[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey guys, it's Jill. Jen and I wanted to give you a heads up about the content on today's episode. It may be triggering for more sensitive audiences. Refer to the show notes for more specifics and take care while you listen.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: On this episode of Common Mystics, we explore the notorious criminal career of Clyde Barrow, leader of the Barrow Gang, to investigate the critical events that set him on a trajectory of ruthless violence and murder. I'm Jennifer James.
[00:00:43] Speaker A: I'm Jill Stanley.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: We're psychics.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: We're sisters.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: We are common mystics. We find extraordinary stories in ordinary places. And today's story takes us to Hillsboro, Texas.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: That's right, Jennifer. We had left the Great Wolf Lodge near Dallas, Texas. Very fun.
And we sent our intention in the car. Can you please remind everyone what our intentions are?
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Our intention was, as it always is, to find a verifiable story previously unknown to us that allows us to give voice to the voiceless.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: That's right. And this day was no exception. However, we've been talking a whole shitload about Bonnie and Clyde. But what was funny about it is that we didn't look up where they're from. We like, we didn't like, get on the research with it. We were just kept bringing them up. So.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: Right. They were on our minds in a big way. Like they were in our psyches.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: Exactly. We wanted to plan to go to where they died on the way home from our friend in Maria's in Austin, Texas. But we were like, yeah, we're not doing that.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: Right.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: Like we were just too exhausted. But we decided to head on to Maria's and use our intention to guide us to a verifiable story previously unknown to us. So what, what were some of our first experiences on that trip?
[00:02:15] Speaker B: Well, we ended up stopping at a gas station right outside the town of.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: Hillsboro, which is really annoying because we were almost in Hillsboro, but I really.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: Had to go to the bathroom.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: Jennifer insisted. I'm like, you can't wait.
[00:02:29] Speaker B: You have to stay hydrated, Jill. You can't just be in the car for hours and hours and not stay hydrated. It's not good for you.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: It's not about your hydration, it's about your pee bladder.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: I do have a pea sized blue.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: It really is. So we stop. Jen uses the ladies room, we get back in the car, and we end up in the cute, quaint little city of Hillsborough, wouldn't you say? Oh, yes, gorgeous town square. We park the car, we're walking around. I am instantly drawn in the middle of the square to a church. And I was thinking, for who the.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: Bell tolls, for whom?
[00:03:02] Speaker A: Meaning, like, for whom? Like, who are these bells ringing for?
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: And, Jennifer, I was hearing.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: I was hearing in my head the Liberty Insurance commercial jingle. Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty. You know what I'm talking about?
[00:03:19] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: Not a sponsor. But we're open.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: But we're open to it. So we are walking around, and of course, we end up at the courthouse. And I say out loud, bank robberies.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: Robbers. Mm.
[00:03:33] Speaker A: Right on.
On that. Like, on these buildings inside the center of town, they have pictures of famous people from the area. So there's like, Willie Nelson and other people no one really, really recognized other than Willie Nelson, to be honest.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: No offense to those other faces on the mural.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: I was impressed by Willie. And again, if you see Willie Nelson, you're starstruck. So it's like. I mean, he's a legend.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: We were pretty sure we did not have a story about Willie Nelson, though.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: True, right? That is true.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: But we were like, well, I wonder about the famous people from Hillsborough. Right? Because we were seeing these faces, and we were like, huh, Maybe there's somebody famous from Hillsboro that we're supposed to be talking about. Well, we had no clue.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: No clue. So then we're walking around. I'm snapping pictures of Jennifer. We decide to get into the car and use our spideys. We end up at a cell block museum, which seemed pretty significant, but we didn't really understand why.
And then we're like, well, we need to go to a cemetery.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: Of course. That's what we do.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: We go. We went to, like. We used our spideys. We go to the nearest cemetery. Our spideys take us, and right away we're like this.
[00:04:43] Speaker B: Haunted. Af.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: Af. Haunted. But we're like, there are. Our peeps for our story are not here.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: Correct. It was the Hillsborough Cemetery, established 1855, and it was really clear. It was really active, but our people weren't there. And we. We. We. We left thinking, yeah, that was. That was creepy. But our. Our story isn't. Isn't here.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: Right, Right. And we drove through Waco, talking about how there was a Waco connection to our Hillsboro story, but we didn't quite understand why.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:05:17] Speaker A: So now, Jennifer.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:05:20] Speaker A: This is the.
The unveiling of our story.
[00:05:26] Speaker B: Tell me.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: Please tell us. Tell us about our research.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: Well, Jill, you took the lead on the research, and wasn't I surprised to find out that there was a Hillsborough murder accredited to the infamous Clyde Barrow in 1932.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: Insane in the mofo membrane.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: Right, Because Bonnie and Clyde was seriously all over our psyches.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: And we had no clue. No clue. We didn't even know if they were from Texas. We had no clue.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: You know what?
[00:06:03] Speaker B: What?
[00:06:04] Speaker A: I'm glad we didn't have the inkling at the time to research everything we knew about Bonnie and Clyde, because otherwise we wouldn't have had.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: Well, what would you like me to tell you now, Jill?
[00:06:16] Speaker A: I would really like you to tell me A little background on the man, Clyde Barrow.
[00:06:23] Speaker B: Well, why don't we do that, then?
Clyde Barrow was born In March of 1909 in Ellis County, Texas. See, we did not know this. We did not know he was from Texas.
[00:06:36] Speaker A: No, I was thinking in Louisiana.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: And he, of course, became one of the most infamous American outlaws during the Great Depression.
He grew up in a poor farming family and he quickly turned to crime as a means of escape. Initially, he just dabbled in petty theft around the Dallas area.
But then, in 1927, Clyde Barrow, already a notorious figure in the criminal underworld, teamed up with his brother, Buck Barrow, Sydney Moore, and a young accomplice named Frank Claus, embarking on a series of audacious robberies that targeted various businesses in and around Dallas, Hillsboro and Lufkin, Texas. I have to stop myself right here because I have a question about the gang.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: Tell me, Jill, from your research, did.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: You find that Frank Claus has any relation to Santa?
[00:07:43] Speaker A: I did.
[00:07:44] Speaker B: They're related.
[00:07:46] Speaker A: I did extensive genealogy searches, and I did find out that Frank Claus, his family adopted the name in efforts to give their family a better credibility.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: Are you serious?
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Of course not. Of course not.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: Okay, so no relation to Santa Claus.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: No, I just had to ask because.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: It sounds like such a jolly name. Oh, and we have Frank Claus. Ho, ho, ho. But it's not. No relation. Okay.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: No. Really?
[00:08:17] Speaker B: You had me going for a second. I was like, oh, my God. They changed their name to sound like Santa Claus. Okay. Now, one of the early targets of this gang of criminals included the Buell Lumber Company, where their cunning strategies and quick escapes became a trademark of their criminal escapades. Everybody likes. Everybody likes a chase, you know?
[00:08:41] Speaker A: Cunning strategies and quick escapes are the bedrock of any good crime.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: You need any good crime story. Yes.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: You need a cunning strategy and a quick escape.
[00:08:53] Speaker B: Agreed.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: Unless it's not going to work. It's not going to work.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: Otherwise. Well, nobody's going to care.
[00:08:58] Speaker A: True.
[00:08:59] Speaker B: You didn't have to run out of there then. It's a boring story.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: And if you didn't have to, like, pull some rabbits out of a hat to get something going.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: Right?
[00:09:06] Speaker A: Like it. Yeah, it's not. It's not exciting. Please go on.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: It almost feels like they were showman, like they were having fun with it. You know what I mean?
It wasn't long before Clyde's criminal activities escalated and eventually leading him to a partnership with Bonnie Parker in 1930.
Together they formed the Notorious Bonnie and Clyde duo, capturing national attention.
Yeah, like, all the papers were writing about them.
[00:09:35] Speaker A: What were they writing about them?
[00:09:38] Speaker B: I think people at the time, it was the Great Depression. Right. A lot of people were excited by the fact that you have this. This male, female duo that's robbing banks, you know, because a lot of people are really poor and. And a lot of people blame the banks for some of the difficulties that poor people, poor farmers were having.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: So I think I lived through 2008. I understand that emotion.
[00:10:06] Speaker B: Yeah. So they kind of got this national Robin Hood sort of mythology surrounding their exploits, and people followed them in the papers like they would follow, like, Little Orphan Annie serials.
[00:10:23] Speaker A: Right.
The team became known for their daring bank robberies and the famous police shootouts that they had. The couple crime spree lasted several years, leaving a lasting impact on pop culture.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: They were totally romanticized by the media.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: I mean, I can see that, of course. Cute, cute little country couple.
