Clyde "Champion" Barrow Gang Collection
May 21, 2010 12:30 PM   Subscribe

Mr, KIng
So Raymond Hamilton never killed anybody. If he can make a jury believe that I8m willing to come in and be tryed my self. Why dont you ask Ray about those two policemen that got killed near Grapevine? And while you are at it better talk it over with his girl friend. Bonnie and me were in missouri when that happened but where was Ray? coming back from the West bankjob wasn't he? Redhot too wasn8t he? I got it straight. And ask him about that escape at Eastham farm where that gard was killed. Giess he claims he doesn't know fire any shots there don8t ge? Well if he wasnt too dum to know how tp put a clip in a automatic he'd hace fired a lot more shots and some of the rest of the gards would got killed too. He wrote his lawyer he was too good for me and didnt go my pace, well it makes a me sick to see a yellow punk like that playing baby ad making a jury cry over him either/ He stuck his fingerprint on a letter so heres mine too just to let you know thjis is on the leve;
X Clyde
posted by mrducts (21 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Huh. Glad I actually RTFA before flagging this as incomprehensible.
posted by elizardbits at 12:34 PM on May 21, 2010 [3 favorites]


Text of the post is taken from the thjis link.
posted by lumensimus at 12:37 PM on May 21, 2010


???
posted by maltorrance at 12:42 PM on May 21, 2010


It's a good idea to RTFA.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:47 PM on May 21, 2010


That demmed elusive Pimpernel!
posted by Smart Dalek at 12:48 PM on May 21, 2010


He's got huge ears; somehow I always thought he looked sort of like Warren Beatty.



[When I was a kid in east Texas, it seemed like every town that was big enough to have an old boarded up bank building also had a Bonnie and Clyde story, sometimes with a bullet hole in a clapboard wall to prove it. And my grandmother so them speeding down the highway once too....]
posted by Some1 at 12:49 PM on May 21, 2010


I think maybe twoleftfeet got a left sockpuppet. :->
posted by Babblesort at 12:49 PM on May 21, 2010


To some it means grief, and to grammarians relief, but it's the archives for Bonnie and Clyde.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:51 PM on May 21, 2010


And now the link is borked.
posted by valkyryn at 1:04 PM on May 21, 2010


Wow, we broke it already.
posted by desjardins at 1:05 PM on May 21, 2010


The poem by Bonnie Parker is pretty good. It's still relevant today with it's fatalistic view and sense of entrapment.
posted by Xoebe at 1:06 PM on May 21, 2010


CLYDE TOOK THE LINK AND HE SHOT A MAN IN THE FACE WHEN HE DONE IT
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:07 PM on May 21, 2010 [2 favorites]


See? Poor communication skills inevitably lead to a life of crime.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:18 PM on May 21, 2010


