Bonnie and Clyde- A Twenty-First-Century Update
Page 35
39. Cumie T. Barrow, unfinished manuscript.
CHAPTER 30
1. Some sources say that Raymond Hamilton was on the hook for the whole amount (Underwood, Depression Desperado, p. 41). Joe Palmer, who was part of the break, said that each of the four escapees promised $250 a piece. (Simmons, Assignment Huntsville, p. 165).
2. This happened February 2, 1934. Storm Lake (IA) PilotTribune, February 1, 1934.
3. Storm Lake (IA) Register, January 23, 1934. Storm Lake (IA) Pilot-Tribune, January 25, February 1, 1934.
4. Simmons, Assignment Huntsville, p. 165.
5. Ibid.
6. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 172. Bybee was captured seven days after the Rembrandt job at Amarillo, Texas.
7. Cumie T. Barrow, unfinished manuscript. Mrs. Barrow says that they robbed a filling station and took a 1933 Dodge. In view of the witnesses at the bank job in Poteau, Oklahoma, the next day, she was mistaken about the make of the car.
8. Simmons, Assignment Huntsville, p. 166.
9. There is a photograph of Clyde Barrow and Henry Methvin, both dressed almost exactly as this man was described, taken in early February 1934. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 184.
10. The story of the Poteau, Oklahoma, robbery is found in the Fort Smith (AR) Southwest American, January 26, 1934. In addition to the descriptions and modus operandi matching the Barrow gang, this robbery is attributed to them by Clyde’s mother in her unfinished manuscript and by Jimmy Mullins in his testimony at the harboring trial in early 1935. Bud Russell, unpublished manuscript, p. 13.
11. This story was told to John Neal Phillips by Ralph Fults. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 172. Phillips tells the story as if everything happened in a few days. In fact, it was two months before Joe Palmer’s plan was finally carried out.
12. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 172.
13. Simmons, Assignment Huntsville, p. 167.
14. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 173.
15. Des Moines (IA) Sunday Register, March 17, 1968. The 1934 Iowa plates—13-1234—were not used in the Knierim robbery but would be used in a later robbery at Everly, Iowa, and finally be found in the death car at Gibsland, Louisiana. Additional information provided by Mike Woltz of Des Moines, Iowa.
16. The account of the Knierim, Iowa, bank robbery appears in the Fort Dodge (IA) Messenger, February 1–6, 1934.
17. Ibid., February 6, 1934. All the normal skepticism about eyewitness testimony and identification from photos applies here as well, but nothing in the description of the number and makeup of the suspects (three men and one woman) is inconsistent with what we know about the gang at that point.
18. Methvin vs. Oklahoma, A-9060. Although Clyde Barrow would later claim that Raymond Hamilton was “yellow” because he hid in the floorboard during this gunfight, afraid of getting shot, at least one of the lawmen would later testify that three men inside the car were shooting with rifles. Unless Clyde and Henry persuaded their hostage, Mr. Gunn, to join in the shooting, that means that Raymond was not hiding the whole time.
19. Cumie T. Barrow, unfinished manuscript.
20. Gene O’Dare was, at the time, doing ninety-nine years for helping Raymond rob the Carmine State Bank.
21. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 173. Floyd Hamilton interview with John Neal Phillips, July 18, 1981.
22. Eastland (TX) Telegram, February 20, 21, March 20, 1934.
23. Underwood, Depression Desperado, p. 47.
24. Ibid., p. 48.
25. The account of the R. P. Henry and Sons bank robbery is taken from Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 175–176.
26. Underwood, Depression Desperado, p. 48.
27. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 178.
28. Floyd Hamilton, Public Enemy Number One (Acclaimed Books, Dallas, TX, 1978), p. 34.
29. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 173. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 227.
30. Underwood, Depression Desperado, p. 49.
31. Hamilton, Public Enemy Number One, p. 34.
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1. That deputy was Bob Alcorn. Ted Hinton would later say that he was also working full time on Clyde from the time of the Sowers ambush. Hinton did join the small group in time to be in on the final ambush, but the evidence points to his joining sometime in April 1934. Both Alcorn and Hinton were acquainted with the Barrow family—Hinton more so with Bonnie Parker—and were probably the only law officers who could identify Bonnie and Clyde on sight. See Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 202–203, and especially p. 335n21.