[00:10:47] Speaker B: Ultimately culminating in their ambush and death in 1934 in Bienville Parish, Louisiana. But despite their short lives, Bonnie and Clyde's legacy continues to intrigue and fascinate the public to this day. I'll say that.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: Yeah. 100%. Jennifer.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: Yes, Jill.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: Will you do me a solid and tell me a little bit about the woman behind the man? Tell me a little bit about Miss Bonnie Parker.
[00:11:12] Speaker B: Yeah, this episode really isn't about her. But Clyde wouldn't be Clyde if he didn't have a Bonnie.
[00:11:18] Speaker A: Ain't that the truth? Ain't that the truth for every man? Every one of y'all have a Bonnie.
[00:11:24] Speaker B: Bonnie Elizabeth Parker was born in 1910 in Rowena, Texas. She was the second of three children, and her dad was a bricklayer. But he passed away when Bonnie was just 4 years old.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: Oh, that's sad.
[00:11:38] Speaker B: Yeah. That would leave a mark on any young girl. After his death, her mom moved the family to Cement City, an industrial suburb of West Dallas, where she worked as a seamstress.
[00:11:49] Speaker A: Who knew? This whole time, I thought they were from Louisiana. I had absolutely no clue that we were among their stomping grounds. Like, in a real way, it. And I'm. I Know, for the purposes of the podcast, like, I'm glad we didn't, but, like, that would have been cool to focus our time.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: We always do this. We never. We bumble around, we don't know where we are, then we leave and we're like, holy hell, we could have had so much fun, like going to the actual sites. Do you know what I mean?
[00:12:14] Speaker A: Yes, I know exactly what you mean. We have to do follow up episodes where we go to, like, places, go back and like.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: Yes, like revisiting. Yeah, let's do that on the calendar.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: Sure. Sometime in 2029.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: Okay. All right.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: So Bonnie grew up without a daddy and she was really into poetry. Yeah, nobody cares. Jill. Apparently she was bright and an attention loving child. Now that's interesting.
[00:12:45] Speaker A: You know, I disagree about the poetry because one like her writing the story of Bonnie and Clyde for the newspapers really skyrocketed them into infamous. So she was a notable poetry writer published.
[00:13:00] Speaker B: Well, it skyrocket. Rocketed them into infamy, not intimacy. That's different.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: I mean.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: I mean, who knows? Who knows where it went after that?
[00:13:10] Speaker A: You don't know what my research brought. You don't know where they went, you don't know how they did.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: Maybe they got intimate after that poem. I don't know. But yeah, and she also. This is interesting. She had dreams of becoming an actress.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: Don't we all, though?
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Yeah. I was just gonna say, I wonder if anyone has done a study, a research paper on the number of actresses and aspiring actresses who lost their dads at, like, a young age.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: Oh, my. I was gonna say sociopaths.
Why are you laughing right now?
[00:13:48] Speaker B: I have no idea what you mean by that.
People who became sociopaths because they lost their parent at a young age.
[00:13:55] Speaker A: No, people that are sociopaths, that are actors.
[00:13:59] Speaker B: Oh. Oh.
Well, that took a dark turn. All right. That's another episode. I don't know what to say about that.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: I'm just saying. Well, I do, because they can put on their chameleon. They can put on whatever they want. They can compartmentalize themselves from their behavior and their act and their actions. Yeah.
[00:14:18] Speaker B: Wow. Okay. You've given me something to think about.
[00:14:22] Speaker A: I'm so glad that's what I'm here for.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: During her sophomore year of high school, Bonnie met a man named. Or a boy, I should say named Roy Thornton.
They dropped out of school and got married in 1926 when Bonnie was 15 years old.
[00:14:40] Speaker A: Full on ook. But I also want to say Roy is Bonnie's Rosalind from Romeo and Juliet. You know how Romeo was in love with Rosalind before he met Juliet? And he was like what? Like I thought you were all head over heels. And now you're all head over heels again. Romeo. What are we doing? See a pattern?
[00:15:01] Speaker B: Their marriage was short lived and they never officially divorced. But Bonnie kept wearing her wedding ring until she passed away.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: Interesting. I guess it is cheaper to keep them. Divorces are expensive. What are you gonna do?
[00:15:17] Speaker B: True. Especially during the Prussian. The depression.
[00:15:19] Speaker A: Please, just drive away from mofo. Keep the ring.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: Bonnie and Clyde first met in Texas in January of 1930 when Bonnie was 19 and married to a guy in prison for murder. Roy murdered someone?
[00:15:35] Speaker A: Yeah. She has a type. I don't know.
[00:15:37] Speaker B: Oh my God, Roy. I had no idea. Clyde was 21, he was single, and not long after they hit it off, Clyde got arrested for burglary and he was sent to jail. He managed to escape thanks to good old Bonnie who smuggled a gun into jail for him. But he was caught again and sent back. And then In February of 1932, he was paroled. And just like that, he and Bonnie were back together, driving head first into a life of crime.
[00:16:07] Speaker A: Whoo. So. So I wanted to describe to you one lesser known incident that occurred in Hillsboro, Texas where Clyde Barrow was implicated in a killing during a robbery. And this is noted in mythology as the turning point of where Clyde had a fuck but then lost all fucks.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: Oh, so this is, this is the precipice. This is where all fucks are being lost after this incident.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: All right, so on April 30, 1932, Clyde, along with Raymond Hamilton and Frank Claus, no relation to Sanny, executed a daring robbery on J N Butcher's store near her Hillsborough. They didn't make it to Hillsboro. They went to the store near Hillsboro, oh. Where they expertly overpowered the staff and fled with cash and goods. Jennifer.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: Interesting, interesting, interesting. Again, this was April 30, 1932. So before the, before the incident, Clyde had teamed up with J.N. butcher's son at the auto tops shop. And they ended up becoming pretty good friends. Okay, right.
[00:17:27] Speaker A: They were working there together right?
[00:17:29] Speaker B: Now. The boy, Little Butcher, convinced Clyde that he should actually rob his dad's business because it would be super easy.
What a little.
[00:17:43] Speaker A: I know. Why would he be like, hey, my dad has money. What the hell?
[00:17:47] Speaker B: And at first Clyde was like, you know what that sounds like? Family issues. I don't want to get involved with that. But then, Wrong Jr got into Clyde's head Telling him, you know what? My mom and sister are both disabled. So if anything happens to my dad because of the insurance policies, I'm actually going to inherit all his businesses and all his money.
Okay? So Clyde was like, well, hell, that's kind of a double, right? Not only will I. Will I rob the business, but then my friend here is kind of implying that he's going to be rich and then he can help me out.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: Right? So with this information, Clyde was like, oh, my God, I have to go to the police.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: Oh, very funny.
You know what? You know what? I will say this. If he had, this might have been a. Like, history would have been rewritten.
[00:18:42] Speaker A: Exactly. And as a matter of fact, according to famous author Dick McMahon, he's an author and certified therapist, he believes that this incident that we're describing was the turning point in Clyde's life. Okay, okay, so let me get into it. Let me, Jill, splain the fuck out of what happened.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: All right? You please do. I love when Jill explaining happens.
[00:19:08] Speaker A: Everyone does. Everyone does. They write in, they say, you know what? More Jill splaining. And I'm like, I can do it.
[00:19:13] Speaker B: Let's do ang.
[00:19:13] Speaker A: Keep it lively, keep it lively. So think Clyde, you know, he's laying low. He's limping. After he gets out of prison, he had. He had a hard time. And he's, you know, he tries to make right on some things. He tries to go legit. He's working at the auto top shop, and then Butcher Jr comes in and they become type pals, you know, they're like, hey, bro, what are you doing? What do you have for lunch today? And so he knew Junior's family, right?
[00:19:37] Speaker B: Right.
[00:19:38] Speaker A: So, like, he knew that Junior had a family that had money. Right?
So he was like, all right.
Young Junior gets into his head and is like, will you please just rob my family? So I get the money and then I get the insurance, and everything will be fine and we'll be friends and we'll be rich forever together. So Clyde was like, okay. But he wasn't gonna be the one to do it because he knew his family, and if anything got botched up, he would be, like, the one responsible. So he got to work assembling a crew in an early version of what would become known as the Barrow Gang. So the Barrel Gang didn't even exist at this point. This is pre Barrow Gang. Okay, gotcha. So this is what he came up with. He got this Ted Rogers, Raymond Hamilton, and Johnny Russell and that Frank Young Claus. Young Frank Claus, who again, not no.
[00:20:34] Speaker B: Relation to Santa Claus. Got it.
[00:20:35] Speaker A: No Santa Claus connection. And so they. This team would often get together and roam around the Fifth Ward and they would steal cars and stuff. So this is not the first time that he's worked with these gentlemen.
[00:20:48] Speaker B: Right, so this was Houston. They were in Houston's Fifth Ward.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: Stealing cars, breaking into businesses, and nabbing.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: Small safes, doing what little hoodlums do.
