The road was so dimly lighted
there were no highway signs to guide.
But they made up their minds;
if all roads were blind,
they wouldn't give up till they died.
–from the poem, “The Trail’s End”
The Texas Ranger called his son one evening. He gave him a cryptic message, “the chickens are coming home to roost tomorrow, about nine o’clock”
The next morning, May 23, 1934, eighty years ago this past month, at 9:15 AM on Highway 154 between Sailes and Gilsband, Louisiana, a stolen Ford V-8 came barreling down the road. The driver and his passenger spotted a car he recognized on the side of the road on a jack, with a wheel off. He stopped to see if he could spot the owner. A deafening barrage of gunfire opened up on the vehicle, fired by six law enforcement officers hidden in the bushes. 130 bullets give or take, hit the vehicle.
“I hope we haven’t just blown an innocent farmer and his wife all to hell,” exclaimed Dallas County Deputy Sheriff Ted Hinton.
The six lawmen slowly approached the still smoking vehicle. The driver and the passenger were the couple they looking for. Clyde Chestnut (the FBI claimed it was Champion) Barrow, 25, and Bonnie Elizabeth Parker, 23, had reached their trail’s end.
Clyde, from Ellis County, Texas, started his life of villainy at an early age. His first arrest was for failing to return a rented car. Safe cracking, small robberies and stolen cars landed him in jail. The violence of his crimes escalated. He was not returning to prison and knew how his life would end.
“No man but the undertaker will ever get me. If officers ever cripple me to where I see they will take me alive, I’ll take my own life,” Barrow vowed.
Most of the people that knew Bonnie Parker, did not expect her to end up in the life she died for. Parker, a native of Rowena, Texas was one of the best students in her high school. Spelling, writing and public speaking won her awards. Her poetry was a favorite hobby and later she would chronicle her life on the lam with Barrow. Bonnie was sixteen and in her second year of high school when she met Roy Thornton. They dropped out of high school and were married in 1926. Thornton turned out to be poor husband material and was gone from the home for extended periods and had several scrapes with the law. In 1929, Bonnie decided that this was not a marriage, though they never divorced and they last saw each other in 1929. She was wearing Thornton’s wedding ring on the day she died.
In January 1930, Bonnie Parker, unemployed at the time, was staying in West Dallas helping out a female friend who had broken her arm. Clyde was visiting a friend of his. He stopped by the girl’s home where he met Bonnie Parker. The connection was immediate She joined Clyde Barrow and never looked back. It was clear that she knew exactly the life she would lead and how she probably would die. She gave her life to Barrow and their criminal partnership.
Two days before her death, she gave this advice to Percy Methvin: “Never go crooked. It’s for the love of a man that I am going to have to die. I don’t know when, but I know it can’t be long.”
Their career of crime was mostly the robbery of small family stores and gas stations. The bank robberies were less than most of the public thought. The couple was believed to be responsible for thirteen murders, several of whom were law enforcement officers. They were almost caught several times. Barrow’s brother Marvin (“Buck”), a member of the gang, was killed and his wife Blanche permanently blinded during their rampage.
Texas Ranger Frank Hamer had an impressive reputation and was a survivor of over 50 gunfights. He retired from the Rangers in 1931 but was brought back as a special investigator to capture the Barrow gang. He spent 102 days hunting the couple and studied their behavior. He learned they always visited family when they could, which aided him in guessing where they would be and to set up the ambush.
After the Ambush and the Funerals
Several of the posse rode into town to tell their agencies that they had just killed Bonnie and Clyde, leaving a small contingent to deal with crowds of onlookers that suddenly appeared. The crowd descended on the vehicle. One woman cut off a piece of Bonnie’s blood soaked dress and several locks of hair. A man was seen trying to cut off Clyde’s trigger finger and another one attempted to cut off his left ear; other picked up shell casings and pieces of glass and pieces of the car that they could grab. The appearance of the medical examiner and others were able to get the crowd under control. It was quickly decided to tow the vehicle, with the bodies still inside, into nearby Arcadia.
The car was brought to Congers Furniture Store and Funeral Parlor. The bodies were removed and examined and preliminary embalming began there. H. D. Darby who worked for McClure’s Funeral Home in neighboring Ruston came to identify the bodies and ended up assisting with the preparation. Darby had been briefly kidnapped by the pair and released. Clyde’s father Henry arrived to identify his son and had him returned to Texas. Bonnie’s family arrived and had her returned to Texas also.
It was Bonnie’s wish to be buried with Clyde, but her mother said it was not to be; “He had her for two years and look what he did to her.”
Clyde Barrow’s family called upon the Sparkman-Holtz-Brand Morticians in Dallas. Director Louis Sparkman, a personal friend of Henry Barrow, saw to the details. The funeral service was held in the funeral home chapel at sunset on May 25 where thousands tried to attend. As the assembled mourners became more and more rowdy, the service was reduced to family and close friends. Clyde was placed in a simple wood casket in a light gray suit complimented with a Navy blue striped tie and white shirt. Clyde was buried next to his brother Buck and their shared headstone reads, “Gone but not forgotten.”
Bonnie Parker’s family chose the McCamy-Campbell Funeral Home. Director Allen D. Campbell and staff dealt with the thousands of attendees on May 26. This crowd was better behaved then Barrow’s service. Her hair was marcelled, nails polished, attired in blue silk negligee with lilies in her hand and in proper repose in a silver casket with white silk lining. Parker was first buried in Fishtrap Cemetery but was later relocated to Crown Hill Cemetery. Her inscription reads: “As the flowers are all made sweeter by the sunshine and the dew, so this old world is made brighter by lives of folks like you.”
Bonnie Parker’s poetry provides a look inside the feelings of a fleeing criminal who knows the end will not be from old age. Her last stanza from her most famous poem, “The Trail End”:
Some day they’ll go down together
They’ll bury them side by side
To few it will be grief
To the law a relief
But it’s death for Bonnie and Clyde