May 21-23, 1934 Gibsland, Louisiana

On May 21, 1934 Texas Ranger Frank A. Hamer gathered up five other officers, Bob Alcorn, Ted Hinton, B.M. “Manny” Gault, Henderson Jordan, and Prentiss Oakley, to Bienville Parish in Gibsland, Louisiana. Hamer had chosen this location because he found out from Henry Methvin’s father,Ivy, that the Barrow Gang would go to the Methvin family farm if they were separated.  Henry Methvin was separated from the gang the day before for reasons that were unknown. Mr. Methvin promised to help the officers if it meant that his son’s punishment would be reduced.

While the officers hid in the bushes on one side of the road, Mr. Methvin had propped up his truck and removed it’s wheels on the other side to make it look like he needed help. With the trap set, the officers began the long wait for Bonnie and Clyde. The officers were armed with guns, including some B.A.Rs, given to them from the armory just for the ambush. On May 23 at 9:15 AM, the officers were about to call off the ambush to try again tomorrow when they heard the sound of a car coming down the road. The officers recognized the car as Clyde’s Ford V8 and they saw that the passenger and the driver were Bonnie and Clyde themselves. When he saw Mr. Methvin on the side of the road, Clyde pulled up to see what was the matter. Just as Clyde got within Oakley’s range, Oakley began to fire at the car with the first shot hitting Clyde in the head. Soon, the officers fired all of their ammo into the car as it rolled into a ditch near by. 167 shots in total were fired that day. The officers checked the car to see if Bonnie and Clyde were dead and they saw the bodies hanging limp in the car. In the car, they found many items including several guns hidden under a blanket in the back seat and multiple license plates from different states.

When Hamer, Hinton, Jordon, and Oakley went to town to call their respective bosses and call in a tow truck, they left Alcorn and Gault to guard the bodies. Word spread fast and soon a crowd of people gathered to see the bodies. The two officers were not able to hold back the crowd as they pushed past them. The crowd began to collect things from the car like bullet casings, glass shards, and bloody locks of Bonnie’s hair. When the other officers returned, they saw one man trying to cut off Clyde’s left ear. The officers finally managed to control the situation until the tow truck arrived. It took a long time for the bullet-filled car, with it’s dead occupants, to get to the Conger Furniture Store & Funeral Parlor on Railroad Avenue in Arcadia, across from the Illinois Central train station. Henry Barrow, Clyde’s father, arrived from Texas to see the bodies after hearing about the ambush. When Mr. Barrow identified one of the bodies as that of Clyde, he sat down in the rocking chair section of the building and wept. When Bonnie’s husband Roy Thornton, who was in jail at the time, heard about the ambush, he said,” I’m glad they went out like they did. It’s much better than being caught.”

Even though Clyde and Bonnie wanted to be put in the same grave, their families decided to place them in their family grave plots. At Bonnie’s funeral, more than 20,000 people attended, making it impossible for the family to reach the grave site. Clyde’s family attended both Bonnie’s and Clyde’s funeral. A large percentage of the flowers sent to Bonnie’s grave were sent from the Dallas city newsboys because they had sold 500,000 newspapers about the ambush in Dallas alone. Thousands of people attended both Bonnie’s and Clyde’s funeral. Originally, Bonnie was buried with her grandparents in Fishtrap Cemetery in Dallas. Now she is in Crown Hill Cemetery, still in Dallas. Clyde’s body is buried with his brother Buck, sharing the same head stone, in Western Heights Cemetery in Dallas.

April 6, 1934 Commerce, Oklahoma

On April 6, 1934 Clyde, Bonnie, and Henry Methvin were driving though Commerce, Oklahoma when their car got stuck in the mud from the rain that was battering the area for days. When Clyde and Methvin tried to stop a man driving down the road at gun point, the driver got away and told the police about the outlaws on the road. Two officers named William “Cal” Campbell and Percy Boyd went to the location to find investigate the area. Soon, the officers were in a gun fight with Clyde and Methvin. Campbell was killed by a shot in the heart and Boyd was shot in the head but survived. Boyd surrendered and was placed in the car with Bonnie. Clyde and Methvin managed to stop a truck driver and forced the driver to pull the car out of the mud. Clyde warned the truck driver to tell the police to back off from the gang or he would kill the kidnapped officer. After giving Boyd a new shirt to replace the one that was covered in blood, the gang set off with the officer in tow. During the journey, Boyd asked the gang many questions, including ones about the Grapevine murder. When the officer was dropped off near Ft. Scott, near the border of Missouri, he was given a few dollars and a request from Bonnie to tell the world that she did not smoke cigars. Boyd told the officers, who found him a short while after, about what had happened. He did not know who the other person that was with Clyde and Bonnie was. When the arrest warrant for the Campbell murder was released, it listed “Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker and John Doe.” Any chance Bonnie had to clear her name was gone forever.

