Jeff Guinn

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

  The Hamer posse arrived in Shreveport sometime over the weekend and checked into the oddly named Inn Hotel. On Monday Hamer telephoned Shreveport chief of police Dennis Bazer. It was a courtesy call to inform Bazer that lawmen from another jurisdiction were in his city. Hamer had no intention of actively involving Bazer in the eventual ambush of Clyde and Bonnie. But Bazer mentioned an incident that occurred earlier—two of his officers had driven by the Majestic Café, and a Ford V-8 sedan parked in front sped away as they approached. The Shreveport cops tried to follow the Ford but whoever was at the V-8’s wheel drove too well, and they soon lost sight of the car. When the officers went back to the Majestic, a waitress there told them a stocky young man had ordered three sandwiches and soft drinks to go, then rushed away without taking his food or even paying for it. Hamer recognized a familiar pattern.

  The four Texas lawmen visited the Majestic and asked the waitress, whose name was not recorded, to look at several mug shots. She immediately identified Henry Methvin as the man who’d left without his sandwiches and soft drinks. She was absolutely certain—the man in the photo had the same eyes and pimply face. That was what the Texans had been hoping to hear. Clyde and Bonnie were in the area and perhaps separated from Henry Methvin. It was time for Henderson Jordan and Ivy Methvin to come through. Hamer, Gault, Alcorn, and Hinton hurried to their cars and drove fifty miles east on Highway 80 to Arcadia, where they met Jordan in his office. According to Hinton in Ambush, they told the Bienville Parish sheriff that they intended “to stake out the most likely road leading to [Ivy] Methvin’s place,” which was the Sailes–Jamestown road. There had been enough delays. With any luck, they could ambush Clyde and Bonnie the next day—Tuesday, May 22.

  Hamer still had no idea that Jordan had also been cooperating with L. A. Kindell, special agent of the Justice Department’s Division of In vestigation. With the Texas lawmen on the scene and determined to carry out their ambush plans immediately, Jordan could no longer help Kindell beat them to Clyde and Bonnie. But he could at least invite Kindell to participate in the ambush—that way J. Edgar Hoover and his organization could share the credit for ridding the country of the criminal couple. Jordan told Hamer that it was first necessary to find Ivy Methvin. Maybe the old man could give them a definite time when Clyde and Bonnie would be coming to his home. If Hamer and the others would just go back to their hotel in Shreveport and wait, Jordan would locate Methvin, get the information, and then contact the Texans there. It must have seemed logical to Hamer. Arcadia was a gossipy country town. It wouldn’t do for Hamer and his posse to spend the rest of the day hanging around in plain sight. People would begin talking, and someone might alert Clyde and Bonnie to their presence. Shreveport was less than an hour’s drive from Gibsland and the Sailes–Jamestown road. When Jordan called—and the obvious implication was that it would probably be that evening, certainly no later than Tuesday—they’d be ready.

  When the Texas lawmen were gone, Jordan tried to call Kindell at his New Orleans office. But the agent wasn’t available—he was away on a field investigation. Jordan kept attempting to reach Kindell. If he was going to include the agent in setting the trap for Clyde and Bonnie, he had to do it soon. Hamer obviously wouldn’t remain patient very long.

  Meanwhile, Ivy, Ava, and Henry Methvin continued setting up what they clearly expected to be a Tuesday ambush. While Henry was separated from Clyde and Bonnie, he was not completely out of contact with them. How Henry arranged it has never been clear, but on Monday night, May 21, he and some of his relations met Clyde and Bonnie out at Black Lake. According to Henry’s cousin Percy Methvin, the meeting took place after dark, and “the [half] moon was shining just as pretty as you ever saw.” Percy, his father, Iris (some Methvin men had strange names), his brother Price, and Henry drove out to rendezvous with Clyde and Bonnie. They spent two hours chatting. Bonnie showed Percy how to load and shoot a BAR, though she refrained from actually firing any shots. She warned twenty-two-year-old Percy to “never go crooked,” adding “it’s for the love of a man that I’m gonna have to die…I don’t know when, but I know it can’t be long.” Clyde voiced his usual complaint that the press kept blaming the Barrow Gang for bank robberies they hadn’t committed. After a while Bonnie felt sleepy, and the group moved on to the old Cole place. At some point, it was apparently arranged for Clyde and Bonnie to pick up Henry at his parents’ place the next day, Tuesday, sometime late in the afternoon. Then the Methvins said their goodbyes, and Percy assumed that Clyde and Bonnie would spend the rest of the night at the Cole place. They didn’t. They drove to their camp in Mangham instead.

