8. Clemie Methvin interview. As indicated in the text, Clemie did not hear the story of the pregnancy from Bonnie herself, but from her sister-in-law, Emma, and other women who were in a position to hear it directly. Clemie’s knowledge of the story at least shows that it was in circulation among people who knew Bonnie personally, perhaps for a few weeks before Bonnie’s death.
9. Marie Barrow, statement to Jonathan Davis and Sandy Jones.
10. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 203–204.
11. Ibid., p. 204.
12. Ibid., p. 197. Also p. 353n78. For an alternative version of the Majestic Cafe incident, see Hinton, Ambush, pp. 158–159. In this passage, Hinton tells essentially the same story about the Majestic Cafe but sets it on Saturday night, the 19th.
13. Ibid. For Ted Hinton’s version, see Hinton, Ambush, pp. 163–167.
14. Ivy T. Methvin is often referred to by other authors as “Old Man Methvin,” suggesting a decrepit senior citizen. In fact, in May 1934, Ivy Methvin was forty-nine years old—a year younger than Frank Hamer. Two accounts of the ambush of Bonnie and Clyde are attributed to members of the posse— Frank Hamer and Ted Hinton. Neither of these accounts suggests that any of the Methvin family were anything but unwilling participants in the ambush, forced by the lawmen to help against their will. While it can be understood that the lawmen felt an obligation to protect their sources, other witnesses, official documents, and court records show that Henry Methvin, his father and mother, and John Joyner were, by their own admission, involved in the plan for almost three months before the outlaw couple were killed.
15. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 204.
16. LaVohn Cole Neal, quoted in Remembering Bonnie and Clyde, videotape. There is no way to know exactly when Ivy Methvin arrived at the ambush site, or when the disabled log truck was put in position. The first time we can definitely place Ivy at the scene is the encounter mentioned here with the school bus driver and his passengers at about 7:45 A.M. on Wednesday morning, about ninety minutes before the ambush. He may have been there from the first, or he may have just arrived. In any case, in spite of Hamer and Hinton’s statements to the contrary, Ivy Methvin was not only present at the scene of the ambush but was standing by his truck, not handcuffed to a tree.
17. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 204–205.
18. Alice Brock, quoted in Remembering Bonnie and Clyde, videotape.
19. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 197 and 209.
20. Ibid., p. 205. Phillips says that each posse member had a BAR. That statement is disputed by several other sources. There were at least two other kinds of rifles present, in addition to the Monitor and one or two BARs. Some sources say that Hamer fired a .35 Remington. The Monitor is on display at the Texas Ranger Museum at Waco, Texas.
21. Ibid., pp. 205–206. Phillips, along with many other authors, says that the log truck was coming from the opposite direction (south to north). Buddy Goldston, driving the truck, said they were behind the gray car, going in the same direction. Buddy Goldston, quoted in Remembering Bonnie and Clyde, videotape. Goldston said, “When they [the gray Ford] stopped on top of the hill, I was intending to pass them, but I never got to the top of the hill before they went to shootin’.” It’s possible that Goldston’s truck was the log truck mentioned and the other sources simply have the direction from which it came wrong. It’s also possible that there were actually two vehicles, one coming from each direction.
22. Ibid., p. 205.
23. Prentis Oakley, statement to H. M. Parnell, quoted in Remembering Bonnie and Clyde, videotape.
24. Information about the rifle Oakley used is from Sandy Jones, a researcher who has interviewed the present owner. The position of the other four shots in Oakley’s volley is from Jones and Fischer, It’s Death to Bonnie and Clyde.
25. Buddy Goldston, quoted in Remembering Bonnie and Clyde, videotape.
26. In a book published thirteen years after Frank Hamer’s death, there is a dramatic scene where Hamer steps out in plain view and demands, “Stick ’em up!” He is eye to eye with Bonnie and Clyde as both pick up weapons whereupon Hamer kills them both. While exciting, it bears little resemblance to the facts as reported by eyewitnesses. John H. Jenkins and H. Gordon Frost, “I’m Frank Hamer” (The Pemberton Press, 1968), p. 232.
