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.
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