  It was certainly simple for Henry to pass the word to his parents, and for Ivy to notify Henderson Jordan that Clyde and Bonnie could be ambushed the next afternoon on Highway 154. But that didn’t work for Jordan. He still hadn’t been able to contact Special Agent Kindell. He told Ivy that the Methvins would have to set up Clyde and Bonnie a second time, on Wednesday rather than Tuesday. That undoubtedly terrified Ivy Methvin—any delay would give the couple more opportunity to guess what was happening and wreak vengeance on his family. But Methvin certainly assumed Jordan was speaking for Hamer, and he wanted his son to receive the promised pardon from Texas. Thanks to Henderson Jordan, Clyde and Bonnie had an extra day to live.

  CHAPTER 37

  “Do You Know Any Bank Robbers?”

  On the morning of Tuesday, May 22, Louis Brunson and his fifteen-year-old son, Robert, went hunting in the woods outside the northeast Louisiana town of Mangham. Louis had a small farm where he raised cotton and cattle, but the Depression had wiped him out financially. He and his wife had six children to feed, and their meals often consisted of whatever Louis and Robert could shoot and bring to the table. Squirrel was frequently on the Brunson family menu.

  Louis and Robert spread out a little as they plodded through the thick brush. Black Boy, the family dog, trotted ahead of Robert. Black Boy disappeared from the teenager’s sight, and then Robert heard the dog baying back in the palmetto. He hustled toward the sound, hoping Black Boy had cornered some kind of small game, and instead heard a man’s voice saying, “Come on over here—here’s your dog.” Robert crossed a narrow dirt wagon track and found himself in a small manmade clearing. A shiny Ford sedan was parked by the side of the trail, and a man and woman sat near a blanket spread on the ground. There were guns and ammunition piled on the blanket, and also neat stacks of currency and mounds of gleaming coins. To the impoverished farm boy, it looked like these people had a million dollars out on display.

  The man asked Robert his name and then added, “Do you know any bank robbers?” Nervously, Robert replied that he’d heard of John Dillinger, and a little about Pretty Boy Floyd. The fellow looked disappointed and asked, “No others? Well, I’m Clyde Barrow and this is Bonnie Parker, and we rob banks.” That scared the kid. Bank robbers with guns weren’t a promising combination. Bonnie apparently sensed he was frightened. She invited Robert to sit down next to her, and told Clyde to pick up a camera and take their picture together. Robert was still afraid of Clyde, but he thought Bonnie was sweet. After Clyde took a picture of the boy with Bonnie, she snapped a photo of Robert by himself. It occurred to Robert that he’d seen Clyde before—the youngster had been in the Mangham country store a week earlier when Clyde came in to buy Vienna sausage and crackers.

  Clyde was still irked because Robert didn’t know who they were. He handed the boy a newspaper—almost seventy-five years later, ninety-year-old Robert couldn’t remember which one—and ordered the teenager to read a front-page story about how some Texas Ranger was looking for Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. The article also mentioned huge rewards being offered for the couple’s capture. Robert read the story and handed the newspaper back to Clyde. Now he was really shaken. Clyde, having finally made the impression he wanted, assumed the role of gracious host. Inviting Robert to join him and Bonnie beside the blanket, Clyde related how they’d been spending time “off and on” around Arcadia, mos
tly with one family. A member of that family, a young guy, had been working with them, but something happened and they’d gotten separated. Then Clyde joked with Robert a little. He asked the nervous teenager if he’d be interested in robbing banks, too. Robert, not sure whether he’d been offered a job, mumbled, “No, sir.” Clyde, grinning, said, “I can tell you in a few minutes how to do it,” and Robert replied that he didn’t think he should.

  Then they heard Robert’s father, Louis, calling for the boy off in the brush. Robert told Clyde and Bonnie that he had to go. Clyde asked, “Is your family in bad shape? Do you need any money?” Robert admitted his family had fallen on hard times, and Clyde pulled some bills from his pocket. “Take any amount you want, or all of it,” he told the fifteen-year-old. But Robert turned the money down. He thought that if it was from a bank, “the laws” might arrest him for having it even if he hadn’t been one of the robbers who stole it. Robert told the couple goodbye, and Bonnie asked for his address. She wrote it down and promised to send him copies of the photos they’d just taken. Like many others who met Bonnie, Robert had fallen completely under her spell. He blurted, “Drop me a card, because I know I can’t write to you.” Bonnie, always pleased when a male was so obviously smitten, promised she would.

