July 7, 2024 • 37 mins
Bonnie and Clyde killed at least nine police officers and four civilians during their 21-month crime spree from 1932 to 1934. The couple were also responsible for several Bank robberies, gas stations hold-ups , and burglaries. They weren't very good thieves, as they rarely got away with more than $80. In this episode of Body Bags, Joseph Scott Morgan will explain how Bonnie Parker suffered so many bullet holes her body had to be plugged to hold embalming fluid, and Dave Mack will take you behind the scenes in the woods with Frank Hamer and Manny Gault as they brought down the murderous "Bonnie and Clyde".
Transcript Highlights
00:00:10 Introduction of human destruction
00:02:09 Description of Bienville Parish
00:05:24 Description of Bonnie and Clyde car on display
00:08:14 Discussion Bonnie 23, Clyde 25
00:11:15 Talk about Bonnie and Clyde murder young cop
00:15:11 Discussion about State Coroners convention
00:18:05 Discussion about transcribing
00:21:32 Talk about Bonnie and Clyde murdering cops
00:25:57 Discussion of BB Episode about Coroner system
00:28:21 Talk about autopsy of famous people
00:31:41 Discussion of Dr. Wade and others at the autopsy
00:35:00 Discussion of injuries suffered by Bonnie Parker
00:37:42 Conclusion: Bonnie and Clyde meet their end
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Quody does, but Joseph's gotten more. There's an old adage
that says, throughout history, the victors write the story that
they essentially put forth the narrative from their perspective of
how things happened. And you know, it can be stated
(00:23):
that that comment, if you will, that adage applies primarily
to the rise and fall of civilizations and to wars.
But there was a smaller war, very smaller war that
took place back in the thirties in Middle America. And
(00:48):
interestingly enough, even though the quote unquote good guys prevailed
in the end, history doesn't exactly reflect the truth today.
Looking back, we're going to discuss a period in time
(01:12):
ninety years ago. Today, we're going to talk about the
deaths of multiple police officers at the hands of two
of the most infamous cop killers in American history, Bonnie
(01:33):
and Clyde. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is body
Packs Dave mac my friend. When I hear the name Bienville,
(01:54):
it evokes memories of my hometown of New Orleans.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
And how far is it from New Orleans.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Well, Bienville itself, there's multiple streets and are multiple locations
in New Orleans that have the name Beingville and it's
a uniquely French name. But the odd thing about it
is we're going to talk about Benville Parish, and Benville
Parish is nowhere near New Orleans. As a matter of fact,
it would probably take you, because there's not a really
(02:24):
good director out. It probably takes you about four hours
to get there from from New Orleans. It's the parish itself.
And remember, you know, in my home state, they don't
have counties that parishes, and Benville Parish actually is closer
to the Arkansas border than it is Gulf of Mexico, and.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
That gives me a much better idea.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
And it's not near the Mississippi River. As a matter
of fact, if you were to show up in Benville
Parish day and ride through it, and all of North
Louisiana has this kind of reputation, it doesn't remind most
people of what you commonly think of when you think
about Louisiana, which is swamps and Cajun culture and Creole culture.
(03:17):
You feel like you're in Texas, like an annex of Texas.
In North Louisiana. Along the Eye twenty corridor running through there,
there's horse farms everywhere, and rolling hills. Now they're not
huge hills, but it's rolling hills. The soil is red clay.
It's not that dark, dark gumbos that they call it
gumbo soil that's down there, you know, that's associated with
(03:40):
the decay of vegetation and that sort of thing. Very swampy.
It's not like that. It looks like more like you're
heading to Texas, and you are, because this is not
too far from Shreeport. And you know that Shreeport on
the E twenty corridor is kind of the gateway out
of Louisiana into Texas. You continue on down that road
out of Report headed westbound and you'll be in Texas
(04:03):
pretty soon. So but you know, Benville Parish is where
Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker actually met their end in
a halo of gunfire. And I think that most people
understand that. And you know the infamous you know, desert
(04:24):
colored sedan that they were in that was bullet ridden.
But I got it. I know I've been prattling on,
but I got to tell you what initially got me
interested in this, other than the fact that it took
place in Louisiana. And and I actually have seen that car.
It used to when I was little, That car that
(04:46):
Bonnie and Clyde died in used to be placed up
on the back of a flatbed truck and they take
it all over the South to fairs and people could
see it. It's kind of a gruesome kind of thing.
But you know, that's compared to the world that we
inhabit now, it's kind of tame when you begin to
think about it.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
You know, you can still see the car.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Yeah, yeah, John can't.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Play at the Prim Valley Resort and casino.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, yeah, isn't that something? And I was telling you
about my son Noah the other day up in I
guess Ripley's I think the crime usum or something up
in Pigeon Forge. You see Ted Bundy's car right there,
the Volkswagen and John Wayne Gacy's clown suits and all
that sort of thing. So it's rather macabre. But yeah,
(05:32):
it's a it's a fascinating bit of certainly crime history,
and it's it's kind of woven its way through through
our tails. I think, you know when you think about it.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Well, when you mentioned the color of it, Joe, most
of us don't know because we've only seen black and
white photos unless you've seen it in person. I haven't.
I've only seen it in pictures, and some of the
pictures that we've seen or that have been shown are
pretty graphic in terms of the bullets in the car
and the shots that were on Bonnie and Clyde. I
know there have been some over the years, not leaked
(06:08):
to the press, but published by newspapers all over the
country because this was at the era in the early
thirties where the Great Depression had set in and banks
were in disfavor with most Americans at the time. The
banks were blamed for a lot of the undoing of
our financial structure in this country. And so at first,
(06:28):
when you had these people that Bonnie and Clyde, Dillinger,
pretty Boy Floyd, you know, you had a whole litten.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Baby face Nelson.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yes, they all had nick they had nicknames that just
you know, there was they were celebrities in a way.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
They were no, not no, you're absolutely right. And Capone
Oh yeah, I mean Capone. I mean and I know
that that's a little bit different, but they're all kind
of swirling around that same toilet bowl. Yeah, yeah, you're
absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
And when this one on Capone was in Alcatraz by then,
by the thirties, wasn't he?
Speaker 1 (07:07):
I think it was. It was a little bit later
in the thirties or maybe the early forties. Oh wow,
wound up Percy wound up dying of syphilis. Why is that?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
You and I go right there? Every time he died
of the things they warned us about in health class
in seventh or eighth grade. There you go, all right? Anyway,
Bonnie and Clyde, they were very young. Oh yeah, when
they started their life of crime. Bonnie had already been
married and actually was currently married when she met Clyde Barrow.
