Thursday, March 28, 2024 Mar 28, 2024
55° F Dallas, TX
Advertisement
Publications

The Spectacularly Incompetent
Bonnie And Clyde

In a new book, Jeff Guinn chronicles the never before told true story of how Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow’s crime spree almost ended three weeks after it began.
By Jeff Guinn |
Image


CHAPTER 8: A Stumbling Start


Image
The first three weeks of clyde barrow’s and Bonnie Parker’s new lives as career criminals were notable mostly for bad decisions and worse luck. At times, their misadventures would have constituted slapstick comedy if lives hadn’t been at stake.

After dark on March 25, 1932, the trio of Clyde, Ralph Fults, and Raymond Hamilton set out to commit its first robbery. They didn’t have to go far. The Simms Oil Refinery was just a few blocks down Eagle Ford Road from the Barrow family garage in West Dallas. Clyde picked the fume-spewing target. He swore to his cohorts that a Simms employee had told him the company would have a large amount of payroll cash in its safe on the night of the 25th. It would be simple to sneak there under cover of darkness, cut through the chain-link fence surrounding the refinery, overpower a guard if one happened to be there, crack the safe, stuff their pockets with loot, and roar out of Dallas with their haul. Clyde anticipated a large take, perhaps as much as several thousand dollars.

As Clyde had promised his partners, cutting through the fence was easy. He hadn’t known that four employees were still going to be in the building, but they were quickly subdued and tied up. The refinery safe was located and its door cracked open with a hammer and chisel. But then Clyde’s foolproof plan imploded—the safe was empty.

The would-be thieves bolted. Clyde’s initial attempt to lead his newly formed criminal gang had been an abject failure, and Raymond Hamilton let him know it. Though he was still only 18, Hamilton had been supporting himself through petty crime for several years. He’d begun by stealing and reselling bicycles, then graduated to stealing cars. After the Simms fiasco, Hamilton wanted the gang to focus on automobile theft. The individual takes would be much smaller than they might be from robbing banks or businesses, he argued, but at least you didn’t have to wonder whether there was money in a safe.

From GO DOWN TOGETHER by Jeff Guinn.  Copyright © 2009 by 24 Words LLC.  Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster Inc.

Related Articles

Image
Business

Experts Weigh In: What the NAR Settlement Could Mean for DFW’s Residential Market

Rogers Healy, Briggs Freeman's Russ Anderson, and Allie Beth Allman's Keith Conlon share insights on the landmark National Association of Realtors lawsuit.
Image
Arts & Entertainment

The Best Places to See a Drive-In or Outdoor Movie in North Texas

Whether you’re solo or with a group, there are some great places to see movies under the stars in DFW.
By Bethany Erickson and Natalie Gempel
Image
Nursing

UNTHSC’s New Nursing Degrees to Focus on Entrepreneurship and Leadership 

The Fort Worth health center added two new degree programs last month after a Board of Regents vote to address the nursing shortage. 
Advertisement