About the time of the shooting in Grapevine, Mrs. Parker and some other family members returned home and got the message to meet “the kids.” They headed toward Grapevine unaware of what had happened. They drove around for several hours and then gave up. They didn’t know what all the police were doing out there until they got back home and were told by Henry Barrow.24 About the same time, Raymond Hamilton let Mary O’Dare out less than a block from his brother Floyd’s house, which was itself not far from the Barrow gas station. Floyd, who had heard the news of the shooting on the radio, was shocked when Mary told him where Ray wanted to meet. It was within a mile of the Grapevine shooting site. When Mary told him how pretty the yellow wheels on their car were, Floyd almost choked. The description of Clyde’s car had been broadcast, but Ray had no radio in his car, so he had no idea. Fortunately for Raymond, his brother was able to intercept him before the police did. They exchanged the yellow wheels for black ones from Floyd’s car, and Ray and Mary left for New Orleans.25 Joe Palmer, left on his own by all this, fled Dallas, presumably for a prearranged meeting place—probably in the Joplin, Missouri, area.26
The way Clyde was portrayed in the media as an indiscriminant killer, you would think that he was filling up graveyards on a regular basis. In fact, it had been twelve days short of a year since anyone had died from Clyde Barrow’s gun, but that made no difference now. Clyde was involved in the murder of two policemen—on Easter Sunday, of all days. However badly the Texas authorities had wanted him before, the Grapevine killings raised their resolve to a new level. The family said that Clyde swore at Henry for two days after the shooting. Clyde didn’t mourn the dead policemen—he just didn’t need the increased “heat” it brought down on their heads. In Clyde’s mind, it wasn’t wrong to shoot Murphy and Wheeler—it was just stupid.27
L. G. Phares, Officers Murphy and Wheeler’s boss at the Texas Highway Patrol, offered $1,000 for the bodies of the Grapevine killers—not their capture, just the bodies.28 When Phares learned about Frank Hamer and Bob Alcorn’s efforts, he also asked to have a representative on their team. As it happened, Hamer knew a friend and ex-Ranger whom he trusted—and who needed the work. B. M. “Manny” Gault was given a post on the Highway Patrol and joined the group. Bob Alcorn went to his boss, Dallas County Sheriff Schmid, and asked for a partner as well. The natural choice was Ted Hinton, who had been one of the ambush group at Sowers and who knew Clyde and Bonnie by sight.29
Throughout the rest of April, the four-man special force kept busy following leads. There was always the chance that they would catch up with Clyde on the road somewhere, but the smart money was on the plan, already in motion, to trap him near his hideout in northwest Louisiana. By the first of May, things were falling into place in Bienville Parish. The written agreement, signed by Governor Ferguson, had been delivered to Sheriff Jordan for safekeeping, and all that remained was for Henry Methvin to lure Bonnie and Clyde into position. That was easy to say, but everybody knew Clyde’s reputation for smelling trouble. If he was spooked somehow before they were ready, they might have to start all over. Whether Bonnie and Clyde knew it or not, though, the net was closing.
The murders at Grapevine had stirred up a storm of publicity. The killing of policemen was bad enough, but the details that came out of the witness statements made it especially gruesome. State law enforcement officials were outraged and immediately began intensive searches all over north Texas. Naturally, as soon as the search started, reports of sightings came in from several places. It’s not known exactly where Bonnie, Clyde, and Henry Methvin were from April 1 through April 5, but they were reported in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.
On Wednesday afternoon, April 4, they were reported by police in Durant, Oklahoma, but disappeared.1 Later that evening, the trio were said to have robbed a filling station in DeKalb, Texas, taking the attendant and a customer for a ride before releasing them outside of town.2 By Thursday the 5th, they were being reported in Texarkana, Arkansas. Searches were started in all these places, and they all led nowhere. Bonnie and Clyde finally surfaced in northeast Oklahoma on Friday morning, April 6.
