with custom Staghorn grips, and he hated to lose it. Clyde admired the policeman’s nerve, but not enough to give back the pistol. (Three months later, Officer Persell’s distinctive weapon would appear on the hood of a car in some of the most famous pictures ever taken of Bonnie and Clyde.) The three outlaws then drove off west toward Carl Junction, leaving Tom Persell several miles from the nearest phone. The officer walked the distance in about an hour and a half and called his chief in Springfield to send a car for him.
Clyde Barrow the “desperado” with the tool of his trade—a .45 automatic in his belt under his left arm, a Browning automatic rifle in his hands, and another BAR and a “Whippit Gun” (automatic shotgun) leaning against his favorite car, a Ford V-8. Note the second .45 automatic on the hood and Clyde’s coat covering the license plate. 1933.
—Courtesy Marie Barrow Scoma and author Phillip W. Steele
By the next morning, twenty-five-year-old Tom Persell was safely back in Springfield with his pregnant twenty-three-year-old wife, Hazel, and three-year-old daughter—a little tired, but with a great story to tell.3 As always, a search was mounted, but no trace of the Barrows was found. Bonnie and Clyde would be out of sight for over two months. In fact, the next member of the Barrow gang to make a public appearance was older brother Buck.
Clyde Barrow the “gentleman” and his faithful Ford V-8. Clyde disliked getting his hands dirty and liked to dress the part of a well-to-do young businessman. He was once mistaken for a bank examiner during one of his robberies. Note the hat covering the license plate. 1933.
—Courtesy Marie Barrow Scoma and author Phillip W. Steele
During the first year of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker’s outlaw career, Clyde’s older brother was cooling his heels in the Texas State Prison at Huntsville, following their exploits as best he could. It was family pressure that put Buck Barrow back behind the walls at Huntsville, in December 1931, but his mother and his wife were working to see that he didn’t stay there any longer than necessary. As soon as Buck was back inside, Cumie and Blanche went to work, just like they had for Clyde. It took over a year, but on March 22, 1933, Governor Miriam “Ma” Ferguson granted him a full pardon.1
Blanche has been credited by the family with the maneuver that may have finally gotten her husband released. According to their stories, Blanche made her way down to Austin to speak with Governor “Ma” Ferguson, bringing along three children, and apparently pregnant with a fourth. These “children” of hers must have touched Ma’s motherly heart, because the governor got to work on Buck’s case. The three children were said to be products of a previous marriage, with the one she was “carrying” being Buck’s.
Evidently, Governor Ferguson didn’t bother to check out the story. First, Blanche had no children from a previous marriage. Second, Buck had already been in jail for over a year, so any child with which she was “pregnant” could not have been his. Marie Barrow said Blanche borrowed three children from someone and padded herself to look pregnant in order to impress “Ma” Ferguson with her dire
straits. Whether it happened exactly that way or not, Buck was released shortly thereafter.2
Buck immediately returned to his family in west Dallas, and naturally, Blanche and the Barrow family were overjoyed to have him back home. Not only was Buck no longer in prison, but the fact that he was pardoned meant that no crime from his past could come back to haunt him. He had been given a new lease on life. He now had a good, supportive wife and the knowledge that his old life could be put behind him. His release was a bright spot in a very dark time for the Barrow family, but their joy was to be short-lived. Immediately upon getting home, Buck began talking about going to see Clyde.
Beginning with Fugitives in 1934, the reason given for Buck’s desire to visit Clyde was to try and convince Clyde to give himself up. The family said that Buck felt a sense of guilt for his own part in bringing Clyde to his present condition.3 Marie Barrow even claimed that trying to get Clyde to surrender was part of the deal to get Buck’s pardon,4 but there is no confirmation of this from other sources. On the other hand, Ralph Fults knew Buck for the last ten months Barrow was in prison, talked with him often about his exploits with Clyde, and never heard him express any guilt feelings.5 Blanche also said, in an interview late in her life, that Buck didn’t feel particularly guilty about Clyde’s situation.6 There may actually be some truth in both views. Buck could have had mixed feelings and given whatever impression his audience expected—prison buddy or family member. Regardless, everybody Buck talked to told him the same thing. They said that getting Clyde to give himself up was impossible and, if Buck was found with him, he would go down too.7 Unfortunately, they were right.
