Fugitives- The True Story of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker

by Emma Parker

  I reached out and seized her wrist and jerked her toward me. "Don't, Bonnie, for God's sake!" I cried. I wanted to scream.

  There she sat, so young, so lovely — only twenty-three — with the May moonlight sifting through her yellow hair and making shadows on her cheeks — there she sat and talked to me of death as calmly as if she were discussing going to the grocery store. Bonnie looked up at me and smiled. It was a funny smile — as if she were a million years older than I was; as if she knew things that I'd never learn if I lived for centuries; as if this flutter I was making about the talk of death was rather childish and so to be excused.

  "Now, mama, don’t get upset," she said to me. "Why shouldn’t we talk it over? It’s coming — you know it — I know it — all of Texas knows it. So don’t let them keep me at the undertakers. Bring me home when I die — it’s been so long since I was home. I want to lie in the front room with you and Billie and Buster sitting beside me. A long, cool, peaceful night together before I leave you. That will be nice — and restful." She turned one of the pictures toward me. "I like this one," she went on calmly. It was a picture of Clyde holding her up in his arms. They were both laughing. Bonnie’s red lacquered fingers caressed the surface of the picture slowly. "And another thing, mama," she went on, "when they kill us, don’t ever say anything — ugly — about Clyde. Please promise me that, too."

  I promised her, and I kept my promise where Clyde was concerned, but the people of Dallas would not let me keep the other one. Bonnie never came home when she died, because I could not bring her through the crowds, and she could have had no peaceful night if I had brought her. My little street was black with people that night and it took a cordon of police for me to get through.

  On this last meeting, I recall that Billie was very cross because I had refused to let her do something she'd set her heart on doing, and she told Bonnie about it. Bonnie looked at her baby sister. "I just wouldn't pay any attention to mama if I were you, Billie," she said.

  Billie fairly gasped at this treason and looked from Bonnie to me and then back again. "You wouldn't?" she echoed.

  Bonnie shook her head. "No, I'd just go right ahead and do as I pleased," she told Billie. "I wouldn't mind mama at all."

  "Why, Bonnie! " Billie cried. "I’m ashamed of you." "Just take a look at me," Bonnie went on. "I’m a shining example of what happens when a girl doesn’t mind her mother. You just go right ahead, Billie, and see where you land." She laughed when she said it. It wasn’t a bitter laugh but it was a little brittle, like falling glass.

  Bonnie gave me the poem that night, "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde." I shall present it here because it gives a little of the inside angle of the case. Clyde and Bonnie bade us all good-bye — their last good¬bye — and drove away. They would be back in two weeks, they promised. But in two weeks they were dead.

  The Story of Bonnie and Clyde

  You've read the story of Jesse James —

  Of how he lived and died;

  If you're still in need

  Of something to read

  Here's the story of Bonnie and Clyde.

  Now Bonnie and Clyde are the Barrow gang.

  I'm sure you all have read

  How they rob and steal

  And those who squeal

  Are usually found dying or dead.

  There's lots of untruths to these write-ups;

  They're not so ruthless as that;

  Their nature is raw;

  They hate all the law —

  The stool pigeons, spotters, and rats.

  They call them cold-blooded killers;

  They say they are heartless and mean;

  But I say this with pride,

  That I once knew Clyde

  When he was honest and upright and clean.

  But the laws fooled around,

  Kept taking him down

  And locking him up in a cell,

  Till he said to me,

  "I’ll never be free,

  So I'll meet a few of them in hell."

  The road was so dimly lighted;

  There were no highway signs to guide;

  But they made up their minds

  If all roads were blind,

  They wouldn't give up till they died.

  The road gets dimmer and dimmer;

  Sometimes you can hardly see;

  But it's fight, man to man,

  And do all you can,

  For they know they can never be free.

  From heart-break some people have suffered;

  From weariness some people have died;

  But take it all in all,

  Our troubles are small

  Till we get like Bonnie and Clyde.

