Bonnie and Clyde- A Twenty-First-Century Update

by James R Knight

  Raymond Elzie Hamilton

  In April 1934, a month and a half after he and his girlfriend Mary O’Dare left the gang, Raymond Hamilton was captured. He heard about the deaths of Bonnie and Clyde while in jail awaiting execution. On July 22, 1934, Ray Hamilton was one of three convicts who succeeded in escaping from the death house at the Texas State Prison at Huntsville. Four others were either killed, wounded, or captured on the prison grounds.11 Hamilton managed to remain at large, working with Joe Palmer, Ralph Fults, and his brother Floyd, until the following April, when he was captured by Dallas Sheriff Deputy Bill Decker in Fort Worth. As he already under a death sentence, the law wasted little time. On May 10, 1935, Raymond Hamilton died in the electric chair at Huntsville— eleven days short of his twenty-second birthday.

  Floyd Garland Hamilton

  The older brother of Raymond Hamilton, Floyd Hamilton served as a support and contact person during Bonnie and Clyde’s career, carrying messages and providing help with cars, guns, clothes, and whatever else was needed. Floyd was one of a small group of family and friends whose help allowed Bonnie and Clyde to stay alive as long as they did.

  At the time of Bonnie and Clyde’s death, Floyd was in jail because of a bank robbery he had committed with his brother Raymond and another man. At the harboring trial, Floyd Hamilton was given two years at the federal prison at Leavenworth. In 1938 Floyd teamed up with a fellow named Ted Walters and spent the summer robbing banks before being captured in August. He would pass the next twenty years in prison.

  Floyd Hamilton’s first stop was back at Leavenworth, but in 1940 he was transferred to Alcatraz. On “the Rock,” Hamilton lived through two attempted escapes, seemingly endless days in “the hole,” a full-scale riot in which a number of armed inmates (Floyd was not among them) took over part of the prison, and several years as Robert “the Bird Man” Stroud’s next-door neighbor in D block, the isolation area. Floyd Hamilton was finally released on parole in 1958.

  Back out in the world, Floyd, who had begun reading the Bible in prison, began speaking at various organizations about his experiences and worked to establish a halfway house for ex-convicts. He also remarried his wife, who had divorced him years before. In 1963 his sentence was commuted to time served, releasing him from parole. By 1967, he had received both a federal and Texas state pardon and had all his civil rights restored. Floyd Hamilton died in Dallas on July 24, 1984.12

  Hollis Hale and Frank Hardy

  Frank Hardy and Hollis Hale traveled with Bonnie and Clyde for about a month in late 1932. After participating with Clyde Barrow in the robbery of the Farmers and Miners Bank of Oronogo, Missouri, on November 30, 1932, they both left the outlaw couple and went back to Texas. Hollis Hale had no more contact with the Barrow gang, but Frank Hardy was not so fortunate. Less that a month after Hardy left the outlaws, Barrow and W. D. Jones killed Doyle Johnson at Temple, Texas. Unfortunately, Frank Hardy was identified as one of the shooters and charged with murder. His first trial resulted in a hung jury, and he was awaiting a second hearing when W. D. Jones was captured in November 1933. Jones’ statement to police was the first time anybody suspected Clyde Barrow of the Johnson killing.13 Frank hardy was eventually released.

  Ted Rogers

  Shortly after the April 30, 1932, robbery and shooting of John N. Bucher in Hillsboro, Texas, of which Clyde Barrow was accused and Ray Hamilton convicted, Ted Rogers was arrested on an unrelated charge and sent to Huntsville along with Ralph Fults. There he met Clyde’s brother “Buck” Barrow, who was finishing out his sentence and told them all that he had been the one who shot Mr. Bucher. Clyde was driving the getaway car, just as he had always claimed, and Ray Hamilton was in Michigan with his father. Rogers promised to confess if Hamilton got the death penalty. Hamilton was convicted of killing Bucher but got life in prison, so Rogers kept quiet. Ted Rogers was later stabbed to death in prison by another inmate, named Pete McKenzie.14

  William Daniel Jones

  After riding with Bonnie and Clyde, off and on, for nine months in 1932–33, and participating in five killings, three kidnapings, five gunfights, and two car wrecks, seventeen-year-old W. D. “Deacon” Jones called it quits. Two months later, he was picked up in Houston and gave the Dallas authorities his version of his time with Bonnie and Clyde. Despite doing his best to picture himself as a victim, he received fifteen years as an accessory in the January 1933 killing of Malcolm Davis and another two years at the harboring trial.