So Clyde knew these guys and he put them together and he was like, let's go scout out Junior's father's establishment and see if there's any way to kind of get the money and run without doing serious damage to Mr. Butcher and the family. Like, he really wasn't in to try to kill the man. He just wanted to get the money and run. Right.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: And he was.
Clyde knew that there was a safe there tucked away in the back, according to Junior.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: And what Clyde did was kind of say to Junior like, yeah, okay, we'll do whatever we have to do to get the safe. But Clyde wasn't counting on anyone dying that night.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: Like, he. It wasn't like, hell yeah, I'm gonna get rich too. He was like, yeah, thanks for the tip on where your dad's safe is.
[00:21:44] Speaker B: Okay, got it, got it.
[00:21:46] Speaker A: Does that make sense?
[00:21:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:48] Speaker A: Okay. So they scouted out the establishment, having seen the safe tucked away during their visits with the auto body shop crew. So Clyde, Raymond, and Frank decided to make the 60 mile journey to rob the old man. And the plan was set in motion. On April 30, 1932, they hit up Butcher's store near Hillsboro, Texas. And to avoid any recognition that Mr. Barrel would recognize Clyde, Clyde specifically stayed out in the car.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: Mr. Butcher would recognize Clyde?
[00:22:22] Speaker A: Yes, because like I said, the Butcher boy knew the Butcher family.
[00:22:27] Speaker B: Right? They knew Clyde.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: Yeah, they knew Clyde. Clyde was around and about because he worked with his son. And Clyde was like, we're not killing this man. I'm staying in the car. You guys get the safe. This is where it is. Go do your work. Okay, so now this is what you need to know. Mom and Pop Butcher live above the store just outside of Hillsboro. Okay? So they're in their apartment above the store. They're all sleeping. It's close to midnight. And then Frank and Ray start knocking at the door and causing havoc so that someone will wake up and come down to the store. And Mr. Butcher is like, dude, we're sleeping. It's obviously closed. It's close to midnight. And then the hoodlums yell back, we Just need guitar strings, sir. Can we please just get some guitar strings? And then Mr. Butcher's like, dude, no, go away. But they wouldn't go away. So finally, Mr. Butcher agreed to go get up and head downstairs to unlock the shop. So once inside, okay, they got 25 cents worth of guitar strings and handed Mr. Butcher a $10 bill. And he's like, dude, you know goddamn well I don't have that kind of money laying around in the register after hours. Now I got to get my wife up, who is already pissed, by the way, because you guys are banging on the walls to get me down here to get me the combination to the safe. So he's like, ma, Butcher, can you come down and help me with the safe?
So she comes down, she assists with the combination, and as the safe door swings open, a jittery Raymond Hamilton pointing to the gun at the elderly shopkeeper, demanding that he hand over all the contents of the safe. And the butchers are like, no, dude, here's your 25 cents worth of strings. Get out of there. And there was a kerfuffle, and apparently the. The gun went off in the kefuffle, striking Mr. Butcher. Now, O. Butcher lay dead.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: Butcher lay dead. Reports say he reached for a handgun that he kept in his safe just as one of the assailants shot him. The gang fled the scene, of course, with an undisclosed amount of cash, leaving Butcher behind to die.
Today he rests in Parkridge Cemetery in Hillsboro, Texas.
Now, Jill, it's widely believed that Ted Rogers or Ray Hamilton pulled the trigger. Apparently, like you said, there was a kerfuffle, there was some chaos, and it's unclear about who actually did the killing, but. But Butcher's widow identified someone, didn't she?
[00:25:04] Speaker A: She did.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: Who did she identify?
[00:25:07] Speaker A: You tell me. You tell me.
[00:25:08] Speaker B: Butcher's Witter identified the shooters as Clyde and Ray. Right? Which makes sense. She didn't know all these boys. She didn't know all these problems. She knew Clyde. And so when she was questioned, she's like, yeah, Clyde did it. Clyde was there.
[00:25:21] Speaker A: I. In my mind, psychically, I picture, like, the gun going off and her running after the guys and seeing Clyde in the car.
That's what I think. I don't think Clyde ever left the car. I think she ran after them and saw Clyde in the car. And so she didn't know the rest of these, but she's like, that is definitely Clyde Barrow.
[00:25:40] Speaker B: Right?
[00:25:42] Speaker A: So the Butcher shooting is reportedly, like I said, by our author Dick McMan, to be the point where Clyde has zero fucks. And the reason why he had zero fucks is because now he's wanted for murder, whether he did it or not. And there's no way Clyde would go back to prison.
[00:26:01] Speaker B: He did not like prison, did he, Jill?
[00:26:05] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I don't know many who do, to be honest. Other than if you like exercising, getting three meals a day, maybe reading a lot of books.
[00:26:13] Speaker B: Have you seen goodfellas? Yes. They look like they're having a ball cooking in prison, but they're wise guys.
[00:26:20] Speaker A: That's not how prison is for everybody.
[00:26:22] Speaker B: All right, all right. Just saying.
[00:26:24] Speaker A: Okay, can you tell me a little bit about how Clyde got in the pen and why he was so afraid to returning there? Like. Like, we're. No one wants prison, but usually when you're like, I don't want prison, you don't go back to a life of crime. You, like, get on the street. Narrow.
[00:26:39] Speaker B: No. Yeah.
Clyde's time in the penitentiary really left a profound mark on his. His entire person, his psyche, and him physically. Here's how it happened. It was October, 1929, right? And he was in Waco. And the Waco police caught Clyde Barrow along with two other guys, Will Turner and Frank Hardy. And they were at the Roosevelt Hotel, downtown Waco. Interestingly, Clyde had already been arrested in Waco in 1926, three years earlier for trying to steal a car when he was a teenager. Apparently, he spent two days in jail crying after that incident and avoided serious jail time.
[00:27:24] Speaker A: So the police, when they caught up with him again in 1929, they're like, we know you. You're the crybaby from a couple years earlier. Okay, okay, we got you.
Right?
[00:27:34] Speaker B: And so Clyde tried again to pull the same stunt and started crying. He's like, hey, man. Hey, man. You know, like, if you just let me go, I'll never do it again. You know, my mom is going to be so mad at me kind of thing. And he pled with the Chief of Police, Hollis Baron, claiming that it was Turner and Hardy that had picked him up while he was hitchhiking. And he didn't know anything about their crimes or their plans, and he was just a patsy. He was just along for the ride. He was just hitchhiking. He didn't know.
[00:28:05] Speaker A: So. And as a matter of fact, like, you just described this perfectly well for that point. Like, we know that police caught up with Clyde and these guys at the Roosevelt Hotel, but they don't say exactly what the crime was. All they see is, like, there's these hoods and they're like, oh, we know Clyde. And so they pull them in to investigate other crimes. And Clyde's like, what the dude? Like, I don't know these dudes. I don't know these guys.
[00:28:30] Speaker B: Right.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: Like, I'm just. I'm just having dinner here.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: Right. And. And actually they let him go. The police ended up letting him go again.
Fast forward three months and he's in Dallas. And the 20 year old Clyde meets 19 year old Bonnie Parker. And the sparks are flying, I would say. So they have some serious chemistry.
[00:28:52] Speaker A: So because Clyde wanted to impress his darling Bonnie, he was going and trying to be legit, but he was bouncing in between legitimate jobs and also getting in trouble. So in 1930, in March 1930, Chief Barron caught Clyde for five car fets.
[00:29:11] Speaker B: Ooh, he's not talking his way out of this. And two burglaries.
[00:29:15] Speaker A: Yep. Back in Waco. Back in Waco.
So he can't. He can't do the crybaby thing now.
He already got away with crybaby things. Twice.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: Twice. I know.
[00:29:26] Speaker A: Twice.
[00:29:26] Speaker B: He's gonna pay for this. Okay, so there was a trial, and Clyde and two bunnies managed to escape from the county jail.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: Him and two bunnies?
[00:29:40] Speaker B: Clyde and two buddies, two friends, not two bunnies.
And that's when Bonnie sneaked him a gun.
[00:29:49] Speaker A: So that's how they were able to get out. Bonnie comes in with a gun, sneaks it in, and then Clyde and the bunnies get. They turn the gun all the way to Ohio.
They turn the gun, the police onto the gut, they turn the gun on to the officers, and they were able to hop all the way to Ohio.
[00:30:13] Speaker B: But it was there in Ohio that the police caught up with them a week later. Oh, my God. And that. That exploit added another 14 years to the sentence on top of what Clyde was already facing.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: Oh, that's a lot.
[00:30:26] Speaker B: So this time, Clyde ended up being in prison. Specifically the Eastham farm in Texas. The Eastham farm. A farm. Sounds like a lovely place to be in prison.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: I. The fresh air, the shit, the sunshine, the animal smells.