There’s no way of knowing whether Buck actually believed there was a chance to convince Clyde to surrender (Clyde was wanted for murder, kidnapping, and uncounted numbers of car thefts and robberies at this point)8 or if he was just using that as an excuse to get back together with his brother. He insisted that he had to see Clyde and began to make arrangements. It was agreed that they would meet somewhere near Fort Smith, Arkansas.9 The main thing Buck and Blanche needed was some transportation. In the past, Buck would have just gone out and stolen a car, but he was not a criminal anymore, so he had to do it the old-fashioned way. He went to see an old friend, Carl Beaty, and made a deal for a 1929 Marmon. Beaty later told police he took two Ford coupes in trade, and $100 cash. Where Buck, seven days out of prison, got two Ford coupes was not explained.10 Some sources say Buck’s sister Nell loaned him the cash.11
Blanche, of course, went with Buck to meet Clyde. She must have been a little apprehensive, but she wasn’t the terrified little wife, crying for two days straight before they left, as she is pictured in Fugitives and most other works afterward.12 Besides, Blanche had a new companion to keep her company—a little white dog named “Snowball.” Buck wasn’t an escaped convict now and shouldn’t have needed to make fast getaways anymore, but Blanche was training the dog to run to the car on command, just in case.13
Buck made the deal for the Marmon on March 29 and he, Blanche, and Snowball left Dallas late that day or early the next. They met Clyde, Bonnie, and the ever-present W. D. Jones outside Fort Smith and drove north to Joplin, Missouri, where they began looking for a place to stay. On March 31, two women went to Smith’s Garage in south Joplin and talked to Mr. and Mrs. Ellis Smith about a furnished house for rent at 2314 Virginia Avenue. The ladies must have liked it, because they gave the Smiths a month’s rent in advance to hold it for them. The next day, however, the women returned and asked for the money back. They had decided not to take it. One of the two women—the redhead—was later identified from photos as Bonnie Parker.14
On April 1, a man and two women called on Paul Freeman about a property he had for rent in the new Freeman Grove subdivision. One of the ladies gave their names as Mr. and Mrs. W. L. Callahan, from Minnesota, and Mrs. Callahan’s sister. She said Mr. Callahan was a civil engineer. They wanted to rent the apartment over the garage of Mr. Freeman’s house at 3347 Oak Ridge Drive. From the way Mr. Freeman reported it to the newspaper, Blanche did most of the talking. With his limited education, Buck probably would not have been very convincing as a civil engineer, so the less he said, the better.15 The main house faced west on the corner of Thirty-fourth Street and Oak Ridge Drive, but the apartment and driveway faced south on Thirty-fourth Street.
The apartment in Freeman’s Grove had a lot to recommend it as a hideout. It was made of stone, it was two short blocks from a main highway, and it was close to the Oklahoma, Kansas, and Arkansas state lines. It only had one drawback—no back door. There were spaces for two cars underneath the apartment, but one of them was taken by the tenant in the main house, a salesman named Harold Hill. At the time, Buck and Clyde had three cars between them, and since two of them were stolen, they didn’t want to leave them out on the street. Buck went to Mr. Hill and rented his half of the garage. An alley behind the apartment provided access to a garage for the house next door, and eventually, Buck went to Sam Langford and rented that garage also. His Marmon was kept there.16
The five of them settled in for what would be one of the longest periods of peace and comfort in Bonnie and Clyde’s two years on the run. It lasted almost two weeks. The neighbors noticed they kept their curtains closed all the time and the lights on late at night but said they were generally quiet and caused no trouble. They would call a local grocery for food but would always meet the delivery boy at the door. Occasionally they would go to the grocery themselves, and the owner, Clyde Snodgrass, remembered them as nice, ordinary people.17
From what the family heard later, Buck really did try to get Clyde to consider giving himself up. If there was anybody Clyde might have listened to, it was probably his big brother. Buck’s main argument seems to have been the experience of Clyde’s one-time partner, Raymond Hamilton. Since being captured in Michigan five months before, Ray was being shuttled around from court to court, seemingly put on nonstop trial for the crimes that he and Clyde had been accused of committing during 1932. Hamilton was eventually given the following sentences: twenty-five years for the Neuhoff Packing Company robbery; thirty years for the Cedar Hill bank holdups; ten years for a couple of car thefts; ninety-nine years for the LaGrange bank job; and, finally, ninety-nine years for the Bucher murder, the only charge of which he was innocent. In addition, a three-year suspended sentence was reinstated.