2. Simmons, Assignment Huntsville, p. 118. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 180.
3. This was actually Mrs. Ferguson’s second time as governor. She also served from 1925 to 1927.
4. Simmons, Assignment Huntsville, pp. 126–127.
5. Information provided by Harrison Hamer, grandson of Harrison Lester Hamer and grandnephew of Frank Hamer.
6. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 201.
7. Ibid. Depending on whom you believe, Hamer either resigned in protest or was asked to resign for previous insubordination.
8. At least two other Texas Rangers were said to have been offered the job before Simmons went to Hamer. See Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 354n3
9. Simmons, Assignment Huntsville, p. 128.
10. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 202.
11. Ibid.
12. There is some dispute about the dates involved. Hamer later said that he and Alcorn were in Bienville Parish by February 19 (Phillips, p. 202). Henry Methvin’s mother and John Joyner, the go-between, testified that it was about the first of March (Methvin vs. Oklahoma, A-9060).
13. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 202. Methvin vs. Oklahoma, A-9060.
14. Joe Palmer thought that it was probably Henry’s father, Ivy Methvin, who set everything up. He thought Henry liked Clyde too much to give him up. Simmons, Assignment Huntsville, p. 166.
15. Methvin vs. Oklahoma, A-9060. Lee Simmons seems to have expressed two different opinions on the subject. In a letter to Governor Ferguson on August 11, 1934, he states that he didn’t think Henry knew about the pardon deal. In another letter, dated two days later, however, he states that Henry “gave to the authorities of Louisiana valuable information that led to the apprehension and capture” of Bonnie and Clyde. In the same letter, Simmons and Hamer both recommend not only a pardon for Henry, but the payment of a $500 reward. It’s difficult to see how, if all of this is true, Henry did not know. Simmons, Assignment Huntsville, pp. 143–144.
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1. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 180. Simmons, Assignment Huntsville, p. 166.
2. Even after Bonnie’s name began to be printed along with Clyde’s, it was always in the order “Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker.” Bonnie did get top billing in the True Detective series “The Inside Story of Bonnie Parker and the Bloody Barrows,” but in Fugitives, the book supposedly from the family, except for page one, the caption at the top of every page is “The Story of Clyde and Bonnie.”
3. Simmons, Assignment Huntsville, p. 166.
4. Ibid., pp. 165, 167.
5. Marshall (TX) Evening Messenger, April 5, 1934.
6. Ibid., April 3, 1934.
7. Ibid., April 4, 1934.
8. Ibid., April 5, 1934. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 172. After the murder, police interviewed Tom Cagle, a current inmate at Eastham named in the note as McNabb’s “partner.” He was reported to have mentioned one convict who might have done it, a prisoner who had been out of jail about three months, which would have fit Joe Palmer, but no name was given in the paper. McNabb’s sister also said that he had mentioned one man who had threatened him while still at Eastham, but, again, no name is given.
9. As mentioned before, between January 25 and 30 seems the only time available for the trip to Houston. Befo
re then, Palmer didn’t have the money from the bank jobs to pay the lawyer. After that, he was separated from Clyde and the gang until after the furlough was granted.
10. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 172.
11. Underwood, Depression Desperado, p. 50.
12. Ibid., p. 51.
13. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 180.
14. Underwood, Depression Desperado, pp. 53–54.
15. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 229.
16. Ibid., p. 230.
17. Dallas (TX) Morning News, April 2, 1934.
18. Fortune, Fugitives, pp. 231–232. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 182.
19. This story, about the meeting of the two cars, is from Barrow family sources who wish to remain anonymous. The same sources maintain that the meeting itself was a plot to lure Raymond Hamilton. They say that word of the meeting had been passed to Hamilton, and that Clyde planned to kill him when he arrived. If so, the policemen who died may have saved Ray Hamilton’s life.