Okay, so this is where things, if they weren't already dark, they're turning darker. Jennifer, tell me about his time in east him.
[00:30:57] Speaker B: Well, it has been described as nightmarish.
He faced quite an ordeal. Clyde was the victim of shocking sexual assault by other inmates.
And in a moment of desperate self defense, he grabbed a pipe and retaliated, delivering crushing blows that ended his tormentor's life. Eek. He beat someone to death with a pipe in prison?
[00:31:32] Speaker A: Yeah. The thing is, Is that Clyde was really little for a man of his time. He was about 56-557-and he was repeatedly being accosted by different people. So when he was walk, like doing his stuff around prison, whether it be working in the yard or working in the laundry, he hid.
Yes, he was getting assaulted, so he hid weapons for himself. So when someone came after him, he had. He knew where he hid the shank or the pipe, and he was able to beat. Beat this guy to death.
[00:32:03] Speaker B: That is very troubling. Like, I don't like Clyde, but nobody, nobody should have that.
[00:32:08] Speaker A: Nobody, nobody, nobody. And again, this is not at a time where we were trying to rehabilitate people in prison. We were trying to punish them. So just like. I mean, this is horrific.
[00:32:20] Speaker B: It is like, truly, this will change a person. This will Change a person 100.
[00:32:26] Speaker A: A person who is already kind of sour, they turn straight on rotten after this for sure.
[00:32:30] Speaker B: Now if. If the sexual assaults and that abuse wasn't enough, Clyde also had the backbreaking labor of working in the cotton fields.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: And again, when you're working these assignments, you are not closely watched or protected by guards.
So just being in the fields to work the labor is hard enough, but you're also really vulnerable to any kind of assault.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: So he went to some extreme lengths and asked a fellow inmate to amputate two of his toes so that he wouldn't have to work the cotton detail.
Wow, that's desperate. That is desperate.
[00:33:17] Speaker A: That is desperate. But I wish he would have waited for about two days because his mom this whole time when he was in jail, because again, he's a little guy. She was writing and pleading and asked for sympathy and campaigned the governor, Ross Sterling of Texas, to grant an early release for February. Clyde.
[00:33:41] Speaker B: Yeah, for February of 1932. But he didn't wait, did he?
[00:33:45] Speaker A: Nope. He got two toes off.
[00:33:47] Speaker B: I don't think five six is that extraordinarily small in that time. I think that's about average.
Just saying. You don't make him out to be like, you know, a short, like, little person. He wasn't. 56 was about average.
[00:34:01] Speaker A: You think so?
[00:34:01] Speaker B: I do. I mean, it's. He's, you know, he would be small to us.
[00:34:07] Speaker A: My understanding is that he was smaller for the time, but let me Google it.
[00:34:11] Speaker B: But you and I are bigger for.
[00:34:14] Speaker A: Let me see if he was. He's about. I'm about three Clydes. Three Clydes. You're definitely three Clydes and a fourth of a Bonnie. I can do that.
[00:34:23] Speaker B: That sounds right.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: He was 5, 7.
[00:34:26] Speaker B: These days because I haven't been working out. I think I'm about 4 Clydes in a Bonnie, but I'm really hard to drop the Bonnie. I'm working on dropping a Bonnie.
All right, should we continue on the.
[00:34:39] Speaker A: Average height of men in 1932. 32.
[00:34:44] Speaker B: In the United States? 68 inches.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: 68 inches. Do the math.
[00:34:53] Speaker B: Divided by 12.
[00:34:55] Speaker A: 5, 6. So, yeah, see? Yeah, you're right, Jennifer.
[00:35:00] Speaker B: But he must have been slight, right? He must have been, for some reason an attractive target for whatever.
[00:35:07] Speaker A: He was a pretty looking man.
[00:35:09] Speaker B: I have to look at a picture. I. I can just think of Warren Beatty in my head.
[00:35:14] Speaker A: That's enough.
[00:35:16] Speaker B: Anyway, okay, so Clyde emerged from prison as a hardened criminal and a bitter, bitter man. His sister Marie was quoted as saying something terrible must have happened to him in prison because he wasn't the same person when he got out.
You like that?
[00:35:36] Speaker A: I do.
[00:35:36] Speaker B: I only have one voice, that's all.
[00:35:39] Speaker A: No, you don't. I like that.
[00:35:40] Speaker B: Fellow inmate Ralph Full Waltz observed that he witnessed Clyde transform. Quote.
[00:35:47] Speaker A: What? No.
[00:35:48] Speaker B: Do the voice from a school boy to a rattlesnake.
[00:35:54] Speaker A: See, that was great. Thank you. Schoolboy.
[00:35:57] Speaker B: To a rattlesnake. Yeah. Wow.
Wow. And so it. Jill, it was two months after his release in April 1932 that Clyde was involved in that Hillsborough robbery that we talked about that went bad where Mr. Butcher was.
[00:36:15] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:36:16] Speaker B: And this event marked an acceleration in his, his ruthlessness, in his, his criminal career and changed the entire trajectory of.
[00:36:26] Speaker A: His life and I would say American history.
[00:36:31] Speaker B: I don't think that's overstating it.
[00:36:33] Speaker A: I really don't. Do you? Are you being sarcastic? Because I really don't.
Okay. In August 1932, a notorious gang found themselves at the center of a tragic incident when they were implicated in the death of a law enforcement officer, Moore in Atoka, Oklahoma. Tell me a little bit about this incident now. Again, this is like a couple weeks after he's released, right?
[00:37:02] Speaker B: Well, hold on, hold on a second. Let's get this right. See, this is where the timeline is a little off.
[00:37:09] Speaker A: This is where. This is just a couple weeks after the Butcher murder. This is an example of the acceleration of his crimes. Jennifer, take me. August 1932. Hit me up on the details.
[00:37:23] Speaker B: Okay, here's what happened. Eugene Capel Moore was an officer of the law in Aoka County Sheriff's Office. And he was at a dance with Sheriff Maxwell at an outdoor pavilion in Stringtown, Oklahoma.
[00:37:40] Speaker A: I just want to preface that they were not a couple Together. They were there as men working. Yes, yes. Okay.
[00:37:49] Speaker B: Got it. And when they got.
[00:37:51] Speaker A: Not that there would have been anything wrong with them being a couple. I just want to just give you the.
[00:37:55] Speaker B: Well, I think they would have made a handsome couple.
Now, when they got there, they spotted a suspicious car parked behind the bandstand, and there were two guys inside.
So, I mean, you know what?
That's. That's suspicious, right? Like, they're. They're up to no good. If two guys are sitting in a car outside the bandstand, like, what are you up to? You know what I'm saying? Not to mention, this is. This is during the prohibition.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: Oh, I see. So they're probably thinking they're swigging on something.
[00:38:25] Speaker B: Something. Right. So they approached the vehicle and found Wa Wa. An open container of whiskey.
And that's all they needed.
[00:38:35] Speaker A: That's all they needed.
[00:38:36] Speaker B: Sheriff Maxwell told the men, you can consider yourselves under arrest, not realizing that who he was talking to was actually Clyde Barrow and Raymond Hamilton, both wanted for murder.
[00:38:52] Speaker A: Oh, my God. He stumbled on the wrong two.
[00:38:55] Speaker B: Out of nowhere, Barrow and Hamilton started shooting, injuring Sheriff Maxwell and fatally shooting Deputy Moore before he could even pull his weapon. It was a tragic loss. Deputy Moore left behind a wife and three kids.
Today he's buried at Rose Hill Cemetery in Bryan County, Oklahoma.
[00:39:17] Speaker A: Now, just a couple months later.
[00:39:21] Speaker B: Yeah. In October.
[00:39:23] Speaker A: Yep. The gang struck again, this time targeting.
[00:39:26] Speaker B: Little's Grocery Store in Sherman, Texas.
[00:39:30] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:39:31] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. This time, they disguised themselves as customers, and they were trying to purchase meat and eggs. But it turned into a heist. They brandished a pistol and confronted the store employees, Howard hall and Homer Glaze, demanding access to the cash register.
In a display of remarkable bravery, Howard hall resisted the assailants, engaging in a fierce struggle.
Wow. That is brave.
[00:40:01] Speaker A: 100%.
[00:40:02] Speaker B: I would have been like, here you go. Take the whole.
[00:40:05] Speaker A: I know. Exactly.
[00:40:06] Speaker B: And poor Howard. Poor brave Howard tragically was shot three times, succumbed to his injuries, and died at the local hospital.
Homer Glaze narrowly escaped a similar fate when the shooter's gun jammed. Thank God the gun jammed. The gang made off with a mere $50, leaving the community in shock.