(07:39):
I think she was like nineteen, she was nineteen, yeah, yeah,
and she was already married and her husband was in jail,
and they hit it off. But Clyde ended up in
the clink very shortly after he met Bonnie. He ended
up in jail and she actually they met and just connected.
You You hear of stories of people talking about love
(08:00):
first sight and things like that. Yeah, Bonnie and Clyde
very close to that. Again, she was already married to
somebody else. He's in prison. Clyde had been in and
out of jail by the way, to give you an
idea of how old they were, Clyde was twenty five,
Bonnie was twenty three when they were killed.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah, and you're not talking about a huge amount of tom.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
No, very short window here. And it was Bonnie Parker
that smuggled the gun into Clyde in prison for him
to break out of jail. Yeah, that's they just connected
so fast and boom. She didn't do that for her husband,
but she did it for Clyde.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Did it for Clyde and he was and he's a
little bidial guy. She was tiny as well. I think
that people build these folks up so that they're you
know that you think that they're giants walking the earth,
and they're really not. And when you think about how
much devastation they reaked that it was roughly a two
(09:01):
year period.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Like twenty month. There's a twenty one month span from
the beginning to the end of killing. And by the way,
they were not good thieves, you know, they were not
bank robbers that made a lot of money. They'd never
actually scored a lot of money. I think their average
take was like eighty bucks. But what they were was
they were soulless merciless killers who killed more police officers
(09:27):
than civilians.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Think about that. Yeah, they did, And I think that's
an extension. And I've heard this reported before. You know that.
You know Clyde. Apparently he wound up in prison as
a result. They hooked him up on a beef over
stolen chicken, and that's kind of his first entree into this.
No pun intended there. And then I think he failed
(09:53):
to return a rental car of all things. But here's
what happened when he got in side with the penitentiary
or the jail in Texas. He wound up getting raped
multiple times inside of that institution. And so, and like
(10:14):
I said, he was a really tiny guy and he
probably had a really hard time defending himself. There was
a prison guard that is counted on his scorecard as
a result of a death, you know, And so that
extension of police officers if you've crossed his path, Because
(10:39):
let's face it, heat this is kind of an interesting take.
And I don't know if people have really thought about this.
We talk a lot about serial killers, and we have
now for decades. Can you, Dave Mack, my friend, remember
any serial killer that targeted police officers?
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (11:01):
No, and he found a compatriot in Bonnie.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
And they were out to kill cops. I mean, and
these these are young, young fellows that they're killing, and
many of them had families.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
And you know, you mentioned young Joe. Very quickly the
tide turned on Bonnie and Clyde because of the killing
of a police officer on Easter Sunday who was on
his second day on the job. Up until then, they
were folk heroes, you know, they were robbing banks that had,
you know, destroyed people's lives. Killing police officers. I don't
(11:39):
know what the I don't know what the average take
was on that in the nineteen thirties. I don't know,
but I do know this after there was, like before
the killing of the police officer on that Easter Sunday,
there was kind of a groundswell of support entertainment value
of watching the Shenanigans of Bonnie and Clyde in the barrow.
(12:00):
After that murder for no reason, killing these two police officers,
not in the shootout, not in a shootout. That was
when people, Okay, these are evil people. We got to
get them, you know, we have to take them out now.
And that's what led to the beginning. That was the
beginning of the end. Granted they were being hunted, but.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, they were, and they became you know, they used
to love to use the term mad dog. Yeah, I
mad Dog Killer. And there was actually a guy who's
associated with the New York Underworld, Underworld. I think it
was mad Dog McCall was his name. And a matter
(12:40):
of fact, I think the movie The Cotton Club back
in the eighties, maybe eighty four, Nicholas Cage actually played
a character that's based on that guy and went by
that name, and so they used that term mad and
I think and it's an easy you know, when you're
a rural person and you've got a dog out in
(13:03):
the yard that's foaming at the mouth, that's baring its teeth,
and you know what's going on, it not just indicates danger,
but it also indicates a disease, a level of lethality
that you know that if you don't put them down.
(13:25):
And I'm gonna stop, Dave. I got a question for you, brother.
Have you have you ever done something that felt wrong
(13:49):
when you were doing it but it really wasn't wrong,
but yet you had this kind of feeling, you know,
like and if somebody saw me doing this or getting
caught with this, I'd be in trouble. Has that ever
happened to you. I'm not asking to reveal any deep
dark secrets here.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
But boy, okay, I'll go along with that and say yes.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
And that's all I'm going to get out of you. Yeah.
Oh look, man, this is I tell you, this is bogus. Man.
I was really hoping we were going to open the
vault here on Dave mac No.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
I can't you know what, Joe, I look at now,
a statue of limitations. You know, you start thinking about
I always said if I ever ran for office, my
slogan would be yes, I did you know? Just because well, I.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Gotta tell you something real quick that I felt I
had that feeling about myself when and it has to
do with Bonnie and Claude. Yeah. I guess it was
probably nineteen eighty eight or eighty seven. I can't recall.
(15:06):
Went to a State Corners convention in Louisiana, where I
was working at the time, and it's kind of that's
as you can imagine, it's kind of an interesting event
to go to, particularly if you were not in that world,
if you were an observer and you could come in
because you can imagine all the stories that are being
told in this environment. I think that it might make
(15:27):
some people at crime con blush more than likely because
they you know you and particularly during that time period,
all those years, all those years ago, there were you know,
so many things that were going on relative to serial
killings and just horrible crimes that a lot of people
had never heard of because you didn't have the vast
media coverage. But back to my big reveal here. When
(15:50):
I was there, I was with my mentor. It was
my first first time I'd ever been, and it was
a mentor that had trained me as a death investigator arguably,
in my opinion, probably the best forensic scientist and practitioner
I've ever been around in my life. It was Bill.
(16:12):
Bill introduced me to a group of people that were
Corners from North Louisiana. Now remember we're down in New
Orleans and we're chatting and I met the corner from
being vill Perish and he tells Bill, I've got something
(16:33):
for you, but don't tell anybody. You know. Bill says,
you know, he's like talking to me, and he's like,
I don't know what he's got, but he says, I
can't tell anybody, but I'm telling you. And the next
thing I knew, Bill's like waving me over to the side, right,
and this is we went. We were tired somewhere for drinks,
(16:56):
all right, and we're kind of hold up in a lounge.
He says, You're not going to believe what I've got.
I was like, okay, hit me, I said, does this
have something to do with the guy from Benvilpairs. He's like, yeah,
You're not gonna believe what I got. I was like, okay,
what have you got? He says, I've got a copy
(17:17):
of the Corners records from Bonnie and Clyde's examination post mortem.