  When Jones was finally released, in the early fifties, he returned to Houston, married, and settled down. When the 1967 movie about Bonnie and Clyde came out, Jones told a Houston reporter a somewhat more factual story of his experience, which wound up in Playboy magazine. After his wife died in the late sixties, Jones developed a drug habit, and in 1971 he spent a few months in an institution that helped him “dry out.”15

  On August 20, 1974, W. D. Jones met a young lady in a bar in Houston who persuaded him to give her a ride home. When they arrived at 10616 Woody Lane, it turned out to be the home of her ex-boyfriend, with whom she began to engage in a heated argument. During the shouting match, the young lady mentioned that the man she was with used to run with Clyde Barrow and claimed he was carrying a gun (not true). When Jones, who hadn’t heard that part of the conversation, got out of his car and walked toward the front door, the exboyfriend produced a 12 gauge and shot him three times. William Daniel Jones was pronounced dead at the scene. He was fifty-eight years old.

  The man who shot him, George Arthur Jones (no relation), was tried and given fifteen years but appealed. The appeal judge eventually ordered a new trial, and George Jones was released on bond pending the proceedings. Unfortunately, before the new trial could start, someone discovered that he had a prior conviction that made him ineligible for bond. Through his attorney, Jones learned that he was to be rearrested and taken to jail. This was in August 1976. Soon after hearing the news, George Arthur Jones took the same shotgun that had killed W. D. Jones, sat down on the tailgate of his truck, put the muzzle under his chin, and ended his own life.16

  Henry Methvin

  After the ambush and death of Bonnie and Clyde, Henry Methvin remained at large, even though he was an escaped convict and his whereabouts were known by Sheriff Jordan. Because of his part in putting Bonnie and Clyde “on the spot,” he was not picked up. Sheriff Jordan told him that, as long as he stayed in Bienville Parish, he would not be bothered. Henry took this good advice and lay low. He worked for his brother, Terrell, at a sawmill while he waited for the State of Texas to make good on its promise of a pardon. By August, he was getting impatient and asked the sheriff to see if anything could be done. Lee Simmons thought it was too soon but agreed to write to the governor and recommend that the pardon go forward. All this, however, was shortly overcome by events.

  In late August or early September 1934, Henry Methvin fell in love. He needed money to get a marriage license and set up housekeeping, but he was unable to get an advance at work or a loan from his brother. Before long, however, Henry received word from a man in Shreveport who was interested in buying a gun that Henry had carried when he was with Bonnie and Clyde. The condition was that Henry had to bring the gun to Shreveport in person. Henry needed the money, so he went. Unfortunately for Henry, he had been set up.

  Shortly after the killing of Constable Cal Campbell in Commerce, Oklahoma, on April 6, 1934, the state of Oklahoma had issued a warrant for the arrest of Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker, and John Doe. On September 12, 1934, the Ottawa County attorney received permission to amend the warrant to show Henry Methvin as the true name of John Doe, and the new warrant was issued the same day. Had Henry stayed in Bienville Parish, Oklahoma authorities would have had to go through Sheriff Jordan to serve the warrant. Jordan had promised Henry protection, but Shreveport police had offered no such deal. When Henry arrived in Shreveport, Oklahoma authorities took him into custody for the murder of Cal Campbell. By September 21, 1934, Henry Methvin was sitting in an Oklaho
ma courtroom.17

  In Oklahoma, Henry was convicted of murder and given a death sentence. He appealed, and, largely by detailing his involvement in setting up the ambush of Bonnie and Clyde, he was able to get the sentence reduced to life in prison. In spite of the life sentence, Henry Methvin was released on parole at McAlister, Oklahoma, on March 18, 1942.18 Henry’s father died in 1946, under suspicious circumstances, and on April 19, 1948, Henry Methvin was killed as he tried to crawl under a Southern Pacific passenger train at Sulphur, Louisiana. Even though Henry’s death happened in broad daylight and there were three eyewitnesses who said they saw him go under the train on his own, many of the family members still suspect foul play in the deaths of both Henry and his father, due to their involvement with Bonnie and Clyde. At Henry’s funeral, spectators stole things out of the family’s cars for souvenirs.19 He was thirty-six years old.

