My Life with Bonnie and Clyde (48 page)

6.
When Buck returned from tying up the officers, he mentioned that he had used barbed wire. Clyde became angry. “You didn’t have to do that!” he said. Jones, “Riding with Bonnie and Clyde,” 165. Apparently, however, Buck’s claim that he did not tie the officers very securely was true. They freed themselves in under thirty minutes and made their way to a nearby farmhouse.
Dallas Morning News
, June 12, 1933.

7.
In the original text, Blanche first wrote “Pampa, Texas,” here, then crossed it out and replaced it with “Canadian,” a town located in the upper northeastern part of the Texas Panhandle.

8.
In the original text, the author wrote “Pampa” here. However, because she had, only a few sentences above crossed “Pampa” out and replaced it with “Canadian,” the editor has followed suit—replacing Pampa with Canadian. Although Pampa is not far away from Canadian, the scene as described by Blanche, including the crossing of the Canadian River, points toward the actual location being the town of Canadian. It appears Blanche accidentally left Pampa in the text here. However, an Oklahoma posse reported last seeing the fugitives turning onto the main road to Pampa.
Dallas Morning News
, June 12, 1933.

9.
If Buck and Blanche “had lots of money,” as Jones stated (see Note 1 of this chapter), there would have been no reason to stage any robberies. It is possible that Jones’s later statement to the Dallas County sheriff’s department about Buck and Blanche having robbed a bank was merely a ploy by Jones to keep him from being implicated in any later robberies.

10.
There were no reported robberies or burglaries in or around the Pratt, Kansas, area between June 11 and 17, 1933, the time the Barrow gang was hiding there. They were no doubt venturing beyond the area for cash.
Pratt (Kans.) Union
, June 11–17, 1933;
Pratt (Kans.) Daily Tribune
, June 11–17, 1933. On June 14, 1933, the Farmers and Merchants Bank of Mexico, Missouri, was robbed of $1,750 by three (some say four) men who escaped in a light-blue Buick with a bullet hole in the windshield. At 3:15
P.M.
, an hour after the robbery, two men shot and killed Boone County Sheriff Roger Wilson and patrolman Ben Boothe of the Missouri Highway Patrol after a scuffle at the intersection of Highways 40 and 63 north of Columbia, Missouri.
Mexico (Mo.) Intelligencer
, June 15, 1933;
Mexico (Mo.) Weekly Ledger
, June 15, 1933. The scene of the shooting is approximately four hundred miles from Pratt, Kansas. The bank robbery was a few miles further to the east. Initially it was thought that the robbery and the shooting were related, but as evidence was collected it appeared to authorities the two were unrelated.
Mexico (Mo.) Intelligencer
, July 13, 1933. It did not take long, however, before the name of Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd was being linked to both crimes. Then, just three days later, he would be connected to Kansas City’s Union Station Massacre as well, the headlines reading, “Floyd Named Columbia Killer and Gunman in KC Massacre.”
Mexico (Mo.) Weekly Ledger
, June 22, 1933. Floyd probably did not rob the bank in Mexico, Missouri, and it is doubtful he had anything to do with either shooting. See Unger,
Union Station Massacre
, for a detailed accounting of why Floyd was not involved. As the days and weeks rolled on, other names floated in and out of suspicion in the Columbia, Missouri, killings. A man named Ira Seybold was considered for a while when it was thought he had been too eager to plead guilty to a bank robbery in Indiana and thus avoid being sent to Missouri to face charges there.
Mexico (Mo.) Intelligencer
, June 29, 1933. In 1936 a man named George McKeever was hanged for the murders of Sheriff Wilson and Patrolman Boothe. By then he was not considered involved
in the Mexico robbery, nor was Floyd.
History of Audrain County, Missouri
, 222. For a time, however, the Barrow brothers were considered suspects in both the Mexico robbery and the Columbia murders.
Landmark
, July 21, 1933.

11.
A car was stolen on June 14, 1933, in Hutchinson, Kansas, north of Pratt.
Fort Smith Southwest American
, June 26, 1933.

Chapter 11.
Fort Smith

1.
On June 15, 1933, Barrow and his group checked into the Twin Cities Tourist Camp on North Eleventh Street in Fort Smith. They rented two cabins at one dollar a day.
Fort Smith Southwest American
, June 26, 1933.

2.
According to Blanche there was another reason for Clyde’s journey to Dallas: He wanted another family member there because Bonnie and Blanche were not speaking and the latter refused to help the injured fugitive. Blanche Barrow, quoted in Weiser interview, October 5, 2002.