20. Dallas (TX) Morning News, April 2, 1934.
21. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 183, 351n21. In this passage, Phillips quotes from the Dallas Evening Journal as well as the Dallas Morning News.
22. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 236.
23. Dallas (TX) Morning News, April 2, 1934.
24. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 233.
25. Hamilton, Public Enemy Number One, p. 37.
26. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 185.
27. Fortune, Fugitives, pp. 232–233. It also seems that the kind of language supposedly used on Henry Methvin was not unusual for either Clyde or Bonnie. They probably watched their language around their mothers, but several people with whom they came in contact—either witnesses to robberies or hostages who had to ride with them for some distance—commented on the amount of profanity or “hard language” that was used.
28. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 184.
29. Ibid., p. 203.
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1. Hinton, Ambush, pp. 138–139.
2. Underwood, Depression Desperado, p. 58
3. Miami (OK) Daily News-Record, April 6, 1934.
4. Ibid., April 6, 8, 1934. Two years later, Boyd seems to have changed his story. At Henry Methvin’s appeal of his death sentence, Boyd testified that the shooting “commenced from the car.” Methvin vs. Oklahoma, #9060.
5. Ibid. Here again, Boyd changed his testimony. At Methvin’s appeal, Boyd said that only one man jumped out of the car and did the shooting.
6. Ibid., April 8, 1934.
7. Ibid. Boyd told reporters that Clyde threatened to kill the people if they didn’t get his car out of the ditch.
8. Methvin vs. Oklahoma, #9060.
9. Miami (OK) Daily News-Record, April 8, 1934.
10. Ibid., April 6, 1934. Despite the fact that Clyde knew full well that only one man had been shot (and Boyd later said that Barrow didn’t know for sure that Campbell was dead until later), this is the exact quote that Mr. Butterfield gave to the police within a few hours of the event.
11. Ibid.
12. The warrant issued for the murder of Cal Campbell initially named “Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker, and John Doe, whose true name is unknown.” This was amended to add Henry Methvin’s name as the “John Doe” on September 12, 1934—just in time to arrest him in Shreveport, Louisiana.
13. Miami (OK) Daily News-Record, April 8, 1934.
14. Ibid. In addition to Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas, Texas authorities were notified to guard the crossings on the Red River in case they turned south.
15. Ibid. Boyd said that when Clyde heard the airplane, he said, “There’s a bug up there,” and got out to look for it.
16. Ibid., April 8, 1934. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 188. In spite of the sentiment offered by Clyde, Percy Boyd said that they joked about the shooting all afternoon.
17. Ibid. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 187.
18. Ibid. Boyd said that they seemed to have plenty of money and didn’t bother to take $25 that he had on him at the time.
19. Ibid. This picture of Bonnie is one of the group of pictures developed by the Joplin Globe photography staff for the Joplin Police Department. They were on a roll of film found at the apartment in Joplin where two policemen were killed in April 1933. In another picture from the same roll, taken at the same time, you will see Bonnie pretending to “hold up” Clyde with a sawed-off shotgun. If you look closely, you can see the same cigar that Bonnie posed with between the fingers of Clyde’s left hand. For the two pictures, see Steele, The Family Story of Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 74-75.
20. Ibid., Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 187.
21. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 235.
CHAPTER 34
1. The original of this letter is on display at the Ford Museum, Dearborn, Michigan. Copy of the original provided to the author by Bob Fischer.
2. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 194. Bonnie and Clyde read newspapers and magazines constantly, to keep up with the press coverage they were getting. While they complained that much of it was inaccurate or sensationalized, they enjoyed seeing their names in print. It’s easy to believe that Clyde would have written a letter like the one to Ford, just for the publicity, but the objective evidence all points to the letter being the work of someone else.
3. The account of the robbery of the First National Bank of Stuart, Iowa, is from the Stuart (IA) Herald, April 20, 1934.
