Jeff Guinn

by Untold Story of Bonnie;Clyde Go Down Together: The True

  If Hamer had planned to lie low until a message from the Methvins via Henderson Jordan summoned him back to Louisiana, he now needed to change his strategy. Clearly, it was necessary to demonstrate that he was tracking Clyde and Bonnie diligently on a daily basis. To do that, Hamer gave up traveling alone and formed a posse. Its first member was an old friend. Thirty-eight-year-old Manny Gault, one of the Texas Rangers fired by Ferguson when she took office, had gone to work for the highway patrol. Superintendent Phares gladly assigned Gault to work with Hamer. Then Hamer approached Smoot Schmid. He’d already worked a little with Deputy Bob Alcorn on the case, and now Hamer wanted Alcorn along full-time. Schmid agreed, and also sent Deputy Ted Hinton to assist Hamer. Both Alcorn and Hinton had an advantage over Hamer and Gault—they knew Clyde and Bonnie personally. The two former Rangers had only seen their pictures.

  The four-man posse traveled in two cars. Hamer and Gault rode in one and Alcorn and Hinton in the other. Members of Hamer’s family suggested later that, though he liked Alcorn, Hamer didn’t have much respect for Hinton. The newly formed quartet began working together on Tuesday, April 3. They drove north from Dallas into Oklahoma. Hamer believed it was Clyde’s usual pattern to run there after committing crimes in Texas. It made sense—Clyde knew that Texas lawmen had no jurisdiction on the Oklahoma side of the state line. But the Hamer posse didn’t operate under the usual regional restrictions. If they did corner the Barrow Gang in a state other than Texas, Governor Ferguson and Lee Simmons were ready to work out any temporary legal agreements necessary.

  Almost immediately, the Texans discovered that they were on the right track. Stopping at various service stations along the highway from Sherman into Oklahoma, they learned from attendants that three people in a Ford V-8, including a man and woman matching the descriptions of Clyde and Bonnie, were driving ahead of them on the same road, buying gas and snacks along the way. The gang’s trail meandered into the southeastern part of Oklahoma, and on Wednesday afternoon, April 4, the two-car posse arrived in the bustling town of Durant. Alcorn and Hinton were in the lead car, with Hinton behind the wheel. Hamer and Gault trailed a short distance behind. They drove along Main Street, which was busy with traffic moving steadily in both directions. Suddenly, Alcorn startled Hinton by blurting, “Here they come!” Driving in the opposite direction, first approaching and then passing Hinton and Alcorn’s car, were Clyde and Bonnie. Henry Methvin was undoubtedly with them, riding in his customary spot in the back seat, but in describing the incident later Hinton didn’t mention seeing him. The Dallas County lawmen quickly considered their options. Their quarry obviously hadn’t noticed them—Clyde continued driving at the same steady pace, not in the pedal-to-the-metal fashion that was typical of him if he believed the law was nearby. Hinton could have swung into a quick U-turn, but traffic was heavy and there was too much possibility of a wreck. Trying to down Clyde with a lucky shot wasn’t an option. Smoot Schmid had forbidden his deputies to shoot at the Barrow Gang “in any populated area.” But if they let him go and followed at a safe, discreet distance, they might be able to take Clyde by surprise later on. So Hinton and Alcorn watched Clyde’s V-8 disappear from view while they pulled off the road and waited for Hamer and Gault to catch up. Then they reported their Barrow Gang sighting, and the posse turned their cars around and followed. Try as they might, they didn’t spot Clyde and Bonnie again, so the four pursuers resumed stopping at service stations and cafés along the highway, hoping to learn where the Barrow Gang was heading next.

