My Life with Bonnie and Clyde (44 page)

39.
Blanche said later that after helping Clyde push the police car out of the way, she went back to the sedan in the garage to get in with Bonnie and W. D. It was then that she noticed her dog, Snowball, was gone. Blanche Barrow interviews, September 24 and November 3, 984. She also stated that she helped Clyde and W. D. move the car, but in her manuscript she implies it was Clyde and Buck, not W. D., she helped. The fact that she returned to the garage is confirmed by the testimony of the eyewitness.
Joplin
(
Mo.
)
Globe
, April 15, 1933.

40.
This very account, that of Blanche running hysterically from the apartment, has been mentioned elsewhere, perhaps originating with Jan Fortune’s account in
Fugitives
, 152. Cumie Barrow mentions it as well in her unpublished manuscript. But Blanche said later that she never screamed and ran hysterically down the street, but that she stepped from the garage a second time and walked down the street, calmly calling her dog. By then, the dog was long gone. Blanche Barrow interviews, September 24 and November 3, 1984. This latter account is supported by the complete lack of testimony during the two inquests regarding someone running down the street, screaming. Also, there is no testimony supporting the assertion that shots were fired from the apartment upstairs.
Joplin
(
Mo.
)
Globe
, April 15, 1933. Of her portrayal in the 1967 movie,
Bonnie and Clyde
, Blanche said, “That movie made me out like a screaming horse’s ass!” Blanche Barrow interview, November 18, 1984. “I was too busy moving bodies [to act hysterical],” Blanche herself said. Quoted by Rhea Leen Linder, Linder interview, October 5, 2002. Her image in this memoir, as well as in
Fugitives
and in Cumie Barrow’s manuscript, was fashioned at a
time when Blanche could have easily been charged with the Joplin murders. That may account for the great difference in tone between Blanche, the young convict in the Missouri State Penitentiary, and Blanche, the elder ex-fugitive. Indeed, at least one of Blanche Barrows’ champions, Wilbur Winkler, the Denison man who co-owned (along with Artie Barrow Winkler) the Cinderella Beauty Shoppe, used
Fugitives
to try to obtain a parole for Blanche from the Missouri Board of Probation and Parole. In letters to the Platte County prosecutor and the judge involved in Blanche’s case, Winkler alluded to the book’s description of Blanche in Joplin in an effort to win their support for her release: “Blanch [
sic
] ran hysterical [
sic
] thru [
sic
] the gunfire down the street carrying [her] dog in her arms,” Winkler wrote. He even sent copies of the book to them–and to others. Winkler, letter to David Clevenger, January 17, 1936; Winkler, letter to the Hon. R. B. Bridgeman, January 17, 1936.

41.
Blanche said later she was not in the car when it drove out of the garage. On returning to the garage she found that her dog was not in the car and she went out in the street to look for it. She said Clyde picked her up after driving out of the garage. She never found her dog. Blanche Barrow interview, November 18, 1984.

42.
The sedan was stolen from Robert Roseborough in Marshall, Texas, between December 24, 1932, and January 26, 1933—after Jones had joined the group but before the abduction of Springfield motorcycle patrolman Tom Persell. Roseborough was an insurance agent in East Texas who had been making sales calls when he made a quick milk run at lunchtime for his mother. Roseborough recounted that in the few moments it took him to pull up to his mother’s house, go inside and place the milk in the icebox, and return to the front door his car had disappeared. The next time he saw it was after it had been found abandoned in Oklahoma, after the Joplin shoot-out. Roseborough said it had blood stains in it and the bipod from a Browning automatic rifle was bolted to the dash. Roseborough interview, July 11, 1984. This car appeared in a number of photographs of the Barrow gang that were printed from unprocessed film recovered in Joplin. It was from the car’s license plate that authorities traced it to Roseborough. It was also through these very same pictures, many of which were printed in newspapers and magazines of the day, that Springfield motorcycle patrolman Tom Persell was able to finally identify the trio who had abducted him nearly three months earlier. Not only did he recognize the people, he also pointed out two other things appearing in many of the photographs: “the peculiar radiator cap” of the Ford V-8 and his stolen service revolver. The latter was a distinctive Russian-made .45. It had cost Persell $50. His monthly salary was $105. Edwards, “A Tale Tom Persell Lived to Tell.”