  If a policeman is killed in Dallas,

  And they have no clew or guide;

  If they can't find a fiend,

  They just wipe their slate clean

  And hang it on Bonnie and Clyde.

  There's two crimes committed in America

  Not accredited to the Barrow mob;

  They had no hand

  In the kidnap demand,

  Nor the Kansas City Depot job.

  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."

  The police haven't got the report yet,

  But Clyde called me up today;

  He said, "Don't start any fight —

  We aren't working nights —

  We're joining the NRA."

  From Irving to West Dallas viaduct

  Is known as the Great Divide,

  Where the women are kin,

  And the men are men,

  And they won't "stool" on Bonnie and Clyde.

  If they try to act like citizens

  And rent them a nice little flat,

  About the third night

  They're invited to fight

  By a sub-gun's rat-tat-tat.

  They don't think they're too smart or desperate,

  They know that the law always wins;

  They've been shot at before,

  But they do not ignore

  That death is the wages of sin.

  Some day they'll go down together;

  They'll bury them side by side;

  To few it'll be grief —

  To the law a relief —

  But it's death for Bonnie and Clyde.

  On Saturday, May 19, Billie, who was working in a cafe at Gladewater, was arrested by officers as the girl who had done the killing at Grapevine on Easter Sunday. Despite the testimony of my sister, my daughter- in-law, myself, and Clyde's mother that Billie had been home all day Easter Sunday, Billie was taken to Ft. Worth and put in a cell.

  I was frantic about this new development. You can imagine how we felt with Bonnie an outlaw and the fingers of justice reaching out to snare my other daughter. Billie was still in jail when the news came that Clyde and Bonnie had been killed eight miles from Gibsland in Bienville Parish, Louisiana, at 9:15 the morning of May 23. I received the news about 9:30.

  I remember that I was sewing. All the family were at home except Billie. This new tragedy had drawn us together. In spite of the fact that I had told myself over and over again that I was ready to meet their death when it came, I found that I was not. A newspaper reporter called me and asked me if I were alone. I replied in the negative. He then asked to talk with my sister or my son. Reporters were always calling up to get stories and statements, and I told him he could ask me whatever he wanted to know. The man insisted on speaking to some other member of the family, and after a rather warm argument, during which time I was very stubborn and lost my temper, he blurted out the news of the killing. I dropped the receiver and began crying. As soon as Buster heard it, he said it wasn't true — that we had received dozens of such messages and they had never been true. But something told me that this time it was the truth.


  The undertaker arrived to get some one to go with him to Arcadia. I wanted to go but Buster wouldn't let me. He went instead. Clyde's father accompanied another undertaker to bring back Clyde's body. They left around noon. Buster got lost and didn't arrive at Arcadia till ten that night.

  Bonnie and Clyde had been dead thirteen hours, yet the dried blood had never been washed from their bodies, and they still lay, unclothed, in the undertaker's parlor, a back room in a furniture store. The morbidly curious were filing past in a constant stream. They had broken out the plate glass windows of the store, and ruined the stock of furniture. The undertaker said he had not been able to embalm the bodies properly because of the crowds. He was able to keep them back by squirting embalming fluid on them, which was rather an expensive process. Officers of the law offered no aid in controlling the mobs.

  Of course, it was an open secret that some one whom Clyde and Bonnie had trusted, had betrayed them. The newspapers were full of it; the town of Arcadia was crawling with rumors to that effect. Officers and Rangers spoke guardedly and gave non-committal answers to reporters. It was not hard to piece the facts together and get the answer.

  When we went down after the funeral, some of the country people took us to the house where Clyde and Bonnie were supposed to have lived. Nothing could make me believe that they had lived there. Clyde and Bonnie were so particular about being clean, and this was a filthy hole, with old feed sacks on the floor, and trash and dirt everywhere. There was no glass in the windows and the doors wouldn't close properly. Besides, the house was situated in a spot that was a perfect trap. A single narrow road led down through the pines to it. Clyde Barrow was too clever to have holed himself up in this place, where he could be taken easily and have no chance for flight. Clyde's head worked in times of danger and in times of peace. He always saw to it that there was a good exit. There was no exit here. Just where they did stay is something we don't know, but I'm convinced it was not in this house.