About 2:30 A.M., Clyde stopped on the side of a muddy road near the “Lost Trail” and “Crab Apple” mines just south of Commerce, Oklahoma, turning the car to face back east toward the main highway. As was his standard practice, Clyde, Bonnie and Henry took turns sleeping. When the sun came up, traffic on the side road began to pick up, and one motorist, on his way into Commerce, reported the car to Constable Cal Campbell. Commerce Police Chief Percy Boyd was contacted, and the two men drove out to investigate. They assumed that it was a carload of drunks sleeping it off after a hard night, a fairly common occurrence.3
It was about 9:30 A.M. by the time Campbell and Boyd arrived on the scene. The dark blue Ford sedan was still there, just as the citizen had reported. Unfortunately for the lawmen, when they stopped their car, they were blocking the way to the main highway. That was all Clyde Barrow needed to see. He immediately started the car, slammed it into reverse, and started backing down the road away from the lawmen. Clyde made it about a hundred yards before the muddy road got the best of him. The back end started to weave and went into a ditch. When the suspicious sedan backed off into the mud, Campbell and Boyd got out of their car and started toward it on foot. As they got closer, Cal Campbell saw a gun in the hands of someone inside and made what turned out to be a fatal decision. Percy Boyd, walking beside Campbell, didn’t expect any trouble until he saw his friend reach for his pistol. Before he could say anything, the fight was on. Boyd later told the press, “I don’t believe there would have been any shooting if Cal hadn’t fired first,” but that was probably wishful thinking.4
When Cal Campbell saw the gun, he reacted instinctively. He drew his revolver and fired. Two shotgun blasts answered from the car, and then the doors flew open and two men came out firing Browning automatic rifles. Cal Campbell fired twice more and then was hit in the chest, cutting his aorta. He groaned and fell in the muddy road, where he died. Percy Boyd got off four rounds, two of which went through the Ford’s windshield, barely missing Clyde. Later, when he and Clyde were on speaking terms, Barrow told him, “You nearly got me. I heard it zip close.”5
A few seconds after Campbell fell, Boyd was hit a glancing blow in the head by a bullet and went down also. He later told reporters, “When that bullet knocked me off my feet, I stayed down, and, believe me, I almost dug into the dirt.” As soon as both lawmen were down, the shooting stopped. This time, Clyde made sure there were no misunderstandings between him and Methvin. He told Henry to go get the policemen and bring them to the car. Barrow then ran to a nearby farmhouse and “borrowed” a pickup truck and a rope. When Clyde returned, he found Henry there with only one of the lawmen, who was bleeding from a head wound. One look had told Methvin that Cal Campbell was finished, so he still lay where he had fallen. With Bonnie behind the wheel, Clyde and Henry hooked up the rope and told Boyd to get behind the bogged-down Ford and push.6
About that time, into all this mess drove Jack Boydson. At first it looked like a normal case of a car stuck in the mud, but then he saw a dead man lying in the road. He tried to back away, but Clyde ran up with a BAR, and Boydson joined Percy Boyd behind the stranded Ford. They pushed and Clyde pulled with the pickup, but the rope broke and the Ford was still stuck. A few more unlucky passersby were drafted, but with no more success. By this time, things were getting tense. Clyde was shouting orders and Henry was waving an automatic rifle around, and at nearby houses, people were standing on their porches, watching the drama in the middle of the road.7 One of the men on the road, William F. Hughes, remembered Clyde saying, “Boys, one good man has already been killed, and if you don’t follow orders, others are liable to be.”8
Charley Dodson lived nearby, and when he heard the shooting, he got into his truck and started toward the mine. Clyde had almost given up on the Ford and was about to take another vehicle from a nearby house when the truck drove up to the scene. Charl
ey may have saved some lives, because he carried a chain with him. Clyde ran over—still waving a gun and shouting—and within a minute or two, the truck was hooked up and the Ford was free. Without further delay, Percy Boyd was shoved into the back seat and the mudcovered V-8 sedan drove off to the west, leaving a bewildered and relieved crowd of helpers standing in the road.9
Clyde Barrow without his Ford V-8 was like a fish out of water, so there was great relief at being back on the road. As it turned out, however, the Barrow gang weren’t the only ones having trouble with the mud that morning. About three miles down the way, they had to stop again. A. N. Butterfield, a local farmer, and his brother had mired up their own car, and it blocked the road. For Clyde, who always dressed well, liked clean shirts, and hated to get his hands dirty, this morning was turning into a bloody, muddy mess. He and Henry jumped out and ran up to the stalled car and shouted, “We’ve just killed two men and we’re in a hurry. The law is after us.”10 With Clyde and Henry’s help, the road was cleared and the gang drove off north toward Chetopa, a small town just over the state line into Kansas.