43.
Jones thought he had been hit twice and that one of the bullets was still inside him. Later, in Texas, Clyde took an elm branch, wrapped gauze around it, and poked it straight into the wound in Jones’s side and out the hole in his back. With that, Jones was satisfied the gunshot wound was clean. Jones, “Riding with Bonnie and Clyde,” 165. There were reports that Jones had been hit in the head in Joplin, but he was not. Jones, interview by Biffle, June 1969.

44.
Temperatures were only reaching highs in the thirties in Missouri and the Texas Panhandle on April 13 and 14. The lows were below freezing, 24 degrees in Amarillo, the fugitives’ distination, on the morning of April 14.
Dallas Morning News
, April 14, 1933.

Chapter 5.
Ruston

1.
Jones has said his wounds were not treated until later, in Amarillo. Dallas County Sheriff’s Department, Jones, Voluntary Statement B-71, November 18, 1933.

2.
This is also mentioned by Buck’s mother. Cumie Barrow, unpublished manuscript.

3.
This was probably the reported robbery of the Phillips 66 Station at 18th Avenue and Polk in Amarillo, Texas. Approximately twenty-five dollars was taken by two armed men on foot early on the evening of April 14, 1933.
Amarillo Daily News
, April 15, 1933.

4.
According to Frank Hamer, former Texas Ranger, “Barrow played a circle from Dallas to Joplin, Missouri, to Louisiana, and back to Dallas. Barrow never holed up in one place; he was always on the go; and he traveled farther in one day than any other fugitive that I have ever followed.” Frank Hamer, quoted in Webb,
Texas Rangers
, 540.

5.
The owner, H. Dillard Darby, thirty-five, saw the car pulling away from his rooming house, the L. K. Brooks residence on North Trenton, and ran after it. Darby ran up to the black Chevrolet and tried to jump on the running board but by then Jones had turned the corner and was going too fast. Darby ran back inside the rooming house to telephone the sheriff. After that, he emerged from the house a second time and gave chase with Sophie Stone. Blanche may have missed, or forgotten Darby’s reported first appearance.
Ruston
(
La.
)
Daily Leader
, April 28, 1933. There is some question as to where Stone came from. Most sources state that she too roomed at the L. K. Brooks residence. But in a 1968 interview, Stone said she “had her car parked in front of a boarding house across from the high school,” where she taught home economics, and that “after lunch I saw Mr. Darby come running out of the boarding house, shouting that someone had stolen his car.”
Dallas Morning News
, March 18, 1968. Some even suggested Stone and Darby were a couple. Fortune,
Fugitives
, 161. Stone said, “Mr. Darby was a married man. And we were certainly
not
going together” [Stone’s emphasis].
Dallas Morning News
, March 18, 1968.

6.
Clyde Barrow reportedly said, “Let’s take ‘m, for a lark!” Fortune,
Fugitives
, 162.

7.
The car, described at the time as freshly stolen, was actually falling apart because of the abuse Barrow had subjected it to. “That damned car almost got us killed,” said Blanche years later. Apparently the suspension was faulty. Barrow had sideswiped a parked car in Waldo, Arkansas trying to turn a corner. Blanche Barrow interview, September 24, 1984.

8.
Darby said Barrow flagged him down near the town of Hico and asked if he’d seen a black Chevrolet. Darby said he got out of Stone’s car and approached
Barrow. When he did, Barrow pulled a gun. The two men exchanged words and Barrow leaped out and slugged Darby, just as Blanche described. A woman, probably Bonnie, then jumped out of the car, grabbed Stone, and struck her as well. Darby said Barrow was angry because Jones had been frightened off, adding that consequently they couldn’t carry out a bank robbery they had planned.
Ruston
(
La.
)
Daily Leader
, April 28, 1933. This was confirmed by Stone.
Dallas Morning News
, March 18, 1968.

9.
Stone, twenty-seven, was described as the home demonstration agent for Lincoln Parish.
Ruston
(
La.
)
Daily Leader
, April 27, 1933. Stone indicated she was at the high school across from the boardinghouse at the time of the theft. She also said that when Bonnie found out Stone was a home demonstration agent, she asked if she’d prepared any food that day and to describe it because she was so hungry.
Dallas Morning News
, March 18, 1968.

10.
Six miles from Waldo, Stone and Darby were released. Still fearful that they would be killed, they watched the car pull away. Suddenly it stopped. They braced themselves. But instead of bullets, a five-dollar bill appeared. Then the car sped away.
Ruston
(
La.
)
Daily Leader
, April 28, 1933;
Dallas Morning News
, March 18, 1933.

