CHAPTER ONE
MAY 26, 1934
ASPIN HILL MEMORIAL PARK
SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND
MORNING
Violence is plaguing America.
Throughout 1933 and the first half of 1934, dozens of vicious and heavily armed gangsters are creating carnage in rural parts of the United States. It is the middle of the Great Depression. The average national individual income has been cut in half. The nationwide unemployment rate is 21.7 percent. The homicide tally is the highest of the century due to rampant poverty and the clash of immigrant and traditional cultures as America becomes increasingly urban.
In addition, half of all home mortgages are delinquent, and more than one thousand home loans are foreclosed every day. As more and more American families are evicted, the banks are viewed as predatory villains—more intent on making a dollar than helping poor people survive.
So it is no surprise that some criminals in the United States are actually becoming popular public figures, especially the handful of men and women who rob banks for a living. The Division of Investigation calls these people “Public Enemies,” but to many they are Robin Hoods, exacting revenge on bankers and fat cats from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon.
On this warm Saturday morning, the man who has just been handed the enormous responsibility of stopping the Robin Hoods is momentarily unconcerned about fighting crime. John Edgar Hoover is in a state of deep mourning as he watches his beloved dog lowered into a grave in this Washington suburb.
Hoover has lived in the District of Columbia his whole life. He began his career of public service at eighteen, a high school class valedictorian who landed work as a clerk at the Library of Congress while attending college and then law school. Hoover’s employment ended when he passed the bar in 1917. He took a job with the Justice Department the very next morning. Within two years, the young lawyer’s work ethic saw him promoted rapidly. By 1924, at the behest of President Calvin Coolidge, twenty-nine-year-old J. Edgar Hoover was placed in charge of a corrupt federal agency known as the Bureau of Investigation.1
The promotion appears to be a career dead end for the hard-charging young lawyer with the receding hairline, permanent scowl, and the habit of talking too fast in order to hide a stutter. Founded in 1908, the Bureau of Investigation is America’s first national law enforcement agency. However, there is widespread fear in Congress that the BOI might become a secret police—“spying upon … the people, such as has prevailed in Russia.”
So Congress has intentionally limited the BOI’s power. The original thirty-four agents are forbidden to carry a weapon—and even prevented from making arrests. When it comes time to take a suspect into custody, the agents have a choice: either call in U.S. Marshals or the local police.
Hoover devotes himself to his new job, eschewing any semblance of a personal life in favor of complete commitment to law enforcement. Immediately, the new director cleans house, firing any agent accused of taking bribes. He sets up a rigorous training program to ensure that his agents are mentally and physically fit. Also, his investigators are expected to be of high moral character, with training in accounting or law. There is no such thing as paid overtime. Hoover raises the BOI’s profile by establishing the first nationwide database for fingerprints.
And yet, the BOI is powerless to prosecute the bank robberies and the random murders plaguing America during the Great Depression. State and local police have complete authority in such cases, despite the frustrating reality that these agencies do not communicate with one another, nor can they chase criminals across state lines. John Dillinger has made an art of escaping this way.
* * *
There is no question that J. Edgar Hoover is a strange man. He has few friends and lives at home with his seventy-five-year-old mother, Anna Marie.
The director’s most trusted confidante is his Airedale terrier, Spee De Bozo. It is Spee who fetches the paper each morning and eats the soft-boiled egg that Hoover gives him for breakfast. J. Edgar loves Spee so much that he not only keeps the animal’s framed photo on his office desk but also hangs a painting of the Airedale on a wall at home. Hoover may be a tough boss with his agents, but he never disciplines his dog.
Spee De Bozo passes away on May 24 at the age of eleven, and now his shroud-covered body is being lowered into the grave at this pet cemetery. “This is one of the saddest days of my life,” the grief-stricken Hoover explains to a groundskeeper. His display of emotion is unnerving to the three DOI agents who have been asked to accompany him to the burial, for Hoover is normally a closed vault of privacy.
At the same time, the director is actually becoming one of the most powerful men in the country. On May 18, Congress recognizes that state and local law enforcement agencies are powerless to stop the bank-robbing epidemic. This is a reaction to the 1933 Kansas City Massacre, where criminals led by a robber known as “Pretty Boy” Floyd shot and killed four federal agents in cold blood. Thus, the Crime Control Acts of 1934 were passed—now if a person kills or assaults a federal officer, transports kidnapped persons, or robs a bank, they are subject to federal law. They will be charged with federal crimes.
From left, Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd; his son, Charles Dempsey Floyd; and his wife, Ruby Floyd, circa 1930.
State troopers and local sheriffs will no longer have jurisdiction in these matters. That power now goes to the newly renamed Division of Investigation. Just as important, Congress is about to pass another important piece of legislation allowing DOI agents to bear arms and make arrests.
As Spee De Bozo’s burial comes to an end, J. Edgar Hoover promises himself that he will soon buy another dog.2
The time for mourning quickly passes.
The time for catching violent bank robbers is about to begin.
And there will be blood.
CHAPTER TWO
MAY 23, 1934
BIENVILLE PARISH, LOUISIANA
9:15 A.M.