3.
Barrow left Fort Smith on June 18 and returned with Billie Jean the following day. Moon and Huddleston, “Bonnie, Clyde, and Me”;
Dallas Dispatch
, February 24, 1935. Many have noted that Barrow risked his life whenever he drove to the Dallas area, but on this occasion the risk was greater. When word of Bonnie’s injuries reached Dallas, some suggested that Barrow would abandon Parker. Still others correctly surmised that Barrow would try to make contact with the Parkers, and probably his own family as well. Consequently, Dallas police and the Dallas County sheriff’s department were trying to remain vigilant. Hinton,
Ambush
, 54–55. A “Barrow sighting” by a local dairy farmer on June 16, 1933, prompted several Dallas County deputies and at least two Texas Rangers to converge on Mountain Creek Valley near Cedar Hill, Texas, just south of Dallas.
Dallas Daily Times-Herald
, June 16, 1933. The fact that Barrow eluded detection speaks not so much to his stealth, which was considerable, but largely to the tremendous lack of personnel and resources at the disposal of law enforcement at the time, something Barrow counted on and exploited to the fullest wherever he went.

Billie Jean Parker was one of four children born to Emma Krause and Charles Parker. Hubert “Buster,” born on December 20, 1908, was the oldest living child but he was not the first-born. The oldest would have been Coley Parker, who died of crib death as an infant. Moon, unpublished handwritten history. Billie Jean, the youngest, was once married to Fred Mace, a West Dallas man with a criminal record. Mace, along with his brother Bud and Roy Thornton, Bonnie Parker’s husband, were involved in a north Texas burglary ring that included the son of a former Dallas County sheriff. During one of their crimes, Fred Mace was shot and captured, along with his three accomplices. Fred, Bud, and Roy were convicted and imprisoned. However, the son of the former sheriff was quickly released, some suggesting that his powerful father had literally “bought” his son’s freedom. Fults interview, February 13, 1982.

During their marriage, Billie Jean bore two children to Fred Mace. Both died in the fall of 1933, just days apart, of some unspecified stomach disorder. Fortune,
Fugitives
, 211. Billie Jean divorced Mace after he went to prison. His
subsequent fate and that of his brother Bud are unknown. Roy Thornton was killed in 1937 during an attempted escape from the Eastham prison farm.
Houston Press
, October 4, 1937.

4.
The presence of two doctors was confirmed by Sheriff John B. Williams.
Fort Smith Southwest American
, June 25, 1933. The owners of the tourist camp had a twenty-four-year-old daughter, Hazel Dennis, who was in the medical profession. She helped nurse Bonnie and also contacted at least one of the doctors who attended Bonnie. Later, during the 1935 Barrow-Parker federal harboring case, Hazel Dennis refused to identify Billie Jean Parker as being one of those involved in Fort Smith. Moon and Huddleston, “Bonnie, Clyde, and Me,” unpublished manuscript.

5.
Van Buren is just across the Arkansas River from Fort Smith, hence the reference to “twin cities” in the name of the tourist camp. The visits to the grocery store in Van Buren are reported in the local newspaper.
Fort Smith Southwest American
, June 26, 1933. The trade name, Amytal is used by Blanche here. The generic name is amobarbital, or amobarbital sodium. It is a barbiturate, administered as a sedative.

6.
Tom Persell, the Springfield, Missouri, motorcycle patrolman abducted by Bonnie, Clyde, and W. D. Jones on January 26, 1933, said, “They all were profane, hardly saying anything without cussing.” Edwards, “A Tale Tom Persell Lived to Tell.” Evidently such is relative, however. W. D. Jones said he rarely heard Clyde swear, certainly nothing like “kids today.” Jones, “Riding with Bonnie and Clyde,” 164.

7.
Although there was probably more to Bonnie’s outburst, one of the known side effects of barbiturate withdrawal is irritability. Another indicator of barbiturate withdrawal is the psychological and physical craving for more of the drug, which Blanche described. Depending on the person, these and other symptoms may develop within eight to twelve hours after the last dose. If Barrow was in Dallas overnight picking up Billie Jean, it is possible that Bonnie was not taking the drug and beginning to exhibit symptoms of withdrawal, including irritability. Of course, Bonnie may have been genuinely sick of Buck and Blanche as well. Blanche admitted that there was friction between Bonnie and her, characterizing it as “having two women in the same kitchen—there can only be one queen bee!” Blanche Barrow, quoted by Kent Biffle during an interview with W. D. Jones, June 1969. Also, Buck’s temper would have most certainly contributed to any such incident. Fortune briefly mentions Bonnie’s demeanor during her convalescence, describing her as “crosser and more exacting.” Fortune,
Fugitives
, 181.

8.
Jones said later that to the best of his knowledge he never witnessed any sort of argument between Bonnie and Blanche. But he qualified his remark by adding, “You know, that’s possible. I can’t remember that far back.” Jones, interview by Biffle, June 1969.