I was like, what, because you know, back during that time, Dave,
as you well know, you've been in the you've been
in media for quite quite a while. You remember, back
you didn't have access to this kind of stuff. Now
you can just go online like you can. And if
(17:39):
you go online now you can actually see the Corner's
jury report that's written out in longhand it looks like
it's written in pencil. It's the same one that I
was given all those years now and now it's everywhere,
you know, and it's been transcribed, because I remember sitting
down day when I got this thing because day day,
(18:00):
I'm sorry. Bill made a copy of it for me
when we got back, and it's on legal, legal sized paper,
so you had to load legal paper into the copier.
He made me copies of this thing, and I actually
had to take a magnifying glass out and try to
make out because this is all written in longhand none
of this stuff was typed up, And all of a sudden,
(18:24):
the world kind of burst open for me because for
the first time I'd seen images, you know, in publications
and all these sorts of things. I'd heard the tales
as a kid, I'd seen the car. But when you
have that document in front of you that recorded this
(18:44):
event and these people that were there and they're actually
relaying what they saw in regards to bonding Clyde, it
was It was quite amazing, It really was, because you
had a clothing description, you know. The only only point
of reference I had I don't know about you was
Faye Dunaway and Warren Baby, you know, in that movie
(19:09):
from back in the sixties, which is horrible because I
think that it, you know, it further propagated this idea
that these people were were heroes and isn't that isn't
that horrible? You know, kind of how they painted this
relative to these people. And we've had this this evolution
over a period of time, and I hope that it continues.
(19:32):
But you know, in addition to for folks that have
never been to that area up there, it's it's beenvil
perish and it's it's obviously not populated by the most
wealthy people in the world. They're salt of the earth
people that grind a life out. They make their they
make their living, you know, in aggra based stuff or
(19:53):
their pulp witters. And here's something fascinating that that I
discovered because I went out to the site the location
of where the ambush took place, because you know, Kim
and I we were on the road and we were like, hey,
here's Gibbsland, because that's the address that it carries. But
it's actually about eight miles outside of Gibbsland, and so
(20:16):
it's a two lane state highway and it's got new
growth pine forest on both sides of the road that
has obviously been harvested for pulpwood over the years. And
there is this stone monument that sits in this kind
of dusty red clay area just off the shoulder of
(20:36):
the road, and over the years it's been chipped away.
There's chunks of it that are missing because people show
up with a hammer or chisel and they'll take a
piece of it. And there's weird poetry that's been scribbled
or left in bottles that kind of occupies this space
around there. And then when you look across the road
(20:58):
from where this thing is, and this was kind of interesting,
there are these tiny, these tiny little wellheads that are
capped off that the field is just populated with and
those are natural gas wellheads, right, and you know, and
I find that there's a bit of irony I think
in that regarding their deaths. You know, they sought, they
(21:21):
sought this fantastic you know idea that yeah, we're gonna
murder cops, we're gonna try to pick up some money
along the way, and here they are, you know, they're
just absolutely riddled there in that spot, allegedly. And then
(21:41):
across the way is a field that is representative of
all the money in the world that you could ever
want if you had access to it. And so you know,
I don't know, Serve God or Mammon, I guess, but
you know, you look there and you see that and
it's kind of kind of a fascinating bit, but it's isolated, Dave.
This location is so far out there. And you know
(22:03):
when when Hamer, who is the retired UH Texas ranger.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Frank Hammer, and many Gault that were out there.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Yeah, in many gal and they they went out there
with a posse and it was it was a posse
and they they they sat and waited in that brush line,
and you know, there's been reports. I don't know, Dave,
if you've ever gotten gotten covered in red bugs at
(22:34):
any point in time in your life, these guys had
red bugs on them. It's May, it's North Louisiana, it's hot,
it's humid, you're dehydrated, and you don't know when these
people are going to show up. Because they were going
actually to the home of the parent of one of
their compatriots.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
It was actually Henry Methven. It was just Body and
Clyde at this point, and the Frank Hamer and many
Gaal knew that they were probably going to be paying
a visit to Henry Metfin or his family just didn't
need a place to sleep because Bonnie had been hurt
in a car accident in June of nineteen thirty three.
(23:13):
Her face was burned, her arms were burned, her chest
was caved in. According to Blanche, she had injuries from
this accident that she never recovered from, and they had
to take time for her to get off the road
for a little while. And that's where they thought they'd
be heading to Henry Methven's dad. And that's why Frank
hammer Hamer and many gal actually camped out and waited.
(23:37):
And it was not hours, it was days.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
It was days.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
And you mentioned the bugs, And that's the one thing
that was written about these guys, Hammer Galt and a
couple other guys. They're waiting, They're waiting in the bushes.
They're waiting for Bonnie and Clyde to come driving by.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
So let me ask something. Do you know why they're
were waiting? Do you know why they were willing to
endure that heat and that humidity and red bugs and
skeeters and all manner of everything else that was up
in the brush there along along with them, maybe copper
heads and rattlesnakes and everything else that's in that area
(24:19):
you're talking about spring, they had had it up to hear.
I think what it comes down to is that Frank
Hamer and his posse wanted to be on one level
that reassurance that they were wearing white hats and that
(24:44):
they were going to do whatever they possibly could to
bring a resolution to this horror and quiet the public.
Because it's one thing for some newspaper and some far
flung place away from being Ville Parish, Louisiana, up in
(25:05):
New York or Chicago at the time, or maybe even
la to write a piece about how romantic this all is.
But when you're down on the ground and you're a
cop store owner or maybe working in a bank, you
live your life in terror. Hey, Dave, you remember a
(25:37):
couple of weeks ago when we did an episode of
body Bags on the Corner System. Yeah, do you recall that.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
I remember studying after the fact. That was the most
enlighten I learned so much on that episode, and a
number of people have actually sent in emails about how
much well learned. It was like be any class. But
I just remember when you and I I went, Okay,
I got to figure this out. It's it's a it's a.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
It's a weird world that you enter into when you
walk to the door with Joseph Scott Morgan. I'm sorry
for I'm sorry for any trauma.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
It was awesome. I had no idea, Joe. I mean,
it was one of those things where I had no
you know, one of the things you don't know what
you don't know. I had no idea what.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
I didn't know. Well, the corner system in Louisiana is interesting.
It's interesting everywhere, but you know, unlike other states, in
Louisiana there are a couple others, but specifically I'm speaking
to Louisiana. In order to run for the office of
corner there, you have to be a physician, and that
(26:42):
has always been the case. It's not that's not something
new under the sun. And you know, when there was
a uh an exam that had to be conducted on
the remain means of Bonnie and Clyde, it was it
(27:03):
fell to the corner of beingvill parish at that particular
time to you know, to facilitate that had to make
it happen, and it was, you know, it was it
was done. Doctor Wade was actually the corner there. And
you know, go, hey, let's the old country doctor.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
When you have like a case that is this big,
that has national, you know, international coverage of this these people,
is there not a way to bring in somebody at
the fact, you know, bigger, more educated. I mean, I
know that the law requires that it is handled like
right here, but kind of like when JFK was killed
(27:45):
thirty years later, they took his body out of Dallas
and got it to Washington, d C. Granted he was
the president, but these people are famous criminals. They've broken
the law in several states. Was there any thought that
we need to bring somebody else in to do the autopsy?
Or was he just done and get them out?
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Yeah? Hang on for a minute, because I got to
tell you, relative to JFK, they did not take take him,
certainly to the finest that was available. They went to
the bottom of the barrel. As far as I'm concerned with.
With Bonnie and Clyde, however it was, it was the
office of Corner and being Vialparish, you know, reflecting back,
(28:21):
I told you about the about the you know, the
report that that i'd been given, you know, all all
these many years ago that I wanted to talk about,
and this sort of thing. And the thing is is handwritten, which.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
By the way, I could not understand when you told
me you got a magnifying glass. I looked at it.
I looked at this bayer going over and I'm like,
how did you read that?
Speaker 1 (28:42):
I mean, yeah, yeah, it's it's it's something to see
and look. Anybody can see it. I recommend you.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Know.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
All you got to do is is you know, uh
is google search? Yeah, Google search office. You know, the
the Corners Report of the bodies of Bonnie and Clyde Parker,
and you'll find it. It's there and it's really it's
very difficult to kind of decipher. But you know, looking
back in time and when I saw this thing, I
thought that they did a pretty good job. But you
(29:10):
know what's really interesting about body in Clyde's case, Davis,
they didn't actually do an autopsy. I don't know if
you know that. No, they did not actually do an autopsy.
You had what was impaneled back then. It's called a
corner's jury, and it was a collection of men. Corner's
(29:33):
juries are a thing and it's almost like, I don't
know how to describe it other than kind of like
a grand jury. Where you're trying to where a grand jury,
you're trying to decide if there is enough information to
indict somebody, if you're going to true bill or no
true bill. A case, right, a criminal case with a
(29:54):
corner's jury. Their purpose was to be there for the
corner to present evidence to them that how they were
going to rule the death. Okay, what are they going
to call this? Are they going to call this homicide? Suicide?
You know, what are they going to call this? And obviously,
(30:14):
you know, we sit here and we think about, uh,
well it was pretty obvious, you know how Bonnie god
died there. Yes, it is. This is a homicide. Yeah, absolutely,
I mean there's nothing that wasn't accidental. It's not suicide.
Uh you know, yeah yeah. And it's just like just
like a you know, uh, an execution in a state
(30:38):
penitentiary is a homicide. Okay, you can't call it anything else, period.
And so they impaneled a jury, a corners jury, and
it's not that they had trouble determinant. But it goes
back to an interesting statement you made just a moment ago.
This is going to be the official record going forward,
(30:59):
forever and ever and ever and ever amen. And the
fascinating thing is that when they're looking at this, you've
got all of these men that are impaneled on this
jury with a corner being the leader of it, and
they're there to verify because who else is going to verify?
(31:24):
Remember the world that they're living in. They're living in
a world, Dave that news. I mean, it doesn't move
move at the speed that say the Pony Express moved at.
But you know, you're still working with telegraphs, they're using telephone.
I think there may have been a rudimentary facts by
that by that point in time, I think they called
(31:46):
it something else. But you still it moves slowly. You
had to have somebody there that would that would verify
that these people were in fact dead, and it's better
than just having one person to verify the death. Now
you've got a whole group of people. And not only
do you have a group, all these guys are signing
off on this, and you can see the list of
their signatures. You know when you look down, when you
(32:09):
look down the page on this thing, they're all there
and their names are affixed to this documents. As odd
as it is, there were looking at it physically, looking
at it right now. There's five people that have signed
onto this, in addition to doctor Wade who was there.
(32:31):
And you know, they go into, you know, great detail
about describing the bodies and the injuries. You know, Bonnie
Bonnie actually received the worst of it. Not that what
Clyde had received wasn't wasn't bad, But there's a story
(32:51):
that goes on out there relative to Bonnie's body. And
just imagine this. She was hit so many times and
I'll go into kind of the nastiness of these wounds
in just a second, but just kind of let me
set this up. She was shot so many times that
they actually had a very difficult time embalming her body.
(33:15):
So just imagine we have to think about the way
the embalming process works. It's a profusion of embalming fluid,
you know, in the major vessels of the body. The
bodies on a table, it's kind of tilted from the
head down. They've got these tro cars that they go
into the body with and they start their little pump.
In days gone past, the mortician would use a foot pump,
(33:39):
you know, to infuse the body with the embalming fluid. Well,
can you imagine that and they still have to do
this today with multiple gunshot one cases, but they had
she was springing leaks and let that set in just
for a second. So you've got the vessels that carry
the bloody obviously are now being perfused with embalming fluid,
(34:03):
and the way the thing works is through gravity. You're
as as the body is being profused with the embalming fluid.
Traditionally you can see the line coming out of the
body and the blood is being pushed out of the body.
It's being replaced by embalming fluid. Well, it wasn't getting
to that point. The holes were there and the body
(34:24):
had to be plugged in order to take on the
embalming fluid.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Joe I was looking at the list of these injuries
and it was listed out on Bonnie. Okay, on Bonnie.
I actually had to look at this several times because
you mentioned probably written in pencil. Yeah, the penmanship is weak.
But shot in the left breast going into chest. This
(34:49):
was a description of a bullet wound shot four inches
below the ear, another shot entering above the right knee,
two shots front leg, two shots right leg, gunshot wound
around edge of hair, one and a half inches above
the left ear. Another threw the mouth on the left side,
(35:12):
exiting at top of jaw, another at middle just below
left jaw, another above clavical left side, going into the neck.
Another entering chest two inches below the inner side of
the left shoulder. Two shots about two inches below the
(35:34):
left shoulder, fracturing the bone. Another wound on the elbow
of the left arm. Another entering left chest above the heart,
breaking ribs. Six shots entering three inches on back region
left side. Five pellet wounds about the middle of the
left side. Cuts from glass on the ankle, cut on
(35:57):
top of left foot, apparently from glass cut on center
of right thigh, cut six inches in length, about three
and a half inches center of right leg. Eight metal
fragments centering across the front of face.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
There you go, wow, So it's yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Now, I see, I get that. By the way, that's
not the complete list.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
No, No, it goes on and you Clydes is almost
as robust. But you know, they wanted obviously, the purpose
here was to make sure that they were I used
the term neutralized just a moment ago, and that's a
very clinical term. But they wanted. They were mad dogs
and they knew the importance of putting them down. First off,
(36:46):
I think probably and this is me projecting, because I
you know, I wouldn't presume to get inside their mind,
but you know, I think that any right there's right
thinking person would probably conclude that not only did they
to neutralize this threat, but they needed to send a message.
They need to send a message to those individuals that
(37:10):
thought that they could go out and randomly do whatever
they wanted to do, which includes murdering police officers. And
of course they brought this to an end. And right quick,
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks
Quody does, but Joseph's gotten more. There's an old adage
that says, throughout history, the victors write the story that
they essentially put forth the narrative from their perspective of
how things happened. And you know, it can be stated
(00:23):
that that comment, if you will, that adage applies primarily
to the rise and fall of civilizations and to wars.
But there was a smaller war, very smaller war that
took place back in the thirties in Middle America. And
(00:48):
interestingly enough, even though the quote unquote good guys prevailed
in the end, history doesn't exactly reflect the truth today.
Looking back, we're going to discuss a period in time
(01:12):
ninety years ago. Today, we're going to talk about the
deaths of multiple police officers at the hands of two
of the most infamous cop killers in American history, Bonnie
(01:33):
and Clyde. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is body
Packs Dave mac my friend. When I hear the name Bienville,
(01:54):
it evokes memories of my hometown of New Orleans.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
And how far is it from New Orleans.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Well, Bienville itself, there's multiple streets and are multiple locations
in New Orleans that have the name Beingville and it's
a uniquely French name. But the odd thing about it
is we're going to talk about Benville Parish, and Benville
Parish is nowhere near New Orleans. As a matter of fact,
it would probably take you, because there's not a really
(02:24):
good director out. It probably takes you about four hours
to get there from from New Orleans. It's the parish itself.
And remember, you know, in my home state, they don't
have counties that parishes, and Benville Parish actually is closer
to the Arkansas border than it is Gulf of Mexico, and.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
That gives me a much better idea.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
And it's not near the Mississippi River. As a matter
of fact, if you were to show up in Benville
Parish day and ride through it, and all of North
Louisiana has this kind of reputation, it doesn't remind most
people of what you commonly think of when you think
about Louisiana, which is swamps and Cajun culture and Creole culture.
(03:17):
You feel like you're in Texas, like an annex of Texas.
In North Louisiana. Along the Eye twenty corridor running through there,
there's horse farms everywhere, and rolling hills. Now they're not
huge hills, but it's rolling hills. The soil is red clay.
It's not that dark, dark gumbos that they call it
gumbo soil that's down there, you know, that's associated with
(03:40):
the decay of vegetation and that sort of thing. Very swampy.
It's not like that. It looks like more like you're
heading to Texas, and you are, because this is not
too far from Shreeport. And you know that Shreeport on
the E twenty corridor is kind of the gateway out
of Louisiana into Texas. You continue on down that road
out of Report headed westbound and you'll be in Texas
(04:03):
pretty soon. So but you know, Benville Parish is where
Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker actually met their end in
a halo of gunfire. And I think that most people
understand that. And you know the infamous you know, desert
(04:24):
colored sedan that they were in that was bullet ridden.
But I got it. I know I've been prattling on,
but I got to tell you what initially got me
interested in this, other than the fact that it took
place in Louisiana. And and I actually have seen that car.
It used to when I was little, That car that
(04:46):
Bonnie and Clyde died in used to be placed up
on the back of a flatbed truck and they take
it all over the South to fairs and people could
see it. It's kind of a gruesome kind of thing.
But you know, that's compared to the world that we
inhabit now, it's kind of tame when you begin to
think about it.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
You know, you can still see the car.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Yeah, yeah, John can't.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Play at the Prim Valley Resort and casino.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, yeah, isn't that something? And I was telling you
about my son Noah the other day up in I
guess Ripley's I think the crime usum or something up
in Pigeon Forge. You see Ted Bundy's car right there,
the Volkswagen and John Wayne Gacy's clown suits and all
that sort of thing. So it's rather macabre. But yeah,
(05:32):
it's a it's a fascinating bit of certainly crime history,
and it's it's kind of woven its way through through
our tails. I think, you know when you think about it.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Well, when you mentioned the color of it, Joe, most
of us don't know because we've only seen black and
white photos unless you've seen it in person. I haven't.
I've only seen it in pictures, and some of the
pictures that we've seen or that have been shown are
pretty graphic in terms of the bullets in the car
and the shots that were on Bonnie and Clyde. I
know there have been some over the years, not leaked
(06:08):
to the press, but published by newspapers all over the
country because this was at the era in the early
thirties where the Great Depression had set in and banks
were in disfavor with most Americans at the time. The
banks were blamed for a lot of the undoing of
our financial structure in this country. And so at first,
(06:28):
when you had these people that Bonnie and Clyde, Dillinger,
pretty Boy Floyd, you know, you had a whole litten.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Baby face Nelson.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yes, they all had nick they had nicknames that just
you know, there was they were celebrities in a way.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
They were no, not no, you're absolutely right. And Capone
Oh yeah, I mean Capone. I mean and I know
that that's a little bit different, but they're all kind
of swirling around that same toilet bowl. Yeah, yeah, you're
absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
And when this one on Capone was in Alcatraz by then,
by the thirties, wasn't he?
Speaker 1 (07:07):
I think it was. It was a little bit later
in the thirties or maybe the early forties. Oh wow,
wound up Percy wound up dying of syphilis. Why is that?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
You and I go right there? Every time he died
of the things they warned us about in health class
in seventh or eighth grade. There you go, all right? Anyway,
Bonnie and Clyde, they were very young. Oh yeah, when
they started their life of crime. Bonnie had already been
married and actually was currently married when she met Clyde Barrow.
(07:39):
I think she was like nineteen, she was nineteen, yeah, yeah,
and she was already married and her husband was in jail,
and they hit it off. But Clyde ended up in
the clink very shortly after he met Bonnie. He ended
up in jail and she actually they met and just connected.
You You hear of stories of people talking about love
(08:00):
first sight and things like that. Yeah, Bonnie and Clyde
very close to that. Again, she was already married to
somebody else. He's in prison. Clyde had been in and
out of jail by the way, to give you an
idea of how old they were, Clyde was twenty five,
Bonnie was twenty three when they were killed.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah, and you're not talking about a huge amount of tom.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
No, very short window here. And it was Bonnie Parker
that smuggled the gun into Clyde in prison for him
to break out of jail. Yeah, that's they just connected
so fast and boom. She didn't do that for her husband,
but she did it for Clyde.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Did it for Clyde and he was and he's a
little bidial guy. She was tiny as well. I think
that people build these folks up so that they're you
know that you think that they're giants walking the earth,
and they're really not. And when you think about how
much devastation they reaked that it was roughly a two
(09:01):
year period.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Like twenty month. There's a twenty one month span from
the beginning to the end of killing. And by the way,
they were not good thieves, you know, they were not
bank robbers that made a lot of money. They'd never
actually scored a lot of money. I think their average
take was like eighty bucks. But what they were was
they were soulless merciless killers who killed more police officers
(09:27):
than civilians.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Think about that. Yeah, they did, And I think that's
an extension. And I've heard this reported before. You know that.
You know Clyde. Apparently he wound up in prison as
a result. They hooked him up on a beef over
stolen chicken, and that's kind of his first entree into this.
No pun intended there. And then I think he failed
(09:53):
to return a rental car of all things. But here's
what happened when he got in side with the penitentiary
or the jail in Texas. He wound up getting raped
multiple times inside of that institution. And so, and like
(10:14):
I said, he was a really tiny guy and he
probably had a really hard time defending himself. There was
a prison guard that is counted on his scorecard as
a result of a death, you know, And so that
extension of police officers if you've crossed his path, Because
(10:39):
let's face it, heat this is kind of an interesting take.
And I don't know if people have really thought about this.
We talk a lot about serial killers, and we have
now for decades. Can you, Dave Mack, my friend, remember
any serial killer that targeted police officers?
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (11:01):
No, and he found a compatriot in Bonnie.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
And they were out to kill cops. I mean, and
these these are young, young fellows that they're killing, and
many of them had families.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
And you know, you mentioned young Joe. Very quickly the
tide turned on Bonnie and Clyde because of the killing
of a police officer on Easter Sunday who was on
his second day on the job. Up until then, they
were folk heroes, you know, they were robbing banks that had,
you know, destroyed people's lives. Killing police officers. I don't
(11:39):
know what the I don't know what the average take
was on that in the nineteen thirties. I don't know,
but I do know this after there was, like before
the killing of the police officer on that Easter Sunday,
there was kind of a groundswell of support entertainment value
of watching the Shenanigans of Bonnie and Clyde in the barrow.
(12:00):
After that murder for no reason, killing these two police officers,
not in the shootout, not in a shootout. That was
when people, Okay, these are evil people. We got to
get them, you know, we have to take them out now.
And that's what led to the beginning. That was the
beginning of the end. Granted they were being hunted, but.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, they were, and they became you know, they used
to love to use the term mad dog. Yeah, I
mad Dog Killer. And there was actually a guy who's
associated with the New York Underworld, Underworld. I think it
was mad Dog McCall was his name. And a matter
(12:40):
of fact, I think the movie The Cotton Club back
in the eighties, maybe eighty four, Nicholas Cage actually played
a character that's based on that guy and went by
that name, and so they used that term mad and
I think and it's an easy you know, when you're
a rural person and you've got a dog out in
(13:03):
the yard that's foaming at the mouth, that's baring its teeth,
and you know what's going on, it not just indicates danger,
but it also indicates a disease, a level of lethality
that you know that if you don't put them down.
(13:25):
And I'm gonna stop, Dave. I got a question for you, brother.
Have you have you ever done something that felt wrong
(13:49):
when you were doing it but it really wasn't wrong,
but yet you had this kind of feeling, you know,
like and if somebody saw me doing this or getting
caught with this, I'd be in trouble. Has that ever
happened to you. I'm not asking to reveal any deep
dark secrets here.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
But boy, okay, I'll go along with that and say yes.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
And that's all I'm going to get out of you. Yeah.
Oh look, man, this is I tell you, this is bogus. Man.
I was really hoping we were going to open the
vault here on Dave mac No.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
I can't you know what, Joe, I look at now,
a statue of limitations. You know, you start thinking about
I always said if I ever ran for office, my
slogan would be yes, I did you know? Just because well, I.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Gotta tell you something real quick that I felt I
had that feeling about myself when and it has to
do with Bonnie and Claude. Yeah. I guess it was
probably nineteen eighty eight or eighty seven. I can't recall.
(15:06):
Went to a State Corners convention in Louisiana, where I
was working at the time, and it's kind of that's
as you can imagine, it's kind of an interesting event
to go to, particularly if you were not in that world,
if you were an observer and you could come in
because you can imagine all the stories that are being
told in this environment. I think that it might make
(15:27):
some people at crime con blush more than likely because
they you know you and particularly during that time period,
all those years, all those years ago, there were you know,
so many things that were going on relative to serial
killings and just horrible crimes that a lot of people
had never heard of because you didn't have the vast
media coverage. But back to my big reveal here. When
(15:50):
I was there, I was with my mentor. It was
my first first time I'd ever been, and it was
a mentor that had trained me as a death investigator arguably,
in my opinion, probably the best forensic scientist and practitioner
I've ever been around in my life. It was Bill.
(16:12):
Bill introduced me to a group of people that were
Corners from North Louisiana. Now remember we're down in New
Orleans and we're chatting and I met the corner from
being vill Perish and he tells Bill, I've got something
(16:33):
for you, but don't tell anybody. You know. Bill says,
you know, he's like talking to me, and he's like,
I don't know what he's got, but he says, I
can't tell anybody, but I'm telling you. And the next
thing I knew, Bill's like waving me over to the side, right,
and this is we went. We were tired somewhere for drinks,
(16:56):
all right, and we're kind of hold up in a lounge.
He says, You're not going to believe what I've got.
I was like, okay, hit me, I said, does this
have something to do with the guy from Benvilpairs. He's like, yeah,
You're not gonna believe what I got. I was like, okay,
what have you got? He says, I've got a copy
(17:17):
of the Corners records from Bonnie and Clyde's examination post mortem.
I was like, what, because you know, back during that time, Dave,
as you well know, you've been in the you've been
in media for quite quite a while. You remember, back
you didn't have access to this kind of stuff. Now
you can just go online like you can. And if
(17:39):
you go online now you can actually see the Corner's
jury report that's written out in longhand it looks like
it's written in pencil. It's the same one that I
was given all those years now and now it's everywhere,
you know, and it's been transcribed, because I remember sitting
down day when I got this thing because day day,
(18:00):
I'm sorry. Bill made a copy of it for me
when we got back, and it's on legal, legal sized paper,
so you had to load legal paper into the copier.
He made me copies of this thing, and I actually
had to take a magnifying glass out and try to
make out because this is all written in longhand none
of this stuff was typed up, And all of a sudden,
(18:24):
the world kind of burst open for me because for
the first time I'd seen images, you know, in publications
and all these sorts of things. I'd heard the tales
as a kid, I'd seen the car. But when you
have that document in front of you that recorded this
(18:44):
event and these people that were there and they're actually
relaying what they saw in regards to bonding Clyde, it
was It was quite amazing, It really was, because you
had a clothing description, you know. The only only point
of reference I had I don't know about you was
Faye Dunaway and Warren Baby, you know, in that movie
(19:09):
from back in the sixties, which is horrible because I
think that it, you know, it further propagated this idea
that these people were were heroes and isn't that isn't
that horrible? You know, kind of how they painted this
relative to these people. And we've had this this evolution
over a period of time, and I hope that it continues.
(19:32):
But you know, in addition to for folks that have
never been to that area up there, it's it's beenvil
perish and it's it's obviously not populated by the most
wealthy people in the world. They're salt of the earth
people that grind a life out. They make their they
make their living, you know, in aggra based stuff or
(19:53):
their pulp witters. And here's something fascinating that that I
discovered because I went out to the site the location
of where the ambush took place, because you know, Kim
and I we were on the road and we were like, hey,
here's Gibbsland, because that's the address that it carries. But
it's actually about eight miles outside of Gibbsland, and so
(20:16):
it's a two lane state highway and it's got new
growth pine forest on both sides of the road that
has obviously been harvested for pulpwood over the years. And
there is this stone monument that sits in this kind
of dusty red clay area just off the shoulder of
(20:36):
the road, and over the years it's been chipped away.
There's chunks of it that are missing because people show
up with a hammer or chisel and they'll take a
piece of it. And there's weird poetry that's been scribbled
or left in bottles that kind of occupies this space
around there. And then when you look across the road
(20:58):
from where this thing is, and this was kind of interesting,
there are these tiny, these tiny little wellheads that are
capped off that the field is just populated with and
those are natural gas wellheads, right, and you know, and
I find that there's a bit of irony I think
in that regarding their deaths. You know, they sought, they
(21:21):
sought this fantastic you know idea that yeah, we're gonna
murder cops, we're gonna try to pick up some money
along the way, and here they are, you know, they're
just absolutely riddled there in that spot, allegedly. And then
(21:41):
across the way is a field that is representative of
all the money in the world that you could ever
want if you had access to it. And so you know,
I don't know, Serve God or Mammon, I guess, but
you know, you look there and you see that and
it's kind of kind of a fascinating bit, but it's isolated, Dave.
This location is so far out there. And you know
(22:03):
when when Hamer, who is the retired UH Texas ranger.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Frank Hammer, and many Gault that were out there.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Yeah, in many gal and they they went out there
with a posse and it was it was a posse
and they they they sat and waited in that brush line,
and you know, there's been reports. I don't know, Dave,
if you've ever gotten gotten covered in red bugs at
(22:34):
any point in time in your life, these guys had
red bugs on them. It's May, it's North Louisiana, it's hot,
it's humid, you're dehydrated, and you don't know when these
people are going to show up. Because they were going
actually to the home of the parent of one of
their compatriots.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
It was actually Henry Methven. It was just Body and
Clyde at this point, and the Frank Hamer and many
Gaal knew that they were probably going to be paying
a visit to Henry Metfin or his family just didn't
need a place to sleep because Bonnie had been hurt
in a car accident in June of nineteen thirty three.
(23:13):
Her face was burned, her arms were burned, her chest
was caved in. According to Blanche, she had injuries from
this accident that she never recovered from, and they had
to take time for her to get off the road
for a little while. And that's where they thought they'd
be heading to Henry Methven's dad. And that's why Frank
hammer Hamer and many gal actually camped out and waited.
(23:37):
And it was not hours, it was days.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
It was days.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
And you mentioned the bugs, And that's the one thing
that was written about these guys, Hammer Galt and a
couple other guys. They're waiting, They're waiting in the bushes.
They're waiting for Bonnie and Clyde to come driving by.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
So let me ask something. Do you know why they're
were waiting? Do you know why they were willing to
endure that heat and that humidity and red bugs and
skeeters and all manner of everything else that was up
in the brush there along along with them, maybe copper
heads and rattlesnakes and everything else that's in that area
(24:19):
you're talking about spring, they had had it up to hear.
I think what it comes down to is that Frank
Hamer and his posse wanted to be on one level
that reassurance that they were wearing white hats and that
(24:44):
they were going to do whatever they possibly could to
bring a resolution to this horror and quiet the public.
Because it's one thing for some newspaper and some far
flung place away from being Ville Parish, Louisiana, up in
(25:05):
New York or Chicago at the time, or maybe even
la to write a piece about how romantic this all is.
But when you're down on the ground and you're a
cop store owner or maybe working in a bank, you
live your life in terror. Hey, Dave, you remember a
(25:37):
couple of weeks ago when we did an episode of
body Bags on the Corner System. Yeah, do you recall that.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
I remember studying after the fact. That was the most
enlighten I learned so much on that episode, and a
number of people have actually sent in emails about how
much well learned. It was like be any class. But
I just remember when you and I I went, Okay,
I got to figure this out. It's it's a it's a.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
It's a weird world that you enter into when you
walk to the door with Joseph Scott Morgan. I'm sorry
for I'm sorry for any trauma.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
It was awesome. I had no idea, Joe. I mean,
it was one of those things where I had no
you know, one of the things you don't know what
you don't know. I had no idea what.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
I didn't know. Well, the corner system in Louisiana is interesting.
It's interesting everywhere, but you know, unlike other states, in
Louisiana there are a couple others, but specifically I'm speaking
to Louisiana. In order to run for the office of
corner there, you have to be a physician, and that
(26:42):
has always been the case. It's not that's not something
new under the sun. And you know, when there was
a uh an exam that had to be conducted on
the remain means of Bonnie and Clyde, it was it
(27:03):
fell to the corner of beingvill parish at that particular
time to you know, to facilitate that had to make
it happen, and it was, you know, it was it
was done. Doctor Wade was actually the corner there. And
you know, go, hey, let's the old country doctor.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
When you have like a case that is this big,
that has national, you know, international coverage of this these people,
is there not a way to bring in somebody at
the fact, you know, bigger, more educated. I mean, I
know that the law requires that it is handled like
right here, but kind of like when JFK was killed
(27:45):
thirty years later, they took his body out of Dallas
and got it to Washington, d C. Granted he was
the president, but these people are famous criminals. They've broken
the law in several states. Was there any thought that
we need to bring somebody else in to do the autopsy?
Or was he just done and get them out?