11.
Stone said it was Bonnie who asked about embalming and that it was Bonnie who thought it was funny. “Clyde didn’t see the humor,” Stone said.
Dallas Morning News
, March 18, 1968.

12.
The license plate on the stolen car was Louisiana 233-821.
Dallas Dispatch
, April 28, 1933.

13.
From Ruston, Louisiana, the Barrows traveled through Dubach, Louisiana to El Dorado, Arkansas, east to Magnolia, then north to Waldo and Rosston—all in Arkansas—and finally west to Hope.
Hope
(
Ark.
)
Star
, April 28, 1933.

14.
Hope, Arkansas, Police Chief Clarence Baker and officer Homer Burke saw the suspect car approach town on East Third Street from the direction of Rosston. Baker and Burke chased the car as it turned onto Second Street, north of Hazel Street. When they crossed the railroad tracks, however, the police car blew a tire. After quickly obtaining another car, the officers continued the chase. Chief Baker later said that he and Burke were close enough to see a man in the backseat of the suspect car holding a machine gun. After crossing the railroad tracks on Second Street, the car was chased past the brickyard. The suspect driver then doubled back to the south on Laurel and eventually made it back to Third Street, where he raced out of town toward Rosston. This chase was reported as occurring at 8:00
P.M
. on April 27.
Hope
(
Ark.
)
Star
, April 28, 1933;
Joplin
(
Mo.
)
News Herald
, April 28, 1933.

15.
North of Shreveport, in the swamps of Black Lake Bayou east of Oil City and Vivian, there was a rather elaborate hideout known to the underworld simply as the camp. Operated by a family named Chapman, “the camp” was reputedly used by such notorious outlaws as Pretty Boy Floyd, the Barker brothers, Alvin Karpis, and Bonnie and Clyde. Although it doesn’t appear they used the location when Blanche was with them, there’s evidence that
Bonnie and Clyde hid there, or near there, in 1934. For an excellent description of the camp, see Tattersall,
Conviction
, 259–73.

16.
After abandoning Darby’s car in McGee, Arkansas, Jones indeed returned to Dallas.
Ruston
(
La.
)
Daily Leader
, April 28, 1933; Jones, Dallas County Sheriff’s Department, Voluntary Statement B-71, November 18, 1933.

17.
The involvement of three men in the abduction of Stone and Darby, and the eventual identification of two of the men as Clyde and Buck Barrow, lent credence to the theory already posed by Joplin authorities that three men were involved in the killing of Harryman and McGinnis.
Joplin
(
Mo.
)
Globe
, April 16, 1933. Some identified the third man in Ruston as Pretty Boy Floyd.
Joplin
(
Mo.
)
News Herald
, April 28, 1933. However, Chief of Detectives Ed Portley of the Joplin Police Department said, “I want it understood that as far as the Joplin police department is concerned, we are not attempting to associate Floyd in any way whatsoever with this case.”
Joplin
(
Mo.
)
News Herald
, April 28, 1933. The wording of this statement seems more like a pledge of reassurance to Floyd personally rather than to the public in general. Floyd, of course, was known to visit the Joplin area frequently. See: Unger,
Union Station Massacre
, 59–68.

Chapter 6.
Friction

1.
Dallas Daily Times-Herald
, May 2 and 10, 1933;
Pharos-Tribune
, May 12, 1933;
Dallas Daily Times-Herald
, May 23, 25, and 29, 1933. Okabena was peppered with machine gun fire as the bandits escaped. Brothers Floyd and Anthony Strain, along with Anthony’s wife, Mildred, would be convicted of this crime, but it was a Barrow job and almost a carbon copy of the Lucerne, Indiana, incident.
Fairmont
(
Minn.
)
Daily Sentinel
, May 19, 1933;
Okabena
(
Minn.
)
Press
, May 19, 1933;
Minneapolis Journal
, May 19, 1933; Boucher,
Jackson County
(
Minn.
)
History, vol. II
, 119–20. The storms and lightning, and Bonnie Parker’s reaction to them, are mentioned by Blanche Barrow in her memoir. See also Fortune,
Fugitives
, 160–61, although the chronology given there appears incorrect, and other aspects of Fortune’s account confuse Okabena with Lucerne.