April 24, 2025 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, to some, they were heroes. To others, they were villains. But when the Barrow Gang rolled into Dexter, Iowa, they were simply strangers. Rod Stanley of the Dexter Museum tells the story.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. Up next, a
story from Dexter, Iowa about an infamous event that still
lives on in the town. Here's our own Montay Montgomery
with a story.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
The town of Dexter, Iowa is tiny but rich in history,
and on July twenty third, nineteen thirty three, it hosted
a shootout between a massive posse and perhaps the most
infamous group of outlaws who ever roam the United States.
HER's Rod Stanley with more.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
It's mind boggling to me to try to figure out
why people are fascinated with Bonnie and Clyde.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
And I mean they.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Were outlaws, they were murderers, they were thieves, they were thugs,
you name it they did. I mean as far as
the criminal aspect of it. But I think part of
the deal was that twenty two and twenty three years old,
they were young. During the depression, people didn't have any money.
People looked at Bonnie and Clyde as Robin Hood's steal
from the banks, that took took my land, took all
my money, took everything away from me.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
But go ahead and rob the bank because we don't
have anything there anymore. Anyway. You know, and the other thing.
They were male and female. Bian and cly were from Texas.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Bonnie Parker was an a student, honor roll student, got
AIDS in school, very good writer, poetrys, all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
She did really well.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
She quit school when she was sixteen years old, though
she got a job as a waitress. But she married
a fella by the name of Roy Thornton. I always
said Bonnie didn't have very good tasting men, because within
six months Roy was in jail. I think she is
one of those one of those girls that you know.
And I taught school for thirty five years and I
saw this quite frequently, that good girl, bad boy.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
I'm going to change this bad boy, you know.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
And it's like, you know, yeah, right, you're gonna change him.
Go yeah, go ahead and go ahead and try if
you want to. But anyway, she actually got a tattoo,
which back in this day that was pretty risque. I mean,
she had a heart right above her right knee and
said Roy and Bonnie forever and forever.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Six months.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Because Bonnie Parker would soon turn her attention to Clyde Barrow.
She met him at a friend's house in nineteen thirty.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
They saw each other across the room from what I've
read and understand, and they kind of looked at each
other and it's like, yeah, I think there's something there.
So they hooked up and Clyde got in trouble, got
put in jail. Bonnie put a gun around her waist.
I don't know how she'd fastened their elastic or belt
or something, and got in to the of the jail, gave.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Him the gun.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
He broke out, They caught him. They put him in
the state pen down in Texas. And then then Bonnie
and Clyde's mother started petitioning the governor of Texas to
let him out because he was a good boy, and
they got enough, they sent enough letters and so on
that finally they did let him go. And that's when
Bonnie and Clyde. This was in nineteen thirty two, and
(03:09):
that's when this era of Bonnie and Clyde lasted from
nineteen thirty two to nineteen thirty four. The gang was Bonnie, Clyde, Buck,
his brother, Blanche, his wife, and there was a teenager
his name was W. D. Jones, seventeen years old, and
he was running with them.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
And their favorite target was small town banks. For a
few pretty simple reasons.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
It was easy Pickens because most of those towns there
was one police officer, and most of the time it
was a constable who worked nights and then slept the
first four or five hours in the day, and that's
usually when they came, like at nine o'clock in the morning.
That's when they were knocking on the door of the
bank to rob the bank. So it was easy Pickens.
It was easy to get away. Most policemen cars that
(03:55):
they had weren't going.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
To be able to keep up with Clyde. Clyde loved
v A Fords.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
He's always looking for an advantage over the police, and
they'd go eighty five.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Miles an hour.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
We have a letter back here that he actually wrote
to Henry Ford, and basically it says, dear mister Ford,
well I.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
Still have got breath in my lungs. I will tell
you what a dandy car you make. I have drove
Fords exclusively when I could get away with one for
sustained speed and freedom from trouble. The Ford has got
every other car skin and even if my business hasn't
been strictly legal, they don't hurt anything. To tell you
what a fine car you got in the VA yours, truly,
Clyde Champion Baron.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
They were all over down south.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
I mean they were in Texas, they were in Oklahoma,
they were in Arkansas. They happened to be in Platte City,
Missouri before they came to Iowa, and there was a
shootout there. I don't think at that point in time
they were really trying to get away from anybody, but
they were hoping that they could just stay and relax
and for a few days and then go on their
merry way. They were in a motor hotel. They had
(04:58):
places you stayed and then there was a in between
the two units where you.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Parked your cars.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
The manager of that hotel was suspicious because whoever these
people were put newspapers up on the windows, and so
he called the police, and then they called the people
in Kansas City, and they came out and they basically
surrounded the place and they had to shoot their way out,
and on their way out, brother Buck. Brother Buck got
(05:25):
shot right in the forehead and it took off a
four inch piece of his head. It didn't kill him, though.
