Larue Barnes: The ambush of Bonnie and Clyde

June 29, 2009 09:12 am

— Find someone who was old enough to feel the effects of the Great Depression, and they will remember the days of Bonnie and Clyde.
Not just the movie, but the real days of listening to the radio and reading the newspaper, fearing where the twosome and their gang would appear next to rob and kill.
L. J. “Boots” Hinton, 75, previously of Godley, is the son of the late Ted Hinton, one of the lawmen who brought the legendary duo to their deaths on May 23, 1934.
Now he’s the manager and curator of the Bonnie and Clyde Ambush Museum in Gibsland, La., situated only a few miles from the ambush site.
More people than ever came to the annual Bonnie and Clyde Festival in the small town in May, which marked the 75th anniversary of their deaths.
“That was quite a change for me, from driving a truck three days a week in Texas to working six days a week as a museum spokesman,” said Boots by telephone.
But Boots has been telling the saga his entire life.
His father, whom he calls Ted, authored the book, “Ambush, the Real Story of Bonnie and Clyde.” in 1973, as told to Larry Grove, an instructor of journalism at Southern Methodist University.
Excerpts from the book, published in 1979 by Shoal Creek Publishers shortly after Ted Hinton’s death, appear online and in other publications as quotes on the subject.
When you talk to Boots you sense that he and Ted were very close.
The only son of the Dallas County deputy sheriff and Grace Hinton, Boots had four lawmen as godfathers.
Other children may have overheard conversations about farming or railroading, but Boots knew which Dallas criminals were on the loose and who their families were.
“Learning all about Bonnie and Clyde when I was old enough to understand it, was spooky to me, but Ted wanted me to know the truth,” Boots said.
On May 23, 1934, the two-year reign of terror of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker and their gang came to an end.
Ted Hinton was one of the lawmen who had lifelong flashbacks of that historic day. The lovers had escaped from traps 11 times before.
In his book, “Ambush,” Ted Hinton takes us back to a lonely road near Gibsland, La.
For two days and nights, six lawmen endured chiggers, mosquitoes, lice and heat as they waited in ambush.
By the third day, they became exhausted. They agreed at 9 a.m. to wait 30 minutes more and then go home.
They stopped the father of a gang member on the road and set up his truck as a decoy.
Because he would not cooperate willingly, the lawmen handcuffed him to a nearby tree.
Bonnie and Clyde were expected any moment to return to pick up the gang member, Henry Methvin, who was home for a visit.
At 9:15 a.m., the waiting was over.
“I remember the next moments so clearly, it seems I am living them right now,” Ted wrote. “All of us are concealed, but the car moving toward us is in view now, at full speed, the only way Clyde ever drove.”
Barrow slowed down as he caught sight of the familiar truck with a wheel off, planted by the lawmen on the road.
They were counting on Barrow to stop and investigate.
“The car has descended the hill and is approaching our position at the crest of the long and slowly rising incline,” Ted continued. “He is slowing: his eyes are on the truck, on the jacked-up right front of the truck in the middle of the road. He will drive in front of it, or he will come into the lane nearer to me. His eyes are still on the truck.
“He has pulled even with the engine part of the parked truck, 20 feet in front of me, and he is in my gun’s sight, though the car is still moving. Suddenly, Alcorn’s [Ted’s partner] deep bellow, ‘HALT!’ arouses him. Alongside him Bonnie screams, and I fire and everyone fires, and in the awful hell and noise Clyde is reaching for a weapon, the wheels are digging into the gravel as he makes a start to get away.
“My B.A.R. spits out 20 shots in an instant, and a drumbeat of shells knife through the steel body of the car, and glass is shattering. For a fleeting instant, the car seems to melt and hang in a kind of eerie and animated suspension, trying to move forward, spitting gravel at the wheels, but unable to break through the shield of withering fire.”
Ted describes in detail the results of the gunfire.
“I rush to the driver’s side to grab the door handle where Clyde is slumped forward, the back of his head a mat of blood. There is no room to open the door; it is wedged against the embankment where the car has come to rest. ... I scramble over the hood of the car and throw open the door on Bonnie’s side.