  On this morning of May 23, Clyde and Bonnie had driven into town and Bonnie bought a magazine. Probably Clyde purchased supplies. About eight miles out of Gibsland on a little hill, Clyde and Bonnie came upon Henry Methvyn's father. He had stopped his truck and taken the wheel off. He had a puncture, so he said. Clyde parked his car beside the truck and got out to see if he could help. This put the Methvyn truck between Clyde's car and the officers, hidden 100 yards away in the underbrush. Bonnie was sitting in the front seat reading her magazine. For once Clyde's sixth sense wasn't working. He had released Henry Methvyn from Eastham prison farm; Henry had been with him on several robberies and in two gun battles where officers were killed, and therefore Clyde sensed no danger.

  Another truck loaded with logs came up the hill and blew the horn for Clyde to move over. Clyde got back in his car and pulled up in front of Mr. Methvyn's truck, and started to back closer. This was what the officers were waiting for. Without a word of warning they all came down with a barrage of machine gun fire. Clyde's last act was to shift the gears into low for a get-away and to reach for his gun.

  The first blast from the officers' guns struck Clyde full in the head and the left side. He slumped forward over the wheel. It also ripped Bonnie's body to ribbons and she too fell forward just as the car left the road, careened into a sandbank, and stopped. The officers ran out into the road, still firing. They let loose another blast into the rear and side of the car, in order to make doubly sure. Then they approached the toppled car warily, guns ready to fire again.

  Although they had already poured enough lead into both bodies to have killed fifty men, they still doubted that the couple was dead. They were expecting momentarily to hear the rat-tat-tat of returning fire, and to behold Clyde Barrow, the charmed and unkillable, behind the car with a machine gun, ready to fight it out again. But this time there really was no danger.

  They reached the car, jerked the door open, and looked inside. A Browning automatic was between Clyde's knees, but his hand had been shot away from his grasp on the weapon. Bonnie, an automatic pistol in her lap, was crumpled over her magazine. Over fifty bullet holes were in each body. They were both quite dead. The long chase was over. The law had won. Bonnie and Clyde would never stand the world off again, two against death, for death had overtaken them at last.

  Epilogues

  Although their death is really the end of the story, perhaps the reader would like to know the details of the burial, so we add this final word as told by Mrs. Parker:

  The horrible things which occurred both in Arcadia and Dallas, following the death of Bonnie and Clyde, were the sort of revolting episodes which shake one's faith in civilized humanity. We didn't expect people to have respect for Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. They were due no respect. But the state of death deserves respect in any land, and this was denied them.

  Dr. Wade, the coroner at Arcadia, related afterwards that when he arrived at the scene of the killing two hours after it occurred, officers were still milling around. A crowd of several hundred had gathered about the death car, and Bonnie's dress, which was shot to ribbons, was almost cut from her back by curiosity seekers who were gathering souvenirs. Clyde's blood stained shirt and undershirt were in the same condition. We still have these garments, bearing mute testimony to the truth of this statement. Bonnie's hair had been clipped away, also, and some one was trying to get her diamond rings off her fingers. One man was reported to have been rifling Clyde's pockets when the coroner and undertaker arrived. They stopped him. Other people had ripped open the trunk on the back of the car and scattered its contents. Some enterprising onlooker was attempting to remove a hub cap from a wheel. Every piece of broken glass was eagerly picked up. The spot where the officers had lain in wait was trampled level by those who hunted for empty shells to take away. The crowds even cut down the trees and dug bullets from them. Bonnie and Clyde always divided what money they had evenly, but someone evidently rifled Bonnie's purse because, while Clyde had $500 in his pockets, only a few dollars was found in Bonnie's possession. I was told by a man who was there that he stopped some unknown person in an attempt to cut Clyde's ear off. This person wanted to preserve it in alcohol, he said.