  Clyde still wanted to give Robert a present. He offered a new shotgun, commenting that it was better than the one the teenager was carrying. Robert politely declined. The last thing Clyde said to the boy was that he and Bonnie would be leaving that afternoon to drive back to Arcadia.

  The way Clyde and Bonnie behaved with Robert on the last full day of their lives suggests that despite all they’d been through, they never really changed much. Both of them still wanted to feel important, even if it just involved awing a bashful farm boy. Once Robert was properly impressed by Clyde and charmed by Bonnie, they demonstrated characteristic generosity by trying to press money and then a shotgun on the teenager.

  And they still believed in keeping commitments to friends. There was no question on Tuesday afternoon whether Clyde and Bonnie would drive to Ivy and Ava Methvin’s place to pick up Henry. At Black Lake on Monday night they had promised to be there.

  Clyde and Bonnie took the winding Highway 154 through Bienville Parish that afternoon. It was the only direct route to the Methvins’ from Gibsland off Highway 80. This unpaved backcountry byway was what locals termed “a three-rut,” meaning that over the years car and wagon wheels had carved three deep grooves into the packed dirt. If vehicles passed going in opposite directions, one had to pull off to the side. That wasn’t a problem—drivers in Bienville Parish were courteous. Because the road was so narrow and curvy, people didn’t drive very fast on it. There was really only one long, straight stretch—that came about eight miles south of Gibsland and two miles north of the Cole place where Ivy and Ava Methvin lived. Just after the road passed through the small rural community of Mount Lebanon, the track swooped downhill and then up a low rise. At the top of the rise, the sides of the road were effectively barricaded by brush and trees. On the east side a steep hill reared a dozen feet above the road. From the top of the hill it was possible to look north and see a car coming from about a quarter-mile away, but because of the angles the occupants of the car couldn’t possibly see anyone in the thick brush on top of the hill. It was the only such vantage point on the whole road between Highway 80 and the Methvin place. Clyde and Bonnie certainly drove right by it on their way to pick up Henry at his parents’ house on Tuesday afternoon. They arrived unmolested—thanks to Henderson Jordan’s ongoing, futile attempts to contact L. A. Kindell, Hamer and his posse were still waiting at the Inn Hotel in Shreveport instead of hiding on the hill ready to shoot. But Henry wasn’t at Ivy and Ava’s like he’d promised. He was staying with his cousin Willie.

  Ivy Methvin came outside when Clyde and Bonnie drove up. As instructed by Henderson Jordan, Ivy told them that Henry wasn’t there but would be the next morning. They should come back then around 9 A.M. Beyond being mildly aggravated by Henry’s no-show, Clyde and Bonnie had no reason to be suspicious. Ivy probably told them that Henry was off somewhere with his cousins, which was true. Clyde said they’d be back in the morning, and he and Bonnie left. No one knows where they went immediately afterward or where they spent Tuesday night, but as soon as they were out of sight Ivy got in his truck and drove to Henderson Jordan’s office in Arcadia. He told the Bienville County sheriff that Clyde and Bonnie would be coming down Highway 154 on Wednesday morning around nine o’clock. “The laws” should jump them then, and immediately afterward the Methvins wanted Henry’s pardon from Texas just like they’d been promised.

  Sheriff Jordan finally gave up trying to contact L. A. Kindell, whose field investigation was apparently keeping him away from telephones. He’d done his best, and the Division of Investigation agent would just have to understand. Jordan called Frank Hamer at the Inn Hotel in Shreveport and told him it was time. Hamer, Gault, Alcorn, and Hinton gathered their guns and drove to Arcadia. Jordan and his deputy Prentiss Oakley said they’d selected an ambush site “on the road south of Mount Lebanon.” Ivy Methvin had promised that Clyde and Bonnie would drive past about nine on Wednesday morning. They’d go out to the spot and set up well ahead of time.