Blanche got a big chunk of glass in her eyes.
They were trying to get away. They were really really
lucky to get out of Platte City alive. We think
they came up Highway one point sixty nine out of Missouri.
(05:47):
They stopped at mount Air Isolea, which is on the border.
They actually stopped at a country store there. It was
called Caledonia, and they bought like lunch meat and food
and so on to eat. They actually stopped north of
mount Air at a creek. Clyde actually took mud from
the creek and filled in the bullet holes of the
car to make it less less distinguishable. They came up
Highway one sixty nine to Adell, came across on we
(06:11):
think Highway six. Dexfield Park is three miles north of Dexter,
and this park is out in the middle of nowhere.
Basically the clampground was there was a half a mile
lane going back to it and was thick timber and
brace and it cleared out area where they ended up.
We don't know for sure how Clyde knew about it.
(06:34):
They're hanging out, but they started coming into Dexter. They're
strangers all the time that come to Dexter, and the
people at Dexter they saw Clyde starting to come into town,
and Bonnie was usually with him. You have to understand
that's the reason why they spent lots and lots of
time in Iowa. Well, it isn't hard to figure out.
When they were in Iowa, nobody knew who they were.
(06:54):
Down in Texas, people knew who they were, and if
they were hanging around down there, somebody's going to turn
them into the police.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Shoot.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Clyde went into this clothing store, this Myron Williams clothing store,
and the guy that waited on him was the town.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Constable John Love. John Love didn't even know who he was.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
John Love said that this slight, slight guy, slight thin
guy comes into his store, ends in the store and
Clyde Barrow was five seven, one hundred and thirty five pounds.
Bonnie Parker was four nine ninety five pounds, so they
weren't very big people. But anyway, John said, this guy
comes in and he comes up to the counter. He
asked John about buying shirts. He wants to buy some shirts,
(07:33):
and John said, we have about three or four different
kinds of shirts.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
John said, this guy said, I want Arrow Arrow shirts.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
It was the most expensive brand and John looked at
and looked at Clyde, not knowing it was Clide barrow
and says, well, those are a dollar quarter apiece. And
John said, this guy said, I don't care how much
it costs. I got the money to pay for him.
He says, I want size fourteen regular. So he got
four shirts, and he got a belt and maybe a
pair of pants and whatever. And John looked at him
(08:02):
and said, you want me to.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Wrap this stuff up for you? And he said that'd
be great.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
And John loved the town constable always carried his badge
and his gun on his left hip. And he said,
I turned around and he said, evidently my gun and
bad showed because he said, this guy's disposition changed immediately.
He said, just give me my stuff. Here's the money,
and out the door he went. And John thought, wow,
that's kind of kind of strange. All they knew was this,
(08:27):
there was somebody coming to town. He had a big
wad of money.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
In his pocket.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
It wasn't his, but he was spending at right and
left in Dexter during the depression.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
And you've been listening to Rod Stanley tell a heck
of a story about Bonnie Clyde most of us know
what we know about Bonnie and Clyde from a movie
with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway way back in the
late sixties or early seventies, and it sort of etched
a picture in our mind of these two. My goodness,
no one would think they were five seven and four
to nine respectively. Huh, that is a shock. They were outlaws, murderers,
(08:59):
thieves though twenty two or twenty three. But the people
of the time looked at them as Robin Hood's because
they were stealing money from banks that had foreclosed on
people during the Great Depression. Plus they were a glamorous couple,
or at least seem so from the outside. When we
come back more of the story of Bonnie and Clyde
here on our American stories, and we continue with our
(09:40):
American stories and our story of Bonnie and Clyde in Dexter, Iowa.
When we last left off, Rod Stanley of the Dexter
Museum was telling us a little bit about who Bonnie
and Clyde were and how they ended up in this
small town. At first, nobody knew who they were, but
they would soon be discover Let's continue with the story.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
And the guy that discovered him was a fellow by
the name of Henry Nye, and he was a farm hand.