[00:40:30] Speaker A: What really happened is Little's grocery stores were getting ready to close for the day, so Mr. Little went through the cash register and only left what you would need to start the next day. So he only left, like, $60 in there.
[00:40:43] Speaker B: That makes sense.
[00:40:44] Speaker A: But nevertheless, at the last minute, before the doors closed, Clyde and his friend came in and was like, give me everything in the register. And this is a beloved part of the community, like the grocery store. Mr. So people were like, no. So that's when you know, we have our hero, Howard hall step up and was trying to defend Mr. Little Store even though there wasn't a whole lot in the register. And that's how he died.
[00:41:07] Speaker B: So number one, that is poor planning on Clyde Barrow's part and his comrade Hamilton. Poor planning. You should know not to hit up something right before close. Secondly, that was very good. Jill splaining. That Jill splaining was to the point, not a lot of rambling. You're getting better.
[00:41:27] Speaker A: Do you think I ramble?
[00:41:29] Speaker B: Let's continue then. In late 1932, Bonnie and Clyde together hit the road with their new gang.
And the following year, In March of 1933, the excitement ramped up when Buck Barrow, Clyde's brother, was granted full pardon from Texas State Prison and joined the Barrow Gang, bringing along his wife Blanche for the wild ride. On Christmas Day 1932, the newly minted Barrow Gang was tied to the murder of a man named Doyle Johnson in Temple, Texas. Would you like me to tell you about that?
[00:42:08] Speaker A: I'm just waiting on pins and needles. Tell me everything.
[00:42:10] Speaker B: Well, earlier that month, they had a new recruit join them, a 16 year old kid named William Daniel or W.D. jones from Dallas. And while in Temple, Jones spotted a shiny new car parked on 13th street with the keys still in the ignition. Why, why do you leave your nice car on the street with your keys in the ignition?
[00:42:33] Speaker A: This is small town country, you know what I'm saying? Like I, when I go up to Banfield store Chad's, like, why do you like your, why do you lock your car?
[00:42:41] Speaker B: Well, now you know, because there could be a W.D. jones nearby.
[00:42:44] Speaker A: And you know what, W.D. jones, fuck you. You are a part of a gang. You just don't see a car that you like and get in and be like, I'm going to take it. You have a conversation and be like, does this fit our activities today? Like, you know what I mean? Like, just feel like it's selfish and it caused such chaos and loss of life.
[00:42:59] Speaker B: Hmm. Well, good point. Because WD did not consult the rest of the gang. He simply hopped in and tried to start the car, but the weather wasn't on his side and the car wouldn't turn over. And that's when Clyde Barrow showed up to lend a hand to WD Meanwhile.
[00:43:17] Speaker A: Probably why the keys were still in the ignition, because it's like, who the hell's gonna take his Car? Yeah.
[00:43:22] Speaker B: Meanwhile, Doyle Johnson, the car's owner, 27 years old, had just finished a meal and was taking a nap. But he was jolted awake because his family was screaming outside, hey, Doyle, someone's trying to steal your car.
So Doyle rushed out to check on his vehicle and found Clyde Barrow trying to steal his car with WD So Johnson grabbed Barrow to stop him and shouted for his family to call the police. Barrow yelled, telling him, get back or I'll kill you. And in the chaos, Johnson was shot in the neck. He collapsed, and it was Bonnie who quickly rounded up Clyde and WD in their fast Ford V8 and sped them all away, leaving Doyle Johnson behind, succumbing to his injuries and passing away the next day, leaving a young wife and infant son.
[00:44:12] Speaker A: That's a hell of a thing on Christmas Day.
[00:44:15] Speaker B: See? Not so glamorous, right? I mean, so glamorous. Horrible.
Hope y'all are listening to this. The gang continued a wild spree of bold robberies making national headlines, cleverly dodging law enforcement during several different encounters. But as they ramped up their criminal activities, police were getting more and more determined to catch them.
On July 29th of 1933, things took a turn when Buck Barrow was fatally shot during a shootout with police in Iowa. And Blanche was arrested.
Meanwhile, Bonnie and Clyde, still on the run together.
On November 22, 1933, the Sheriff of Dallas and his deputies tried to set a trap for the infamous duo Bonnie and Clyde near Grand Prairie, Texas. But, Jill, guess what?
[00:45:11] Speaker A: Tell me what.
[00:45:13] Speaker B: They managed to escape the gunfire.
They ended up. They ended up holding up an attorney on the highway and stealing his car, which they later ditched in Miami, Oklahoma. Jesus, they were slippery. Give them that.
[00:45:29] Speaker A: So fast forward a month, we're back. December. This time, 1933. Tell me.
[00:45:34] Speaker B: Bonnie and Clyde pulled off another robbery against a citizen in Shreveport, Louisiana.
[00:45:40] Speaker A: My God.
[00:45:41] Speaker B: On January 16, 1934, five prisoners, including Raymond Hamilton. We know that name. He was one of the thugs in the gang. Raymond Hamilton, who was serving a whopping 200 years, made a daring ESC escape from East State Prison Farm in Waldo, Texas.
[00:46:01] Speaker A: Shut your mouth. Shut your mouth.
[00:46:03] Speaker B: That's Clyde's prison farm.
[00:46:05] Speaker A: That's Clyde's prison farm.
[00:46:07] Speaker B: Raymond escaped.
[00:46:08] Speaker A: Raymond. How did Raymond escape?
[00:46:11] Speaker B: You want me to tell you? You want me to Jen Splain?
[00:46:14] Speaker A: Yeah, go ahead. Give it a gensplaining.
[00:46:17] Speaker B: Well, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were the masterminds behind it all.
[00:46:23] Speaker A: Shut your trap right now.
[00:46:26] Speaker B: They made it possible the prisoners had automatic rifles and they had stashed them In a ditch. And during the getaway, they ended up shooting two of the guards. And they made their escape while Barrow covered them with machine gun fire.
That must have been a sight that.
[00:46:47] Speaker A: I can't believe. They left that out of the movie.
[00:46:50] Speaker B: So they shot. In the escape, a prison guard was shot who died later in the hospital.
[00:46:58] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:46:59] Speaker B: And that really pissed off all the police and guards who reportedly promised that all persons involved in the breakout would be hunted down and killed.
[00:47:11] Speaker A: So this attack put the full power of not only Texas, but the federal government in the manhunt of Bonnie and Clyde.
[00:47:20] Speaker B: Yep.
Among the escapees that day was Henry Methven of Louisiana. Now, he's going to be important later, so remember that name. Methven.
[00:47:32] Speaker A: Henry.
[00:47:32] Speaker B: Like meth and wine. Like a hell of a night. Henry Meth.
[00:47:37] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:47:37] Speaker B: A Louisiana. Okay. He was one of the escapees. And he would prove very pivotal in the story of Bonnie and Clyde. In just a few minutes, April 1, Jill, 1934, Bonnie and Clyde ran into a couple of young highway patrolmen. Oh. Near Grapevine, Texas. This I hate. I hate this.
[00:47:59] Speaker A: What's crazy is that Grapevine is where the Great Wolf Lodge was. So we were like, right there. Shut up.
[00:48:06] Speaker B: We could have totally gone to the site where this happened.
Yes, yes.
[00:48:11] Speaker A: Thinking about like, like, this is why it's so crazy. It's so built up today.
It's so built up. It look. It's like a very large suburb of Dallas. So to think of these, like, highway patrolmen and these like, isolated places, they no longer exist. We were riding around.
[00:48:31] Speaker B: We were riding water slides in the same place where Bonnie and Clyde killed these two officers before they even had a chance to pull their guns.
[00:48:40] Speaker A: And just a few days later. Yep.
[00:48:43] Speaker B: On April 6, 1934, they again fatally wounded a constable in Miami, Oklahoma.
Oh, my God. And let's not forget, they also abducted and hurt and injured a police chief during their wild crime spree. I am so over these two.
[00:49:01] Speaker A: They just went buck wild. And now it seems like they're targeting not banks anymore for money. But it feels like they're really. Yes. Going after the cops in the same way the cops are going after them. So if, like, a cop looks at them wrong instead of playing it off and being like, I ain't no clad barrel, they're just like. And shooting them.
[00:49:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. But time is running out for Bonnie and Clyde. On April 13, 1934, an FBI agent stumbled upon some information that put Bonnie and Clyde in a remote area near the home of The Methvens. Remember Henry Methven?
[00:49:40] Speaker A: He's the hell of the night. He's the meth and the wine, right?
[00:49:44] Speaker B: Uh huh. And they kind of figured out that Bonnie and Clyde are going back and forth from Texas to Louisiana, from Texas to Louisiana. So they figured out their pattern of movement. And you know what? The FBI finally starts collaborating with local law enforcement in Louisiana and Texas to combine forces to get this deadly duo.
