CHAPTER 19
1. This statement assumes that Clyde’s involvement in the murder of Howard Hall is still unresolved.
2. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 134.
3. Temple (TX) Daily Telegram, December 27, 1932.
4. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 113.
5. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 134.
6. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 119.
7. Ibid., pp. 119–120.
8. W. D. Jones, in his statement to Dallas County officers in November 1933, said that they had picked up Bonnie’s sister Billie, and that she was the one who went in and talked to Maggie Fairris. Jones, Voluntary Statement B-71.
9. This was surely one of Clyde’s “whippit guns.” It was simply a standard Remington Model 11 semiautomatic shotgun cut down on both ends. The barrel was cut back to about twelve to fourteen inches and the stock cut off just behind the pistol grip. Clyde did this himself with a hacksaw. He then attached a loop to the stock and slung it over his right shoulder. It hung down under his armpit and was covered by the overcoat. He could quickly “whip it out”—hence the name— and he had a five-shot weapon that, in close quarters, was absolutely deadly. It was, however, prone to exactly the kind of malfunction Clyde experienced on this occasion. Over his two-year run, he made many of these weapons. Several examples are known today, in 12, 16, and 20 gauge. At least four of the men killed by Barrow or his associates fell to this weapon.
10. Except where noted, the story of the gunfight at Lillian McBride’s house is taken from Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 115–121. Phillips, in turn, quotes from several Dallas newspapers and other sources. This is one of the many times the author is deeply indebted to Mr. Phillips’ excellent research.
CHAPTER 20
1. Sixteen months later, Bonnie and Clyde would be killed in a tan Ford V-8.
2. Author’s interview with Roy Ferguson at Oronogo, Missouri, October 23, 2000.
3. The story of the kidnapping of Tom Persell comes from the Springfield (MO) Daily News, January 27–28, and the Joplin (MO) Globe, January 27, 1933.
CHAPTER 21
1. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 124.
2. Marie Barrow interview.
3. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 146.
4. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 341n51.
5. Ibid., p. 101.
6. Ibid., p. 337n44.
7. Ibid., p. 125.
8. At this point (late March 1933), Clyde had definitely been present at the scene of four murders (not counting his killing of “Big Ed” in prison), been an actual shooter in three of them, and may have fired the fatal shots twice. The murder of Howard Hall in Sherman, Texas, is a possible fifth incident, but the evidence is less convincing.
9. Throughout their two-year “career,” Bonnie and Clyde ranged over a wide area of the Southwest and Midwest, but they were never out of communication with their families in Dallas for long. In this case, it seems that Buck and Clyde had no problem contacting each other.
10. True Detective magazine, “The Bloody Barrows,” July 1934.
11. Milner, The Life and Times of Bonnie and Clyde, p. 62.
12. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 148.
13. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 129, Marie Barrow interview.
14. Joplin (MO) Globe, April 18, 1933.
15. Ibid., April 14, 1933.
16. Ibid.
17. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 125–126.
18. Marie Barrow interview. Cumie T. Barrow, unfinished manuscript.
19. Ibid.
20. True Detective magazine, “The Bloody Barrows,” July 1934.
21. Ibid.
22. Joplin (MO) Globe, April 15, 16, 18, 1933. The “whippit gun” modification was not invented by Clyde Barrow, but he used it extensively. At Neosho, he added a zipper on his pants leg to hold it in place.
23. True Detective magazine, “The Bloody Barrows,” July 1934.
24. Marie Barrow interview.
25. True Detectives, “The Bloody Barrows,” July 1934.
26. Joplin (MO) Globe, April 15, 1933.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid., April 16, 1933.
29. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 149.
30. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 127.
31. These doors were not the “overhead”-type door we are familiar with but slid from side to side. Author’s conversation with Dewayne L. Tuttle, current owner of the property, May 1999.
32. Joplin (MO) Globe, April 14, 1933.
33. Ibid., April 15, 1933.
34. Ibid.
35. There are two different views as to where Buck was when the shooting started. The original account in 1934 said Buck was upstairs on the couch. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 150. W. D. Jones, in his statement to Dallas police, said Buck was waiting when they got back to the garage, and he was the one trying to close the door. W. D. Jones, Voluntary Statement B-71. Officer DeGraff at first identified Buck (“the shorter of the two brothers”) as the man with the shotgun but changed to Clyde the next day. Joplin (MO) Globe, April 15, 16, 1933. There is a third version that says Buck was out back washing the Marmon. This would have made it impossible to get past the officers and into the house to help get everyone out. As stated earlier, the only weak spot in this place Clyde had picked for a hideout was that it had no back door. (Author’s personal inspection of the scene and conversation with the present owner, May 1999.)
36. Joplin (MO) Globe, April 14, 1933. Clyde was indeed hit in this gunfight, but probably not by Kalher’s last bullet. Kalher thought he hit the man in the back, while Clyde was hit in the chest by an almost spent round that lodged just under the skin. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 151.
37. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 128.
38. Joplin (MO) Globe, April 15, 1933.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid., April 14, 1933.
41. The early version of this story has Blanche screaming hysterically, running down the street with a bunch of cards still clamped in her hand. (Fortune, Fugitives, p. 150.) Everyone who knew Blanche, and Blanche herself in later years, denied this. She did go looking for the dog, but the police had stopped firing by that time. The witness statements at the time mentioned a woman walking out to the street, but nothing about screaming or hysterics. In the 1967 movie Bonnie and Clyde, Blanche is portrayed just as Jan Fortune wrote it in 1934— frightened out of her mind and running wildly down the street. Blanche sued the movie because of it. Blanche’s personal opinion of the movie, given to Marie Barrow and author John Neal Phillips, was that “they made me look like a screaming horse’s ass.” (Marie Barrow statement to Sandy Jones).
42. Cumie T. Barrow, unfinished manuscript.
43. Joplin (MO) Globe, April 14, 1933.
44. Ibid., April 14, 15, 1933.
45. Ibid., April 15, 1933.
46. Ibid., April 14, 1933.
47. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 131.
CHAPTER 22
1. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 342n99. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 161.
2. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 133.
3. Ibid.
4. Except where mentioned in the notes above, the story of the Darby and Stone kidnapping comes from Ruston (LA) Daily Leader, April 27–29, 1933.
5. Cumie T. Barrow, unfinished manuscript.
6. The Ford had Indiana plates (625-096) issued to Carl Porter of Waveland. Logansport (IN) Pharos Tribune, May 12, 1933.
7. This account of the attempted robbery of the Lucerne State Bank was taken from the Logansport (IN) Pharos Tribune, May 12, 13, 1933.
8. Fortune, Fugitives, pp. 163–164.
9. The account of the Okabena, Minnesota, robbery is from Okabena Press, May 25, 1933. Copies of the newspapers courtesy Brian Beerman.
10. Cumie T. Barrow, unfinished manuscript. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 163.
11. The Strains’ convictions are found in
Jackson (MN) Republic, September 22, 1933, and the Okabena (MN) Press, February 27, 1936.
12. Cumie T. Barrow, unfinished manuscript. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 156.
13. The account of the visit at Commerce, Texas, is given in Fortune, Fugitives, pp. 156–167.
CHAPTER 23
1. When Jones was finally picked up by the law, he claimed to be almost a slave to Barrow. He denied ever being a party to any killing. There is, however, abundant evidence that he was a shooter in six gunfights and almost certainly killed at least one person and probably others during that time.
2. Cumie T. Barrow, unpublished manuscript. Their belief that Jones could just drop out of sight and not be connected with Bonnie and Clyde was probably based on the fact that all the news coverage referred to the third man as “unidentified.” This would remain the case even after Jones really did leave them. Unfortunately for Jones, however, his face was featured in several of the pictures from the film recovered at Joplin, and his identification was a top priority. At this time, there was a lively discussion among several police departments as to who this fellow might be, and numerous requests for copies of the pictures were coming into the Joplin Police Department. Copies of these requests were provided the author by Lt. Jim Hounschell of the Joplin Police Department. Jones’ identification was only a matter of time, no matter what he did.
3. Amarillo (TX) Daily News, June 12, 1933.
4. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 168.
5. Mrs. Cartwright eventually lost her thumb due to the wound. Amarillo (TX) Daily News, June 12, 1933.
6. Details of this incident from Gladys Cartrwright interview by Marty Black, Wellington, Texas, April 3-4, 2003. Amarillo (TX) Daily News, June 12, 1933. Some details from Fortune, Fugitives, pp. 168–171, and W. D. Jones, Voluntary Statement B-71.
7. Most other authors either state specifically or imply that Clyde drove directly from the bridge at Erick, Oklahoma, to the motel in Fort Smith, Arkansas, where Bonnie was finally seen by a doctor—a distance of about 300 miles. However, the Amarillo newspaper account and Jones’ statement quoted above, plus the date of the theft of the car in their possession when they arrived in Fort Smith (Fort Smith Southwest American, June 26, 1933) make it clear that they arrived in Fort Smith four days after the wreck at Wellington and not a few hours later, as has been commonly stated.
CHAPTER 24
1. This street is now called Midland Boulevard. It turns into North Eleventh and is actually the part of U.S. 64, which runs through the city.
2. Interview with Ida Dennis. Fort Smith (AR) Southwest Times Record, October 5, 1975.
3. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 137.
4. In the interview with Mrs. Ida Dennis in note 2 above, Hazel is said to be a “teenager.” In a telephone interview with the author (Summer 1999), Hazel Dennis Green’s son and husband said that she was born in 1909—therefore twenty-four years old at the time—and had worked as a dietitian in a hospital.
5. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 173.
6. Interview with Ida Dennis. See note 2 above.
7. Cumie T. Barrow, unfinished manuscript.
8. Jeffery S. King, The Life and Death of Pretty Boy Floyd (Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio, 1998), pp. 12–23.
9. Cumie T. Barrow, unpublished manuscript.
10. King, The Life and Death of Pretty Boy Floyd, p. 138.
11. One of Pretty Boy’s biographers states that Bonnie and Clyde had sent word that they admired him and wanted to work with him on a bank job. He says that Floyd never met Clyde Barrow and never considered working with him. “Those two give all of us a bad name,” Floyd is said to have told his relatives. Even though Floyd told his kinfolks to have nothing to do with Bonnie and Clyde, on at least one occasion, two of Floyd’s brothers are said to have helped them out when they came through the area, on the run from police. Michael Wallis, Pretty Boy (St. Martin Press, New York, 1992), p. 327.
12. King, The Life and Death of Pretty Boy Floyd, pp. 101–103.
13. Ibid., pp. 106–107.
14. Robert Unger, The Union Station Massacre (Andrew McMeel Publishing, Kansas City, 1997), pp. 36–43.
15. Clyde, of course, did exactly that—put both mothers and other family members in danger—on the many occasions that they met him out in the country over the two years he was on the run, but he seemed to think that this was a different situation.
16. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 174.
17. Hinton, Ambush, p. 54.
18. There is some confusion as to the exact date of Clyde’s trip to Dallas. Both accounts cited in notes 16 and 17 above give the date as “Sunday, June 19th.” That is not possible, since June 19, 1933, was a Monday. My guess is that Clyde made the trip on Sunday the 18th and was back in Fort Smith by midmorning on Monday the 19th, but the whole thing could have happened twenty-four hours later.
19. Most authors and other researchers have been mistaken as to the location of the bank that was robbed in Alma on June 22, 1933. There is a building on the east side of Fayetteville Avenue and closer to the railroad tracks that says “Commercial Bank” on a pillar out front and in a mosaic at the entrance. This was indeed the home of the Commercial Bank until early 1930, but it was actually the second bank established in town. As a result of the many bank failures brought on by the depression, the Commercial Bank and the older institution, the Bank of Alma (established in 1902), merged several months after the stock market crash in October 1929, simply for survival. The resulting business was called “The Commercial Bank of Alma” and took over the larger Bank of Alma building one block south and on the west side of the street. The old Commercial Bank building was taken over by two sisters named Miller and at the time of the 1933 robbery was probably the only ladies’ dry goods store with a walk-in vault. Both buildings still stand in downtown Alma. This information comes from a speech given by Charles R. Starbird, attorney for the Commercial Bank, Alma, Arkansas, on his retirement. Speech by C.R. Starbird, Fort Smith, Arkansas, 1981. Mr. Starbird was eighty-six years old at the time. Mr. Starbird became attorney for the bank in 1939 on the death of his father, Charles A. Starbird, who was also an attorney, a county judge, an original stockholder and founder of the Bank of Alma, and the author’s great-grandfather.