At first, Percy Boyd considered his prospects pretty bleak. He wasn’t sure who these people were, but he had a good guess. He had seen them kill one man already, and now he counted three automatic rifles, two shotguns, and several pistols in the car. He wasn’t sure which worried him more; the possibility that the outlaws might decide to just shoot him, or the possibility that they might run into more police officers and he might be killed in the resulting gunfight. But, when time went by and neither of the things he feared had happened, things relaxed a little. The outlaws bandaged his head wound, which, though not serious, had bled a lot, and he finally got up the nerve to ask Henry Methvin a question. “Is that Clyde Barrow?” When Methvin nodded his head yes, Boyd’s suspicions were confirmed.11 Although he now knew that Barrow was the leader of the group, Boyd never did find out the name of the fellow who answered his question.12
After reaching the Kansas state line, Clyde turned west to the town of Bartlett, where he stopped for gas. After that, they just drove around the countryside. Boyd got the impression that Clyde didn’t know the local roads very well, since he seemed to just be wandering around. Boyd did begin to develop a little respect for Clyde’s choice of cars and driving ability, however. He said that the Ford was almost new, with about three thousand miles on it, and that, on good roads, Clyde would go flat out. Boyd said he saw ninety on the speedometer more than once.13
Back in Commerce, an all-out manhunt was organized, using men from several different law enforcement agencies in three states.14 This time, a new twist was added. About two hours after the shooting, Andy Walker, a local pilot, took off from nearby Miami and flew over the area along the Oklahoma–Kansas line, trying to spot the car. Later, Boyd told authorities that Clyde stopped once because he heard an airplane, so Walker may have come close.15
By late afternoon, they were in the Fort Scott, Kansas, area, where they got stuck again but were pulled out without incident. Henry Methvin got out and bought a newspaper, and later he bought food for their dinners. The newspaper confirmed that Cal Campbell had been killed. “I’m sorry about shooting the old man,” Clyde said (Campbell was sixty years old), but Boyd wasn’t sure he meant it.16
By now, Boyd was talking freely with the outlaws. He asked Clyde about the Grapevine shootings, and Clyde lied to him with a straight face, saying that they weren’t involved at all and was upset at the newspapers for saying so. When asked about the Joplin killings, Clyde, in so many words, said that it was mainly the policemen’s fault for not running away. Boyd later told reporters that Clyde seemed to think quite highly of himself. “He acted like he owned the earth,” Boyd said. “He was the coolest operator I ever saw.”17
Boyd also had long conversations with Bonnie. They told each other about their families, and Bonnie asked Boyd to make her a promise. Sonny Boy, the rabbit, was still with them. If they got caught or killed while Boyd was with them, would he see that Sonny Boy got to Bonnie’s mother? “Of course,” Boyd told her. What else could he say to the girlfriend of the man who held his life in his hands?
Around midnight, Clyde stopped the car about nine miles south of Fort Scott. They had given Boyd a new shirt and tie and offered him a new suit, but it was too small. Now they gave him a tendollar bill18 and told him to stay there until they went over a hill in the distance. Before they drove away, Boyd asked, “Bonnie, what do you want me to tell the press?”
“Tell them I don’t smoke cigars,” the nation’s most notorious female said. She had earlier explained to Boyd that the famous picture of her with a cigar in her mouth was a joke. Of all her bad publicity, this may have bothered Bonnie the most.19 As Percy Boyd stood by the road in the dark, Bonnie and Clyde, and the man who would betray them, drove away. Boyd walked to a nearby house and called the police. He was back home by 7:30 the next morning.