  On Thursday afternoon, April 5, rumors spread in portions of northeast Texas, southeast Oklahoma, and southwest Arkansas that the Barrow Gang had been spotted during the afternoon in the town of Texarkana, on the Texas-Arkansas border. According to an unidentified witness, Bonnie Parker walked into a Texarkana drugstore and ordered a sandwich. Two men waited outside for her in a car, and one of them came into the store and escorted Bonnie out before she’d finished eating. The witness identified Bonnie from her photo in a crime magazine prominently displayed on a rack in the drugstore. It probably wasn’t her—Bonnie’s crippled right leg prevented her from walking anywhere. Clyde usually carried her into cafés and other places where the gang bought meals. But the suggestion that Bonnie and Clyde might be around was plenty. In Oklahoma, radio stations began broadcasting bulletins warning listeners that the Barrow Gang might be lurking nearby. All over the state, nervous citizens fretted. Some kept their children home from school for the rest of the day.

  Hamer and his posse may have heard the Texarkana rumors and driven in that direction to investigate. It wasn’t easy traveling by car anywhere in Oklahoma on April 5. Heavy rains drenched the state. Even paved highways were bordered by dirt shoulders or ditches, and these were reduced to thick, sticky mud. Nowhere were conditions worse than in the very farthest northeast corner of Oklahoma, hundreds of miles away from Texarkana in the hilly mining country outside the town of Commerce. The Barrow Gang arrived there just after midnight on Friday, April 6. Clyde parked their latest stolen Ford V-8 on the muddy shoulder of State Road, stopping between the towers of the Lost Trail and Crab Apple mines. Probably he was worn out from driving for hours through thunderstorms. The bad weather meant the gang couldn’t turn down some side road and set up camp in a more isolated spot. So Clyde, Henry Methvin, Bonnie, and Sonny Boy the rabbit slept in the car, certainly with the intention of driving on after daybreak when the skies would hopefully have cleared. But in the morning even Clyde Barrow had trouble driving in the muck around State Road, and that was why yet another lawman died.

  CHAPTER 30

  Another Murder

  Just after 9 A.M. on Friday, April 6, Commerce chief of police Percy Boyd and town constable Cal Campbell drove to the Lost Trail and Crab Apple mines on State Road. A motorist had reported a Ford sedan parked along the highway there, with several people apparently sleeping inside. It sounded like some drunks had nodded off on the way home—a frequent occurrence around Commerce, where miners liked to play hard at night after swinging picks and shovels all day. Boyd often handled such calls himself, but since there were several possible drunks to deal with he brought along Campbell. Boyd, thirty-five, had been elected chief of police a year earlier. He considered law enforcement his chosen profession. Campbell didn’t. Before the Depression, the sixty-year-old with the thick white mustache had made a decent living as a contractor. But his business cratered, and Campbell, a widower, had five children to feed. His Commerce neighbors sympathized, and voted him into the coveted $15-a-week constable’s job. Campbell served warrants and assisted Boyd whenever he asked. On the morning of April 6, neither lawman expected any trouble. They each carried handguns, but these remained holstered as they neared the Ford parked on the muddy shoulder of State Road.

  Clyde and Henry Methvin were taking turns sleeping and keeping watch. They’d lingered too long that morning. The storms were over and there was occasional traffic along the road, which connected downtown Commerce to the mining district. Clyde was awake when he spotted the police car driving toward them. He turned on the Ford’s powerful V-8 engine, let it idle, and as soon as Boyd and Campbell stopped and prepared to get out Clyde threw the transmission into reverse and backed down the mucky shoulder of the road, undoubtedly planning to put enough distance between them to yank the Ford into a sharp U-turn and race away before the cops knew what was happening.

  But the mud on the shoulder was too boggy, and Clyde hadn’t backed the car up far when it skidded into a ditch and sank to its wheel rims, cementing the stolen Ford in place. Boyd and Campbell were probably amused. They got out of their car and walked toward the Ford. Boyd said later that Cal Campbell apparently thought he saw a gun in the hand of one of the occupants. Campbell, who had no experience in firefights, yanked out his pistol and fired. Boyd raised his own pistol, and then the doors of the Ford opened and two men in suits emerged, each firing a BAR.