“The impression will linger with me from this instant — I see her falling out of the opened door, a beautiful and petite young girl who is soft and warm, with hair carefully fixed, and I smell a light perfume against the burned-cordite smell of gunpowder. I stand her up, full standing, a tiny frail girl she seems now, and I cannot believe that I do not really feel her breathing, but I look into her face, and I see that she is dead. I carefully put her down in the car seat once more.”
The weapon in Clyde Barrow’s hand was cold, Ted wrote, for it had not been fired.
Ted knew his job was done. It all happened in a blazing 12 seconds.
“I did not feel anything, least of all rejoicing,” he wrote.
Ted and the other five lawmen agreed that the last person alive among them should tell what really happened that day. Ted was the survivor.
FBI records reveal that at the time of their deaths Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were believed to have committed 13 murders — one of them in Hillsboro — and several robberies, kidnappings and burglaries.
Barrow reportedly had a hatred for law officials, stemming from time in prison.
People spotted the legendary pair many places, including Cleburne.
“When they were killed, Clyde had eaten a bite or two out of the sandwich they picked up at the Ma Canfield’s Café in Gibsland, located where our museum is today,” Boots said. “Bonnie had a sandwich in her purse.”
The Bonnie and Clyde Ambush Museum opened Feb. 26, 2005, 39 miles east of Bossier City, by owners Co; Charles Heard and Ken M. Homes Jr.
Recent recognition in Southern Living magazine and television coverage has encouraged history buffs and the curious to check it out. The museum’s Web site, www.bonnieandclydemuseum.com, has had thousands of hits.
The ambush site’s stone marker still stands eight miles south on an isolated stretch of highway. It is marred by target practice and lover’s carved initials.
Boots says that after the ambush the death car with the bullet-ridden bodies inside was pulled by a Model-T wrecker to nearby Arcadia to a funeral parlor in the back of Conger’s Furniture Store.
“It was bad what happened on the way. The wrecker stalled in front of an elementary school — there was an entourage of about 150 cars by then. The lawmen tried to hold the curious children back, but they swarmed the car. They didn’t want them to see all that,” Boots said.
The morbid curiosity of the public, prevailed. The embalmed bodies were viewed by throngs.
“Even though they were lined up to see them free of charge the crowd tore up that furniture store, climbing up the couches, trying to climb over a trellis wall that separated the two businesses,” he said.
That fascination is still alive and well, it seems.
At the Ambush Museum you can see Ted’s exclusive film footage taken immediately after the ambush.
One of Barrow’s Remington shotguns, pulled from the death car is there, as well as a tire that Barrow stole and gave to an old man who refused to use it but who kept it as a souvenir.
You can see Bonnie’s red tam; glass from the death car windshield; the cream-colored, bullet-ridden V-8 Ford from the 1967 Bonnie and Clyde movie, identical to the death car; an extensive exhibit of rare photographs, with postmortem shots for sale; taped, eye-witness interviews and historical accounts; genuine 1930s era documents; bricks from Ma Canfield’s Café; and copies of Ted’s book, on sale for $20 each.
Bonnie made a prediction in her poetry:
“Some day they’ll go down together;
And they’ll bury them side by side;
To few it’ll be grief —
To the law a relief —
But it’s death for Bonnie and Clyde.”
Boots said the car has 167 entrance and exit bullet holes. Bonnie was hit with 53 bullets while 51 ripped through Clyde. But 75 years later, they are not buried side by side — yet.
“They’re both buried in Dallas, Bonnie in Crown Hill Cemetery, with Clyde in Western Heights Cemetery,” he said. “Marie, Clyde’s baby sister, is trying to raise money to bury the couple together. She had 870 square-inch swatches made from Clyde’s pants. We have two of them left here. We sell one about every two or three weeks for $225.”
I heard children’s voices in the background at the museum as we talked. I asked how children could be prepared to see such a shocking exhibit.
“You tell them that crime does not pay,” Boots said. “Then they see that for themselves as they walk through here.”

Larue Barnes can be reached at laruebarnes@yahoo.com.

Ambush by Ted Hinton is available at 214-747-2362.

The Bonnie and Clyde Ambush Museum is located at 2419 Main Street, Gibsland, LA 71028, or for information, call 318-843-1934.

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