And you know what? Bonnie and Klein knew this. They knew that local law enforcement agencies and state authorities weren't communicating. So they could go from one state to the other and ride the state lines and be successful for a long time.
[00:50:22] Speaker A: And they were successful for about two, maybe two and a half years.
[00:50:27] Speaker B: So it came to light that the couple, Bonnie and Clyde, along with some folks from the Methven family, were at a party in Black Lake, Louisiana, on the night of May 21, 1934. And they are expected to be back real soon.
So.
[00:50:45] Speaker A: So now, the first time in this whole manhunt, the police know where Bonnie and Clyde are going to be before they get there. So they take full advantage of this information. And what do they come up with?
[00:51:00] Speaker B: They set a trap.
Former Texas Rangers captain Frank Haim kicked things off on February 12th when he started tracking the gang and quickly took charge of the posse. On May 23, 1934, Clyde Barrow, one of America's most wanted men, casually parked his stolen Ford at Ma Canfield's Cafe and hobbled inside to order some breakfast.
Depending on who you ask, he either ordered burgers, a BLT, or a fried baloney sandwich.
Numerous onlookers.
[00:51:42] Speaker A: You can't go wrong with either.
[00:51:44] Speaker B: Well, burgers, a BLT, or fried baloney. What do you think? What would you.
[00:51:48] Speaker A: If.
[00:51:48] Speaker B: If that was on the menu, what would you get?
[00:51:52] Speaker A: It really depends on my mood because I do enjoy a baloney sand BLT all the way.
[00:51:57] Speaker B: Bologna sandwich.
[00:51:58] Speaker A: I eat bologna sandwich is trash meat.
[00:52:02] Speaker B: That is like the lowest of the low in terms of.
[00:52:05] Speaker A: I am going to forget you've ever said that.
[00:52:08] Speaker B: Right there above head cheese.
[00:52:10] Speaker A: Oh my God. That was the nastiest thing you could have ever said to me right now.
[00:52:15] Speaker B: Pink head cheese. It's pink head cheese.
[00:52:19] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[00:52:19] Speaker B: What part of the animal. Which animal? Nobody knows.
[00:52:21] Speaker A: I don't want to know. That's the. That's the greatness of it. That's the greatness of it. I don't have to know where the fuck that came from. I can just eat it with Kraft cheese and be happy.
[00:52:31] Speaker B: No, no, you you go with the blt. The BLT is the right answer. I can't believe I have to explain this.
[00:52:36] Speaker A: Maybe for breakfast, but for dinner, I would go hamburger.
[00:52:40] Speaker B: He hobbled inside to order breakfast, according to your outline.
[00:52:45] Speaker A: I'm just saying don't be mean to the hamburger or the baloney.
[00:52:52] Speaker B: Anyway, numerous onlookers in the cafe recognized him at once. I mean, at this point, Jill, his. His face and image are all over the papers.
[00:53:02] Speaker A: Everywhere, everywhere.
[00:53:03] Speaker B: And he just like hobbles into a cafe. What the hell is he thinking? Anyway, he got the sandwiches and the mystery sandwiches before limping back to his car and handing one to his companion, Bonnie, also among the US Most wanted.
[00:53:21] Speaker A: Why was she still in the car? Why didn't she get up and get her ass her own? So she could have picked. So they didn't have to fight about it.
[00:53:26] Speaker B: Yeah, well, apparently she was wounded and she could barely walk. I did not know this and I've seen the movie a lot of times. I did not know this, but apparently Jill. About nine months prior, Clyde had crashed a stolen vehicle into a river and the battery acid splashed onto Bonnie's leg.
Now, apparently, acid can do a number on the human body and the. The two of them, without medical assistance, managed to prevent her leg from being completely eaten off by using baking soda. Can we just stop right here for a minute?
Shout out to baking soda.
[00:54:10] Speaker A: I mean, what can it do? Take stains out of clothes. Saves the leg.
[00:54:15] Speaker B: Takes the odors out of your refrigerator.
[00:54:18] Speaker A: Yes. So true.
[00:54:18] Speaker B: Whitens your teeth.
[00:54:20] Speaker A: Whitens your teeth.
[00:54:21] Speaker B: Yes. And keeps your leg from falling off from battery acid.
[00:54:26] Speaker A: I think that everyone should keep arm and hammer. And yes, I'm saying arm and hammer. They're not a sponsor.
[00:54:31] Speaker B: But. But we're open.
[00:54:33] Speaker A: We're open. We're open. We can. We can have talks offline.
Arm and hammer in the car, in the bathroom, in the refrigerator, at your laundry station.
[00:54:42] Speaker B: And you bake with it. It keeps your muffins fluffy.
Anyway, baking.
So she rubbed some baking soda on her leg.
[00:54:53] Speaker A: And can you imagine that amount of pain?
Knock me out for that. Strangle the life out of me before you start doing that.
[00:55:00] Speaker B: The battery acid ate her leg away. Down to the bone.
[00:55:05] Speaker A: Nope.
[00:55:07] Speaker B: So as a result, she actually. She couldn't walk at all. She had to hop around.
[00:55:11] Speaker A: And so she was like, clyde, get me some fried bolognaise. I tell you what, it is. Breakfast. I'm into it.
[00:55:18] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure she had the blt.
So Clyde often had to carry her. And he's like, you Know what? I'm not carrying your ass into the cafe. You can just sit here and I'll get you a sandwich. And she was probably like, don't give me the bologna. Bologna.
[00:55:32] Speaker A: She was like, hey, Jeff. She's like, I definitely want the baloney. If you bring me anything back, you're gonna have to carry my ass in for an exchange.
[00:55:41] Speaker B: So Clyde comes back in the car with the sandwiches.
And as he's pulling out of the parking lot, Bonnie took a few bites of her sandwich before wrapping the remainder in the napkin.
[00:55:55] Speaker A: That's how you know it was the blt. She's like, I can't finish this right now.
[00:55:58] Speaker B: I hate dainty eaters. I hate it when you do that. That's Ozempic. Ozempic does that. I'm not even going to talk about any anymore.
[00:56:05] Speaker A: Do you remember my hamburger in the car that was all sweaty and you were all resentful because you offered me.
[00:56:11] Speaker B: Some of a sweaty ass hamburger because.
[00:56:12] Speaker A: I was being kind.
[00:56:13] Speaker B: Anyway, moments later. Moments later, they're hurling down the highway at 60 miles an hour in a stolen car. And as they cruised along, oh, they stopped. And they slow down because, Jill, they spot a truck that seems to be broken down. And not only is it a familiar truck, the driver standing beside it, they know him. And they recognize the driver and the truck. It was Ivy Methven, whose son Henry was a member of the gang. It's Henry's daddy. Daddy Meth.
[00:56:50] Speaker A: You know the code. You gotta stop and be like, do you want some of this blt, Right?
[00:56:57] Speaker B: So however, they didn't know that Ivy, he really didn't need assistance. His truck did not really break down. You see, Ivy was part of the FBI's trap to capture Bonnie and Clyde.
[00:57:17] Speaker A: How crazy. Tell me what happened.
[00:57:21] Speaker B: Well, as soon as Bonnie and Clyde slowed down, started, like, rolling down the windows to talk to Ivy, all of a sudden, six armed police officers jump out of the woods and open fire at Bonnie and Clyde and the sandwich. And it wasn't just a hail of bullets. It was like a blizzard. Like 167 shots turning Clyde's stolen car into a sieve. The windshield had more holes than glass.
[00:57:59] Speaker A: That's insane.
Can you imagine getting that car back? Be like, Here you go, Mrs. Roberts. Here's your car.
[00:58:05] Speaker B: Insurance will take care of it.
[00:58:08] Speaker A: So Texas Ranger Frank Hammer wasn't being subtle about being the mastermind behind this. He was like, everyone, see, take notes. This is what I put together. He walked over to the passenger side where Bonnie was sprawled out and her half eaten sandwich still in her hand. And he shot her at point blank range just to make sure she was dead. You know what? Definitely gone.
[00:58:29] Speaker B: There's no reason for that. There really is. No reason. That makes me angry, too.
[00:58:34] Speaker A: Because he wasted the sandwich.
[00:58:35] Speaker B: Because he. Well, Bonnie wasted the sandwich because she was a dainty eater and she only took two bites. Had she eaten the whole thing, it would not have been wasted. I don't put that on him. I'm saying she was gone already. And just to add insult, he, like, shoots her in the head. She's clear. She. 167 shots. The car is Swiss cheese. She's gone. Dude, you don't need to shoot.
[00:58:55] Speaker A: We know you have a big.
[00:58:56] Speaker B: We know, right?
[00:58:57] Speaker A: You know you have a big penis.
[00:58:59] Speaker B: You have a big penis. And.
[00:59:00] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you for your service. You and your big penis. She's dead. Thank you.