He was hunting blackberries and he saw five people sitting
around a campfire. He saw bloody bandages and shirts hanging up,
and he said, I just kept riding on walking. He said,
those people look pretty rough, and he said, I just
kept walking back to wherever I lived.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
And when he got home, he called John Love.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
The constable said, there's some pretty rough people out here
in this campground.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
You need to come out in a victim.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
And John said, I don't have any jurisdiction three miles
north of Dexter. I just have my jurisdiction around here.
He said, I'll come out with my binoculars and we'll
take a look to see what they have. And John
did go out there and said that he saw five
people and two cars. They actually had made a car
shopping trip, stolen a a second car because brother Buck
(11:02):
with that head wound had to lay down, had took
up the WHO vaccine and they wanted a backup car.
But they've stole another V eight Ford from a guy
by the name of Ed Stoner.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
He saw five people.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Then he comes back and he calls the county sheriff,
a fellow by the name of Clint Knee, and he
calls Clintonnee up and asked him, is there any you
had any rumors about outlaws in the area, gangs? And
he said, well, we've been hearing things about the barrel
Game might be around. And John Love said, well, you
better bring your heavy artillery over to Dexter because I
think we got the barrel.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Gang out north of Dexter.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Then that was on a Sunday evening, and I don't
know how many people were in. The posse often said
that I wish there would have been a sign up
sheet where people signed in. Probably I'm guessing between fifty
and seventy five people showed up when the posse was
gathering up here in north of town. Guess who was
coming in to get his takeouts for the evening. Clyde
(11:57):
Berrow and Clyde Barrow saw the crowd, and Clyde Barrow
was one of those guys. He had great intuition. I
mean he had a great sense of what, you know,
what was going on. I've often wondered what he was
thinking when he saw that group of people gathering there,
And maybe you know he was thinking, well, I don't know,
this might not be nuts, not be very good.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
What's happening there?
Speaker 3 (12:15):
But he came into the restaurant and bought his five takeouts.
And the guy that worked there was a fellow by
the name of Jesse Ross. And Jesse Ross was the
mayor of Dexter when I was growing up, and he
was the cook in this restaurant, and this is his story.
And he said that this guy came in, got the
five takeout meals, and anybody bought a package of hot dogs,
and he said he put put them on top of
(12:37):
the meat counter and got his meals and stuff, and
he started walking out the door, and he forgot his
hot dogs. And so Jesse said, I got out on
the conner Andy, he said, I hollered at him, hey,
and he said, this guy turned around.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
I thought it was gonna get.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Shot, Jesse said, And he said, you forgot your wieners.
So Clyde came back and picked up his hot dogs
and on his way he went. Posse's plan was to
go out there, surround him on three sides, come in
on three sides, which they did. The only way out
(13:11):
was the timber, the thick brush to the back of
the campground. They had their two cars there and at
six five point five that morning, the posse went out
there and they surrounded him on three sides and they
got close enough. The guy that took over the posse
was a fellow bind the name of Charles Raggs Riley,
and he was a state policeman from Des Moines. He
(13:32):
was kind of the leader of the pack. And he
got close enough where he could see the people and
they were round, had the seats pulled out of the car,
and they were sitting around the campfire and one guy
was roasting something or had something that was roasting.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
They thought sausage or a hot dog over the fire.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
And he was in this bee of this tree, and
he was close enough and he hollered at him and said,
put down your guns, put up your hands. The guy
with the hot dog threw it down and grabbed a rifle.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
And the next thing he knows, it's World War One
breaking out.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Riley got shot graysed behind the right. That was the
only member of the posse they got wounded. There was
only one person whoever was shooting. They shot over the posse,
and this posse, of course, when they heard this cannon's
going off. They dove down in the brush. Clyde wanted
to get in the car. He did, get all five
people in the car. Clyde didn't want to shoot out.
(14:27):
Clyde's not gonna surrender. I mean, if he's surrendered, he's
going to He's gonna he's gonna see mister Sparky the
electric chair because he's already killed people. And he starts
up and the posse's up and shooting. They're shooting at
the car.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
They're shooting at the people in the car.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Clyde gets shot in the shoulder, swerves the car. The
bumper of the car gets hung up on a tree stump. W. D.