April 1, 1934 Grapevine,TX

On April 1, 1934 Clyde, Bonnie, and Henry Methvin were on the side of the intersection of Route 114 and Dove Road near Grapevine, Texas. Raymond Hamilton was with them when he and Methvin escaped Eastham Prison. Hamilton left the gang after he got into an argument with Clyde about the money Hamilton took from Lancaster Bank.

Bonnie and Clyde were asleep in the car while Methvin was outside the car, guarding it in case there was trouble. Two highway patrol officers named Edward Bryan Wheeler and H.D. Murphy were on their motorbikes when they saw the car on the side of the road. Thinking the driver needed help, they got off their bikes and went over to see what the problem was. Waking up, Bonnie saw the officers and woke Clyde. Upon seeing the officers, Clyde told Methvin, “Let’s take them,” meaning to take the officers alive. Thinking Clyde told him to kill them, Methvin shot and killed one of the officers. Knowing that the officer will return fire, Clyde shot him to avoid being fired at. Methvin finished the officer off and then they escaped.

A farmer named William Schieffer, who saw the murder take place, said that he saw Bonnie and Clyde shoot the officers. Newspaper writers embellished the story, adding details such as Bonnie laughing as one of the officer’s head “bounced like a rubber ball” as she shot him. Another report said that there was a cigar “with tiny little teeth marks” implying that it belonged to Bonnie. When Murphy’s wife-to-be arrived at his funeral in her wedding dress, the press went nuts. After hearing multiple eye-witness reports about the event, it became discredited. When news reached his ears about the incident, boss of the highway patrol officers L.G. Phares placed a $1,000 reward for the death of the murderers. Then a $500 reward was placed up by “Ma” Ferguson for the killers. It was the first time Bonnie had a Bounty on her head.

 

January 16, 1934 Eastham Prison

On January 16, 1934 Clyde and Bonnie attacked Eastham Prison Farm in Texas. It was Clyde’s revenge, the goal of his time on the run. He left several guns, that he had stolen from a local armory, near by for when the attack began. During the attack, Clyde freed five convicts including Raymond Hamilton, Henry Methvin, and Joe Palmer. Palmer shot a prison officer named Joe Crowson as Clyde, Bonnie, and the other convicts escaped. Hamilton and Methvin joined Clyde that day. An officer named Lee Simmons had reportedly promised Crowson, who was struggling for life, that he would hunt down and kill everyone that was involved in the breakout. Two of the criminals who escaped were captured and killed. Almost immediately after the attack, the Texas Department of Corrections ordered retired Texas Ranger Frank A. Hamer to hunt down and kill the Barrow Gang. From February 10 onward, Hamer became a looming shadow over the gang. He was always a town or two behind them and he always slept out in his car like they did. With Hamer behind them, life became difficult for the gang.

July 24, 1933 Dexter, Iowa

On July 24, 1933 the Barrow Gang made camp at an abandoned amusement park known as Dexfield Park in Dexter, Iowa. Buck’s head wound was bad and the gang knew that he wouldn’t survive much longer. The gang was running low on supplies and Blanch’s eyes were damaged by a shattered car window from the shootout in Platte City, Missouri. Taking a big risk, they left their camp to gather supplies. When locals found bloody bandages left behind by the gang, they reported it to the police. Several police officers and hundreds of spectators surrounded the gang as they opened fire. Clyde, Bonnie, and W.D. Jones escaped the ambush with only a few injuries. Buck was shot multiple times and Blanch stayed behind with him as the police captured them. Buck died in King’s Daughters Hospital on July 29, 1933 from his injuries. Blanch was sentenced to ten years in jail.

June 23, 1933 Alma, Arkansas

On June 23, 1933 the Barrow Gang were running low on money so Buck Barrow and W.D. Jones left Clyde to tend to Bonnie, who was injured from the accident in Wellington. Driving to Alma, Arkansas, they decided to rob a store they found where they took $20.35 and made their get away in the delivery truck. When they tried to make it to the Dennis Motel, they rear-ended a car in front of them. Marshal Henry D. Humphrey and Deputy Sheriff Ansel M “Red” Salyers were alerted that two criminals were headed their way.  When they heard the crash they went to investigate.  W.D and Buck survived the crash uninjured but the officers had blocked the road. W.D. and Buck shot Marshal Humphrey while Salyers ran behind a house to use it as cover as he faced the criminals by himself. Taking the sheriff’s car which was the only car that worked and the sheriff’s gun, Buck and W.D. made their get away. Marshal Humphrey died in the morning.