[00:59:06] Speaker B: Yeah. He didn't shoot Clyde in the head.
[00:59:09] Speaker A: No, it was something. It's such a. It's such a. Like a weird, masculine, like. It's so strange posturing.
[00:59:16] Speaker B: You know what I mean?
[00:59:17] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:59:18] Speaker B: Like go that extra mile just to desecrate her body even more.
[00:59:22] Speaker A: Screw you. Exactly.
[00:59:23] Speaker B: You're wrong, too.
[00:59:24] Speaker A: So bizarre. Yeah. Frank, did you get counseling? Cuz I think someone needs to tell your mama. And you need a doctor.
[00:59:31] Speaker B: By the time Clyde and Bonnie met their end in Louisiana in May 1934, they had built up quite a reputation.
And their gang was thought to be behind a whole bunch of crimes. Murders, kidnappings, robberies, car thefts and burglaries.
And during their brief crime spree, because really, it only lasted a couple years, Clyde and Bonnie were also linked to the deaths of at least nine law enforcement officers, bringing their confirmed murder count confirmed. To a chilling 12.
Bonnie and Clyde wanted to be buried side by side. I think she mentions that in that poem that she wrote.
[01:00:13] Speaker A: Yes, yes, she does, but continue.
[01:00:16] Speaker B: But her family was like, yeah, no, that's not happening. Like, I know she made some bad choices, but she's not going to be next to Clyde Barrow for eternity. So they said, hell no. And Bonnie's mom brought her home for a funeral.
[01:00:31] Speaker A: Mm. So she separated. She separated him.
[01:00:35] Speaker B: She separated.
[01:00:35] Speaker A: Like, enough of this. She. To be. Truth be told, Mama Parker did not like Clyde to begin with. So she was like, hell to the no. If it has anything to do with me, she is no longer going to be associated with this man. Which, spoiler alert, that doesn't happen. Like, she's always. She's always associated.
Yeah, sorry.
[01:00:54] Speaker B: You can't talk about Bonnie without. And Clyde. You can't even. It's even hard to say.
[01:00:59] Speaker A: You have to say and Clyde, like, improvised. Bonnie.
[01:01:02] Speaker B: Bonnie and Clyde.
[01:01:04] Speaker A: And Clyde. And then what happened was.
[01:01:06] Speaker B: Right, exactly. But Mrs. Parker wanted to have, like, this quiet ceremony for Bonnie's funeral, but 2,000 people just showed up.
[01:01:18] Speaker A: Wow.
[01:01:18] Speaker B: Yeah, 2,000 people. So it was. It was even hard for the family to get her body to her grave. There was so many crowds. There was a mob around this event. Interesting.
[01:01:30] Speaker A: The service was held on May 26, and Allan Campbell remembered getting flowers from everywhere. And Allan Campbell was the one who was like, the floor. The funeral director.
[01:01:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[01:01:42] Speaker A: He said that Bonnie got flowers from Pretty Boy Floyd, Bob D. Or John Dillinger.
[01:01:51] Speaker B: So the famous gangsters. Famous, famous gangsters from the Depression era sent flowers to Bonnie Parker.
[01:02:00] Speaker A: Not only that. Not only that, but the biggest floral arrangement was attributed to the newspaper boys out of Dallas.
[01:02:07] Speaker B: Shut up.
[01:02:08] Speaker A: Since, swear to God, since Bonnie and Clyde's story had gone, like, national, they made $500,000 for the newspapers.
[01:02:14] Speaker B: No, no, no, no, no. They sold 500,000 newspapers in the city.
[01:02:18] Speaker A: Yeah, what she said.
[01:02:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:02:21] Speaker A: Yeah. So they were all appreciative.
[01:02:23] Speaker B: They're like, that's kind of up. That is up.
[01:02:27] Speaker A: That's almost like that's 100% up. That's. That's. That's cold hearted. Dallas News, boys. Okay. Bonnie was buried in Fish Trap cemetery. But in 1945, they moved her remains to the new Crown Hill Cemetery in Dallas. We were right fraking there. Talk about missing the mark. Okay.
[01:02:47] Speaker B: And Barrow, he was able to have a more private funeral on May 25. And he was laid to rest in Western Heights Cemetery in Dallas alongside his brother Marvin. His brother Marvin was that Buck?
[01:03:02] Speaker A: I guess. I believe so.
[01:03:04] Speaker B: The Barrow brothers share a single granite marker bearing their names and an epitaph chosen by Clyde.
Gone but not forgotten.
[01:03:15] Speaker A: That's ominous, considering he's an armed murderer. That was out of control.
[01:03:21] Speaker B: Wow. I mean, it's an understatement, but it's also, like, loose enough to go either way. Like, forgotten. Not forgotten in a good way, or not forgotten in, like, an infamous murderous way? The last one. The last one.
Oh, man, Jill, I feel like I've been through it today. That's a lot of crime.
[01:03:43] Speaker A: I just want to circle back.
[01:03:45] Speaker B: Please.
[01:03:45] Speaker A: The turning point. Let's take a step.
[01:03:47] Speaker B: To Butcher's murder.
[01:03:49] Speaker A: Yes, to Butcher's murder. According to research, it was Butcher's son who started the chain of events that, according to Dick McMachin, McMatchen, which is.
[01:04:02] Speaker B: We're saying it wrong. It's like Mahon McMahon McMahon. I don't know.
[01:04:08] Speaker A: According to the author, Dick, who is a therapist, said that you could attribute the severe change of behavior that Clyde went from, you know, a two bit crook to a hardened murderer monster. Based on the event at Butcher's service station outside of Hillsboro.
[01:04:29] Speaker B: I can see that. I can see that although Clyde was.
[01:04:32] Speaker A: In the card, he was the person who has claimed to have murdered J.N. butcher.
[01:04:38] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:04:39] Speaker A: So Clyde was gonna go to jail regardless, right after that night. He was gonna go to jail regardless, so he didn't have any fucks left to give. So he started escalating his crime spree to get enough cash to attack the penitentiary. That didn't protect him from sexual assaults and the experience he had in jail, but also he had enough means when he did attack the penitentiary to get some of his crime associates out.
[01:05:08] Speaker B: So whatever happened to Butcher Jr. Who was like, hey, Clyde, you should rob and kill my dad.
[01:05:15] Speaker A: I know, I was curious about this. I was like, who is this guy and what happened to him that actually put these series of events in motion?
[01:05:22] Speaker B: So did he die young in prison or like, did he die young in a shootout? Like, what? Or did he die in prison? Like, tell me.
[01:05:30] Speaker A: So Chester Merle Butcher was the son, I believe was the one who talked Clyde into robbing and ultimately killing his dad.
[01:05:38] Speaker B: Right.
[01:05:38] Speaker A: He was born in 1909. He was working 20 years in the auto shop. He died at the age of 70 in Waco after working most most of his life as a mechanic at the service station.
[01:05:49] Speaker B: So he just like went.
[01:05:53] Speaker A: I don't think he went. Right. He just didn't become anything. He didn't inherit shit. His mom and his sister, by the way, were not mentally handicapped. And there was a lot of kids in that family that would have inherited the money.
[01:06:03] Speaker B: Wow. Okay.
[01:06:05] Speaker A: Yeah, he was just a nobody.
[01:06:06] Speaker B: All right.
[01:06:07] Speaker A: This nobody started the chain of events that made Bonnie and Clyde infamous.
[01:06:11] Speaker B: So why are we talking about this today?
[01:06:14] Speaker A: Okay, There is a barrage of information here that I did not know about, including the. Some of the victims and who were. Who was killed by Bonnie and Clyde and the manner in which they died. I did not think. I thought Bonnie and Clyde were just looking for money and they were antagonized by the police and the FBI and the me too.
[01:06:35] Speaker B: Well, that's the way, like the Hollywood depicts the situation.
[01:06:41] Speaker A: And clearly from this information, this is not a Robin Hood kind of situation. This wasn't like the great Depression. They were trying to live. Leave us alone. This was 100% a murder spree with zero fucks about life and honesty and goodness. And really I think it had little to do with money and more to do with the excitement behind the crime.
[01:07:05] Speaker B: 100%. 100%. And a part of them enjoyed the fame, I think.
[01:07:12] Speaker A: 150%. 100 I up your 100% got you 50 more percent.
[01:07:19] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[01:07:21] Speaker A: And yeah, they did.
[01:07:22] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:07:23] Speaker A: And again, I love the movie Bonnie and Clyde. It's one of my favorites. I think it's one of those movies that I can like quote the whole way through. It's one of those for us. It's like a go to movie.
[01:07:33] Speaker B: It really is an excellent movie. It is a well made movie and it's even for its time. Do you know what I mean? It was pivotal in changing the way that movies were made.
[01:07:44] Speaker A: I would say the only thing that is more shocking about the crimes that we uncovered is to put into context these ages.