27. Jones and Fischer, It’s Death to Bonnie and Clyde. This may be one of the most surprising findings of recent research, since previous authors have only mentioned shots fired into the left side and rear of the car. The holes in the right side, above the passenger window, appear in photos taken of the car at Arcadia, Louisiana, within a few hours of the ambush. Although Bob Alcorn is quoted in the Dallas (TX) Morning News, May 24, 1934, as saying that he fired into the right side, the most logical member of the ambush to have administered this coup de grâce would be Frank Hamer. Not only was he the last in line, and therefore closest to the car when it finally stopped, but, of all the posse members, he was the most consummate professional. The size and grouping of the holes is consistent with Hamer’s Monitor rifle. There is no wound to Bonnie’s face from the right listed in Dr. Wade’s report, but in at least one picture of Bonnie, taken before any cleanup was attempted by the undertaker, a small entry wound can be seen in her right cheek, along with the large exit wound in the left.
28. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 206.
29. Hinton, Ambush, pp. 169–170, and Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 206 and especially p. 356n42.
30. Jones and Fischer, It’s Death for Bonnie and Clyde. Jones and Fischer were allowed, by the current owners, to spend over an hour with the death car. Jones inspected it—inside and out. Their comments represent the latest and most thorough examination of the car itself and its forensic evidence.
31. Information on bullet wounds from a transcript of Dr. J. L. Wade’s coroner’s report found in Carroll Y. Rich, The Death and Autopsy of Bonnie and Clyde (Carroll Y. Rich, 1990) pp. 14–15. Transcript provided by Bob Fischer.
32. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 207.
33. Ibid. Joe Palmer later said that the Colt .45 double action was bought for Commerce, Oklahoma, police chief Percy Boyd. He had lost his sidearm when Bonnie, Clyde, and Henry Methvin had taken Boyd for a ride after the Commerce shooting. Bonnie and Clyde thought he was a brave man and promised to replace his pistol. Simmons, Assignment Huntsville, p. 166.
34. Ibid. Among the stolen license plates was one set— 1934 Iowa 13-1234—that would tie Bonnie and Clyde to several bank robberies in western Iowa, committed from February through early May.
CHAPTER 37
1. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 207.
2. Buddy Goldston, Remembering Bonnie and Clyde, videotape.
3. Ibid.
4. Hinton, Ambush, p. 178.
5. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 209.
6. One of the witnesses described it as “a little ol’ T model wrecker.” Buddy Goldston, Remembering Bonnie and Clyde, videotape.
7. Ibid., Alice Brock quoted.
8. Ibid., Mildred Cole Lyons quoted.
9. Hinton, Ambush, p. 182.
10. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 132.
11. Rich, The Death and Autopsy of Bonnie and Clyde, p. 18.
12. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 210.
13. In the years following their death, there have been repeated references to “the Autopsy of Bonnie and Clyde.” In fact, Dr. Wade lacked the time, the equipment, and the inclination to perform a standard autopsy on either body. What he did was simply an external examination, listing identifying marks (Clyde had two toes missing), tattoos (Bonnie had one; Clyde had four), scars (the scarring from the burns Bonnie suffered in the Wellington wreck eleven months before were evident on her right leg), and finally, listing the bullet wounds. For Clyde, he lists seventeen separate wounds, plus “several shots entering the left shoulder joint.” For Bonnie
, he lists twenty-six wounds, including three head or face shots. These numbers indicate “hits.” Other sources list more “wounds,” possibly by counting entry and exit wounds separately and therefore counting holes instead of bullet hits.
There is no mention of any diseases, or, in Bonnie’s case, pregnancy. If the story circulating among the Methvin women was true, and Bonnie was “expecting” about the same time as Clemie Methvin (late December–early January), she could only have been eight to ten weeks pregnant. Even in a woman as small as Bonnie, Dr. Wade may not have been able to confirm that without an internal examination. Carroll Rich, who provides the best transcript of Dr. Wade’s almost illegible notes, goes on to say that Dr. Wade not only ruled out Bonnie being pregnant but also found evidence of gonorrhea in both bodies (Rich, The Death and Autopsy of Bonnie and Clyde, p. 18). Carroll Rich, in a conversation with the author, said that Dr. Wade made these statements to him privately, in the late 1960s. No such statement appears in his notes made at the time.
