Bonnie and Clyde- A Twenty-First-Century Update by James R Knight

Author:James R Knight [Knight, James R]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781940130217
Publisher: Eakin Press
Published: 2014-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

At one point in their escape along country roads, Clyde had to get out and open a gate. He stepped out of the car and promptly fell down in the mud. Bonnie tried to help him and fell down also. Later they found blood on the floor and finally discovered that they had been shot through the knees. In all the excitement, they simply hadn’t noticed. Floyd Hamilton later said that they found an underworld doctor in Oklahoma to treat them. Six days later, they were back in Dallas.17

The next day, Dallas newsboys were calling, “Read all about it! Sheriff escapes from Clyde Barrow.”18 In spite of his failure to capture the famous outlaws, however, Sheriff Schmid managed to avoid much of the criticism by redirecting the interest of the news media. He had a bullet-riddled, blood-soaked car to put on display, and a public relations secret weapon as well. A few days before the ambush, W. D. Jones had been picked up in Houston and brought to Dallas.19 Jones underwent intensive interrogation and on November 18 dictated a twenty-eight-page statement covering his time with Bonnie and Clyde. Up until now, Sheriff Schmid had kept Jones under wraps and flatly denied press reports about a Barrow gang member being held, but with the ambush a failure, it was time to show “Deacon” Jones to the public.20

Looking back from the vantage point of the twenty-first century, Jones’ statement is an intriguing document—an interesting mixture of fact and fiction. Much of it simply tells the story as it was. Jones was smart enough to lie as little as possible. His objective seemed to be just what Clyde suggested—he didn’t deny being with them, he just played down his role as much as possible. While much of the account was truthful, his portrayal of the gunfights and the killings were a little too self-serving. Even the police didn’t believe for a second that he was Bonnie and Clyde’s prisoner, or that he was unconscious during all the shooting, but W. D. knew how to play the part of the victim pretty well. The clean-cut, scaredlooking young man the police showed the press bore little resemblance to the cigarchomping, tough-looking gangster in the pictures that came out of Joplin. In fact, W. D. Jones had been involved in scores of robberies, six gunfights or shootings, and at least one murder, all before he was eighteen years old.

W. D. Jones in the Dallas jail. Early December 1933.

—From the collections of the Texas/Dallas History and Archives Division, Dallas Public Library

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