  It was an uneven gun battle. Sixteen-year-old Lee Phelps, working in the tower of t
he Lost Trail Mine, heard the first pops from Campbell’s low-caliber pistol and looked down on State Road to see what was happening. Phelps watched as a small man leaned against the side of the Ford, aiming carefully as he fired a rifle at Chief Boyd and Constable Campbell. A bigger man who was also firing a rifle ran right at the lawmen, zigzagging to dodge the very few shots Boyd and Campbell managed to get off in reply. Campbell went down hard, his aorta severed by a slug. Then Boyd fell, too, hit on the left side of his head.

  Clyde and Henry stood over the fallen town cops. Cal Campbell was dead or dying, but Percy Boyd’s head wound was superficial. The bullet had only stunned him, and he was able to get to his feet as his assailants took him prisoner. After Grapevine, Clyde was taking no chances with Henry. He sternly ordered him to help Boyd back to their Ford sedan. Percy Boyd was going to be a hostage, not another corpse.

  While Henry dragged Boyd toward the car, Clyde noticed several onlookers. They lived in nearby farmhouses, and had come outside when they heard the shooting. Clyde waved his BAR in the direction of several gawking men and yelled, “Boys, one good man has already been killed, and if you don’t follow orders, others are liable to be.” He commanded them to help push the Ford out of the muddy ditch. Bonnie got behind the wheel while Clyde, Henry, the onlookers, and even Percy Boyd, still bleeding from his head wound, tried to extricate the car from the mud. They heaved many times, but the sedan wouldn’t budge. Clyde kept saying he would kill everyone if they didn’t get his car out of the ditch. There was sporadic traffic on the road and when a few drivers stopped to see what was going on, Clyde pointed his BAR at them and made them get out and help, too. But the Ford stayed stuck until a local man named Charlie Dobson came by in a truck. He had a length of chain, and Clyde made him use it to tie the Ford to the truck. Then Dobson gunned his heavy vehicle and the Ford was hauled out of the ditch and back onto the road. The entire car was crusted with mud. Staring through the streaky windows, people saw that the woman in its front seat was wearing a red tam. She moved over to let Clyde drive. Henry Methvin motioned with his BAR for Percy Boyd to get in the back seat, then climbed in beside him. Clyde raced the Ford west down the road. It had been almost forty minutes since Boyd and Campbell arrived on the scene.

  Clyde soon turned north, intending to cross the Oklahoma state line into Kansas. He hadn’t gone three miles when he found the road blocked—not by police, but by the battered car of two local farmers who’d also gotten stuck in the mud. Clyde exaggerated slightly as he screamed, “We’ve just killed two men and we’re in a hurry. The law is after us.” The farmers were duly intimidated, but they still couldn’t get their car unstuck. So Clyde and Henry got out of their car and helped pry the other vehicle free. Bonnie stayed in the Ford with their prisoner. She held a shotgun on her lap.

  Percy Boyd expected to die. He’d heard all the bulletins the day before about the Barrow Gang being somewhere in Oklahoma, and since his three captors included a young woman it was easy to guess who they were. He asked Henry Methvin, “Is that Clyde Barrow?” and Henry nodded. Nervously, Boyd did his best to make friends with his captors. When Boyd promised he wouldn’t try anything, Clyde snapped back, “I don’t care what you do, we’ll shoot you anyway.” It was an attempt at intimidation rather than a promise. If Clyde planned to kill Boyd he would have done it back in Commerce. Boyd felt somewhat comforted when Bonnie made small talk. She examined the police chief’s head wound and asked Clyde to stop when they passed a stream so she could wash out the cut. Bonnie even found some spare cloth for a makeshift bandage. After two years on the run with Clyde, she had plenty of experience in rudimentary treatment of gunshot wounds.