20. Fort Smith (AR) Times Record, June 22, 1933, Fort Smith (AR) Southwest American, June 23, 1933. At the time of the robbery, there were no real suspects. When the presence of the “Barrow gang” became known, three days later, there was naturally some speculation that they were responsible, but local authorities didn’t seem to give the theory much credence at the time and actually continued to pick up other suspects. Even so, several later authors credit Clyde and Buck with the job. The Barrows always denied the robbery, and their family say they would never have pulled their next robbery if they had $3,600 in their pockets (Fortune, Fugitives, p. 176). In fact, the safe was eventually recovered and the contents found intact (author’s interview with Walter Patton Jr., summer 1995), so nobody got the money. No one was ever charged with the robbery.
21. Van Buren (AR) Press Argus, July 7, 1933.
22. Fort Smith (AR)Southwest American, June 26, 1933.
23. Fayetteville (AR) Daily Democrat, June 24, 1933. Phillip Steele, The Family Story of Bonnie and Clyde (Pelican Publishing Company, Gretna, LA, 2000), pp. 96–99.
24. James R. Knight, “Incident at Alma: The Barrow Gang in Northwest Arkansas.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 51 no. 4 (Winter 1997), p. 405.
25. All other accounts state that Salyers had only a pistol. For confirmation of the .30-30 in the fight, see Fort Smith Times Record, June 24, 1933, p. 3. Salyers owned a Winchester .30-30 (Model 1894, Sn# 929294) that he consistently claimed was the gun he used in the shootout. About 1960, he sold the rifle to Frank Parker of Alma. Marshal Humphrey’s pistol, after an interesting journey, is now in the possession of the Alma Police Department.
26. Almost all other authors claim that the lawmen had set up a roadblock or at least shouted a warn
ing to Wilson: Milner, The Life and Times of Bonnie and Clyde, p. 85, and Miriam Allen deFord, The Real Bonnie and Clyde (New York, Ace Books Inc., 1968), p. 83. Deputy Salyers, in his only interview with the press, is quoted as saying that they had already passed Wilson and did not recognize the bandit car when it went by them. This was recorded within twenty-four hours of the event. Fort Smith Times Record, June 24, 1933.
27. The exact site was identified by Warren Blaylock of Alma, who saw it as a twelve-year-old boy. He lives today within a quarter-mile and walked over the ground with the author. Blaylock interview by author, March 1996.
28. The number-four buck shot is mentioned in Van Buren (AR) Press Argus, July 7, 1933.
29. This was the weapon referred to in the press simply as “a machine gun.” It was heard firing by several people, and a number of empty shell casings and as many as 800 rounds of 30-06 ammunition were found at the site. Fort Smith (AR) Times Record, June 24, 1933.
30. The position of the cars, as well as the reconstruction of the gunfight which followed the wreck, is based on Salyer’s account cited in note 26 above and other articles in both Fort Smith papers June 24 and following; the author’s interview with Velma Humphrey, the marshal’s daughter (summer 1995); an article by W. D. Jones, “Riding with Bonnie and Clyde,” Playboy, November 1968, plus his Voluntary Statement B-71; and logical deductions from the few known facts. The author has also personally examined all the weapons used except the BAR. The license number, given in the phone call from Fayetteville police, appears in Fort Smith Times Record, June 24, 1933. Marvin I. Barrow, in an interview with Salyers and Crawford County Sheriff Albert Maxey, said that he shot the marshal. Fort Smith Times Record, July 26, 1933. Velma Humphrey said that her father, in the hospital, told her and the rest of the family, “As soon as I stepped out on the running board, he shot me.” W. D. Jones, in his 1968 Playboy article, said that Salyers (whom he mistakenly thought only had a pistol) hit the horn button and took off two of his fingertips. This agrees with Times Record, June 24, 1933, which stated that Salyers’ car, when recovered a few hours later, had a blood-stained driving wheel that had been hit by a bullet. Thirty-five years later, Jones was still impressed with Salyers’ marksmanship. “That man could shoot,” he said; Jones, Riding with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 165; B. C. Ames, as quoted in Fort Smith Times Record, June 24, 1933.
Bonnie and Clyde- A Twenty-First-Century Update Page 33