  Joseph Conger Palmer

  Joe Palmer was in Oklahoma City when he heard the news about Bonnie and Clyde’s death, and he attended Clyde’s funeral in Dallas, in spite of being the most wanted man in the state. On June 15, 1934, Palmer was captured in St. Joseph, Missouri and taken back to Texas. Two weeks later, a Walker County, Texas, jury convicted him of the murder of Major Crowson during the Eastham Farm escape and sentenced Palmer to the electric chair. On July 22, 1934, after having been on death row for three weeks, Joe Palmer, Raymond Hamilton, and Blackie Thompson made it over the wall during the death house escape. On August 8, 1934, Joe Palmer was captured at Paducah, Kentucky, and sent back to Texas.

  Joe Palmer died in the electric chair at Huntsville, Texas, just after midnight, May 10, 1935—a few minutes before his sometime partner Raymond Hamilton.20

  Hilton Bybee

  Bybee was not a part of the original group that planned the escape from Eastham Prison Farm in January 1934. He took the place of Ralph Fults, who was unable to be present, and only stayed with the group for a week. He helped rob one bank, in Rembrandt, Iowa, on January 23, 1934, and then left the group and went his own way. A week later, he was captured at Amarillo, Texas. In early 1935, Bybee was one of the defendants at the harboring trial, where, in a meaningless gesture, the court added ninety days to the life sentence he was already serving for a 1932 murder conviction. In 1937 Bybee escaped from Eastham Prison Farm again but was later shot and killed by officers at Monticello, Arkansas.21

  James Mullins

  James Mullins, alias “Jimmie LaMont,” was already a career criminal before he ever met Clyde Barrow. He was given four months at the harboring trial and afterward worked as an informer for officers in the Dallas area. No matter what, though, Mullins always seemed to wind up back behind bars. He once robbed a bank of $68 using a bottle of turpentine he claimed was nitroglycerin. During his getaway, he was captured because he literally ran into a policeman. The last record of James Mullins (this time as James Muller) is of him being sentenced to seven and a half to fifteen years for armed robbery in 1954. He was sixty-nine years old at the time.22

  THE POSSE

  Francis Augustus “Frank” Hamer

  At the time of the ambush, Frank Hamer was already a legend in the Texas Rangers and remains so to this day. In February 1934, when Lee Simmons hired him as a “special escape investigator” for the prison system, Hamer’s Texas Rangers days were over and he was doing industrial and freelance security work. Never one to say much to the media, he maintained that stance after Bonnie and Clyde’s death and never revealed the roles of any of the others who helped set up the ambush.

  Most of the things found with Bonnie and Clyde in their “death car” were passed out among the lawmen involved, on Lee Simmons’ instructions, and Hamer took several of the guns, for himself. When this became known, Clyde’s mother wrote him asking for the return of some of the guns which she said Clyde bought instead of stole, but the guns stayed with Hamer and his family.

  Frank Hamer continued to live in Austin, Texas, and take special assignments from time to time, including getting involved in the controversial senate campaign of 1948 in which Lyndon B. Johnson was elected by a slim and very questionable margin.

  Despite his portrayal in the 1967 film, Frank Hamer was never kidnapped or humiliated by Bonnie and Clyde or anyone else. The first time he ever laid eyes on the notorious couple was over his gunsight on May 23, 1934.

  Francis Augustus Hamer died on July 10, 1955, at the age of seventy-one.23

  Benjamin Maney “Manny” Gault

  Manny Gault was another former Texas Ranger who had resigned in protest at the election of Miriam Ferguson as Texas governor in 1932. In April 1934, he got a call from his friend Frank Hamer. The Texas State Police had just lost two men to Clyde Barrow at Grapevine and wanted their own agent on the manhunt team. Frank Hamer insisted that he choose the man, and his choice was Manny Gault. Hamer had known Gault for a long time and trusted him to be dependable— and silent. After the ambush, Hamer said very little and Gault said even less.

  By 1937, there was a new administration in office, and Manny Gault was back in the Rangers as the captain in charge of the Lubbock unit. He was still serving when he died on December 4, 1947.24

  Robert F. “Bob” Alcorn

  When the new Dallas County sheriff, “Smoot” Schmid, took office on January 1, 1933, Bob Alcorn had been a deputy for almost eight years. He had seen his share of hoodlums, especially during several run-ins with two brothers from west Dallas named Barrow. Schmid wisely kept Alcorn on the payroll, and in November, Bob Alcorn was part of Sheriff Schmid’s posse that tried to ambush Bonnie and Clyde near Sowers, west of Irving.

  After the failed ambush and the adverse publicity that came with it, Bob Alcorn was assigned to track Clyde Barrow full-time. In February 1934, he joined forces with Frank Hamer, and through Sheriff Jordan of Bienville Parish, Louisiana, they made contact with the Methvin family and put the final plan in motion. On Wednesday morning, May 23, 1934, Bob Alcorn was the one who identified Clyde Barrow to the rest of the posse and sealed the outlaws’ fate. Alcorn was also the one who signed the official identification in the coroner’s report.

  In the late thirties, Alcorn left the Sheriff’s Department to go into business. Later, he became a court bailiff. Robert F. Alcorn died on the thirtieth anniversary of the ambush of Bonnie and Clyde—May 23, 1964.25

  Ted Cass Hinton

  After the ambush, Ted Hinton remained in law enforcement for a few years and became a friend of the Barrow family. He also learned to fly, and during World War II, he trained pilots for the Army Air Corps. Later on, he ran a trucking company and operated a motel in Irving, Texas. In 1977, shortly after finishing a manuscript about his life, entitled “Ambush,” Ted Hinton died. He was seventy-three years old and the last surviving member of the posse that killed Bonnie and Clyde.26

  Henderson Jordan

  In early 1934, Henderson Jordan was a thirty-six-year-old World War I veteran serving as sheriff of Bienville Parish, Louisiana. In late February, he was approached by Frank Hamer and Bob Alcorn and asked to help set a trap for Bonnie and Clyde. The Texas lawmen needed to contact the parents of Henry Methvin, who lived near Castor. Sheriff Jordan contacted the Methvins through their friend John Joyner, and the plan was set in motion. Three months later, Jordan was part of the posse that killed them.

  Henderson Jordan was routinely reelected sheriff of Bienville Parish until he chose to retire. On June 13, 1958, at age sixty, he was killed in an automobile accident.27

  Prentis Oakley

  On Monday evening, May 21, 1934, Prentis Oakley was a twenty-nine-year-old deputy under Sheriff Henderson Jordan when the call came that the plan to ambush Bonnie and Clyde was on. Four of the lawmen were from Texas, so Jordan asked Oakley to join him on the posse to represent Bienville Parish. Oakley went by the home of a local dentist, whose hunting rifle he had often borrowed, and picked up the Remington Model 8 one more time. Both Oakley and Jordan argued that some command to surrender should be given, but on Wednesday morning, May 23, Oakley surpr
ised everyone by opening fire before any order was given. His first shot killed Clyde Barrow. Even though Clyde Barrow had sworn never to be taken alive and had been involved, directly or indirectly, in the killing of nine lawmen, the ambush, and the fact that he had fired without any warning, haunted Oakley for the rest of his life.

  Prentis Oakley was elected sheriff upon the retirement of Henderson Jordan. He died on October 15, 1957.28

  OTHER LAWMEN

  Richard Allen “Smoot” Schmid

  “Smoot” Schmid had grown up in Dallas, the son of a Swiss immigrant. He was a high school football hero and later opened a bicycle shop. In 1932, he won the race for Dallas County Sheriff against six opponents, taking office on January 1, 1933. Six days later, in Schmid’s new jurisdiction, Clyde Barrow killed a deputy sheriff from a neighboring county. In November, Schmid attempted to ambush Bonnie and Clyde near Sowers, Texas. The attempt was unsuccessful, but Schmid managed to ride out the bad publicity, and two of his men were part of the posse that finally killed the outlaws.

  Smoot Schmid continued to serve as sheriff of Dallas County until 1946, after which he served on the State Board of Pardons and Parole. He died on July 1, 1963.29

  Marshal Lee Simmons

  After presiding over the pursuit and ambush of Bonnie and Clyde, the death house escape, and the executions of Raymond Hamilton and Joe Palmer, Lee Simmons announced his resignation as general manager of the Texas Prison System on September 2, 1935. That same year, the Osborne Association on U.S. Prisons awarded the Texas Prison System the dubious honor of being the worst in the nation.30 When his resignation was accepted, Simmons returned to his hometown of Sherman, Texas, pursued his business interests, dabbled in politics, and in 1957 published his autobiography, Assignment Huntsville. Lee Simmons died later that year at the age of eighty-four.31