  The six lawmen discussed whether they should offer the couple a chance to surrender. Hamer didn’t believe Clyde would ever give up, but he felt obligated to try. Everyone expressed concern about shooting a woman. They worked out the ambush strategy—most people didn’t drive very fast on the backcountry highway, but Clyde Barrow was going to be an exception. Even if they had the perfect shooting angles, it would be hard to hit a man and a woman speeding by at sixty or seventy miles an hour. But if Clyde slowed appreciably at the ambush site, or even came to a complete stop—what would make him do that? Clearly, Clyde and Bonnie felt some attachment to the Methvins. If Ivy was standing by the road alongside his jacked-up truck, surely Clyde would stop to see if he needed help. Sheriff Jordan had already informed a reluctant Ivy that he was to join the lawmen at the ambush site well before Clyde and Bonnie arrived. Jordan insisted that the elder Methvin be there because he didn’t trust him. Unless he was right where Jordan could watch him, the sheriff suspected Old Man Methvin might very well panic and somehow alert Clyde to the impending trap. So Ivy and his truck became integral parts of the ambush plan. Hamer was so confident of its success that before he and the rest of the lawmen left to set up the ambush on Tuesday night he called his family back in Texas. Hamer promised his son Frank Jr. that “the chickens are coming home to roost tomorrow about nine o’clock.”

  CHAPTER 38

  The Setup

  The six-man posse reached the hilltop ambush site around two on Wednesday morning. They parked their cars on a little trail behind the hill and lugged their arsenal up. It was a drawn-out, clumsy affair. They had trouble seeing what they were doing—the half-moon didn’t provide much light—and their weapons were heavy. The two BARs from the Dallas state guard armory weighed seventeen pounds each. Once they had all their ordnance on top of the hill, the lawmen began piling branches in front of themselves like hunters setting up a duck blind. They knew logically that Clyde wouldn’t be able to see them as he approached from the north in his stolen V-8 sedan, but logic was already giving way to nerves. All six were well aware of Clyde’s near-mystical ability to drive and shoot his way out of seemingly inescapable situations. The posses in Platte City and Dexfield Park had been certain they had him surrounded. The failed trap six months earlier in Sowers taught Bob Alcorn and Ted Hinton from personal experience that Clyde was quite capable of surviving a roadside ambush. The current issue of Startling Detective Adventures declared, “Barrow’s uncanny ability to murder and then vanish as though the earth had swallowed him has never been explained…. A score of times he has been surrounded, a dozen traps have been laid for him, time after time all highways have been guarded after he committed some atrocious crime—and each time he has vanished.” The media was always prone
to gross exaggeration where Clyde was concerned, but that particular description was as much fact as hyperbole, and the posse knew it.

  Worrying about what would happen in the morning was unsettling enough, but there were physical discomforts on the hilltop, too. Bob Alcorn thought he’d detected a snake slithering in the brush by their feet. Mosquitoes buzzed in their ears and bit their exposed faces and hands. The six men squatted about ten feet apart. Bienville Parish deputy Oakley was farthest on the right, or north, with Texas Highway Patrol officer Gault to his immediate left, then Sheriff Jordan, Dallas County deputy Hinton, Dallas County deputy Alcorn, and finally Hamer, who anchored the line on the south as the final gun-wielding barrier between Barrow and escape. They each hefted weapons selected especially for the ambush. Alcorn and Hinton had the BARs. Henderson Jordan brought a Winchester lever-action rifle. Its caliber was relatively light, but the gun was accurate. Manny Gault had a Remington Model 8 .35-caliber rifle loaned to him by Hamer. Prentiss Oakley also carried a Remington Model 8. The Remingtons were designed to bring down big game. Hamer was laden with the heaviest arsenal of all. If necessary, it would be Hamer’s last-ditch responsibility to step directly in front of the Ford sedan and prevent Clyde’s escape, a task that required especially lethal close-range weapons as well as nerve. So Hamer brought to the hilltop a Remington Model 11 shotgun and a Colt Monitor Machine Rifle with a twenty-shot magazine. The high-powered shotgun blasted a wide load of lead projectiles that, whistling over short distances, could reduce human flesh to pulp. The Colt Monitor was the ultimate “kill shot” weapon, powerful enough to drive its slugs straight through, rather than deflecting off, bone or the thick windshield of a car. All of the lawmen carried sidearms. Ted Hinton had an extra shotgun, and also a 16-millimeter movie camera to record the aftermath of whatever happened.