“Well, We Got Them.”
By the spring of 1934, public adoration for the “Lethal Lovers,” Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, was waning. Long seen as heroes of romanticism and social justice, the trial of bodies littering their wake was getting harder and harder to ignore. An Easter Sunday shoot-out that resulted in the cold-blooded murder of two highway patrolmen seemed to be the last straw, especially when a witness statement by one William Schieffer, who lived in a farmhouse adjacent to the murders, put the gun squarely in Bonnie’s hands. Schieffer’s insistence that Bonnie “approached one of the downed officers and shot him repeatedly while his head bounced on the road like a rubber ball” was all the local media needed; they took the gruesome image and ran with it.
Nevermind Schieffer’s account differed from every other eyewitness testimony, which placed the shootings squarely in the hands of a Barrow Gang associate, Henry Methvian, with a strong possibility Clyde himself supplied a bullet or two. In an instant, Bonnie’s reputation as the sexy, cigar-smoking, star-crossed lover of a colorful killer was gone. Now, in the public’s eye, she was a killer herself, just as vicious and cold-hearted as her beau. For the first time ever, the authorities put a price–$500–on her head, just not just Clyde’s.
The public outcry had never been greater. Neither, it seemed, had the urgency to stop them.
For nearly three months, Bonnie and Clyde had been quietly pursued by Frank Hamer, a Texas Ranger with a reputation for being both methodical and tough in his approach to law enforcement. But the Holy Sunday massacre convinced Hamer he needed to change his strategy. He gave up his lone-wolf pursuit and formed a posse with former Texas Ranger friend Manny Gault, as well as Deputies Bob Acorn and Ted Hinton. But, despite the additional manpower and several close encounters, the group was still unable to apprehend the notorious outlaws.
What the lawmen didn’t know was that Bonnie and Clyde were growing weary. The constant stress of fleeing from authorities and life on the run was taking its toll on the pair. At a meeting with their families in late April, relatives of the two remarked that they looked terrible, prematurely aged and drained from the stress. They wanted to be done, they said, settle down somewhere safe.
Barrow Gang member (and cop killer) Henry Methvian had just the place. His family had a spot in Bienville Parish, Louisiana, and Henry convinced Clyde some nearby property would be the perfect spot for he and Bonnie to settle down. The pair even visited it several times to check it out.
If only it had been that simple.
And if only Henry’s motives had been that pure.
Because it was no longer just the public turning on Bonnie and Clyde. Close friends, it seemed, were looking for opportunities as well.
Seeing the writing on the wall, Henry’s parents, Ivy and Ava Methvian, were desperate to get their son out of the Barrow Gang before he, too, met a grisly end. During a visit home, Henry had confided in them that he was done with the two but wasn’t sure how to extricate himself from the fold. Luckily, when Ivy and Ava were approached by Bienville Parish sheriff Henderson Jordan in March 1934 with a proposition, it seemed they finally had an answer. The Methvians agreed to alert both Sheriff Jordan, as well as Hamer’s posse, about the next time Bonnie and Clyde swung by Bienville Parish for a visit so the authorities could set up an ambush. In doing so, they would receive a full pardon for Henry.
The chance came only a few weeks later, in late May 1934. On May 20, Bonnie, Clyde, and Henry visited Henry’s parents. Sometime during the visit, Henry was able to take Ivy and Ava aside and tell them that Bonnie and Clyde were planning on driving to Shreveport the next day. He would try to make up some excuse not to leave, he said, while Ivy and Ava contacted Jordan and the others. The next day, Bonnie and Clyde drove to town as planned, unknowingly tailed by local authorities hoping to make a positive ID. The pair apparently showed little concern when Henry disappeared from the Majestic Cafe, where they’d stopped for lunch. They were in his neck of the woods, after all; perhaps he’d simply seen family and taken off. They went about their business, unaware of the plot unfolding around them.
Bonnie and Clyde returned to the Methvian’s home on Tuesday, looking for Henry. Ivy told them he wasn’t there, but that they should come back the next morning, Wednesday, May 23, at 9:00 AM. After they left, Ivy got in his truck and drove to Sheriff Jordan’s office in Acadia. Bonnie and Clyde, he said, would be driving down Highway 154 the next morning around 9:00.
The plans were set.
The six-man posse consisting of Hamer and Gault, Alcorn and Hinton, as well as Sheriff Jordan and another deputy from Bienville Parish by the name of Oakley, reached the hilltop ambush site around 2:00 AM that morning. Armed to the teeth, they parked their cars on a trail behind the hill. As soon as there was light enough to see, the group helped Ivy Methvian position his truck on the southbound side of the road, partially on the shoulder, the nose of the truck’s hood sticking out onto the road itself. Then they jacked up the front end of the vehicle and pulled off its right front tire to suggest a blowout. It would be impossible for anyone traveling south on the narrow road to drive straight past; at the very least, an approaching vehicle would be forced to slow down to maneuver their car around Methvian’s truck.
At about 9:15, a gray Ford V-8 approached. As it slowed near the disabled truck, the lawmen, from their hiding spots nearby, were able to clearly see Clyde Barrow behind the wheel, dressed in a suit and blue Western dress shirt and hat, Bonnie Park beside him, clad in a red dress. The windows were rolled down, an attempt to alleviate some of the heat of the warm, muggy morning.
Although a logging truck coming from the other direction slowed and pulled off to the side, offering Clyde the right-of-way to pass Methvian’s vehicle, Clyde didn’t take it. Instead, he put the Ford into first gear and came to a complete stop beside Ivy, leaving the V-8’s engine still idling. This was moment Frank Hamer had agreed to call out for Bonnie and Clyde to surrender.
Bienville Parrish deputy Prentiss Oakley refused to give them the chance.
Before a single word was uttered, Oakley jumped to his feet, aimed his Remington down the hill, and fired. One of the bullets flew straight through the open driver’s side window and hit Clyde in the temple just in front of his left ear, killing him instantly. In death, his left foot slipped off the clutch and the Ford began rolling forward slowly, heading for the shallow ditch on the other side of the road.
Because of the thickness of the brush, the other members of the posse were unable to see Oakley. What they could see, however, was the slowly moving V-8. And they had certainly heard the shots. In the short stillness afterward the initial blast, Bonnie let loose a shrill wail, one the lawmen said haunted them the rest of their lives. Then they, too, began firing. In the barrage, there was no way to tell whose bullet ended Bonnie Parker’s life. All we know is that one, or several, of them did.
Just sixteen seconds elapsed between the first shots from Prentiss Oakley and the last ones fired by Frank Hamer. When it was all over, Clyde’s shattered head had fallen through the spokes of the steering wheel. Bonnie was slumped forward in the passenger seat, a napkin wrapped sandwich still clutched in her hand, road map on her lap. Smoke from the guns lingered in the air, creating an otherworldly effect on the scene. Blood was everywhere. Hamer telephoned his boss, Lee Simmons, and said simply, “Well, we got them.”
The saga of Bonnie and Clyde was over.