Jones and him try to get it lifted off.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
They can. They jump out of the car, all jump
out of the car.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
They head to the second car the police the posse
had shot the tires out, couldn't drive it. So Bonnie
Clyde W. D. Jones head head to the woods. Now
they're out in the middle of Dallas County, Iowa, no car,
no place to go, and they're thinking, wow, you know,
we're this kind of hopeless. And so they cross the
(15:16):
river and they keep looking around and up on like
northeast of them, they see a farmhouse and that's where
they head. And so they end up at this farmhouse.
And the people who own the farmhouse are the Feller family.
Valley Feller and his family, and he had a son, Marvel,
And this is Marvel's story. Marvel was nineteen years old
(15:40):
at the time, and him and his dad, Valley, and
his uncle Walt Spillers were going down to get the cows,
and he.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
Said, my dog wrecks.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
The German shepherd was on the cornfield side of the
lot and he was barking at something, and he said,
pretty soon I saw this slight, muddy, bloody guy come
up to the fence. And this guy hollered at Marvel
and said, call the dog off.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
I'm going to kill him right here.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
And so Marvel ran over and he pulled the dog back,
looked up and he said that I had a forty
five pointed at my head.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Clyde said, the laws. The laws shot the hell out
of us.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Do you have any cars and Marvel said, well, actually
we have three cars.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
But only one runs.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
He said, two of them are on blocks because of
the depression. He said, we couldn't fix it, but Marvel said,
we had just bought this nineteen twenty nine Plymouth, just
got it, just got it. But anyway, so Clyde says, well,
that's good.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
We're going to have to use that car.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
And he said, he turned around and whistled, and here
comes the teenager WD carrying Bonnie up out of the cornfield.
And in the meantime, Marvel's mother had came out of
the house with the daughter of Louise, and she was
coming down to tell her husband Valley, that she had
gotten a phone call to be on the lookout for
outlaws in the valley, and then the outlaws were leading
(16:55):
her husband and son and brother up to the farmyard.
So she starts back the house and Clyde tells Marvell
to holler out or tell her to come back. I'm
not going to get the police involved at this point.
They're all in the farmyard. Once in another car, it's.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Over in the garage. Get it out.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
So they got the twenty nine Plymouth out, he said,
w D and Bonnie got in the backseat, Clyde got
in the front.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
He said. The only person doing any talking at all was.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Clyde, and Clyde was apologizing apologizing for having to steal
your car, because he said, I know how important it
is to you have a car.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
He says, but my life depends on it. Today.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
He told Marvel that he would be back to pay
Marvel for the car. Marvell had a great sense of
humor because one of the last times I talked to him,
he said, yeah, Rod, he said, I checked my mailbox
for seventy seven years. He said, I never got a
damn thing from Clyde Beryl. But anyway, so they're in
(17:56):
the car and Marvel said, they just sat there, and
Marvel went to the window and said, why an't you leaving?
Clyde said, told Marvel and Clyde like I said, he's
a great driver. He knew how to drive. He's told Marvel,
I don't know how to shift. I don't know how
to shift the gears in this plymouth. So Marvel had
to get into the plymouth and show him the gear sequence.
But Marvel showed him, so Clyde, it's like a half
(18:19):
a mile lane out out of the road. Ended up
going over to Redfield, ended up wrecking that car in
Poke City, Iowa, which was about thirty five miles away.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
They ended up according to the W. D.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Jones down in Mississippi to rehab all these injuries and
the things that happened to him. Of course, Buckham Blanche
got caught and so on. In May of nineteen thirty four,
they were killed in Gibbslan, Louisiana. You know, they deserve
what they got. I mean, like I said, they killed
thirteen people, nine nine police officers.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
They and they knew eventually that they were going to
get killed.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
I mean it was I mean, Bonnie had just written
a poem like two weeks ahead of this about you know,
how they were going to go down together.
Speaker 6 (19:00):
They don't think they're too tough or desperate. They know
that the law always wins. They've been shot at before,
but they do not ignore that death is the wages
of sin. Someday they'll go down together and they'll bury
them side by side tow it'll be grief to the
law or relief, but it's death for Bonnie and Clyde.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
And a special thanks to Shadrack Strayley for the pre production,
Robbie Davis and Madison Martin were providing supporting voiceovers, and
Monte Montgomery for the post production. And a special thanks
to Rod Stanley, and he runs the Dexter Museum in
Dallas County, Iowa. And we learned about Bonnie that she
loved bad boys, and he married one and that was
(19:54):
six months, and then married another. And in the end,
from nineteen thirty two to thirty four, they had their time.