Hamilton’s sentences totaled 266 years, but Buck emphasized to Clyde that Raymond had not received any death sentences. Buck also pointed out that Hamilton had not been extradited to Oklahoma to face charges concerning the murder of Eugene Moore and the shooting of Sheriff Maxwell. Buck did agree that almost four lifetimes in prison was pretty bad, but he argued that it was still not as bad as death by either the electric chair or a police bullet. Besides, there was always the chance that something could be worked out. Clyde had only served two years of what could have been a fourteen-year sentence, and Buck served less than half his original term even though he escaped once.
Clyde listened to Buck’s reasoning and responded that there would still be no chance of anything but the electric chair for him. It was true that Raymond Hamilton had evaded the ultimate sentence, but Clyde knew that he had additional capital charges against him above and beyond what Raymond had faced, plus one the law hadn’t even charged him with yet (Clyde and W. D. still had not been connected with the Doyle Johnson murder). There was the Howard Hall killing in Sherman, the Malcolm Davis shooting in west Dallas, and Eugene Moore in Stringtown, Oklahoma. Clyde said he wasn’t even in Texas when Hall was shot, but he was definitely there when Davis was killed in Dallas and when Moore was killed in Oklahoma.
According to the family, the two brothers debated this issue every day, and Clyde resisted any notion of surrender or leaving the country. He was also starting to get restless. Joplin in 1933 was known as very “outlaw friendly,” but they had been there for almost two weeks. To remain that long in any one place was pushing their luck. Clyde felt that it was time Buck a
nd Blanche packed up and returned to Texas while he, Bonnie, and W. D. got back out on the road.18
Despite Clyde’s misgivings, their visit had seemingly been a quiet one. The five of them didn’t have much to do with their neighbors or go out of their way to make anyone’s acquaintance due to their status as fugitives from the law, but the people Clyde and Buck did deal with in that neighborhood were treated with consideration. There was a little girl named Beth who made friends with Bonnie. Beth visited their apartment a few times and even had supper with them one day.19 There was also a law enforcement officer, Mack Parker, who lived in that neighborhood and had a sideline of providing securing services for the area. For a dollar a month, he would make frequent patrols of the area, watching for any suspicious activity. This patrolman called on Clyde and his group at the apartment. The Barrow brothers agreed to accept his services and paid the fee. You could never tell what desperadoes might be around.20
Clyde and Bonnie always had to practice caution. Either Bonnie or Blanche would meet the delivery people with their groceries and clean laundry at the door of the apartment. The two girls would assume the whole burden of the grocery bags and the laundry bundles themselves and would not let the delivery people carry them upstairs. One of the laundry delivery boys later recalled that Blanche was upset about something when she met him at the door of their apartment. At that time the delivery boy attributed no significance to Blanche’s emotional state and felt it wasn’t his business.21
Much information regarding the brothers’ time in Joplin came from other family members, but, once again, there were things that the family didn’t know. During the time Clyde and Buck were in Joplin (March 31–April 13), there were several robberies in the area. Buck may have been trying to talk Clyde into surrendering, but he seems to have been helping Clyde and W. D. raise money as well. Clyde and Buck were tentatively identified in connection with robberies of a tourist camp, a grocery store, and of the Neosho Milling Company. Harry Bacon, who with his wife was held captive while the milling company safe was robbed, was particulary impressed with Clyde’s “whippit gun,” hung under his right arm, secured by a zipper, and covered by his coat.22
Bonnie and Clyde- A Twenty-First-Century Update Page 12