Twenty-three-year-old Bonnie Parker sits in the passenger seat of a stolen Ford V-8. On her lap rests a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich on white bread wrapped in a napkin. Thick forest and bushes line the dusty country road on both sides. Bonnie’s lover, Clyde “Champion” Barrow, is at the wheel, pushing sixty-five miles per hour because the couple is late for a rendezvous. Clyde, twenty-five, has already finished his fried bologna sandwich purchased during the couple’s recent stop at Ma Canfield’s Café in the nearby Louisiana town of Gibsland.
Clyde loves the high-powered V-8 so much, he wrote a letter to automotive manufacturer Henry Ford praising its “speed and freedom.” The bank robber wears wire-rim sunglasses, and a blue shirt and suit with a matching hat, but drives in his stocking feet. Long ago, the convicted criminal asked a fellow inmate to cut off two of his toes with an ax to escape hard labor in prison. As a result, Clyde walks with a limp, and driving while wearing shoes is extremely uncomfortable. Ironically, prison officials had already decided to parole young Clyde before the ax dropped. He limped out of prison a free man just six days after the mutilation.
Bonnie’s hat, her trademark tam, has been tossed into the back seat. The poetry-writing criminal wears a wedding ring—though she left her unfaithful husband years before falling for Clyde. She is a petite four feet, eleven inches tall, chain-smokes Camel cigarettes, and has her ex-husband’s name still tattooed inside her right thigh. A long red dress reveals Bonnie’s hourglass figure but hides her legs because they were badly burned by battery acid after crashing during a high-speed car chase one year ago. As a result, Bonnie Parker also walks with a limp, just like Clyde. Sometimes her pain is so bad that she cannot walk at all, and he must carry her. Yet Bonnie wears high heels rather than flat soles, even though they will make it more difficult for her to run from the law should the need arise.
An undated photo of bandits Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.
Widely known as Bonnie and Clyde, the young couple has robbed banks since beginning their crime spree in February 1932. But as they moved through Missouri, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, and even north to Minnesota—taking advantage of poor communications between state and local authorities to stay ahead of the law—bank robbery is just one of the crimes they commit. They have stolen cars and robbed stores and gas stations at gunpoint for as little as five dollars. On the violent side, they have kidnapped people and shot dead at least thirteen men and women. All told, the couple has committed more than one hundred felonies in two years.
Bonnie and Clyde first met in January 1930—she, a recently unemployed waitress, and he, a poor laborer from the slums of Dallas. Other than petty theft, Clyde Barrow had no criminal record at the time. But just months later, he is arrested for burglary and sent to the Eastham Prison Farm, where after being routinely sexually assaulted, he commits his first murder: Clyde kills another prisoner with a lead pipe to avenge his prison rapes.
Thus, the mild-mannered Barrow is forever changed by Eastham Prison—“from a schoolboy to a rattlesnake” in the words of one fellow inmate. Despite his two years behind bars, Bonnie has waited for him. Upon release, and fueled by a hatred for the law, the couple begins committing crimes throughout the Midwest. Theirs is a simple life of robbing for money and food whenever they need it, and killing the hated police when they can. Other criminals join them as part of a small gang. But while these men come and go, the partnership of Bonnie and Clyde remains steady.
The couple were essentially small-time southern hoods, forever in the shadow of bigger criminal names like John Dillinger and his cronies Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd. But just one year ago—April 13, 1933—police surprised Bonnie and Clyde at a hideout in Joplin, Missouri. The aftermath was gruesome, with two police officers shot dead. The couple escaped by driving more than six hundred miles through the night into the heart of Texas. But in the ruins of the Missouri hideout, police discover a roll of undeveloped film. Wishing to familiarize the public with descriptions of Bonnie and Clyde, Joplin police develop the film and give the pictures to the Joplin Globe newspaper, which wires the photos nationwide.
The result is instant celebrity. Images of Bonnie poking a grinning Clyde with a sawed-off shotgun, and Bonnie posing alone with a cigar in her mouth and pistol in her hand make the two as famous as movie stars. Not only does the American public clamor for more information about Bonnie and Clyde, but their exploits soon became fodder for movie newsreels as an excited nation cheers for them to outfox law enforcement.
The criminal couple could not be happier. Both have nursed dreams of fame—Bonnie through her writing and quiet dreams of being a famous actress, and Clyde as a musician who plays the saxophone.
On May 21, 1934, just three days after Congress passes the new crime legislation to expand federal law enforcement, J. Edgar Hoover decides to go to war with Bonnie and Clyde. His first move: an 8? x 8? wanted poster bearing their images and listing their crimes is circulated nationwide. Unlike the Joplin photos, there is nothing glamorous about these images.
Yet that only enhances the legend of Bonnie and Clyde. However, Bonnie Parker somehow knows the truth of what is to come, writing flowery verse predicting that she and Clyde will die horribly.1
* * *
As they drive down the rural Louisiana road, Bonnie and Clyde are fifteen minutes late for a meeting with a member of their gang on this muggy Wednesday morning. The stop for Bonnie’s BLT to go at Ma Canfield’s Café has put them behind schedule.