June 10, 1933 Wellington, TX

On June 10, 1933 Clyde, Bonnie and W.D. Jones were traveling at high speeds seven miles north of Wellington, Texas when Clyde realized that the bridge was out ahead of them. He was too late, and he flipped the car into the ravine below. Clyde and W.D. made it out of the car unharmed, but Bonnie was trapped under the car when it caught on fire. They manged to get her out with the help of a farm family who had seen the accident but did not know who they were.  She suffered third degree burns and needed a great deal of medical care. When the family saw the pile of guns Clyde and W.D. saved from the crash, they believed that the group were criminals. One of them went to their neighbor’s house to call the police. When Sheriff Corey and Marshal Hardy came too the house, Clyde and W.D., who were laying in wait in case lawmen came, ambushed them and shackled them with the hand cuffs the police were planning to use on them. Placing the officers in the back of the sheriff’s car and having Bonnie lie on top of them, W.D. and Clyde drove until they were just out side of Erick, Oklahoma. Buck and Blanche were there when they arrived. The gang bound the officers, who were alive, to a tree with barbed wire that they found and they drove off in Buck’s V8 to Fort Smith, Arkansas.

April 27, 1933 Ruston, Louisiana

On April 27, !933 Clyde and his gang were planing a bank robbery in Ruston, Louisiana.  Desiring a new getaway car, Clyde spotted a Ford V8 that belonged to a man named H. Dillard Darby. He slowed their car down long enough for W.D. Jones to get out and head straight for the other car while the others drove off. Finding keys in the ignition, W. D. started the car and began driving. Upon hearing his car start up Mr. Darby ran out of his house to see the robber driving off with his car. He followed the car until he lost it. Sophia Stone, who also witnessed the crime, offered to help him by using her car. While in pursuit of the stolen car they found their path blocked by Bonnie and Clyde. Clyde and Bonnie got out of the car and asked them what was going on. When Mr. Darby told them about his stolen car, Clyde grabbed him and shoved him into their car while Bonnie took hold of Mrs. Stone and also transferred her into the gang’s car. At first the gang planed to kill the two victims for ruining Clyde’s plan, but he grew fond of them and he decided to let them live. At a deserted road in Arkansas he dropped them off on the side of the road and he and his gang left them. Before they left the victims, Bonnie gave them a $5.00 bill to get back home. When W.D. stole Mr. Darby’s car however he did not return to the gang until June 8 when he rejoined them.

March 22-April 13, 1933 Joplin, Missouri

On March 22, 1933 Clyde’s brother Buck was released from prison and reunited with his wife Blanche. They met up with Clyde, Bonnie, and W.D. Jones in a hideout in Joplin, Missouri. They tried to get Clyde to turn himself over to the police, but he would not do so. During their stay, the gang’s general behavior made the neighbors suspicious. Clyde and his gang ran loud drunken card games into the night because beer was re-legalized after Prohibition ended. When he accidentally fired his Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) while cleaning it, one of the neighbors called the police to register the neighborhood’s suspicions. Five police officers went to the house on April 13, thinking they would find bootleggers. Hearing the officers knocking on the door, Blanche said they were asleep and told them to wait while they got dressed. It distracted them while the gang grabbed their guns. During the shootout that followed two officers were shot and killed. Clyde, W.D. , Bonnie, and Buck ran to the car to make their escape. They slowed down to pick up Blanche, who was chasing her dog Snow Ball. The gang only incurred minor injuries that day. When the police searched the house, they found many items the gang left behind including an arsenal of guns and a poem that was found next to a camera filled with rolls of undeveloped film. The Joplin Globe newspaper developed the film and revealed several photos of the gang clowning around and pointing guns at one another in front of the camera. After the shootout, Buck and Blanche were linked to the Barrow Gang and there was no going back.

Early September-November 22, 1933 Sowers, TX

Early in September, 1933 Clyde, Bonnie, and W.D. Jones went to Dallas, Texas to meet up with their parents. Jones left the gang to go to Houston where his mother had moved. He was arrested on November 16 without any incidents. Jones told the police that he was held against his will by Clyde and the gang, and he only did the crimes because he was told to do so. He never returned to the gang. Bonnie and Clyde met up with their parents on November 22 near Sowers, Texas. The police had gathered information about the meeting and had planned an ambush there, armed with machine guns and a BAR (Browning Automatic Riffle). The ambush team consisted of four officers, led by hometown Sheriff Smoot Schmid. When Clyde drove up to the site, he sensed there was a trap involved and he drove past the family car when the police opened fire. The family never got hit by the bullets, but a shot from the BAR pierced through Clyde’s car and wounded his and Bonnie’s legs. With the car disabled, they took another car by gun point further down the road and made their escape. Clyde was angry at Schmid for almost shooting his parents and he vowed to get him one day. Six days later, the Dallas Grand Jury placed a murder warrant on Bonnie and Clyde for the death of Tarrant County Deputy Malcolm Davis. It was the first warrant for murder issued for Bonnie. When the police checked inside Barrow’s car, they found an assortment of items in the car, including an issue of The Master Detective and ammo that was left behind.