  Clyde cruised west for a while after crossing into Kansas, then back east and north. Sometimes he’d stop and park a while. Boyd was never quite sure who Henry Methvin was, but since he was certain about the identities of Clyde and Bonnie he asked what happened in Grapevine. Clyde lied, saying they’d been nowhere near the murder site and only learned what happened to the two motorcycle cops when they read about it in the newspaper. Then, warming to his captive, Clyde talked about the previous April’s shootout in Joplin. He told Boyd that if the cops there had just acted right, nothing would have happened to them. Clyde even complimented Boyd on his shooting, saying that during the morning gunfight he heard one of the police chief’s bullets “zip close.”

  The day wore on. The only possible pursuit the fugitives noticed was a plane flying overhead. They stopped once for gas, and another time in the afternoon so Clyde could break into a gum machine and steal change. Boyd had $25 with him, but Clyde didn’t want it. Using some of the change from the gum machine, Henry Methvin went into a diner in Fort Scott, Kansas, and bought food to bring back to the car. They parked on a road outside town and ate.

  Clyde and Bonnie were concerned that Boyd’s shirt was stained with blood from his head wound, so they rummaged in their luggage and found a new shirt to give him. Then they also gave the police chief a tie, and told Henry Methvin to hand over his suit coat when Clyde’s was too small to fit Boyd. Fed and dressed in new finery, Boyd was released around midnight in the country southeast of Fort Scott.

  During his daylong ordeal, Boyd had developed a special fondness for Bonnie. From their conversation he was convinced she and Clyde had never set out to deliberately kill any lawmen. True, they’d shot down Cal Campbell that morning, but Cal pulled his gun and fired first. Boyd thought that if his partner hadn’t acted so foolishly, nobody would have been hurt. Bonnie had even asked Boyd for a favor: if they were caught or killed while Boyd was with them, would he please see that Sonny Boy the rabbit was delivered to her mother?

  As soon as he showed up safe and relatively sound, Boyd knew, reporters would swarm in for interviews. So as Boyd got out of the Ford sedan he asked, “Bonnie, what do you want me to tell the press?”

  It was a tremendous opportunity for the Barrow Gang to bolster their public image. In the five days since the Grapevine shootings, they’d been vilified in print and in newsreels as cold-blooded executioners of brave lawmen. Here was another cop, one who could testify to good treatment at their hands, asking what message they would like him to pass along to the public. Every newspaper in the country would print whatever Boyd had to say.

  Bonnie wanted to contradict the part of her image that bothered her most. “Tell them I don’t smoke cigars,” she instructed the police chief. After he trudged back into Fort Scott, phoned for help, and was driven home to Commerce, Boyd dutifully gave Bonnie’s message to reporters. Bonnie was thrilled when almost every story about the gang’s latest cop killing mentioned it.

  CHAPTER 31

  The Letters of April

  Raymond Hamilton had been unfairly linked in 1932 to the murder of John Bucher in Hillsboro, Texas. Two years later, he wasn’t going to let the same thing happen again. As with the Bucher slaying, Raymond hadn’t been anywhere near the scene when Clyde and his cohorts shot down H. D. Murphy and E. B. Wheeler in Grapevine and Cal Campbell in Commerce. But the media and most lawmen—the Hamer posse knew better—believed he was still part of the Barrow Gang when those murders occurred. On April 7, the day after Cal Campbell died, Raymond sat down in the New Orleans hotel where he was lying low with Mary O’Dare and wrote a letter to Dallas lawyer A. S. Basket, who’d represented him several times in court:

  Dear Mr. Basket,

  I am sending you a bill from a hotel I was staying at the time of that killing in Commerce, Oklahoma. I haven’t been with Clyde Barrow since the Lancaster bank robbery. I’m sending you one hundred dollars and want this put before public and proved right away…. I want you to let the public and the whole world know I am not with Clyde Barrow, and don’t go his speed. I’m a lone man and intend to stay that way…. I was in Houston Wed. night April 4 and have been here [New Orleans] since then, even April fifth.

  Yours Truly

  Raymond Hamilton