All seems well. Rounding a bend in the road, a flatbed truck belonging to Ivy Methvin, father of the convicted criminal they are due to meet, can be seen on the shoulder. Methvin kneels by the jacked-up vehicle, changing a tire. A logging truck approaches from the other direction.
Clyde shifts into first gear. His window is already rolled down. Bonnie places the sandwich, still in its napkin, on her lap. In the back seat, under a blanket, are a pile of guns, a suitcase full of cash, and Clyde’s personal saxophone.
Suddenly, Ivy Methvin rolls under his truck.
* * *
The hidden posse is armed and dangerous.
Frank Hamer of the Texas Rangers has been tracking Bonnie and Clyde for four months. He has followed the pair to Bienville Parish with three other Texas lawmen. J. Edgar Hoover and his agents are not taking part in the posse but have provided crucial information on the couple’s whereabouts. The Division of Investigation has pinpointed this region of Louisiana as a regular hiding place for Bonnie and Clyde.
In order to obtain the necessary jurisdiction to capture the criminals, the Texas Ranger has enlisted the aid of local sheriff Jordan Henderson and his young deputy, Prentiss Oakley. Together, the lawmen set a trap, believing the criminals will eventually go to the home of gang member Henry Methvin.2 Ranger Hamer has promised Henry’s father that his son will not receive the death penalty for his crimes in exchange for betraying Bonnie and Clyde. Thus, Ivan “Ivy” Methvin’s flatbed pickup, specially designed for hauling pulpwood, is now strategically positioned to block the road on which the criminals are driving.
After nearly thirty hours of hiding, the posse is irritated and exhausted from waiting in the woods as thick clouds of mosquitoes swarm them. The day is already sweltering. Strung out in the forest, each man clutches his favorite weapon. Loaded and cocked backup guns are scattered on the pine straw. The collection of rifles, pistols, and automatics is formidable—the trademark of men quite comfortable in the art of killing.
Frank Hamer personally believes that a simple .45-caliber round to the gut is the best way to immobilize a suspect. Just to be sure, the relentless lawman is also armed with a Remington Model 11 shotgun and Colt Monitor Machine Rifle—a powerful World War I relic capable of killing a man from a mile away.
As the posse shifts restlessly, they see in the distance a Ford V-8 racing down the road at top speed.
The men cock their weapons.
The plan is simple: when Clyde Barrow slows down to approach the disabled truck, posse member Ted Hinton will confirm if the individuals in the vehicle are indeed Bonnie and Clyde. Hinton is from Dallas and knows Bonnie from her waitressing days. Once visual recognition is achieved, Hamer will step forward, Colt Monitor Rifle leveled, and demand their surrender. Frank Hamer is six foot two and solidly built, a thickset man with the gravitas and assumed legal authority expected from a Texas Ranger. Hamer is renowned for his marksmanship and even instructs new Rangers on the art of shooting. He will have no trouble opening fire should Bonnie and Clyde refuse to step out of the car and raise their hands in the air.
The only question in the mind of Frank Hamer is whether or not he can shoot a woman.
As the Ford V-8 draws closer and Ivy Methvin assumes his position as a decoy on the ground, Hamer steels himself for the confrontation. His current location is a hillside overlooking the road. There is every chance he will be shot if Bonnie or Clyde sees him making his way onto the road.
The Ford V-8 is flying down the road in a cloud of dust. As hoped, Hamer and the posse hear the telltale sound of downshifting and watch as the car slows to a stop alongside Methvin’s truck.
Hamer looks at Ted Hinton, just to make sure the young couple in the car are Bonnie and Clyde.
Suddenly, without being given permission, Deputy Oakley opens fire with a Remington Model 8 borrowed from a local dentist. He stands fifty feet to the right of Hamer. Oakley has a clear shot at Clyde through the open window. But several of his bullets miss, hitting the doorframe. However, one two-inch casing passes neatly through the left side of Clyde Barrow’s skull, blowing open a gaping wound as it kills him.
Bonnie Parker, sandwich still on her lap, knows she is about to die as well. She screams in terror, a feral howl so mournful that the lawmen will remember it the rest of their lives.
The scream ends as the posse opens fire.
The brutal shooting lasts sixteen seconds. Bonnie and Clyde die immediately, but the firing does not stop until the frame and windows of the Ford are riddled with 167 bullets.
When it is done, as the smell of gunpowder carries through the Louisiana countryside, Frank Hamer steps onto the road clutching his Colt automatic. As leader of this posse, it is his obligation to make sure the job is complete.
The Ranger loosens a burst into the rear window.
Just to be sure.
Clyde is not visible, so Hamer’s shots are focused on Bonnie, whose head still can be seen inside the car. Any doubts that he can shoot a woman have been answered.
The Texas Ranger then walks to the front of the Ford and takes direct aim at Bonnie from point-blank range. The legendary criminal is already dead, her head riddled with bullets as blood pours from wounds across her torso.
Frank Hamer squeezes the trigger anyway. The Colt kicks backward as he fires a final burst into the dead woman.
Copyright © 2021 by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard