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Yeah? Hang on for a minute, because I got to
tell you, relative to JFK, they did not take take him,
certainly to the finest that was available. They went to
the bottom of the barrel. As far as I'm concerned with.
With Bonnie and Clyde, however it was, it was the
office of Corner and being Vialparish, you know, reflecting back,
(28:21):
I told you about the about the you know, the
report that that i'd been given, you know, all all
these many years ago that I wanted to talk about,
and this sort of thing. And the thing is is handwritten, which.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
By the way, I could not understand when you told
me you got a magnifying glass. I looked at it.
I looked at this bayer going over and I'm like,
how did you read that?
Speaker 1 (28:42):
I mean, yeah, yeah, it's it's it's something to see
and look. Anybody can see it. I recommend you.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Know.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
All you got to do is is you know, uh
is google search? Yeah, Google search office. You know, the
the Corners Report of the bodies of Bonnie and Clyde Parker,
and you'll find it. It's there and it's really it's
very difficult to kind of decipher. But you know, looking
back in time and when I saw this thing, I
thought that they did a pretty good job. But you
(29:10):
know what's really interesting about body in Clyde's case, Davis,
they didn't actually do an autopsy. I don't know if
you know that. No, they did not actually do an autopsy.
You had what was impaneled back then. It's called a
corner's jury, and it was a collection of men. Corner's
(29:33):
juries are a thing and it's almost like, I don't
know how to describe it other than kind of like
a grand jury. Where you're trying to where a grand jury,
you're trying to decide if there is enough information to
indict somebody, if you're going to true bill or no
true bill. A case, right, a criminal case with a
(29:54):
corner's jury. Their purpose was to be there for the
corner to present evidence to them that how they were
going to rule the death. Okay, what are they going
to call this? Are they going to call this homicide? Suicide?
You know, what are they going to call this? And obviously,
(30:14):
you know, we sit here and we think about, uh,
well it was pretty obvious, you know how Bonnie god
died there. Yes, it is. This is a homicide. Yeah, absolutely,
I mean there's nothing that wasn't accidental. It's not suicide.
Uh you know, yeah yeah. And it's just like just
like a you know, uh, an execution in a state
(30:38):
penitentiary is a homicide. Okay, you can't call it anything else, period.
And so they impaneled a jury, a corners jury, and
it's not that they had trouble determinant. But it goes
back to an interesting statement you made just a moment ago.
This is going to be the official record going forward,
(30:59):
forever and ever and ever and ever amen. And the
fascinating thing is that when they're looking at this, you've
got all of these men that are impaneled on this
jury with a corner being the leader of it, and
they're there to verify because who else is going to verify?
(31:24):
Remember the world that they're living in. They're living in
a world, Dave that news. I mean, it doesn't move
move at the speed that say the Pony Express moved at.
But you know, you're still working with telegraphs, they're using telephone.
I think there may have been a rudimentary facts by
that by that point in time, I think they called
(31:46):
it something else. But you still it moves slowly. You
had to have somebody there that would that would verify
that these people were in fact dead, and it's better
than just having one person to verify the death. Now
you've got a whole group of people. And not only
do you have a group, all these guys are signing
off on this, and you can see the list of
their signatures. You know when you look down, when you
(32:09):
look down the page on this thing, they're all there
and their names are affixed to this documents. As odd
as it is, there were looking at it physically, looking
at it right now. There's five people that have signed
onto this, in addition to doctor Wade who was there.
(32:31):
And you know, they go into, you know, great detail
about describing the bodies and the injuries. You know, Bonnie
Bonnie actually received the worst of it. Not that what
Clyde had received wasn't wasn't bad, But there's a story
(32:51):
that goes on out there relative to Bonnie's body. And
just imagine this. She was hit so many times and
I'll go into kind of the nastiness of these wounds
in just a second, but just kind of let me
set this up. She was shot so many times that
they actually had a very difficult time embalming her body.
(33:15):
So just imagine we have to think about the way
the embalming process works. It's a profusion of embalming fluid,
you know, in the major vessels of the body. The
bodies on a table, it's kind of tilted from the
head down. They've got these tro cars that they go
into the body with and they start their little pump.
In days gone past, the mortician would use a foot pump,
(33:39):
you know, to infuse the body with the embalming fluid. Well,
can you imagine that and they still have to do
this today with multiple gunshot one cases, but they had
she was springing leaks and let that set in just
for a second. So you've got the vessels that carry
the bloody obviously are now being perfused with embalming fluid,
(34:03):
and the way the thing works is through gravity. You're
as as the body is being profused with the embalming fluid.
Traditionally you can see the line coming out of the
body and the blood is being pushed out of the body.
It's being replaced by embalming fluid. Well, it wasn't getting
to that point. The holes were there and the body
(34:24):
had to be plugged in order to take on the
embalming fluid.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Joe I was looking at the list of these injuries
and it was listed out on Bonnie. Okay, on Bonnie.
I actually had to look at this several times because
you mentioned probably written in pencil. Yeah, the penmanship is weak.
But shot in the left breast going into chest. This
(34:49):
was a description of a bullet wound shot four inches
below the ear, another shot entering above the right knee,
two shots front leg, two shots right leg, gunshot wound
around edge of hair, one and a half inches above
the left ear. Another threw the mouth on the left side,
(35:12):
exiting at top of jaw, another at middle just below
left jaw, another above clavical left side, going into the neck.
Another entering chest two inches below the inner side of
the left shoulder. Two shots about two inches below the
(35:34):
left shoulder, fracturing the bone. Another wound on the elbow
of the left arm. Another entering left chest above the heart,
breaking ribs. Six shots entering three inches on back region
left side. Five pellet wounds about the middle of the
left side. Cuts from glass on the ankle, cut on
(35:57):
top of left foot, apparently from glass cut on center
of right thigh, cut six inches in length, about three
and a half inches center of right leg. Eight metal
fragments centering across the front of face.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
There you go, wow, So it's yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Now, I see, I get that. By the way, that's
not the complete list.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
No, No, it goes on and you Clydes is almost
as robust. But you know, they wanted obviously, the purpose
here was to make sure that they were I used
the term neutralized just a moment ago, and that's a
very clinical term. But they wanted. They were mad dogs
and they knew the importance of putting them down. First off,
(36:46):
I think probably and this is me projecting, because I
you know, I wouldn't presume to get inside their mind,
but you know, I think that any right there's right
thinking person would probably conclude that not only did they
to neutralize this threat, but they needed to send a message.
They need to send a message to those individuals that
(37:10):
thought that they could go out and randomly do whatever
they wanted to do, which includes murdering police officers. And
of course they brought this to an end. And right quick,
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks
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