9.
Billie has stated that when she arrived in Fort Smith on June 19 her sister was in a coma and did not know she was there. When at last she regained consciousness, her focus seemed to be on getting Billie away from there before
she too became trapped in a life on the run. She pestered Clyde to take Billie back to Dallas. Moon and Huddleston, “Bonnie, Clyde, and Me,” 13–14.

10.
Two sources close to Clyde Barrow mention his disdain for drugs. W. D. Jones said, “He (Clyde) never used dope. He didn’t even smoke cigarettes. And he didn’t drink too often either.” Jones, interview by Biffle, June 1969. And, according to Ralph Fults, “Clyde hated dope! He didn’t drink and didn’t smoke either, at least not while I was with him. He didn’t even like to drink coffee!” Fults interview, December 10, 1980.

11.
Unguentine is a burn salve that evolved from an early-nineteenth-century product called Cooper Alum Ointment developed by two British physicians. One of the physicians moved to the United States where his descendants interested the Norwich Pharmacal Company in the formula. First advertised in medical journals as Unguentine in 1893, the salve soon became one of Norwich’s leading products. By 1922, “Unguentine–The First Thought in Burns” was being produced at a rate of one ton daily. Norwich, “Unguentine.” The acid solution perhaps came from the Howe Drug Store, Fort Smith. Clerks there identified photographs of Clyde Barrow as the man who purchased one pound of burn medicine.
Fort Smith Southwest American
, June 26, 1933.

12.
Actually, this was probably the ambulance carrying Alma City Marshal Henry Humphrey. After being mortally wounded in the gunfight with Buck Barrow and W. D. Jones, Humphrey was picked up and driven to Van Buren, where a waiting ambulance transported the marshal to a hospital in Fort Smith.
Fort Smith Southwest American
, June 24, 1933.

13.
Indeed Buck and W. D. had to leave the car. After robbing the R. L. Brown Grocery Store in Fayetteville on June 23, they rear-ended a slow-moving vehicle on Highway 71, three miles north of Alma, Arkansas. Both cars were wrecked. To compound the situation, Alma Town Marshal H. D. Humphrey suddenly arrived in a car driven by a part-time deputy, A. M. Salyers. As he stepped from the car, Humphrey was blown into a ditch by a blast from Buck Barrow’s shotgun. Jones then emerged with a Browning automatic rifle and began spraying the area with slugs, trying to fell Salyers as he ran to the cover of a nearby building. No one was hit. Salyers then returned fire, slicing off the tips of two of Jones’ fingers and knocking out the horn button on Salyers’ own car as the two gunmen climbed in and drove off in it, the only working machine on the road. Salyers watched his car speed north, then turn west on a country road. The gunmen also made off with Humphrey’s pistol.
Fort Smith Southwest American
, June 24, 1933. Of Salyers’ skill as a marksman, Jones would later comment, “That man could shoot!” Jones, “Riding with Bonnie and Clyde,” 165. Marshal Humphrey died three days later, on Monday, June 26, 1933.

After leaving the scene of the shooting Barrow and Jones eventually emerged on the highway where they commandeered another car. However, upon seeing that the bridge to Fort Smith was guarded, the two outlaws abandoned the car near the summit of nearby Mount Vista, walked across the Frisco railroad trestle, and continued on foot to the Twin Cities Tourist Camp. Barrow and
Jones probably arrived sometime around ten o’clock that night. Dallas County Sheriff’s Department, Jones, Voluntary Statement B-71, 13–14; Cumie Barrow, unpublished manuscript.

14.
In 1933 there were a number of murders that were initially wrongfully attributed to the Barrow brothers for a variety of reasons. Apart from the four lawmen actually killed by the Barrow brothers and W. D. Jones (Malcolm Davis on January 6; Wes Harryman and Harry McGinnis on April 13; and Henry Humphrey, who died on June 26), there were the murders of Sheriff Roger Wilson and Patrolman Ben Boothe near Columbia, Missouri, on June 14; and four officers were killed in Kansas City on June 17. Then there were the related murders of two Texas officers earlier in the year. Early on the morning of January 23, 1933, two men and a woman in a Ford V-8 had tried to rob two service stations in Happy, Texas. They fled toward Tulia, where Sheriff John C. Moseley waited. Moseley intercepted the would-be bandits and forced them over to the side of the road. Gunfire erupted and Moseley was killed. The trio then calmly robbed the service station they had stopped in front of and escaped. A few days later the same group killed Deputy Sheriff Joe Brown of Rhome, Texas. This crime was initially thought to be the work of Clyde Barrow, perhaps because it came so close on the heels of the Davis killing and involved two men and a woman.
Tulia Herald
, January 26 and February 2, 1933.