The Barrow family believed that Bonnie was physically unable to have children. Marie Barrow, statement to Sandy Jones.
14. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 213.
15. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 246.
16. Marie Barrow, statement to Jonathan Davis.
17. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 212, 214.
18. Ibid., p. 213. Rich, The Death and Autopsy of Bonnie and Clyde, p. 17.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Rich, The Death and Autopsy of Bonnie and Clyde, p. 17.
22. Ibid.
23. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 212.
24. Ibid., pp. 213–214. After it was all over, Conger’s Furniture Store claimed that they sustained $500 in damages. Rich, The Death and Autopsy of Bonnie and Clyde, p. 18.
25. Ibid., p. 215.
26. Ibid., p. 216.
27. Ibid., pp. 216–217. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 190–191. Fortune, Fugitives, p. 255.
28. Sparkman-Holts-Brand Funeral Home record book on display at Dallas Historical Society, September 2001.
29. Simmons, Assignment Huntsville, pp. 165–167. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 217.
30. Fortune, Fugitives, pp. 253–254.
31. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 217.
32. Hinton, Ambush, p. 190.
33. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 218.
34. In “The Story of Bonnie and Clyde,” there is this stanza:
A newsboy once said to his buddy:
“I wish old Clyde would get jumped;
In these awful hard times
We’d make a few dimes
If five or six cops would get bumped.”
35. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 218–219.
36. During Bonnie and Clyde’s career, the younger members of their families, who were still in school, were often taunted by students and teachers alike with questions such as “Well, have they killed that brother of yours yet?” Years later, Clyde’s younger brother, L. C., was once pulled over for a minor traffic offense in Dallas. The policeman, after checking his driver’s license, said, “Oh, you’re one of those bad-ass Barrow boys!” This was twenty-five years after Clyde was dead and buried, so it’s doubtful that the officer was old enough to remember it himself. Nonetheless, memories were long in the Dallas law enforcement community. Information from Barrow family members who wish to remain anonymous.
CHAPTER 38
1. Hamilton, Public Enemy Number One, p. 60.
2. Unless otherwise noted, the information presented here is from “The Clyde Barrow–Bonnie Parker Harboring Case,” an unpublished manuscript by Bud Russell, transfer agent for the Texas Prison System. It is used by permission of Robert H. Russell.
3. Marie Barrow Scoma statement to Sandy Jones as well as others. Bonnie’s shoes were size three and a half. Marie Barrow Scoma statement in Remembering Bonnie and Clyde video.
EPILOGUE
1. Information supplied by Barrow family members.
2. Barrow family members. Dallas (TX) Times Herald, September 17, 1938.
3. Barrow family members.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid. Dallas (TX) Morning News, September 4, 1979.
6. Steele, The Family Story of Bonnie and Clyde. Dallas (TX) Morning News, February 7, 1999.
7. Davis, Blanche Barrow: The Last Victim of Bonnie and Clyde, p. 17.
8. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 306. Ken Holmes Jr., “On the Road to Gibsland,” Barrow-Parker newsletter, May 1998.
9. Dallas (TX) Morning News, May 7, 1932.
10. The information on the life of Ralph Fults is taken from various pages of his excellent biography by John Neal Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde.
11. McConal, Over the Wall, p. 145ff.
12. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 308–309. Hamilton, Public Enemy Number One, various pages.
13. Dallas (TX) Morning News, November 24, 1933.
14. Ralph Fults in conversation with Floyd Hamilton and John Neal Phillips. July 18, 1981. Notes supplied by Mr. Phillips.
15. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 309.
16. William Daniel Jones police records, Houston, Texas. Provided by Joe Bauske.
17. Court records, Ottawa County, Oklahoma, concerning State vs. Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker, and John Doe, whose true name is unknown—Henry Methvin. Signed by John H. Venable, October 3, 1934.
18. Henry Methvin’s Oklahoma prison record #32834. Copy provided by Mike Koch.
19. Clemie Booker Methvin interview.
20. McConal, Over the Wall, pp. 152, 161–162.
21. Ibid., p. 115.
22. Ibid., pp. 115–116.
23. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 308.
24. Information provided by the Dallas Historical Society. Research by John Neal Phillips.
25. Ibid.
26. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 309. Hinton, Ambush, back endpaper.
27. Information provided by the Dallas Historical Society. Research by John Neal Phillips.
28. Ibid.
29. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 312, plus additional research by Phillips for the Dallas Historical Society.
30. Dallas Historical Society research by John Neal Phillips.
31. Ibid., pp. 319–320.
32. “Boots” Hinton, conversation with author.
33. Gatewood, Decker, p. 368. Dallas Historical Society, research by John Neal Phillips.
34. Whitehead, “The Murder of Cal Campbell,” Oklahombres, Spring 1997, vol. 8, no 3.
35. Clemie Methvin interview.
36. Ibid.
37. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 310.
38. Clemie Methvin interview.
39. Ibid.
40. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, p. 313. Boston (MA) Daily Record, October 4, 1937.
APPENDIX TWO
1. Author Carroll Y. Rich gives slightly different numbers for a couple of items about the death car. He says the actual purchase price was $785.92 and gives the Kansas tag number as 3-17198. Mr. Jones says the tag number came from Mrs. Warren herself by way of Marie Barrow. As for the price, it’s quite possible that Jess Warren negotiated a $50 discount from the list price. Rich, The Death Car of Bonnie and Clyde, p. 1.
APPENDIX FOUR
1. Phillips, Running with Bonnie and Clyde, pp. 67–70.
Public Documents
Crawford County, Arkansas wanted poster, issued by Sheriff Albert Maxey, late June 1933.
Department of Investigation wanted poster #1227, May 21, 1934.
Department of Investigation wanted poster #1211, October 24, 1933.
Hill County, Texas, wanted poster for Frank Albert Clause and Clyde Champion Barrow, May 1932.
Jones, William Daniel, Voluntary Statement B-71, Dallas County Sheriff’s Department, November 18, 1933.
Court record, Ottawa County, Oklahoma. Petition to have the name “Henry Methvin” replace the name “John Doe” on the arrest warrant for Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, October 3, 1934.
Oklahoma Prison Record #32834, copy provided by Mike Koch.
Books and Articles
Butler, Ken. “The Barrow Gang’s Crimes in Oklahoma.” Oklahombre’s Journal (Winter 1999).
Davis, Robert E., edited by Eugene Baker. Blanche Barrow: The Last Victim of Bonnie and Clyde. Waco, Texas: Texian Press, 2001.
deFord, Miriam Allen. The Real Bonnie and Clyde. New York: Ace Books, Inc., 1968.
Fortune, Jan I. Fugitives: The Story of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, as Told by Bonnie’s Mother (Emma Krause Parker) and Clyde’s Sister (Nell Barrow Cowan). Dallas, TX: The Ranger Press, 1934.
Gatewood, Jim. Decker: A Biography of Sheriff Bill Decker of Dallas County, 1898–1970. Garland, TX: Mullaney Corp., 1999.
Hamilton, Floyd. Public Enemy Number One. Dallas, TX: Acclaimed Books, 1978.
Helmer, William, with Rick Mattix. Public Enemies: America’s Criminal Past, 1919–1940. New York: Checkmark Books, 1998.
Hinton, Ted, as told to Larry Grove. Ambush: The Real Story of Bonnie and Clyde. Austin, TX: Shoal Creek, 1979.
Holmes, Ken. “On the Road to Gibsland. Barrow-Parker Newsletter.” May 1998.
Jenkins, John H., and H. Gordon Frost. I’m Frank Hamer: The Life of a Texas Peace Officer. Austin, TX: Pemberton Press, 1968.
Jones, William Daniel. “Riding with Bonnie and Clyde.” New York: Playboy, vol. 15 no. 11, November 1968.
King, Jeffery S. The Life and Death of Pretty Boy Floyd. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1998.
Knight, James R. “Incident at Alma: The Barrow Gang in Northwest Arkansas.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 51, no. 4 (Winter 1997).
Bonnie and Clyde- A Twenty-First-Century Update Page 36
