Athens Weekly Review
May 31, 1934


Athenians Drive To Louisiana To Get First Hand Data About Killing Of Barrow and Parker
Athenians were getting details of the killing of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker first hand Thursday following the return of Paul Gauntt Sr. and Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Ware from Arcadia, where they drove late Wednesday afternoon to get their own facts about the end of the desperado and his bandit companion.
Ware, a friend of Mr. Gauntt's is a driller for the Tidewater Oil Company, and had the honor of drilling in the Cayuga discovery well.
"We had an awfully hard time getting into the funeral parlor to view the bodies", Mr. Gauntt said this morning. "We arrived in Arcadia at 7:30 last night and it was 10 o'clock before I finally managed to get into the morgue by going in with a group of East Texas deputy sheriffs. The general public was barred. Mr. and Mrs. Ware, who had boarded with relatives of Barrow in Palestine, were able to crash the gate earlier, however."
"There were three thousand or more visitors in the little Louisiana town. They apparently had come there from miles around. Very few had been admited to the morgue late last night."
"The bodies were stretched out side by side as shown in pictures. Clyde's face had been shaved. There were many bullet wounds in both bodies from the waist up. Several bullets that had struck Clyde on the side of the face had passed through to tear away a portion of his skull at the back. Bonnie had several ugly wounds in the neck. Both of them bodies were dirty, and thin, indicating that the two had had an unusually hard time in recent weeks."
"The general public, Mr. Guantt continued, "was not admitted to the morgue as the officers in charge awaited the arrival of a finger print expert from New Orleans. He arrived soon afterward. Barrow's father had arrived several hours before from Dallas and he appeared to be much torn up over the death of his son. He told those in the morgue tht he had not seen his son during the past nine weeks. He thought he had recently been in Old Mexico.
After viewing the car, a four-door Ford sedan, in which the two were killed, Mr. Gauntt said that it was evident that the officers fired first into the windshield as it neared them and then poured a volley of bullets into the car as it got even with them. Thousands of visitors to Arcadia vied the car which was badly riddled with bullets.
Mr. Gauntt was told that altho Barrow and the girl were killed by the first volley of shots the officers poured a second volley of lead into the car when the condition of the slumped bodies indicated that the two desepradoes might be feinting death.
Barrow and his girl companion were killed Wednesday morning at 9:15 o'clock eight miles from Gibsland, Louisiana.
Mr. Gauntt and Mr. and Mrs. Ware left Arcadia after viewing the bodies and arrived back in Athens at 4 o'clock this morning. The trip was made in Ware's car.

Submitted by Bunny Freeman


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