But as she said in her final poem, death is
the wages of sin. He was wise beyond her years.
The story of Bonnie Clyde here on our American Stories
And we returned to our American stories. Up next, a
story from Dexter, Iowa about an infamous event that still
lives on in the town. Here's our own Montay Montgomery
with a story.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
The town of Dexter, Iowa is tiny but rich in history,
and on July twenty third, nineteen thirty three, it hosted
a shootout between a massive posse and perhaps the most
infamous group of outlaws who ever roam the United States.
HER's Rod Stanley with more.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
It's mind boggling to me to try to figure out
why people are fascinated with Bonnie and Clyde.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
And I mean they.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Were outlaws, they were murderers, they were thieves, they were thugs,
you name it they did. I mean as far as
the criminal aspect of it. But I think part of
the deal was that twenty two and twenty three years old,
they were young. During the depression, people didn't have any money.
People looked at Bonnie and Clyde as Robin Hood's steal
from the banks, that took took my land, took all
my money, took everything away from me.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
But go ahead and rob the bank because we don't
have anything there anymore. Anyway. You know, and the other thing.
They were male and female. Bian and cly were from Texas.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Bonnie Parker was an a student, honor roll student, got
AIDS in school, very good writer, poetrys, all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
She did really well.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
She quit school when she was sixteen years old, though
she got a job as a waitress. But she married
a fella by the name of Roy Thornton. I always
said Bonnie didn't have very good tasting men, because within
six months Roy was in jail. I think she is
one of those one of those girls that you know.
And I taught school for thirty five years and I
saw this quite frequently, that good girl, bad boy.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
I'm going to change this bad boy, you know.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
And it's like, you know, yeah, right, you're gonna change him.
Go yeah, go ahead and go ahead and try if
you want to. But anyway, she actually got a tattoo,
which back in this day that was pretty risque. I mean,
she had a heart right above her right knee and
said Roy and Bonnie forever and forever.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Six months.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Because Bonnie Parker would soon turn her attention to Clyde Barrow.
She met him at a friend's house in nineteen thirty.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
They saw each other across the room from what I've
read and understand, and they kind of looked at each
other and it's like, yeah, I think there's something there.
So they hooked up and Clyde got in trouble, got
put in jail. Bonnie put a gun around her waist.
I don't know how she'd fastened their elastic or belt
or something, and got in to the of the jail, gave.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Him the gun.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
He broke out, They caught him. They put him in
the state pen down in Texas. And then then Bonnie
and Clyde's mother started petitioning the governor of Texas to
let him out because he was a good boy, and
they got enough, they sent enough letters and so on
that finally they did let him go. And that's when
Bonnie and Clyde. This was in nineteen thirty two, and
(03:09):
that's when this era of Bonnie and Clyde lasted from
nineteen thirty two to nineteen thirty four. The gang was Bonnie, Clyde, Buck,
his brother, Blanche, his wife, and there was a teenager
his name was W. D. Jones, seventeen years old, and
he was running with them.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
And their favorite target was small town banks. For a
few pretty simple reasons.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
It was easy Pickens because most of those towns there
was one police officer, and most of the time it
was a constable who worked nights and then slept the
first four or five hours in the day, and that's
usually when they came, like at nine o'clock in the morning.
That's when they were knocking on the door of the
bank to rob the bank. So it was easy Pickens.
It was easy to get away. Most policemen cars that
(03:55):
they had weren't going.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
To be able to keep up with Clyde. Clyde loved
v A Fords.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
He's always looking for an advantage over the police, and
they'd go eighty five.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Miles an hour.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
We have a letter back here that he actually wrote
to Henry Ford, and basically it says, dear mister Ford,
well I.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
Still have got breath in my lungs. I will tell
you what a dandy car you make. I have drove
Fords exclusively when I could get away with one for
sustained speed and freedom from trouble. The Ford has got
every other car skin and even if my business hasn't
been strictly legal, they don't hurt anything. To tell you
what a fine car you got in the VA yours, truly,
Clyde Champion Baron.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
They were all over down south.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
I mean they were in Texas, they were in Oklahoma,
they were in Arkansas. They happened to be in Platte City,
Missouri before they came to Iowa, and there was a
shootout there. I don't think at that point in time
they were really trying to get away from anybody, but
they were hoping that they could just stay and relax
and for a few days and then go on their
merry way. They were in a motor hotel. They had
(04:58):
places you stayed and then there was a in between
the two units where you.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Parked your cars.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
The manager of that hotel was suspicious because whoever these
people were put newspapers up on the windows, and so
he called the police, and then they called the people
in Kansas City, and they came out and they basically
surrounded the place and they had to shoot their way out,
and on their way out, brother Buck. Brother Buck got
(05:25):
shot right in the forehead and it took off a
four inch piece of his head. It didn't kill him, though.
Blanche got a big chunk of glass in her eyes.
They were trying to get away. They were really really
lucky to get out of Platte City alive. We think
they came up Highway one point sixty nine out of Missouri.
(05:47):
They stopped at mount Air Isolea, which is on the border.
They actually stopped at a country store there. It was
called Caledonia, and they bought like lunch meat and food
and so on to eat. They actually stopped north of
mount Air at a creek. Clyde actually took mud from
the creek and filled in the bullet holes of the
car to make it less less distinguishable. They came up
Highway one sixty nine to Adell, came across on we
(06:11):
think Highway six. Dexfield Park is three miles north of Dexter,
and this park is out in the middle of nowhere.
Basically the clampground was there was a half a mile
lane going back to it and was thick timber and
brace and it cleared out area where they ended up.
We don't know for sure how Clyde knew about it.
(06:34):
They're hanging out, but they started coming into Dexter. They're
strangers all the time that come to Dexter, and the
people at Dexter they saw Clyde starting to come into town,
and Bonnie was usually with him. You have to understand
that's the reason why they spent lots and lots of
time in Iowa. Well, it isn't hard to figure out.
When they were in Iowa, nobody knew who they were.
(06:54):
Down in Texas, people knew who they were, and if
they were hanging around down there, somebody's going to turn
them into the police.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Shoot.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Clyde went into this clothing store, this Myron Williams clothing store,
and the guy that waited on him was the town.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Constable John Love. John Love didn't even know who he was.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
John Love said that this slight, slight guy, slight thin
guy comes into his store, ends in the store and
Clyde Barrow was five seven, one hundred and thirty five pounds.
Bonnie Parker was four nine ninety five pounds, so they
weren't very big people. But anyway, John said, this guy
comes in and he comes up to the counter. He
asked John about buying shirts. He wants to buy some shirts,
(07:33):
and John said, we have about three or four different
kinds of shirts.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
John said, this guy said, I want Arrow Arrow shirts.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
It was the most expensive brand and John looked at
and looked at Clyde, not knowing it was Clide barrow
and says, well, those are a dollar quarter apiece. And
John said, this guy said, I don't care how much
it costs. I got the money to pay for him.
He says, I want size fourteen regular. So he got
four shirts, and he got a belt and maybe a
pair of pants and whatever. And John looked at him
(08:02):
and said, you want me to.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Wrap this stuff up for you? And he said that'd
be great.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
And John loved the town constable always carried his badge
and his gun on his left hip. And he said,
I turned around and he said, evidently my gun and
bad showed because he said, this guy's disposition changed immediately.
He said, just give me my stuff. Here's the money,
and out the door he went. And John thought, wow,
that's kind of kind of strange. All they knew was this,
(08:27):
there was somebody coming to town. He had a big
wad of money.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
In his pocket.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
It wasn't his, but he was spending at right and
left in Dexter during the depression.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
And you've been listening to Rod Stanley tell a heck
of a story about Bonnie Clyde most of us know
what we know about Bonnie and Clyde from a movie
with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway way back in the
late sixties or early seventies, and it sort of etched
a picture in our mind of these two. My goodness,
no one would think they were five seven and four
to nine respectively. Huh, that is a shock. They were outlaws, murderers,
(08:59):
thieves though twenty two or twenty three. But the people
of the time looked at them as Robin Hood's because
they were stealing money from banks that had foreclosed on
people during the Great Depression. Plus they were a glamorous couple,
or at least seem so from the outside. When we
come back more of the story of Bonnie and Clyde
here on our American stories, and we continue with our
(09:40):
American stories and our story of Bonnie and Clyde in Dexter, Iowa.
When we last left off, Rod Stanley of the Dexter
Museum was telling us a little bit about who Bonnie
and Clyde were and how they ended up in this
small town. At first, nobody knew who they were, but
they would soon be discover Let's continue with the story.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
And the guy that discovered him was a fellow by
the name of Henry Nye, and he was a farm hand.
He was hunting blackberries and he saw five people sitting
around a campfire. He saw bloody bandages and shirts hanging up,
and he said, I just kept riding on walking. He said,
those people look pretty rough, and he said, I just
kept walking back to wherever I lived.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
And when he got home, he called John Love.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
The constable said, there's some pretty rough people out here
in this campground.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
You need to come out in a victim.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
And John said, I don't have any jurisdiction three miles
north of Dexter. I just have my jurisdiction around here.
He said, I'll come out with my binoculars and we'll
take a look to see what they have. And John
did go out there and said that he saw five
people and two cars. They actually had made a car
shopping trip, stolen a a second car because brother Buck
(11:02):
with that head wound had to lay down, had took
up the WHO vaccine and they wanted a backup car.
But they've stole another V eight Ford from a guy
by the name of Ed Stoner.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
He saw five people.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Then he comes back and he calls the county sheriff,
a fellow by the name of Clint Knee, and he
calls Clintonnee up and asked him, is there any you
had any rumors about outlaws in the area, gangs? And
he said, well, we've been hearing things about the barrel
Game might be around. And John Love said, well, you
better bring your heavy artillery over to Dexter because I
think we got the barrel.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Gang out north of Dexter.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Then that was on a Sunday evening, and I don't
know how many people were in. The posse often said
that I wish there would have been a sign up
sheet where people signed in. Probably I'm guessing between fifty
and seventy five people showed up when the posse was
gathering up here in north of town. Guess who was
coming in to get his takeouts for the evening. Clyde
(11:57):
Berrow and Clyde Barrow saw the crowd, and Clyde Barrow
was one of those guys. He had great intuition. I
mean he had a great sense of what, you know,
what was going on. I've often wondered what he was
thinking when he saw that group of people gathering there,
And maybe you know he was thinking, well, I don't know,
this might not be nuts, not be very good.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
What's happening there?
Speaker 3 (12:15):
But he came into the restaurant and bought his five takeouts.
And the guy that worked there was a fellow by
the name of Jesse Ross. And Jesse Ross was the
mayor of Dexter when I was growing up, and he
was the cook in this restaurant, and this is his story.
And he said that this guy came in, got the
five takeout meals, and anybody bought a package of hot dogs,
and he said he put put them on top of
(12:37):
the meat counter and got his meals and stuff, and
he started walking out the door, and he forgot his
hot dogs. And so Jesse said, I got out on
the conner Andy, he said, I hollered at him, hey,
and he said, this guy turned around.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
I thought it was gonna get.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Shot, Jesse said, And he said, you forgot your wieners.
So Clyde came back and picked up his hot dogs
and on his way he went. Posse's plan was to
go out there, surround him on three sides, come in
on three sides, which they did. The only way out
(13:11):
was the timber, the thick brush to the back of
the campground. They had their two cars there and at
six five point five that morning, the posse went out
there and they surrounded him on three sides and they
got close enough. The guy that took over the posse
was a fellow bind the name of Charles Raggs Riley,
and he was a state policeman from Des Moines. He
(13:32):
was kind of the leader of the pack. And he
got close enough where he could see the people and
they were round, had the seats pulled out of the car,
and they were sitting around the campfire and one guy
was roasting something or had something that was roasting.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
They thought sausage or a hot dog over the fire.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
And he was in this bee of this tree, and
he was close enough and he hollered at him and said,
put down your guns, put up your hands. The guy
with the hot dog threw it down and grabbed a rifle.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
And the next thing he knows, it's World War One
breaking out.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Riley got shot graysed behind the right. That was the
only member of the posse they got wounded. There was
only one person whoever was shooting. They shot over the posse,
and this posse, of course, when they heard this cannon's
going off. They dove down in the brush. Clyde wanted
to get in the car. He did, get all five
people in the car. Clyde didn't want to shoot out.
(14:27):
Clyde's not gonna surrender. I mean, if he's surrendered, he's
going to He's gonna he's gonna see mister Sparky the
electric chair because he's already killed people. And he starts
up and the posse's up and shooting. They're shooting at
the car.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
They're shooting at the people in the car.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Clyde gets shot in the shoulder, swerves the car. The
bumper of the car gets hung up on a tree stump. W. D.
Jones and him try to get it lifted off.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
They can. They jump out of the car, all jump
out of the car.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
They head to the second car the police the posse
had shot the tires out, couldn't drive it. So Bonnie
Clyde W. D. Jones head head to the woods. Now
they're out in the middle of Dallas County, Iowa, no car,
no place to go, and they're thinking, wow, you know,
we're this kind of hopeless. And so they cross the
(15:16):
river and they keep looking around and up on like
northeast of them, they see a farmhouse and that's where
they head. And so they end up at this farmhouse.
And the people who own the farmhouse are the Feller family.
Valley Feller and his family, and he had a son, Marvel,
And this is Marvel's story. Marvel was nineteen years old
(15:40):
at the time, and him and his dad, Valley, and
his uncle Walt Spillers were going down to get the cows,
and he.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
Said, my dog wrecks.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
The German shepherd was on the cornfield side of the
lot and he was barking at something, and he said,
pretty soon I saw this slight, muddy, bloody guy come
up to the fence. And this guy hollered at Marvel
and said, call the dog off.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
I'm going to kill him right here.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
And so Marvel ran over and he pulled the dog back,
looked up and he said that I had a forty
five pointed at my head.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Clyde said, the laws. The laws shot the hell out
of us.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Do you have any cars and Marvel said, well, actually
we have three cars.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
But only one runs.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
He said, two of them are on blocks because of
the depression. He said, we couldn't fix it, but Marvel said,
we had just bought this nineteen twenty nine Plymouth, just
got it, just got it. But anyway, so Clyde says, well,
that's good.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
We're going to have to use that car.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
And he said, he turned around and whistled, and here
comes the teenager WD carrying Bonnie up out of the cornfield.
And in the meantime, Marvel's mother had came out of
the house with the daughter of Louise, and she was
coming down to tell her husband Valley, that she had
gotten a phone call to be on the lookout for
outlaws in the valley, and then the outlaws were leading
(16:55):
her husband and son and brother up to the farmyard.
So she starts back the house and Clyde tells Marvell
to holler out or tell her to come back. I'm
not going to get the police involved at this point.
They're all in the farmyard. Once in another car, it's.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Over in the garage. Get it out.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
So they got the twenty nine Plymouth out, he said,
w D and Bonnie got in the backseat, Clyde got
in the front.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
He said. The only person doing any talking at all was.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Clyde, and Clyde was apologizing apologizing for having to steal
your car, because he said, I know how important it
is to you have a car.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
He says, but my life depends on it. Today.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
He told Marvel that he would be back to pay
Marvel for the car. Marvell had a great sense of
humor because one of the last times I talked to him,
he said, yeah, Rod, he said, I checked my mailbox
for seventy seven years. He said, I never got a
damn thing from Clyde Beryl. But anyway, so they're in
(17:56):
the car and Marvel said, they just sat there, and
Marvel went to the window and said, why an't you leaving?
Clyde said, told Marvel and Clyde like I said, he's
a great driver. He knew how to drive. He's told Marvel,
I don't know how to shift. I don't know how
to shift the gears in this plymouth. So Marvel had
to get into the plymouth and show him the gear sequence.
But Marvel showed him, so Clyde, it's like a half
(18:19):
a mile lane out out of the road. Ended up
going over to Redfield, ended up wrecking that car in
Poke City, Iowa, which was about thirty five miles away.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
They ended up according to the W. D.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Jones down in Mississippi to rehab all these injuries and
the things that happened to him. Of course, Buckham Blanche
got caught and so on. In May of nineteen thirty four,
they were killed in Gibbslan, Louisiana. You know, they deserve
what they got. I mean, like I said, they killed
thirteen people, nine nine police officers.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
They and they knew eventually that they were going to
get killed.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
I mean it was I mean, Bonnie had just written
a poem like two weeks ahead of this about you know,
how they were going to go down together.
Speaker 6 (19:00):
They don't think they're too tough or desperate. They know
that the law always wins. They've been shot at before,
but they do not ignore that death is the wages
of sin. Someday they'll go down together and they'll bury
them side by side tow it'll be grief to the
law or relief, but it's death for Bonnie and Clyde.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
And a special thanks to Shadrack Strayley for the pre production,
Robbie Davis and Madison Martin were providing supporting voiceovers, and
Monte Montgomery for the post production. And a special thanks
to Rod Stanley, and he runs the Dexter Museum in
Dallas County, Iowa. And we learned about Bonnie that she
loved bad boys, and he married one and that was
(19:54):
six months, and then married another. And in the end,
from nineteen thirty two to thirty four, they had their time.
But as she said in her final poem, death is
the wages of sin. He was wise beyond her years.
The story of Bonnie Clyde here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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