  The bodies were not brought to Arcadia till noon, and then the undertaker was held up two hours for the inquest. The undertaker told me that he put Clyde's wrist watch and diamond stick pin in a box when he took them off, but when he went to look for them to give to Clyde's people, the stick pin was gone; it had been taken by some one else. Nothing was done about it. We never received their personal belongings, except what they had on when killed, and a few clothes wrapped in a newspaper. They had laundry and clothes in a Shreveport cleaning plant with a bill of $14 against them. We never received these things, either.

  When the bodies arrived in Dallas on the morning of May 24, people behaved in about the same manner as they did in Arcadia, but the Dallas police made an effort to control them. Twenty thousand people jammed the street in front of the funeral home where Bonnie lay, and almost as many came to view Clyde. It was a Roman holiday. Hot dog stands were set up; soda pop vendors arrived to serve those who waited to view all that was left of the South's most noted desperadoes.

  The final grim and sardonic touch was the great loads of flowers that arrived. It was impossible to hold the crowds back and they were wrecking both the place where Bonnie lay and the establishment where Clyde had been taken. Some newsboys contributed money for wreaths for Clyde and Bonnie. A small bouquet of lilies arrived with a note asking that they be placed in Bonnie's hands that night. The sender said another bouquet would be sent the following day when these flowers had wilted, and asked that the wilted bunch be saved and given to me. This was done. I don't know who the person was.

  I had carried small life insurance policies on all of my children for many years. For this reason I was able to bury Bonnie as I wished. She had the loveliest blue silk negligee that money could buy. It matched her blue eyes. Her hair was marcelled and her nails polished. Her casket was of silver
, and she was buried holding the lilies from the unknown sender.

  We did not have the funeral till Saturday, following her death on Wednesday. We delayed because we were bending every effort to have Billie released long enough to be present. This was not accomplished till Saturday morning. The following Thursday, ballistic tests proved Billie innocent of the charge of murder and she was formally freed.

  We planned to bring Bonnie home on Friday night. They tried to talk me out of it, but I was determined. "It was her last request," I said. "She wanted to come home and she's coming home."

  They asked me then to look out of the door at the crowds who were waiting at my home. I realized the hopelessness of the attempt and gave it up. A car with police escort was sent to bring me to the funeral home. We fought our way in. We had lived through so many things far worse than death during the past two years that none of this penetrated to our minds. We were finally past being hurt by anything.

  I didn't look at Bonnie till she was in her casket, and even then it was a terrible shock because of what the bullets had done to her little red mouth. At first she was a stranger to me. But the longer I looked, the more her features became normal. It was a miracle which probably came from my own imagination to save my sanity. Slowly, beneath my gaze her face changed till she was once more Bonnie as I had known her — the same little girl who used to pat my slippers lovingly as she put them away; the same sweet child who had sung the Craw Dad Song to Billie's little boy.

  I looked down at her and I thought: "Your troubles are over now, baby. You died with the man you loved. Thank God it's over at last. Thank God you'll never run and hide and steal and kill and suffer in pain, and cry for your mother again. Thank God — thank God —" Then merciful blackness came up to blot my vision and I remembered nothing for a long time.

  We buried Clyde on Friday afternoon and Bonnie on Saturday — not together, as they had wished. Each family wanted the privilege of placing the body in its own private burial plot. Bonnie was laid to rest beside Billie's babies; Clyde sleeps with his brother, Buck. Both funerals were nightmares. Nell was unable to get within forty feet of Clyde's grave. While the curious fought their way toward the grave side, as a last fantastic touch, aviators swooped low and dropped flowers on the bier. All this hysteria, for and against, was enough to make one lose one's reason and go mad laughing. But none of us cared. We were past caring. The long trail had ended. Bonnie and Clyde had sinned and suffered and paid the price. They had broken the laws of God and man, and Death had come out to meet them on a morning in May —Death for Bonnie and Clyde.