I thought it was saggy pants?
posted by desjardins at 1:37 PM on May 21, 2010


Hey, Bonnie and Clyde stories! My grandmother's cousin Luke was a small-time crook in Oak Cliff. He was a few years younger than Clyde, and it was never clear whether he actually ever ran with the Barrow gang or just admired them from afar. Eventually (in the 1960s) he married Clyde's sister Marie.
Unlike Bonnie and Clyde, Luke was never violent, he just liked to take things. He stole stuff he didn't even need -- once he took my grandfather out to his garage and offered him whatever he wanted. "You need a TV? Take a TV. I got plenty." He worked on a construction crew with some of my grandfather's brothers for a while. The crew boss got mad because equipment kept disappearing off the job site -- petty shit, like extension cords and 2x4s -- so one of the brothers talked to Luke and told him to cut it out. Luke just couldn't bring himself to go straight. Instead he told my great-uncle that he'd get the crew boss to give him the brand-new extension cord he'd brought to replace the last one Luke stole. Luke unplugged the cord and took a straightpin out of his pocket. He carved his initials into the plug end and plugged the cord back in. When they were wrapping up for the day, he asked if anyone had seen his new extension cord. The crew boss, who was winding up the cord, said, "I'm pretty sure this one's mine." Luke said, "Okay, well, let me know if you see mine. It's got my initials on the plug." The boss looked at the plug and said, "Huh, looks like this one is yours. Here you go, sorry about that!" He handed it over and Luke looked at my great-uncle, smirking. Luke took the cord home to join about thirty others in his garage.
What was probably Luke's biggest heist took place during WWII. He went to Arkansas and broke into a post office to steal the money for war bonds. He dropped down out of the ceiling and landed behind a guard. He stuck his finger in the guard's ear and told him he had a gun. Luke managed to make off with some money and headed back home. Cops were soon on his trail and he led them on a high-speed chase all the way from Arkansas to a bridge over the Trinity River in Dallas. There, just before he could reach his home turf of Oak Cliff, the Dallas cops had set up a roadblock. With the Arkansas cops on his tail and Dallas cops in front of him, Luke jumped out of the car in the middle of the bridge. Somehow, without the cops seeing what he did, he tossed the bag of money over the side of the bridge. He was arrested and the cops couldn't find a shred of evidence on him.
When they took him to the jailhouse he made his one call to his brother, an honest, middle class man who owned a small grocery store. His brother hired the best criminal defense attorney in the state to defend Luke, in the end paying him over half a million dollars. Luke got off scot-free -- and his brother got a nice new house. I'm not sure if Luke ever got to enjoy the spoils of that particular enterprise, but his brother was well rewarded for a couple hours scrounging around under the bridge.
Other Luke stories included having one of his several jail escapes thwarted by the jailer's wife and driving around Dallas with a lion cub in his front seat. Perhaps because he wasn't violent, Luke managed to avoid getting hurt and lived into his eighties. He did fear for his life at least once, though. He was visiting his cousin, my grandmother, at her grocery store one day and asked if he could take her youngest son with him as he went to visit some of their other relatives. My grandmother said yes, but that he needed to be back by 5 o'clock. Luke went to visit two more cousins at their respective grocery stores and was jawing with one of them when the phone rang. Aunt Madeleine picked up the phone and spoke for a moment before putting her hand over the mouthpiece. "It's Pauline," she said. "She wants to know where her baby is."
"Oh, shit!" said Luke. He grabbed my uncle by the hand and was out the door before Aunt Madeleine had hung up the phone. He arrived back at my grandmother's grocery store sweating furiously, tripping over himself to apologize and to hand over the boy quickly so he could get his ass out the door and safely home. Stealing war bonds? Sure. Breaking out of jail? No problem. But even Luke knew there were some lines you just don't cross, and bringing my grandmother's baby home late was one of them.
posted by katemonster at 2:26 PM on May 21, 2010 [22 favorites]


From Bonnie Parker's poem: "When he was honest, upright and clean."

From Joe Biden: “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,”

Coincidence? I wonder if Biden is on the lam after a stint with the Barrow gang.
posted by digsrus at 3:35 PM on May 21, 2010


I live in Grapevine, Texas. That is all.
posted by punkfloyd at 6:31 PM on May 21, 2010


I live in Grapevine, Texas. That is all.

I'm sorry?
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:27 PM on May 21, 2010


This is not the Jack Ruby thread.

Oh, wait. There's a Bonnie and Clyde connection there too, if I recall.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:30 PM on May 21, 2010


It's worth noting that French genius Serge Gainsbourg turned Bonnie's poem, word by word, into a song (in French). And yes, that's Brigitte Bardot at her luscious peak playing and singing Bonnie Parker.
posted by Skeptic at 3:22 AM on May 22, 2010


Does anyone know why somebody bothered to make that odd two-left-halves composite photo out of one of his mugshots?
posted by Lexica at 7:20 PM on May 22, 2010


« Older I laugh to see your tiny world; Your toys of ships...   |   "I feel like I'm two weeks old." Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments