Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings

The Life & Crimes of Bonnie & Clyde (Part II)

1934: Final run

On January 16, 1934, Barrow orchestrated the escape of Hamilton, Methvin, and several others in the "Eastham Breakout". The brazen raid generated negative publicity for Texas, and Barrow seemed to have achieved what historian Phillips suggests was his overriding goal: revenge on the Texas Department of Corrections.

Barrow Gang member Joe Palmer shot Major Joe Crowson during his escape, and Crowson died a few days later in the hospital. This attack attracted the full power of the Texas and federal government to the manhunt for Barrow and Parker. As Crowson struggled for life, prison Chief Lee Simmons reportedly promised him that all persons involved in the breakout would be hunted down and killed. All of them eventually were, except for Methvin, who preserved his life by setting up the ambush of Barrow and Parker.

The Texas Department of Corrections contacted former Texas Ranger Captain Frank Hamer and persuaded him to hunt down the Barrow Gang. He was retired, but his commission had not expired. He accepted the assignment as a Texas Highway Patrol officer, secondarily assigned to the prison system as a special investigator, and given the specific task of taking down the Barrow Gang.

Former Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, the Barrow Gang's relentless shadow after the notorious Eastham prison breakout

Hamer was tall, burly, and taciturn, unimpressed by authority and driven by an "inflexible adherence to right, or what he thinks is right." For 20 years, he had been feared and admired throughout Texas as "the walking embodiment of the 'One Riot, One Ranger' ethos". He "had acquired a formidable reputation as a result of several spectacular captures and the shooting of a number of Texas criminals". He was officially credited with 53 kills, and suffered seventeen wounds. Prison boss Simmons always said publicly that Hamer had been his first choice, although there is evidence that he first approached two other Rangers, both of whom declined because they were reluctant to shoot a woman. Starting on February 10, Hamer became the constant shadow of Barrow and Parker, living out of his car, just a town or two behind them. Three of Hamer's four brothers were also Texas Rangers; Brother Harrison was the best shot of the four, but Frank was considered the most tenacious.

Barrow and Methvin killed highway patrolmen H.D. Murphy and Edward Bryant Wheeler on Easter Sunday, April 1, 1934 at the intersection of Route 114 and Dove Road, near Grapevine, Texas (now Southlake). An eyewitness account said that Barrow and Parker fired the fatal shots, and this story got widespread coverage before it was discredited. Methvin later admitted that he fired the first shot, after assuming that Barrow wanted the officers killed; he also said that Parker approached the dying officers intending to help them, not to administer the coup de grace as described by the discredited eyewitness. Barrow joined in, firing at Patrolman Murphy. It has long been assumed that Parker was asleep in the back seat when Methvin started shooting, and took no part in the assault.

Public opinion turned against the couple after the Grapevine murders and resultant negative publicity

During the spring season, the Grapevine killings were recounted in exaggerated detail, affecting public perception; all four Dallas daily papers seized on the story told by the eyewitness, a farmer who claimed to have seen Parker laugh at the way that Murphy's head "bounced like a rubber ball" on the ground as she shot him. The stories claimed that police found a cigar butt "with tiny teeth marks", supposedly those of Parker. Several days later, Murphy's fiancée wore her intended wedding dress to his funeral, attracting photos and newspaper coverage. The eyewitness's ever-changing story was soon discredited, but the massive negative publicity increased the public clamor for the extermination of the Barrow Gang. The outcry galvanized the authorities into action, and Highway Patrol boss L.G. Phares offered a reward of $1,000 for "the dead bodies of the Grapevine slayers" — not their capture, just the bodies. Texas Governor Ma Ferguson added another reward of $500 for each of the two killers, which meant that, for the first time, "there was a specific price on Bonnie's head, since she was so widely believed to have shot H.D. Murphy".