4. Fortune, Fugitives, pp. 235–238. On page 234, Fortune says that the date of this family meeting was April 17, 1934. There is no doubt that they were 700 miles away, in Stuart, Iowa, robbing the First National Bank, thirty-six hours earlier. It’s possible, with Clyde’s driving style, for them to have made the trip, so I have put the family meeting on the day after the Stuart robbery, as Fugitives claims. It’s also very possible that Fugitives is wrong about the date of the family meeting. There are many instances in Ms. Fortune’s book where dates are incorrect. It is therefore possible that this family meeting came a few days before the Stuart robbery instead of one day after it. JRK
5. Simmons, Assignment Huntsville, p. 165.
6. Underwood, Depression Desperado, pp. 73–74.
7. Text of the letter from Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 189–190. Additional information from Underwood, Depression Desperado, pp. 64–65.
8. A copy of the original handwritten letter, from which this text is derived, was furnished the author by Bob Fischer.
9. For the text of this letter, see Hinton, Ambush, pp. 155–156.
10. Simmons, Assignment Huntsville, p. 166.
CHAPTER 35
1. The Warrens’ address is from Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 193. The details of the car are from Sandy Jones and Bob Fischer, It’s Death to Bonnie and Clyde, Appendix 1. The author’s information comes from an original limited edition of the work. It was later edited and published in the journal of the Oklahombres.
2. King, The Life and Death of Pretty Boy Floyd, pp. 90–91.
3. This occurred during the robbery of the Farmers and Miners Bank at Oronogo, Missouri, on November 30, 1932. Clyde exchanged a few shots with the teller inside the bank and with some townspeople during the getaway. No one was hurt. There was some shooting associated with the robbery of the bank at Lucerne, Indiana, and also Okabena, Minnesota, which the Barrow family says that Clyde and Buck did, even though others were convicted of the crime.
4. Spencer (IA) News-Herald, May 4, 11, 1934.
5. Ibid., May 11, 1934.
6. Ibid.
7. Simmons, Assignment Huntsville, p. 165.
8. Fortune, Fugitives, pp. 239, 240.
9. Ibid., p. 241.
10. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 216
11. Text of “The End of the Line” furnished by Bob Fischer.
12. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 195. Fortune, Fugitives, pp. 23
9–241.
13. Ibid., 195–196.
CHAPTER 36
1. State of Texas vs. Henry Methvin, no. 821, District Court of Refugio County, Fall Term, 1930.
2. Henry Methvin’s relationship with Clyde Barrow is still something of a mystery after all these years. Joe Palmer, who had known them both through a lot of hard times, believed that Henry thought very highly of Clyde and would not have turned him in. When it came down to it, though, Henry almost certainly participated in the plan to ambush his friend in return for a pardon from the state of Texas. Henry was a more physically imposing man than Clyde; Henry, his brothers, and most of the other male Methvins were almost six feet tall or more, and Henry had shown many times that he was capable of violence. To this day, however, Henry’s relatives say that he was afraid of Clyde Barrow. Henry seems to have admired Clyde but feared him at the same time. Henry surely realized how deadly it would be to cross him. Some Methvin family members feel that Henry saw himself as “riding the tiger” and looking for a way to get off. What finally happened in Bienville Parish, Louisiana, on May 23, 1934, seems to have been a demonstration of the fact that, in hard times, when lives are at stake, families look out for their own. Information about Henry Methvin was provided by Methvin family members who wish to remain anonymous.
3. The information on Henry Methvin’s family was provided by Methvin family members and the Methvin Family Genealogy Forum.
4. Methvin family members.
5. LaVohn Cole Neal and Mildred Cole Lyons quoted in Remembering Bonnie and Clyde (Turquoise Film/Video Productions Inc., St. Louis, MO, 1994). Videotape.
6. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 188. In spite of the testimony of several witnesses, it should be noted here that the Barrow family never believed that Bonnie and Clyde used the Cole place as a hideout. They said it was much too isolated—with only one way in and one way out—for Clyde ever to let himself be caught there.
7. These two stories of home visits by Bonnie and Clyde are from the author’s interview with Clemie Booker Methvin, age ninety-one, July 29, 2001. In these two instances, Clemie was an eyewitness.