When I look, when I recall the movie, I'm not thinking 20 and 22 year old.
[01:08:01] Speaker B: Oh yeah.
[01:08:01] Speaker A: I'm thinking like the. I mean in reality, Bonnie was 19. Yeah. When she met, they were just like their brains hasn't fully developed yet. No, I'm serious.
[01:08:12] Speaker B: You're right. They were kids.
[01:08:14] Speaker A: They were 100% kids. Wow. I mean that's a good. Another point to put in perspective. Like These are like 20, 22 year olds, right?
[01:08:22] Speaker B: It's like Romeo and Juliet. They get like 30 year olds to play Romeo and Juliet.
[01:08:28] Speaker A: No, these are. These are really just kind of like just on the cups of being adults.
[01:08:32] Speaker B: Wow. Wow. Okay, so Hits.
[01:08:36] Speaker A: No. Voiceless. Voiceless. Jen.
[01:08:39] Speaker B: Voiceless. Who's our voiceless?
[01:08:41] Speaker A: Definitely John Napoleon. Butcher.
[01:08:44] Speaker B: J and Butcher.
[01:08:45] Speaker A: And Butcher.
[01:08:46] Speaker B: You know what, Jill, I gotta say what a nice guy because if someone woke me up in the middle of the night for some guitar strings and would not let me sleep and kept ringing my bell, I would call the cops. I don't care who it was like, agreed. Not okay. What a nice guy to be like, okay, I'll come downstairs in the middle of the night and sell you some guitar strings.
[01:09:07] Speaker A: And again, he had a gun. All he had to do was like say, be like, I'm going to shoot your ass if you don't get out of here. You know what I'm saying?
[01:09:13] Speaker B: Nice guy deserves a voice.
[01:09:16] Speaker A: What about the sheriff's deputy that got killed when he was just checking in on the car to see like, what are you guys doing behind the bandstand? Like, that's a terrible story. I knew nothing about.
[01:09:26] Speaker B: Well, all of these people of the law, these men, these young men and older men of the law who are just, like, doing their job and unwittingly come across Clyde and Bonnie and get shot for no reason.
[01:09:42] Speaker A: What about the grocery workers like Howard hall and that poor John Doyle? That was just like, my car didn't start. I left it outside.
Like, that's like, just random people. And that goes 100% against the Robin and.
[01:09:58] Speaker B: Robin and hood.
[01:10:00] Speaker A: Yeah, the Robin and hood image.
[01:10:01] Speaker B: They're more hood than Robin.
[01:10:03] Speaker A: Exactly, Exactly. They weren't trying to steal from the rich and give to the poor. They were all about just themselves and what they wanted on a whim.
[01:10:11] Speaker B: You got it.
Okay, hits.
[01:10:15] Speaker A: Let's go over our hits. Yes.
[01:10:17] Speaker B: I mean, I just can't believe that Bonnie and Clyde were in our heads when we were in Grapevine, Texas. And when we stopped at Hillsboro and we were talking about Waco, we were in Dallas.
[01:10:30] Speaker A: We were talking about Bonnie and Clyde when we were still in Arkansas.
[01:10:33] Speaker B: Wow.
[01:10:34] Speaker A: You know what I mean? Like, they had no idea.
Very disappointed.
[01:10:40] Speaker B: And we stopped. We were in so many locations that have a direct. A direct part of their story. We were in stomping grounds. It makes a lot of sense now, but then it made no kind of sense.
[01:10:52] Speaker A: And to have, like, we were in Arkansas when we like, oh, we should go see where they da da da da da da da. And they were. And we were like, no, that's like, two hours out of the way. But the reality is, if we would have done the story notes, then, if we would have looked into it, then, like, our whole trip in Hillsboro and in Dallas and Grapevine would have been for naught, and we wouldn't have this episode. So I appreciate us being ignorant, but I also want to say we missed an opportunity. Now we have to go back to Dallas.
[01:11:22] Speaker B: Right. And can I just say that I went to the bathroom in a service station outside Hillsboro.
[01:11:28] Speaker A: Not just went to the bathroom to demanded, like, put your foot down. Like, we need to stop now. And I'm like, really, bitch? Because we're like, we're almost to town.
[01:11:36] Speaker B: Almost there, when the turning point. The incident that was the turning point occurred at a service station outside Hillsboro. Like, Mike, no. Are you kidding me right now?
[01:11:48] Speaker A: That, I mean, so synchronicitous and really confirmed that this was our story.
[01:11:54] Speaker B: For sure. For sure. The churches and for churches.
[01:11:58] Speaker A: Yes, yes. Because, I mean, because we in the car were talking about Bonnie and Clyde. We didn't give any fucks about their victims. No, we were talking about their victims, the infamous. The infamy that they lived in.
[01:12:13] Speaker B: Right. But for whom did the bell toll? We didn't know.
[01:12:17] Speaker A: Like, we didn't know.
[01:12:18] Speaker B: We didn't know. Right. Also, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty.
[01:12:23] Speaker A: I have my theories on that.
[01:12:25] Speaker B: I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is Clyde Barrow wanted to be free. Like, they were constantly on the run to be free.
[01:12:32] Speaker A: And for me, the first thing that came into mind was property insurance because of Butcher.
[01:12:38] Speaker B: Butcher talking about his dad because a.
[01:12:41] Speaker A: Butcher talking about his dad because the banks have insurance. So. Liberty, Liberty, Liberty.
[01:12:47] Speaker B: And of course, being drawn to the courthouse and bank robbers and robberies and famous people from Hillsboro.
[01:12:53] Speaker A: Come on, Jennifer, Jennifer, I have to tell you something.
[01:12:56] Speaker B: Oh, tell me. Tell me.
[01:12:57] Speaker A: Okay, you. So we're walking around the courthouse, and we're in the middle of Hillsborough, which was on a direct flight path of the April 2024 eclipse. Right. So we're going into these little. These little boutiques in town. I have a picture of you walking in front of the lucrative jewelry business that J and Butcher owned in town.
[01:13:21] Speaker B: I was right there.
[01:13:23] Speaker A: You were across the street, and I have a picture of you where the building where his jewelry shop was. And then I have a picture of you on my side of the street as, like, we were walking past it.
[01:13:32] Speaker B: That is insane.
[01:13:34] Speaker A: If you remember, we're walking and we're at the courthouse, and we're stopping and we're looking because we're using our spideys.
[01:13:40] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:13:41] Speaker A: So it's like we're stopping, we're looking. There's something there that we're not picking up.
[01:13:44] Speaker B: Butcher was reaching out to us. I can't believe it. I can't. That you have a picture of the building that he owned is, like, with. Blows my mind with me in it.
[01:13:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:13:55] Speaker B: I can't even. And then, of course, let's just fast forward to the fact that we were also pulled to Waco, and we had no idea that Clyde had ties in Waco, so.
[01:14:05] Speaker A: Right.
[01:14:06] Speaker B: Let's close this baby up. That was fun. That was a fun ride. I'm disgusted. I'm disgusted at myself for being, like, romanticized, you know, for falling into that trap of romanticizing Bonnie and Clyde because they were just ruthless, selfish, you know, criminals.
[01:14:28] Speaker A: Agreed. But I mean, in all fairness, the only.
The only reason why I knew anything about Bonnie and Clyde and was fascinated by Bonnie and Clyde is because of the amazing acting in the series Bonnie and Clyde with Warren Beatty and Faye.
[01:14:44] Speaker B: Dunaway, the movie from 1967.
[01:14:47] Speaker A: So good. Such a good movie.
[01:14:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:14:49] Speaker A: So it really paints a picture. But the narrative I would, I really believe is a false narrative. And they are more vicious than romantic lovers looking for a fair shake.
[01:15:01] Speaker B: Well said. All right, Jill, shall we tell the people where to find us?
[01:15:06] Speaker A: Yes, you guys, you know where to find us. But before I go into that, just do me a favor. We appreciate you guys so much listening and we know you have so many choices. So thank you so much for tuning in to Common Mystics. Aw.
Could I go on? Could you please share us with your friends or consider supporting us on Patreon? Your support is the reason why this podcast is continuing. We literally couldn't do it, literally could not do it without our patrons on Patreon. You don't have to be tier four. Just whatever you can give, please. So now check us out on our new website, CommonMyStics.net follow us at CommonMySticsPod on all the socials and email
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[01:16:01] Speaker B: Thank you so much for listening and thanks, Jill, for this outline. It was a lot of fun. Thank you.
[01:16:06] Speaker A: Thank you. Love you. Love you guys.
[01:16:08] Speaker B: Love you. Bye Bye.
[01:16:10] Speaker A: This has been a Common Mystics Media production editing done by Yokai Audio, Kalamazoo, Michigan.