Of Bonnie and Clyde’s eleven known captives, all of whom were treated well, Boyd seems to have been their favorite. Clyde would later say that the Commerce police chief showed “more real guts” than anybody he had ever met.20 Bonnie said, “We liked him.” What she liked the most was that Boyd kept his word about the cigar picture. As soon as he got back to Commerce, he told the press what Bonnie had said. Later, Bonnie joyfully told her mother, “It was in all the Oklahoma newspapers!”21
After Percy Boyd was let out on the road south of Fort Scott, Kansas, Clyde, Bonnie, and Henry headed north toward Topeka and disappeared for ten days. During that time, a letter was mailed from Tulsa to “Mr. Henry Ford, Detroit, Mich.” It was dated April 10 and received on the 13th. It was a short note telling Mr. Ford what a great car his Ford V-8 was. According to the text, the Ford “has got every other car skinned.” The note was signed, “Clyde Champion Barrow.”
Tulsa Okla
10th April
Mr. Henry Ford
Detroit Mich.
Dear Sir:
While I still have got breath in my lungs I will tell you what a dandy car you make. I have drove Fords exclusivly [sic] when I could get away with one. For sustained speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got ever other car skinned, and even if my business hasen’t [sic] been strickty [sic] legal it don’t hurt anything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V-8.
Yours truly
Clyde Champion Barrow1
Even though they may well have been in the Tulsa area about the time this letter was mailed, and it does sound like something Clyde might enjoy doing, the handwriting doesn’t match Clyde’s, Bonnie’s, or that of any other gang member. While the letter certainly states Clyde’s feelings about the Ford V-8, the Barrow family doesn’t think Clyde would ever have signed his name “Clyde Champion Barrow” when his real middle name was Chestnut.2 Whether the letter to Henry Ford is genuine or not, Clyde’s longest literary effort was still to come. Everyone agrees that it is real, and it was aimed not at the law but at his expartner. It would have to wait for a couple of weeks, though. Barrow had some other things to do first.
Early on Monday morning, April 16, 1934, a Pontiac drove into Stuart, Iowa, from the east and pulled into the Miller Brothers Standard Oil station. Vic Miller put in ten gallons of ethyl and one gallon of regular. A Mr. Bracewell also saw the car and wrote down the license number—1934 Iowa 13-1234—because he thought the people in the car “were a hard looking lot.” There were three people in the car, two men wearing nice clothes and hats, and a young woman dressed in red.
By 9:00 A.M., the car had been seen parked in several locations around town and the two men had been seen walking around. Once, they went by the bank. Finally, the two men went into a drug store, where Varney Lovely served them both Cokes but thought he smelled liquor on them. At 9:10 A.M., the two men walked into the First National Bank. The taller man stood near the door while the shorter man went to the window and asked for change for a $20 bill. Harold Cronkhite, the assistant cashier, counted out the change and then looked up to see
the man holding a gun and heard, “This is a holdup.”
Downtown Stuart, Iowa, as it is today. Note the white storefront with columns, second from the left. In 1934, this was the drug store where Clyde and Henry Methvin bought Coca-Colas, while Bonnie waited in the car, just before they walked down the street to the bank, seen in the background.
—From the author’s collection
First National Bank of Stuart, Iowa. Robbed by Clyde Barrow and Henry Methvin on April 16, 1934.
—From the author’s collection
Besides Mr. Cronkhite, only one other bank employee and one customer were inside. They were told to sit on the floor. About that time, Frank Eckhardt came in to make a deposit. The tall man by the door covered him with a gun and sent him to sit with the others. Eckhardt didn’t bother to tell them about the money and bank book in his pocket, or that he was a vice president of the bank. By now, the shorter of the two men was behind the counter, stuffing the bills into a red-and-white-striped bag. Then he took the assistant cashier into the vault and ordered him to open the safe kept there. Mr. Cronkhite told him that the safe was on a time lock and couldn’t be opened. Finally, the robbers ordered everybody inside the vault, walked out of the bank, got into the car where the woman waited, and drove east out of town.
Everything was over in a few minutes. Several people thought something was going on over at the bank, but the bandits were in and out and gone before anyone could raise an alarm. The bank later estimated the loss at less than $1,500. Mary Holmes was the first person in the bank after the robbery, followed by Glen Bufkin. The people in the vault asked who was there, not wanting to come out and find the bandits still inside. Assured by Mr. Bufkin that the outlaws had gone, the people in the vault emerged and the chase began.
Bonnie and Clyde- A Twenty-First-Century Update Page 23
